Liberty and Freedom

The Socialist Party wishes to put into practice the  ideals of political, economic and social emancipation, to bring to an end inequality that

springs from the principle of private property. To abolish that principle means to bring about the free initiative and the free association of human beings. But for the principle of private property there would be no reason for government, which is needed solely to keep the property-less poor rebelling against those who have got into their possession the social wealth. Humanity remains divided into two classes whose interests are diametrically opposed - the capitalist class and the working class; the class that has possession of the land, the machinery of production and the means of transporting wealth, and the class that must rely on its muscle and mind to support itself.

Between these two social classes there cannot exist any bond of friendship or fraternity, for the possessing class always seeks to perpetuate the existing economic, inequities which guarantees it enjoyment of the fruits of its robberies, while the working class exerts itself to destroy the iniquitous system and institute one in which the land, the houses, the machinery of production and the means of transportation shall be for the common use.

The Socialist Party advocates that every human being, by the very fact of having come into life, has a right to enjoy each and every one of the advantages modern civilisation offers, because those advantages are the product of the efforts and sacrifices of the working class from all time. 

The Socialist Party denies the  so-called sacredness of private property because it subjects the greater number of human beings to toil and suffering for the satisfaction and ease of a small number of capitalists. 

There must be a taking possession of all the industries by those working in them, who should bring it about similarly that the lands, the mines, the factories, transportation, and communications shall be in the power of each and every one of the inhabitants, without distinction of colour or sex. Everything produced will be owned in common by the community and  all will have the right to take what their necessities require.

People aspires to satisfy wants with the least possible expenditure of effort, and the best way to obtain that result is to work the land and industry in common. Let each, according to ability, tastes, and inclinations choose the kind of work that suits best, provided it does not become a charge on the community. Freed of masters and based on the necessities of the inhabitants of each region, nobody will suffer want.

It is the responsibility of working people tobreak the chains that make us slaves. To leave the solution of our problems to the rich is to put ourselves voluntarily in their clutches. All the ills that afflict humanity spring from the existing system which compels the majority to toil and sacrifice itself that a privileged minority may satisfy its wants and even its caprices while living in ease.

The evil would be less if all the poor were guaranteed work, but production is not regulated for the satisfaction of the needs of the workers but for what the bourgeoisie can profit from. To make an end of all this its is necessary that the workers take into their own hands the land and the machinery of production, so that they themselves may regulate the production of wealth in accordance with their own needs.

The tedious long hours of drudgery under the present capitalist system, and the conditions under which it is carried on, in a short time impacts upon a the worker’s health and has its origin solely in the contempt with which the capitalist class looks on those who sacrifice themselves for it.

Obliged to regard as enemies even the members of our own class it is natural that in such circumstances there should be developed in the human being anti-social instincts and that suspicion and distrust should be the inevitable fruits of the old and hateful system we are trying to destroy, to its very lowest roots, that we may create in its stead a new one of love, of equality, of justice, of fraternity, of liberty. 

Let us by the mutual consent be free individuals.

As long as there are rich and poor, governors and governed, there will be no peace, nor is it to be desired that there should be; for such a peace would be founded on the political, economic and social inequality of millions of human beings who suffer hunger, outrages, the prison and death, while a small minority enjoys pleasures and liberties of all kinds for doing nothing. 

We men and women who desire the good things to which nature invites us and which our brawn and brain  have created. It is for you, then, to choose. We say choose expropriation of the wealthy and the abolition of all impositions upon our liberties.

What is Revolutionary Change?

 

Socialism will come about not through violent insurrection but through the peaceable organisation. Force may overthrow governments, and set up new regimes, but even governments cannot long remain unless they obtain the acquiescence of the governed.

Still more egalitarian society, functioning, not under the authority and economic pressure, but by the common will, can never flourish except by the active cooperation of the masses.

The education of our fellow workers is an enormous endeavour but there can be no socialism until working people desire socialism and act.

Socialism is not through hate but through human harmony.

Socialism is built not upon the bodies of the dead but upon the shoulders of the living.

The Socialist Party does not want a bloody revolution. Revolution only means change. There have been revolutions in art, industry and social relations which have not caused bloodshed.

It is a question of changing a social system based on the assumption that a few are entitled to use the lives and labour of the many for personal profit and power, the forces of the State, based on this assumption, oppose the contention that the many have the right to organise a system of society which will provide for ownership and administration of the natural resources of the planet in the interests of the many and not in the interests of the few.

A socialist system must be the change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of ownership, administration and control of the affairs of society by the men and women who produce its wealth. 

Socialism maintains that there can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the working people while a minority holds economic power in the natural resources and in the right to exploit the majority for individual advantages. The basis of exploitation is the use of men and women for personal profits and power.

Socialism is the reorganisation of society on the basis of ownership by the working people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfil their needs. 

Socialism is a system of society in which the land, the means of production, and distribution are held in common.

Production is for use, as and when required, not for profit, exchange or sale.

The organisation of production and distribution is done by those who do the work.

Each production unit works for the general welfare of all of society.

Socialism is a class-free society in which all shall have leisure and culture, and all shall be secured from want.

Labour produces all wealth and to labour, it should justly belong.

To the owner of the means of wealth production belongs the product of labour. The capitalist system is based upon private or capitalist ownership of the means of wealth production, therefore all the products of labour belong to the capitalist.

The capitalist is the master; the worker his slave.

So long as the capitalists remain in possession of the reins of government all the powers of the state will be used to protect and defend their property rights in the means of wealth production and their control of the product of labour.

The capitalist system gives to the capitalist an ever-swelling stream of profits and to the worker an ever-increasing measure of misery and degradation.

The interests of the working class lie in the direction of setting itself free from capitalist exploitation by the abolition of the wage system. To accomplish this necessitates the transformation of capitalist property in the means of wealth production into collective property.

The irrepressible conflict of interests between the capitalist and the worker is rapidly culminating in a struggle for possession of the powers of government, the capitalist to hold; the worker to secure it by political action. This is the class struggle.

Therefore, we call upon all wage-earners to organise under the banner of the Socialist Party for the purpose of setting up and enforcing:

1. The transformation of capitalist property in the means of wealth production (natural resources, factories, transport, communications, etc.) into the collective property of the working class.

2. The democratic organisation and management of industry by the workers.

3. The establishment of production for use in lieu of production for profit.

4. The Socialist Party candidates, when elected, shall always and everywhere until the present system is utterly abolished, make the answer to this question its guiding rule of conduct: Will this legislation advance the interests of the working class and aid the workers in their class struggle against capitalism? If it will, the Socialist Party is for it; if it will not, the Socialist Party is absolutely opposed to it.

5. In accordance with this principle, the Socialist Party pledges itself to conduct all the public affairs placed in its hands in such a manner as to promote the interests of the working class alone.

Socialist Standard No. 1406 October 2021

OCTOBER 2021 PDF

• Editorial

• Pathfinders

• Letter

• Feeding Frenzies in the South China Sea

• Cooking the Books 1

• Taxing the Rich

• Material World

• Countdown to COP – Part Three

• Have the Tories gone socialist?

• Identity and the politics of scarcity

• After the Revolution: Managing the Environment

• What is the Kindness Test?

• Cooking the Books 2

• Liberation theology

• Proper Gander

• Book Reviews

• 50 Years Ago

• Obituary: Tim Hart

• Meetings

• Rear View

The establishment of a cooperative commonwealth society

 

Socialists assert the equality of sex and race. We say, all people are born socially equal, and accordingly apply all our efforts towards the abolition of the existing social regime. Capitalism is based on the property-owing class of those to whom belong the means of production of the whole world. They may compete among themselves but are also linked together by connections of business and interest and by political solidarity against the working people. Socialism is based on the workers of the whole world. We are the real living force of the new society that must replace capitalism, but we continue to be tricked by ignorant or treacherous leaders. In a capitalist society, despite all the changes which may have occurred, the state ultimately remains the centre of decision serving the capitalists.

The interests of the working class are the same in all countries with a capitalist mode of production. With the expansion of global commerce, and of production for the world market, the position of the worker in every country becomes increasingly dependent on the position of workers in other countries. The emancipation of the working class is thus a task in which the workers of all countries are equally involved.

Recognising this, the Socialist Party declares itself to be one with the class-conscious workers of all other countries. The Socialist Party, therefore, does not fight for new class privileges and class rights, but for the abolition of class rule and of classes themselves, for equal rights and equal obligations for all, without distinction of gender, colour or place of birth. Starting from these views, it fights not only the exploitation and oppression of wage earners in society today, but every manner of exploitation and oppression.

Labour is robbed of the wealth it produces. The fruits of our cooperative labour are appropriated by the owners of the means of production. Human power and natural forces are wasted by this system, which makes “profit” the only object in business. Ignorance and misery, with all concomitant evils, are perpetuated by this system, which makes human labour something to be bought in the open market, and places no real value on human life. Science and invention are diverted from their humane purposes and made instruments for the enslavement of men, women and children.

We, therefore, call upon all working people to put an end to the present barbarous struggle, by the abolition of capitalism, the restoration of the land, and of all the means of production, transportation, and distribution, to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of unplanned production, industrial war, and social disorder, to make democracy, “the rule of the people,” a truth by ending the economic subjugation of the overwhelmingly great majority of the people. 

The Socialist Party reaffirms its adherence to the principles of world socialism and declares its aim to be the organisation of the working class into a political party, with the object of conquering the powers of government and using them for the purpose of transforming the present system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution into common ownership by the entire people.

Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is responsible for the ever-increasing uncertainty of livelihood and the poverty and misery of the workers, and it divides society into two hostile classes — the capitalists and wage workers. The struggle is now between the capitalist class and the working class. The possession of the means of livelihood givers the capitalists the control of the government, the press, the pulpit, and schools, and enables them to reduce the working people to a state of intellectual, physical, and social inferiority, political subservience, and virtual slavery. The economic interests of the capitalist class dominate our entire social system; the lives of the working class are recklessly sacrificed for profit, wars are fomented between nations, indiscriminate slaughter is encouraged, and the destruction of whole races is sanctioned in order that the capitalists may extend their commercial dominion abroad and enhance their supremacy at home. But the same economic causes which developed capitalism are leading to socialism, which will abolish both the capitalist class and the class of wage workers. And the active force in bringing about this new and higher order of society is the working class. All other parties which do not stand for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system of production, are alike political representatives of the capitalist class.

We call the attention of the trade unionists to the fact that the class struggle so nobly waged by the trade unions, while it may result in lessening the exploitation of labour, can never abolish that exploitation. The exploitation of labour will only come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production for the benefit of all the people. It is the duty of every trade unionist to realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to join the Socialist Party and assist in building upon a strong political movement of the wage-working class whose aim and object must be the abolition of wage slavery and the establishment of a cooperative commonwealth society, based on the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution.

 

Knowing Some Marxian Theory

 

Capitalism arises out of the exchange economy, trade, buying and selling in the market. The rising merchant class spread this system over the entire globe and created the world market. Everything becomes a commodity, a useful article produced not for consumption by the producer but for sale on the market. The capitalist mode of production, based on the monopoly and private ownership of the means of production, is distinguished from all other past and future modes of production by 1) wage-labour; 2) commodity production, and 3) surplus value. Capitalism can be characterised by the fact that by and large all human needs can be bought and sold in the form of commodities. Among other commodities, the worker sells his labour-power to the boss who employs him. Now by capitalist law, whatever the worker produces belongs to the employer, who in return pays the worker only part of the value of his product in the form of wages. The value retained by the capitalist in this exploitive process is called surplus value. Under capitalism the class struggle centres on the relative portions of the value produced by the worker that goes to the worker in the form of wages and to the capitalist as surplus value.

 Marxian Theory can be well compared to a triangle, with the Labour Theory of Value, the Theory of Surplus Labour, and the Materialist Conception of History as its three sides.

The whole capitalist world is in a crisis. Everywhere society is in chaos and ferment, shaking up the thinking of millions of workers and impelling them on the road of struggle against the system which oppresses them. The shibboleths of nationalism and religion are being revealed as capitalist snares to increasing thousands of workers, who are groping for a solution to the problem of existence. Socialism is our only hope. Marxism is the study of human society which offers the key to understanding the development of society and projects the direction in which it is moving – must move if it is to survive. It is the theory and practice of working-class action, of social revolution. 

We have said many times that studying the past is meaningful as it enables them to better orient the work of socialists in the present and directs their hopes for the future. Socialists did not invent human aspirations for a just, egalitarian and free society; men and women have cherished this dream for a very long time. What the historical materialism of Marx and Engels did was to take these aspirations and shape them into a revolutionary goal. They learned the laws governing the evolution of class society so as to use this understanding to achieve the better society towards which mankind works towards. Socialism is a word that came into general use in the third decade of the 19th century, and it has always been understood to signify opposition to capitalism. The adjective "scientific" is used to distinguish this socialism from the schemes of these Utopians and idealists, socialists who based their plans for a new state of affairs upon abstract principles, rather than upon the logic of the historical evolution of society resulting from the friction conflict between rival classes. Vain are the hopes of industrial peace. Like snow upon the mountainside, they will vanish before the sun of economic heat. In every country, capitalism begets its gravediggers. In its endeavour to increase its profits, it will force the workers to take up a militant attitude upon the industrial, political and educational fields, and progress will be accelerated until the workers of the world will unite and their emancipation be accomplished. 

Marxist socialists insist on democracy - real democracy - in the transition to socialism and the full participation of working people. If any government remain in the hands of the few, they will inevitably use and abuse their position (and incidentally create an ideology to justify it) to further their own elite interests against those of the class they are supposed to represent. Marxist socialists, beginning with Marx and Engels have always supported democracy as against any form of despotism. Thus they have supported republicanism against monarchism, capitalist democracy against capitalist dictatorship. But they always recognise the limitations of these.

In the past internationalism seemed a utopian ideal. Now for the workers around the world, it is a vital economic necessity.

The New Emancipation

 

The choice before us is either to permit the uncontrolled development of capitalism to concentrate all power in the hands of an oligarchy and reduce the mass of the people to abject servitude, or to assert the ability of society to control and remodel its economic life. There, however, is a great danger that, for lack of a clear view of the problem as a whole and of a far-reaching programme of basic reconstruction, false steps may be made which will bring new evils into existence. The only safety for the rise of a popular workers movement is to be free from all political and entanglements with capitalist interests, and be equipped with a sound understanding of economic tendencies and social forces, clearly conscious of the final goal, and using all proper methods of action to achieve the aim. There must also be a strong, clear-sighted and independent political party, international in scope, and a strong and united union movement, the economic organisation of the working people.

The first principle of such a movement must be the wholehearted dedication to the methods of democracy. No dictatorship nor leader, whatever its avowed purpose, can be trusted to bring liberty, plenty, and peace. The appeal to revolutionary force must be repudiated. It is unnecessary and unjustifiable in any country where orderly and peaceful methods of democracy are available. In the name of freedom, in the name of political honesty, in the name of civilisation itself, for the good of those now alive and of generations yet unborn, we call upon the workers of the city and country as a class, and upon all men and women, to join us in winning the good new world which is within our reach.

Wake up! For centuries you have been robbed, enslaved, and brutalised, but the time has now come to change all this. The time has come for you to work for change and an economic revolution. Stand shoulder to shoulder, united on the platform of the Socialist Party, which advocates the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. No matter what the interests of workers may be, no matter what their colour or nationality they should stand together. Our masters take advantage of our ignorance by appealing to our prejudice. Working men and women are beginning to understand that they have common economic interests. No matter whether Chinese or English, White, Brown or Black, Catholic or Protestant, the interests of those who toil are identical in the social sense.

What does socialism mean? It means economic liberty, political equality, and social freedom. Socialism points out the economic basis upon which democracy must stand in order to achieve liberty. It proclaims all liberty to rest back upon economic liberty, and all individuality to be rooted in economic unity. It affirms that there can be no liberty save through association; no true commonwealth save a cooperative commonwealth. It makes clear that democracy in the state is but fiction. United by patience, goodwill and courageous comradeship, we shall conquer capitalism and make the world a fit place for free men and women to live in. There is no power in capitalism, that can prevent a united and harmonious socialist movement from building the cooperative commonwealth.

There are plenty of liberals and progressives who call for reforms. Socialists – real socialists – have a different job: to bring to the fore the necessity for world socialism before mankind’s hopes of peace and security can be achieved.  It is for the Socialist Party to do all in our power to win over our fellow workers; to place no obstacles in their way of understanding socialist ideas; to sympathise with and support them in the economic struggles in which the class war involves them; until they recognise that their efforts are futile unless its object is emancipation.

Rally to the red banner of world socialism, the symbol of working-class revolt and all the world shall yet be free. The material achievements of the past century out-rival those of all preceding ages, and now for the first time in history it is possible to produce wealth in abundance for all. It is possible to abolish poverty.

The Aim of The World Socialist Movement

 

The emancipation of the working class knows no slogan with the word "wage" other than “abolish the wage system.”  The programme of revolution is revolution. Palliatives are props to that which the revolution intends to overthrow. Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution is the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal. Capitalism is the last expression of class rule. The economic foundation of class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The social structure of class rule is the political State -- that social structure in which government is an organ separate and apart from production, with no vital function other than the maintenance of the supremacy of the ruling class. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution with world socialism, under which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for the people.

The Socialist Party hates the iniquity of the capitalist system, but pities the perpetrator and bends his efforts to remove the conditions that made the iniquity possible -- the Socialist Party, accordingly, attacks the evil at its root. The non-socialist hates the perpetrator and visits punishment upon him, yet cultivates the social conditions that bred the iniquity -- the non-socialist, accordingly, waters the roots of the iniquity itself.

The Socialist Party holds capitalist society responsible for the billionaires, not the billionaires for capitalist society; the non-socialist holds billionaires guilty and acquits capitalist society. A socialist expresses no such individual malice or personal hatred.

The aim of the World Socialist Movement is the abolition of class rule and class conflict, with all their evil consequences, and the development of a state of society in which the few shall no longer be able to enjoy luxury and ease at the expense of over-work and insecurity for the majority. So great have science and invention increased our productive powers that an abundance of all the good things of life for the whole population could be produced without subjecting any human being to drudgery or exhausting toil. To assure plenty, security, leisure, and freedom for all, it is necessary that the existing property system, the existing forms of economic control and distribution of wealth, be so changed as to adapt them to the conditions of modern life.

The Socialist Party does not condemn private possessions as such. It condemns the private ownership of great socially necessary means of production, under which working people are employed only on such terms as assuring an unearned income to the owners and are thrown into idleness and want whenever the owners cannot profit by their work. Only by the socialised common ownership and democratic control of such productive wealth, doing away with exploitation and making the satisfaction of human wants the ruling motive in production, can the ideal of a class-free society be achieved. The interest of the wage-workers, demands this change.

Across the undeveloped and developing world, small farmers are steadily losing ground. They are exploited by the capitalist groups which control the transportation and marketing of their produce, by those from which they must purchase farm machinery and supplies, and above all by those which control money and credit. Year by year many thousands of them lose the title to their land and either sink into being hired farm labourers or else give up farming altogether and seek employment in an overcrowded urban labour market.

 Meanwhile, multinational corporations and operated by wage labour, are growing at the expense of the small-holder farmers.

The same forces are at work invading the trade of small retailers and merchants, crushed by the same power which exploits the wage workers. Although their immediate interests may conflict with those of the wage workers at some points, they coincide with them at many others. In the long run, they all have a common interest in changing the basis of our economic system.

 The overthrow of capitalism, and the establishment of socialism, that, and that alone, is the worker's hope. Political freedom must rest on the possession of the earth.

Gerrald Winstanley in his “The New Law of Righteousness,” denounced the private ownership of the land:

“And let all men say what they will, so long as such are rulers as call the land theirs, upholding this particular propriety of mine and thine, the common people shall never have their liberty…”