Socialism or nothing changes

When feudalism was overthrown, and “free” capitalist society emerged, it at once became apparent that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and exploitation. The essential feature of capitalism, the very thing which makes the system one of exploitation and robbery of the wage workers by the ruling class of capitalists, is the private ownership.  For the workers, capitalism has meant widespread unemployment, accompanied by poverty and homelessness. At the same time, the exploitation of those in jobs has become more intense. Mass poverty escalates while multi-billion dollar fortunes are accumulated by the big capitalists and landlords.

Capitalism is a system of commodity production (that is, the production of goods for sale and not for direct use by the producer) which is distinguished by the fact that labour power itself becomes a commodity. The major means of production and exchange which make up the capital of society are owned privately by a small minority, the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) while the great majority of the population consists of proletarians or semi-proletarians. Because of their economic position, this majority can only exist by permanently or periodically selling their labour power to the capitalists and thus creating through their work the incomes of the upper classes. Thus, fundamentally, capitalism is a system of exploitation of the working class (the proletariat) by the capitalist class. As new technology brings about the greater productivity of labour and increased social wealth, it cannot get rid of the evils of capitalism or solve the problems of the working class. Rather, it intensifies them. Only socialism, which results from the class struggle of workers against capitalists, can solve them. Social production and the socialisation of labour are enhanced by the advance of technology, creating a material basis for the transformation of capitalism into socialism i.e. classless society. By replacing private ownership of the means of production by social ownership, by transforming the anarchy of production which is a feature of capitalism into planned proportional production organised for the well-being and many-sided development of all of society, the socialist revolution will end the division of society into classes and emancipate all of humanity from all forms of exploitation of one section of society by another.

If a worker becomes aware that society is suffering from the rotten, cancerous growth, do we continue with more wars; more unemployment; more totalitarianism? Or do we engage in social revolution and cut out the capitalist tumour. Capitalism produces its own grave-diggers, the wage workers are nearing the point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity. More are growing aware that private ownership must go, social ownership must take its place, socialism. The Socialist Party has a basic starting point to its politics - that the working class is the potentially revolutionary class and as such is capable of overthrowing the capitalist system and establishing the socialism. It is an idea we have to defend every day against those who tell us that the working class are so imbued with the ideas of capitalism that they can always be diverted at the crucial point. This does not mean that workers are consciously seeking revolution – it means that the working class are objectively revolutionary. Our confidence springs not from romanticism but from Marxism as a scientific theory. We see the working class as an exploited class, driven by the realities of class society into conflict with their exploiters at the point of production. It means that at moments of history when all the conditions are present, the overwhelming power of the working class, as the producers of all wealth, can be harnessed to make a revolution.

The Socialist Party is Marxist. The Socialist Party is revolutionary. Our goal is the emancipation of the working class. We will not go just a part of the way – or even half of the way – we are going all of the way. The debate is about the road the working people must follow to free themselves from capitalist slavery. That is why the Socialist Party is still involved in this battle with the same energy and enthusiasm that we have put in 112 years ago when we began this socialist party of ours. A real socialist party is one where workers use their collective strength and power to transform society. The Socialist Party bases itself on the idea of a socialism which workers make for themselves. We want the working class to become conscious of itself and its power in society. Genuine revolutionaries understand that all political consciousness begins with the recognition of the fundamental class division: the working class versus the ruling capitalist class. Success in the class struggle demands working-class independence from all capitalist parties. The Socialist Party will use its electoral campaigns to encourage working-class struggle and promote socialist consciousness among workers. But we always tell our fellow workers the truth: serious social change has been achieved just by electing socialist delegates but also by opposing the ruling class in the workplaces and the communities.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight that wins, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

The Choice Before Us

Working people make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. But in nearly every country they are the oppressed majority, labouring to support the luxury of a handful of exploiters Everywhere people are waking up to the reality that oppression and exploitation is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class are being further exposed every day. The situation in health care, housing and welfare services is rapidly deteriorating. The unjust man-eating system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the big banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, the manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand, the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our work. The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, and the establishment of a socialist system. Once it is no longer possible to make a profit from the general misery of people most social problems can be quickly solved. We must be mindful, at all times, to keep the forefront of all our activity: the need to raise the socialist consciousness of the working masses and convince them of the necessity for socialist revolution. Every political party defends the interest of one class or another in society. On all questions, in every battle, our Party defends the interests of the working class. The Socialist Party’s role is to educate. We explain the true nature of the system that oppresses workers and the need for socialist revolution. Our task is to bring class consciousness to the working class – the understanding of workers’ historic mission. As we carry out our political and economic education in the heart of the class battles against the capitalists, we strengthen and win ever more workers to our cause, a just cause. It is the cause of all those who are exploited and oppressed by capitalism. It is the cause of the liberation of all humanity.

A handful of capitalists control our country and make vast profits on the labour of the working people and the natural resources of the land. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farms, fisheries and mines are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites lives off the backs of the workers. Every bit of the capitalists' vast wealth was stolen from the working people. The capitalists get rich from the fruit of our labour. At the end of the week, a worker collects their pay. The capitalists and their flunkeys claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, workers get paid for only a small part of what they produce. The bosses get rich, not because they have "taken risks" or "worked harder," as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and get fewer workers to do more work, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. If the bosses think they can make more profit somewhere else, they just close their factories and throw the workers out on the street. Capitalism is a system of economic anarchy and crisis, plagued by periodic economic crises, such as recessions. Economic crises are aggravated by speculation, hoarding and other schemes of the bankers, financiers and industrialists. Each tries to profit in the short run, but their individual greed eventually throws the whole system into turmoil, leading the working class and people to suffer. Capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust, wasteful, irrational and increasingly unproductive.

People live in misery so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can live in luxury. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. There is only room for a few capitalists - at any time, the great majority must work and be robbed. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it. This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction and social decay. The drive for profits holds thousands hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air that we breathe and water that we drink; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and social devastation. Capitalist society callously mistreats people because everything is geared to the drive for profits. The elderly and the disabled are also treated unfairly. The elderly toil their entire lives, but after retirement, they lead lives of fear and worry. Capitalism has no regard for its senior citizens; once it has squeezed the working life out of the workers they are tossed away.

Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism in the World. Today the whole system of production is socially interdependent, but it is controlled by private hands. In place of private control of social production, there must be social ownership if society's problems are to be addressed. The problems of capitalism - exploitation, its anarchy of production, speculation and crisis, oppression of nationalities and women, and the whole system of injustice - arise from the self-interest of the tiny group of capitalists. Socialism will be won through the seizure of political power by the working class. Having overthrown the capitalist class, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of common peoples' lives. Because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a resounding liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. Rational planning will replace anarchy. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people and steadily advance. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and experiments. Transforming the main productive enterprises from private to social ownership will allow workers to manage democratically their own workplaces through workers' councils and elected administrators, in place of the myriad of supervisors and consultants today. There would be a combination of central planning and local coordination. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of social ownership, production for the people's needs, and the elimination of exploitation. With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of to each according to their needs, from each according to their ability.

Social Revolution NOT Social Reforms

In previous revolutions, the cry was “the king is dead, long live the king” when the lawyers and lackeys, the profiteers and opportunists, on the look out for personal advancement and positions of authority took political power and assumed political influence. Once in power, they feathered their own beds and offered their services to the industrial barons and financial lords. Many say times are changing and the old politics are being transformed or breaking up with new ones are taking their place. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more, and actually repudiates the socialist revolution and advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration. Reformism is a policy of relying on gradual change and making things a little bit better, slowly. It develops out of faith in the fair-mindedness of the ruling class. Reforms are regarded as a partial realisation of socialism. Reformism is a belief in the possibility of major improvement in conditions under capitalism, and a rejection of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

Have the reforms the State was forced to make in the fields of union organisation, occupational health and safety, day care, abortion, etc., enabled the “vast majority of workers to participate directing in the exercise of power”? What has happened to the various experiences of self-management in the work-places? We would not try to imply that the accumulation of these reforms gave the working class more power, that it brought the working class closer to socialism. We do not think we will capture the state machinery by nibbling away at it gradually, bit by bit. Reformism is the illusion that a gradual dismantling of the power of Capital is possible. First of all, you nationalise 20 percent, then 30 percent, then 50 percent, then 60 percent of the capitalist property. In this way, the economic power of Capital is dissolved little by little. Reformism is therefore essentially gradualist. Eduard Bernstein defined it with his celebrated formula: “the movement is everything, the end is nothing”. In contrast, Daniel De Leon called the reformists the “labour lieutenants of Capital”. They seldom emerged from the ruling class but come from the working class organisations of the workers’ movement. Being powerless to change by themselves the course of evolution, people placed their hope again in these representatives who institutionalised class collaboration to increase their slice of the cake. This increase implies some sacrifices from the capitalists who appreciate the fact that the reformist leaders provide relative stability. But, always as good businessmen, the ruling class want to know what extent is the price that has to be paid to justify surrendering some of their profits and the ruling class is always divided on this subject. Reforms like the welfare state were the price to pay to avoid possible revolution. Now, many capitalists have decided that under changed circumstances it is the price they no longer wish to pay and believe that there are other ways to manage the system. The less of a threat to their existence then the less need to buy off the working class. The employers’ policy of austerity to restore profitability did not result in a return of militancy. No compromise, no concession, required, except perhaps on minimum or living wages.

Many times in history people lived in 'objectively' poor economic conditions, suffered hunger, disease, slavery, all kinds of indignity, but this did not lead to social mobilization of the kind that we have witnessed. This is because most of the time we accept our conditions of social existence or perhaps even see them as inevitable. We are not aware that our consent is necessary for the status quo to continue even when not in our interests. In other words, objective circumstances, however unjust, on their own cannot trigger collective social action. We don't think crises are necessarily an opportunity because things can go from bad to worse. For change to happen there needs to be an understanding our conditions as no longer tenable. Socialism is essentially about democratising power over decision making within society, both through the principle of common ownership and the principle of self-management. Socialism embodies participatory principles.

Every struggle of the working class, however, limited it may be, by increasing its self-confidence and education, undermines reformism. Capitalism can no longer afford reforms that improve the life of the mass of people, reformism as a powerful ideology within the workers’ movement is disappearing, although not as quickly as we would wish to see its demise. It is not an era of social reforms that we hope for, it is the great epoch of social revolution that we aspire towards!

Eugene V; Debs proclaimed:

“It’s better to vote for what you want, knowing that you have little chance of getting it than to vote for what you don’t want, knowing that you are sure to get it.”

Marx, class and socialism (1988)

From the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class and class struggle are central to an understanding of the case for socialism. Marx and Engels had been concerned to show the "class struggle as the primary motive force of history, and especially the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat as the great lever of modern social change" (Circular letter to Bebel, Liebknecht, Bracke and others).

Marx, however, undertook no systematic definition of class. While he certainly planned to do so. the unfinished chapter of Capital intended for the purpose ends after a few paragraphs with a note from Engels that the manuscript breaks off. The omission has certainly fuelled the confusion and ignorance surrounding the meaning of class and its relevance to the socialist case.

It would however be surprising if, in the whole of the writings of Marx and Engels, we were not able to understand what they meant. Indeed, the whole of their writings is about understanding the historic dynamic of class, the class struggle and the abolition of class society. Within the body of their writings there exist enough references for us to constitute what they meant by class. Marx did not, of course, invent class. His contribution was to articulate and conceptualise the existing historical reality. Class is not some figment or idea emanating from the mind of Marx.

In the unfinished chapter Marx prepared to answer his own question - what is a class? - and began by writing of three “great classes" in modern society. He identified these, firstly, on the basis of income: wage for labour, profit for the capitalists and rent for the landowners. But note here that income is the result of different property relationships, different relationships to the means of production. The word "great" was not intended to imply numerous, but the importance such groups had to the functioning of society in a particular manner. The working class is the most numerous but the capitalists constitute a tiny and parasitic minority. The greatness of the latter arose from the fact that they constitute the ruling class in modern society by virtue of their legal ownership and monopoly control of the means of production and distribution of wealth. This position allows a class to dominate not only in the economic sphere but, as Marx and Engels stated:

in every epoch the thoughts of the ruling class are the ruling thoughts; ie. the class that is the ruling material power of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual power. The class that has the means of material production in its control. controls at the same time the means of intellectual production (The German Ideology).

Capitalism has now succeeded in absorbing the landlord class, leaving society polarised between two classes: capitalists and workers.

Marx stresses the importance of production as the determinant of social class and differs fundamentally from the apologist sociologists who stress status differences. His reason is simple, for. since it is productive activity that creates history, then it follows that an understanding of humans' quest for subsistence, their production, holds the key to the understanding of historical change. In order to live, to satisfy basic needs, humans must work. And work is a fundamental aspect of human life.

There are generally two ways of organising work. One is where individuals or collectives of producers use their own means and objects of production and distribute their own products. The second is class society, where a particular class owns or controls the means and instruments of production and organises the work of the producing class with the intention of producing and expropriating surplus wealth. Inevitably there is a conflict of interest between producers and expropriators over the control of the means of production and the division of the products; between feudal lord and serf, between capitalist and worker. In class society there always exists class struggle.

In societies dominated by owning classes - in Europe, slavery, feudalism and capitalism - the slaveowner, lord or capitalist is not concerned with the production of wealth as such, but with the production of surplus wealth. Surplus wealth requires surplus labour, or exploitation. Marx put it thus:

The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance a society based on slave-labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus-labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer (Capital, Vol I. chapter 9. section 1).

and again:

Capital has not invented surplus-labour. Wherever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the labourer, free or not free, must add to the working time necessary for his own maintenance an extra working time in order to produce the means of production (Capital, Vol I. chapter 10. section 2).

He shows that the struggle between the exploiter class and the exploited class over the organisation of work, distribution of the social product, working conditions and the results of production is the living contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production.

Above all Marx is concerned to show that ownership is a social relationship; that it is not simply based on the individuals property holding but is a relationship between people, through objects. Marx posed the simple question of how people stood in relationship to other people, how some people managed to acquire vast amounts of wealth while the sole role of others was to engage in its production. The production of wealth was a relationship in which the great majority produced but did not own and a small group owned but did not produce. Such origins of class society lay rooted in historical development. Keys to understanding lay in the study of the past as a guide to the present and future. To say that society is based on class is to articulate the real life experience of people's social relationships with one another. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production through the legalised power vested in it by the state. The producers have no such property and are forced to sell mental and physical energies for wages or, what is the same thing, a salary.

When modern sociologists use the term class they omit this fundamental fact and fail to address the issue of the social relationship of production. People are classified in some hierarchical logic based on income, occupation. education, or some notion of status. For all that this tells us about human and property relationships, we might as well classify people by the size of their noses.

When scientific socialists speak of classes we are discussing property relationships and social activity. Marx asks first how income is obtained, but warns against commuting class differences into differences in "the size of purses".

The size of one's purse is a purely quantitative distinction whereby any two individuals of the same class may be incited against one another at will" (Moralizing Criticism and Critical Morality, 1847).

The language used by those sociologists who bolster the society of oppression is carefully chosen to avoid the real issue of the prevailing class struggle. They present us with a gradational picture of class society. Classes are described as "above" or "below" other classes. Little mention is given to the inherent antagonisms that are the inevitable result of class society.

Socialists rightly do not speak of "upper", "middle" and "lower middle" classes. Instead we use the language that best describes the social relationships that actually matter in society: we speak of capitalist and worker, feudal lord and serf, master and slave. Neither do we accept that class relations are based on forms of technology, the level of industrialisation or the technical division of labour. Members of the working class are not just blue collar workers, and neither are technical workers part of some lower middle class or "new petty bourgeoisie". For, as stated, class relations are socially determined by reference to the property relationship and are not defined by some notion of an occupational hierarchy. Class operates in the social relations of production and not in the realm of consumption. Owning a car or possessing a mortgage does not alter the fact that you are a member of the working class.

In the English preface to the Communist Manifesto Engels sums up the aim of the movement for socialism as “once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation. oppression, class distinction and class struggles". The role assigned to the World Socialist Movement is to assist in building a class-conscious working class the world over who understand the nature of class society and who will take, through majority action, the necessary steps to end oppression. With the abolition of minority ownership of production and distribution will come the abolition of class society.

Ewan Knox

Our dreams have become real

Progressives and liberals base their ideas that capitalism can be humane and can function for the greater good. Many of those types of reformers seem to genuinely believe in their approach. Yet in any economic system that depends on the exploitation, in the end, they will ally themselves with the ruling class. When the employers want to keep their profits high and the rising cost of materials conspires with the lower prices in the market due to increased competition, the difference must be made upon the backs of the employees. This is the fundamental truth of capitalism. It is also why working people who are not organised are more certain that their pay will be reduced or their jobs will be lost. This basic reality of capitalism is employers will fight unions and it is almost inevitable that the intellectuals and academics will justify such attacks, claiming it is a natural law of society and workers can’t defy its logic. The progressive liberal helps the bosses keep the lid on the rest of us. The still claim the possibility of global poverty reduction and when they fail they resort to simplistic excuses such as to blame “overpopulation”.

There are essentially only two models of social production in the modern world. Despite some superficial differences, one is the capitalist system dictates production for profit throughout the world to benefit the owners of capital. The other still only a potential than actuality is socialism, which is production for use to meet the needs of the working class. The people exercise no control over social production, and it was the same in those so-called workers’ states where workers were subordinated to an all-powerful bureaucracy.  Marx spoke of the ‘free association of real producers’. It is through such a free association where production will rest not upon decisions of either the boardroom of investors or the ministries of technocrats, but of the freely determined wishes of the producers themselves. Socialism will have no need of the irrational remnants of a past age, such as prices or wages. Money itself grows redundant and superfluous.

Humanity has reached a turning point in its history. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future that can already be foreseen, because the material conditions necessary for achieving them are here right now and in place, just waiting to be utilized and implemented. A workers’ revolution can put an end to the capitalist relations of exploitation that are now the fundamental obstacle to further progress for mankind. This is the meaning of the struggle for a society of abundance, of justice and of freedom: socialism. The working class cannot free itself without freeing all of Humanity at the same time because the ultimate goal of its struggle is not to replace the power of one class with that of another but rather to abolish all classes. This is the only way to put an end to all the social divisions and inequalities that have characterized class societies thus far.

The capitalist’s power is rooted in the appropriation of new wealth produced by the labour of the working class. Workers are forced to exchange their labour-power for a wage that allows them to survive but that represents less value than that produced by their labour; this is the source of capital accumulation. In this way, the capitalists, the owners of the means of production, constantly deprive the workers of part of the fruits of their labour. Capitalists have only one reason for existing– to accumulate more and more capital. They are therefore always looking for ways to increase the productivity of labour. This stimulates the development of science and technology and leads to an ever greater division of labour. It also results in very keen competition among capitalists themselves; many are reduced to bankruptcy while a minority get richer and richer. Capitalists seek to increase the productivity of workers. They impose speed-ups . They attack the democratic rights of working people and continually try to control any organization of workers and if they don’t succeed they destroy them. The State is controlled entirely by and in the service of, the capitalist class. The abolition of classes will in turn lead to the withering away of the State and its extinction,  for the State is not, and can never be, anything other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over others.

Capitalism has created the very conditions for its own destruction. Capitalism, undermined by its own contradictions, will inevitably be overthrown, just as all previous systems of class exploitation, including slavery and feudalism, have been. The working class has the mission of carrying this task out to its conclusion: the abolition of class society. The emergence of socialist society will permit a steady reduction in the human work needed to produce goods. The socialist society is based on the free association of all individuals who work together to produce the goods necessary for their collective well-being. All will work according to their capacities and their needs will be fully satisfied. 

Socialist Party Summer School (Birmingham)

Friday, July 22, 6:00 PM

to Sunday, July 24, 2:00 PM

Fircroft College

1018 Bristol Road South, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6LH (map)

• Money Talks
• Money flows through every aspect of society, and therefore affects every aspect of our lives. What possessions we have, the efficiency of the services we use, and how we are supposed to value ourselves are all shaped by the money system. We’re encouraged to think of the economy in much the same way as we think about the weather – something changeable, but always there. When the climate is ‘good’, life feels brighter. When the climate is ‘bad’, we huddle down until we can ride out the storm. Although we’ll always have the weather, the economy doesn’t have to be permanent. Our weekend of talks and discussion looks at the role of money in our society. In what ways does money affect how we think and behave? How does the economy really function? How did money come to be such a dominant force? We also look forward to a moneyless socialist society, which will be – in more than one sense of the word – free.
  
  Sessions arranged so far...
  Janet Surman will discuss a moneyless society: 'Profiting From A Moneyless World'
  Adam Buick will present 'An Idiot's Guide To Banking: How To Avoid Being A Currency Crank'
  Darren Poynton will select some short videos on 'The Root Of All Evil?: How money affects behaviour and attitudes'
  
  Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100. The concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in advance.
  CLICK HERE TO BOOK ONLINE
  To book a place, send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) to Summer School, Sutton Farm, Aldborough, Boroughbridge, York, YO51 9ER, or book online. E-mail enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk

Socialism Now Is Our Battle-cry.

Socialism is a society that will be based upon principle of equal maintenance for all and no wages for any. Our goal is a socialist world, based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of our people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. The capitalists are incapable of turning their technology and organisation to the needs of people. They have robbed us of our wealth and of the very power to determine our own future. World-wide poverty, hunger and war are their legacy. Instead if the means of production was harnessed to popular administration and planning, new technology could help us achieve an era of abundance for all, release us from monotonous toil and enrich our store of accessible knowledge. The socialist option is the only alternative. The inherent flaws of capitalism are too basic, the gap separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That failure puts the socialist alternative on the immediate agenda. There is no more promising field for socialist activity than organising and crystallising the sentiment that already exists against the capitalist system. There has never come to socialism so plain an opportunity as that currently being offered. No more compromise or tinkering.  Today is the time of socialist emancipation.

 The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, speed-ups and neglect of health and safety. Trade unions, despite their courageous efforts, have encountered difficulties eliminating even the worst abuses of management power. The Socialist Party believes in the ability of working people to manage their own productive institutions democratically. The Socialist party is the political expression of the interests of the working class. It is made up of working men and women, its candidates are workers and they have been nominated by workers. Whether elected or defeated it will be at the hands of working people. Humanity faces the danger of complete destruction. Only socialism can save it. It will end the domination of capital, make war impossible, wipe out state boundaries, transform the whole world into one cooperative commonwealth, and bring about real human brotherhood and freedom. The victory of the workers of the world means the beginning of the real history of free mankind.

The capitalist class have chorus line of hirelings to sing their praises. Intellectuals and academics of all categories exalt the ruling class. The media depict the wealthy and rich and powerful always in a favourable light.

Our aim is socialism and our means to achieve it is to organise politically at the ballot box to secure the election of delegates adhering to socialist principles. The Socialist Party pledges itself to pursue, unfalteringly and undeviatingly, its object – common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. It will assist by offering clearness and effectiveness to the gathering working class movement. Political action is not to be despised, nor disparaged, nor is any other methods that will help to break the domination of the master class and hasten the emancipation of fellow-workers.

Socialism or The Market

In an article in The Guardian on April 29th entitled " Making poverty history didn’t happen. We should have been tackling the rich" by Selina Todd ,she asserts that, "We must change the terms of the debate about poverty – and that means looking at the behaviour not of the destitute, but of the super-wealthy ",she continues to make a reasonable point that, "But those of us who want to turn austerity Britain into a fair and democratic society might want to stop talking about the poor so much. Rather than wringing our hands, we could acknowledge that destitution and poverty are just extreme manifestations of the economic inequality that is, as Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson point out, bad for at least for 99% of us. The Rowntree research points out that the destitute, like the poor, are a fluid group who have more in common with the rest of us than we often acknowledge. Most people live in poverty or destitution for limited periods of time, with millions of us vulnerable to experiencing poverty at some point in our lives. If we are to make poverty history, then we need to change the terms of a debate that has gone on for more than a century, and ask not what makes particular people poor – thanks to researchers, we know the answer – but how to wrestle wealth and power away from the 1% who have tenaciously clung on to it".

 But as for solutions she offers none save more hand wringing.

My own contribution to  the discussion that,"She should have been tackling the naive belief that capitalism could be reformed in a way in which poverty could be eliminated. Poverty, absolute and relative are essential conditions of capitalism. It requires a working class which is relatively poorer than the owning class to induce it into waged slavery in order to create all of the worlds wealth for the owning parasite capitalist class. Poverty and war are essential concomitants of capitalism and will remain so, until it is replaced by a post-capitalist, production for use, moneyless, free access society, run by us all in conditions of real social and economic equality", elicited the following response from another contributer,"What level of oppression would you need to stop people trying to get a little more for themselves in your "post-capitalist, production for use, moneyless, free access society"?"
To which I replied,"It would not need any level of oppression to prevent such silly behaviour, as access would be free and self determined in conditions of relative superabundance, once we had production for use. Coercion is only required when goods are rationed via the wages and prices system and production is for the profit of an economic elite minority parasite class."

Which prompted a further defence of market system ,
"Err, who decides what is "production for use"? Actually, we already have a mechanism to decide that, it's called the free market and it's proved much more effective than any law making at matching producers and customers.Rationing by price also works well. The experience of providing stuff as a right is not a happy one. It's a recipe for waste and abuse".

My rebuttal,.."The Market does not satisfy human needs. The market is not the answer. There is only one way to escape for workers from the detrimental effects of capitalism and that is for the economy to be run by the immediate producers themselves. Once in control of the process of production they would have no interest in wasting effort on producing goods that no one wants, on turning out goods of low quality, or resisting innovations that would make their work easier.

The price mechanism does not let firms know what to produce in advance any more than the free associated producers are able to foresee all needs and all links in the production process. But they would be quite capable of working out what their main needs are likely to be, if only because they can calculate what is needed in the same way that capitalism does – by seeing what was needed in the past – and then adjust it according to their own democratically expressed preference. Supply can be made to correspond to demand.
Socialism is a system of planning and management in which the workers allocate resources and democratically determine priorities themselves. Such a system demands that the people themselves articulate their needs as producers, consumers and citizens, in other words, that they become the masters of their conditions of work and life, that they progressively liberate themselves from despotism and diktat of the market and its tyranny of the wallet.
Socialism will be a delegatory democracy of various diverse workers and community councils. The rule of bureaucracy or technocracy is irreconcilable with the conscious control and direction, through planned democratic association of self-managing producers.

Well if you have read this far ,what do you think?

Matt

The Inhumane Economy

Capitalism dominates the globe. Whether you admit it or not, there is a capitalist class and a working class pitted against each other in an irrepressible struggle. These two classes can never be permanently harmonized or reconciled. It is this that is called the class war and there can be no peace. Politics is simply the expression in political terms of the economic interests of certain classes. The employers realise this fact and they are in politics, not for altruistic reasons but to engage in political warfare against workers. Working men and women have already organised upon the industrial field against the power of their masters. But they have yet to learn that it is necessary to unite independently for the political battle, only too frequently dividing and fighting each other at the ballot box, instead of class unity.

The class now in power cannot rule honestly. They must rule corruptly. They are in the minority. They have not the votes of their own to put them in power, but they have the money with which to bribe the electorate. They have the money with which to pervert the courts and to buy the law-makers in the legislatures, and to corrupt all our institutions. They have the power to do this because they have the money, and they have the money because they own the means of production and distribution. The great mass of the workers depend upon them for employment. In this system no working person is in any sense free. They have little means of making themselves heard. Nevertheless, workers are beginning to open their eyes, beginning to understand that they have brains as well as brawn, that they can think as well as work, that they are fit for something better than wage-slavery. They are beginning to stand up and to realise that what is done for them must be done by themselves. And so they are gradually developing their own solidarity. For sure they are still in a small minority but others are awakening, people all across the globe are stirring.  They are beginning to realise their interests, their power, their duty, their responsibility as a class more and more now. People whose life consists of a long, hard, fierce struggle all the way from youth to old age are starting to wonder how strange it is that in this world of abundance and plenty there is still so much poverty and want. The capitalist media tries to obscure it in every way possible yet it is impossible to disguise the failure of the system to provide for all the people and those people will continue to search for the reasons and seek the answers.

 The class struggle battles is part of the war for the existence of humanity. The demands of people for access to food, housing, education, health care and an opportunity to contribute to society are summed up as the demand for a cooperative society. Such a society must be based on the common ownership of the means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. These demands are antagonistic to capitalism, which is based on the buying and selling, including of labour power. This antagonism is economically, socially and politically polarising society, making social and political revolution inevitable.

Few can deny that the world today is in upheaval. That is reflected in the widespread anarchy, turmoil and conflict. The fact that such conditions prevail generally throughout the world, and have prevailed for a long time, logically suggests the presence of a dominant common social factor. That common social factor, the Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated, is the capitalist system that does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. Socialism has unfortunately been presented as a system not of abundance but of scarcity, as a system not of increased leisure and comfort, but of sacrifice and back-breaking toil.

The Socialist Party has come together to inspire the working class to the conscious, effective struggle to overturn the outlived, rotten system of capitalism, in order to replace it with a society on a socialist basis, free of class exploitation, oppression and inequality. 112 years ago, when the Socialist Party was organized, there were no planes, no computers, no satellites or space stations in orbit, and no nuclear power stations or nuclear weapons. Nor was there a particular great concern regarding pollution of the land, air and water on which all species—humanity included—depend on for life. But there was widespread poverty, racial prejudice and discrimination, spreading urban chaos, brazen violations of democratic rights, the material and economic conflicts that contain the seeds of war, and a host of other economic and social problems. All of those problems still plague the world but have grown to even more monumental proportions in regard to the destruction to the environment. Unending reform efforts have failed to solve or even alleviate these long-standing problems to any meaningful degree and have only inflicted further decades of misery and suffering upon millions of workers and their families.

Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the means of life and production for the profit in the interests of a few must be replaced by a new social system. That new society must be organised on the rational basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism. Accordingly, the Socialist Party calls upon the workers to rally under its banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change, building class-consciousness among workers and developing the organisation that the workers can use to implement towards this end.

Despite the many threats to workers' lives, liberty and happiness today, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organizing, politically and industrially, for socialism.

The Socialist Party calls upon all who comprehend the critical nature of our times, and who are increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on working-class principles and join us in the effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results. Let us place the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation.

Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism

We can go forward

Socialism proposes wealth and abundance for all and the good things of life for everybody. No poverty anymore, no more filth and disease and crime. You say all this is a dream? No, not dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. Modern science have so increased the productive capacity of mankind that all men and women could have abundance of wealth by working only three or four hours a day, two or three times a week.  Socialism proposes to get this abundance for each and every one of us.

In order for this to happen, we must do something. What is it we require to do? It is this: Take to ourselves these vast new inventions and robotic machinery and use them for producing new wealth for all instead of producing it for a few. Mankind would no longer be the slave of the machine. The machine will become the servant of humanity. Every increase in productivity would bring with it two things:

1. an increase in the things required for the need, comfort and even luxury of all;

2. an increase in everyone’s leisure time, to devote to the free cultural and intellectual development of humankind. Man will not live primarily to work; he will work primarily to live.

This is our practical perspective. Even today, with all the restrictions that capitalism places upon production, there are specialists and experts who declare that industry, properly organised, can produce the necessities of life for all in a working day of four hours or less and a working week of only a few days. Organised on a socialist basis, even this figure could be cut down. As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant the differences between physical and mental labour, between town and country are eliminated. A rationally planned society, efficiently using our present productive equipment and the better equipment to come, could easily assure abundance to all. In return, society could confidently expect every citizen to contribute his best voluntarily. Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first. But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line. In the midst of abundance for all and with the changes it will imbue within members of society development that will accompany it, there is no reason to expect people to be still poisoned with the old spirit of greed, selfishness, cheating and other evils of a class society where only the few enjoy abundance and opportunity. What will there be to steal in the midst of abundance?

The only reason we are not all sharing in these advancements now is that a few people own these great modern tools and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves.  If we owned the factories, offices and mills ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear at once. The only thing that lies between us and the free access to the fruits of our labour is this private ownership of the means of producing wealth. The men and women who are denied the right to use their own machinery are the men who now work for wages, a bare living. They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. This is the working class. Socialism appeals to them on the ground of their self-interests, the ground on which all practical people base their appeals to others. We say to the workers: “Come with us, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power of government to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.”

The mission of the Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and to shut out of the parties the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system. We wage a war of ideas on the battlefield the ballots. Socialism, based upon the planned organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is the abolition of all classes and class differences. Many challenge us that this it is only an ideal which cannot be realised in practice. The Socialist Party declares it is a practical possibility and an urgent necessity.

Production should not be organised on the basis of the blind pull and push of the capitalist market, but in accordance with the needs of the people. Production for profit will give way to production for use. Capitalism’s motive of production was, is, and always will be profit. It is not the needs of the people that determines its production. If, however, production were carried on for use, to satisfy the needs of the people, the question immediately arises: Who is to decide what is useful and what would satisfy these needs? Will that be decided exclusively by a small board of planners? No matter how high-minded and wise they might be, they could not plan production for the needs of the people. Production for use, by its very nature, demands constant consultation of the people, constant control and direction by the people. The democratically-adopted decision of the people would have to guide the course of production and distribution. Democratic control of the means of production and distribution would have to be exercised by the people to see to it that their decision is being carried out. Production for use, aimed at satisfying the needs of society and of freeing all the people from class rule, would be impossible if production would be regulated by the autocratic, uncontrolled will of a bureaucracy. Democratic control, the continual extension of democracy, is therefore an indispensable necessity.

Socialism is not a utopian ideal, a blueprint for society that exists only in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity. It is the direction that people must in order to satisfy their social needs, take in order to save society from disintegration and destruction. The abolition of private ownership would remove the last barrier to the development of production. Production would be organised, planned and expanded, and aimed at satisfying the needs of society. To be a socialist, merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work in an organised manner for the achievement of the goal.

“Abundance for all? Freedom for all? A society without a state? Impossible!” No, it is, at long last, humanity coming to its senses. Men and women will prove that class division and oppression are not inevitable, poverty and hunger are not unavoidable and the state is not indispensable. In the socialist society we will show that abundance, freedom and equality are not only possible but the natural condition for the new history of the human race.

Workers Wake Up

Capitalism remains, for all the tinkering, a system of crisis. For more than a century the domination of the capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism. The crises arise out of the private ownership of the means of production and the private acquisi­tion of the goods produced by social labor for social consumption. Capitalism, while having developed the highest level of production, is a system of waste and inefficiency, through useless com­petition and the alienation of men and women. Socialists seek to change the economic laws governing society and human relations, by bringing order and plan into production. Once collectively in control of the means whereby we live via common ownership, we will develop more efficient means. Common ownership eliminates the crisis in society by removing all the areas of class conflict, since we would all be owners of the productive forces of the community. The only definitive solution to these problems is the elimination of capitalism and its institutions, and the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, rational economic and social planning. The fundamental task of The Socialist Party is the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Capitalism has developed as a world economic system. It is illusory to believe that the much higher development of the productive forces that socialism entails can be achieved within the framework of a single country. The division of the world into different states imposes a definite form on the revolutionary process. The proletariat must and can take power and begin to build socialism in the territories defined by different existing states. But the construction of socialism can be completed only on a world scale.

People live in a society racked with crisis. This society can neither guarantee them a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. The threat of environmental destruction or nuclear war casts a shadow over the lives of all of us . It is our generation that must end capitalism because future generations may not be around to do it. This society places a premium on wealth, not ability or dedication. The vast majority of our people work out their lives for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. Our world staggers from one crisis to another, increasing chronic unemployment—particularly among youth, a vicious and unending drive against the rights of labour, and a budget in which one-third of the funds are marked for weapons of mass murder—all these are hallmarks of the "system" we live under. The system is capitalism. Under it a small minority rule in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs come second—if at all. We live in a society which puts a price tag on everything. Even poets, writers and artists find the road to "success" demands that they shape their art to the whims of the wealthy and privileged.

Man is divided along class lines determined by his relations to the means of production—there are those who own means of production—capital—and those who only possess the ability to work at the means of production owned by others. Between these two forces there is a conflict over the division of the fruits of labor. This struggle is the class struggle. The class struggle is a fact. If it were not so there would be no need for trade unions. And if it were not so, there would be no basis for a socialist party. The Socialist Party holds out the possibility of a new society of production for use, not for profit. Freed from the clutches of the profit-gougers and their hangers-on, the major industries must be brought under common ownership and the economy must be planned by the people themselves in their own areas of work. The profit system cannot make use of automation for the benefit of society; socialism will! The future society that will be constructed under socialism will reduce work to an insignificant part of daily life and offer the individual the fullest possibilities to pursue his or her own abilities and interests. Our heritage is rich let everybody have the opportunity to freely access it. Despite the relative passivity and docility of the working people, it is clear that their very life situation forces them to come repeatedly into conflict with the system. They find themselves in daily conflict with the employers in the struggle for decent wages and security.

People are increasingly disillusioned and many seek new paths, new roads forward. They search for social change.  The world can be changed. For the sake of humanity it must be changed. Around the world humanity is saying "Enough" and is beginning to move. Though our lives and conditions be different; though we live in different parts of the world; though our struggles take different forms; ours is a common goal—an end to the oppression and exploitation of man by man. How can our planet be changed? Certainly no elite will serve the task. We do not want to replace one group of masters with another. Nor do we want the patronising assistance of those whose real interests lie with the present system. We must look to those whose interests lie in change—to working people, the people who work in the factories and offices of our society. They built the society—and they too are cut off from power and progress by the tiny minority that owns the wealth in Canada. The bosses need the working people—but the workers don’t need the bosses. For most people democracy remains a word without meaning. We are cut off from the ability to make decisions affecting our own lives. The giant corporations and the capitalist magnates determine all the key questions. Only when we have economic democracy, when production is planned for use and not for profit, when the right of all to share in the abundance of our country is established - only then will democracy be truly established.

When we say that we are revolutionary socialists we are not talking about a change in society that would take place when a small group takes over the local city council office and runs up the red flag. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of people consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way that the government operates to the way people relate to their jobs. We're out to change the whole system. We see that all the problems we face are intimately tied to the problems throughout the whole country, the continent, the world. And therefore if we are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the whole system. To be effective you have to build an organisation capable of doing that.

As socialists we believe in the great task of transforming this society—of building a new world. We stand for a world which can eliminate poverty and hunger and war; a world in which freedom is more than a word in a textbook; a world in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the producers themselves and the products of mankind are available to all. The potential of mankind virtually limitless, if it is freed from economic and social oppression. We stand for socialism. We have no illusions that the way will be easy, no visions of quick success. But the future belongs to humanity and socialism!

Raking in the cash on poverty

ANTI-poverty campaigner Sir Bob Geldof has charged Australian organisers $100,000 to give a speech about world suffering.     

  

Geldof, 54, spoke about the tragedy of Third World poverty and the failure of governments to combat the crisis at a Crown casino function in Melbourne on Thursday night.   But he charged about $100,000 for his troubles - a speakers fee that included the cost of luxury hotel rooms and first-class airfares.

Fellow activist, World Vision CEO the Reverend Tim Costello, spoke for free. An event insider said the Geldof payments, which included the costs of a minder, appeared hypocritical.   "It was an inspiring speech. But when you think he got paid $100,000 to talk about poverty it seems like a bit of a contradiction," the insider said:

http://bit.ly/1qCDkXY

How Green is my Capitalist Nonsense

TWENTY-ONE year old Ross Greer is celebrating a personal victory today after becoming the youngest-ever MSP at Holyrood.

The former Bearsden Academy student gained a seat for the West of Scotland region having first joined the party when he was just 15.

It used to be said, "there is no fool like an old fool", but the legacy of utopian reformism seems to be carrying on through even younger apologists,however well meaning and sincere they may be personally.

His posts on the Greens website appears to be in keeping with the Green party politics but more generally capitalist politics:

'Only the Scottish Green Party offered the practical solutions that I wanted, combining social justice and equality with sustainability and practical solutions to tackling climate change.'

All of the parties say this, with some variations on the theme and it is a nonsense in the context of a social system which depends upon the exploitation of a majority of wage enslaved workers, to produce for sale in the profitable interests of a minority parasite economic class.

Only a commonly owned, production for use ,free access society can deliver real social equality and do away with waged slavery, rationed access and governments 'over' the people.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/what-socialism

Yours in Struggle,

The Socialist Party proudly declares itself a party of revolutionary socialism. This mean we stand for the abolition of capitalism, nothing more and nothing less. We do not stand for the reform of any institution under capitalism. Our activities are directed towards the complete overthrow of capitalism, and, to that end, we have concentrated our attention upon the education of our fellow-workers who are engaged in wealth production and who are exploited in the process. We reject a political policy of reformism, campaigning in elections for palliatives and amelioration of our working and social conditions but if elected on the single issue platform of establishing socialism, our members would support legislation that would advance the interests of the working class and aid the workers in their class struggle against capitalism. Elected members under the instruction and direction of the Party as a whole would support specific measures that improved working conditions and the lives of our fellow workers. It is important to note that no one is saying that socialists should abstain from the class struggle or from participation in mass movements. Our policy is to make rebels and not philosophers. But for now, the world socialist movement is in a similar position to that of the child learning to walk. The movement has been born, it is at the crawling stage, it has taken a few steps and had a few falls and tumbles, but in the swift evolution of events, it will be walking. From every standpoint, the outlook for socialism looks promising. We will be up and running.

Capital is the God that rules the world today, and it does so with an iron fist. The world’s factories and workplaces are the temples of this modern god. Upon its altars are sacrificed daily a multitude of men, women and children in order that the sweet incense of profit may waft into the nostrils of this divine brute. The God – Capital – reigns, and slavery, rapine, and slaughter are the normal conditions under his beastly sway. Just how long it is going to be before the workers deny this God its divinity and cease their offerings to it.

"You are all dreamers!" is the accusation thrown at the Socialist Party by those who believe in so-called practical politics and pragmatic policies. It is a usual saying with those who are anti-socialist that "Socialists are impossibilists."  On the contrary, we are urging upon society a practical realisation of ideals based on reality. We resolve not to stay wage-slaves any longer, but to struggle unceasingly against the capitalist class until we conquer power and establish the rule of the workers. The object of the Socialist Party is to organise and prepare the working class for the Social Revolution.

The Socialist Party is dedicated to the struggle to abolish all exploitation of man by man through the establishment of socialism. We are confident that, with effective work on our part and through their own experience, the democratic majority of workers will come to recognise the need for such a fundamental change in the economic basis of our society. The times are ripe for socialism. On a world scale, the objective conditions are ripe, rotten ripe, for the growth of the revolutionary world party. Everywhere, capitalism is mired in the morass of its own creation. Unemployment increases, poverty, undernourishment and sickness spread, prices rise and wages sink. For working people the recession of 2007/8 has never ended and still drags the people into even deeper depths of misery. Governments can answer recession only with repression. Trade unions freedoms are threatened and civil liberties curbed. The workers are in desperate need of the necessities of life and of secure, guaranteed living standards. Yet the majority of our fellow-workers remain outside the ranks of socialism. Why are capitalist parties still returned to power by pauperised people? Why?

Reformism remains an agency of a certain section of the ruling class. Revolutionary socialists do not subscribe to the theory that the workers must necessarily go through the experiences of reformism before moving towards the revolution. Reformism is a barrier to the development of revolutionary consciousness the working class. Our biggest job is to put our party on the map. Mass distributions of our magazine and leaflets plus our public meetings, will not be sufficient to overcome our comparative isolation. We must demonstrate to the workers that we are a serious political party and it for this reason that we enter the political arena by running candidates in elections.  

We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty, it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests, the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people. We aim not to crush individuality but seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater and richer individual life for every citizen. The road to jobs for all, to prosperity and plenty for all, to peace, is the road to socialism. There is no other. The capitalist system is irreparable, and any programme that is based on any illusions on this score or has this in mind is bankrupt and will only lead to the demoralisation, disillusionment and open betrayal of those who count on it. The world needs a new system and it is the aim, the purpose, the intention of the Socialist Party. The society of human brotherhood, freedom, peace, that is socialism, is the noblest aim that man has ever aspired to. It has reason and truth on its side. It will eliminate all the pettiness, narrowness, conflict that now saps man’s potentialities. All will gain.

The Socialist Party does not worry about reorganising the trade union movement; we do not propose to fritter away our forces in guerrilla warfare with the capitalist class about better conditions under capitalism. It is inevitable that the workers will resist the conditions imposed upon them under capitalism and should seek some redress against their oppression. Thus the origin of trade unionism. It is our duty to point out the limitations of these means of defence and urge them to take offensive measures against capitalism. To say that by the general strike alone the workers can emancipate themselves is ridiculous—it is only part of the action necessary for the overthrow of capitalism. It is a common saying that the workers control in industry, their "economic power" and so on, but we must recognize that the workers, by refusing to work do not demonstrate their control of industry. They demonstrate the fact that they can destroy industry by refusing to work. To destroy a thing is one thing, to control it is another. A strike by the workers could make it impossible for the capitalist to extract profits—but that does not give the workers control of industry. The workers must not only make it impossible for the capitalist to rule—they must take over society and rule themselves. We cannot sit down and wait patiently for capitalism to collapse. Conditions call for action. Conditions were never so favourable as they are today for the unfurling of the red banner of socialism. The fight goes on and will only end with the establishment of world socialism. Rally to the call for complete emancipation! In answer to the oppression of the capitalist class let our battle cry be:

"Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a World to gain."

Capitalism is the Enemy

Only a socialist world can give us peace and plenty. Look how the capitalist world keeps tottering on the brink of destruction. War is a grim reality for millions. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the construction of socialism. The struggle for socialism will be an arduous one but only by wresting the state power from the capitalists can we begin the task of building world socialism. We, in the Socialist Party, refuse to join the reformists in leading the workers into the camp of capitalism and support palliatives. Now is the time for the working class to overthrow capitalism not to fix it. In the process of capital accumulation by the capitalists, wealth is constantly accumulated at one end and poverty is accumulated at the other. “This,” Marx said, “is an absolute and general law of capitalist accumulation.” (Capital, Vol. 1)

Socialists have always taught that war was not a question of the wickedness of individuals but the result of the conflicts caused by private ownership and profit and the existence of separate national states. There is only one class which loses in war and that is the working class. There is only one force stronger than any weapon of mass destruction and that is the international solidarity of the working class. Workers everywhere have their class interests in common. It is to them and not to the rulers of the world we must look to for peace. End the system that leads to war. Fight for world socialism.

 The first requirement for the workers in all countries of the world is to break cleanly from the capitalist class and their political parties, and any and all concepts of coalitions with their parties. It is time to overturn the putrid capitalist system in all lands. The Socialist Party does not preach conciliation and peaceful co-existence with capitalism but advocates class struggle against it. Only through an irreconcilable struggle against capitalism, towards its elimination and the establishment of socialism, will the people of the world find the full freedom, equality and democracy for which they aspire. Capitalism promises not the amelioration of all the social problems but austerity, oppression, and the eventual and inevitable destruction of mankind. Technological progress is reaping vast profits for the industrial and financial oligarchy while condemning many workers to permanent unemployment. Only through socialism can the benefits of technological change for the workers by established such as the shorter working hours and better working conditions.  A socialist society opens up tremendous possibilities for all the people. The only road is the socialist road. Today it is the ballot that we use as our weapon against capitalism. Vote, then, for socialism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary red banner unfurled. The downtrodden, submissive slaves humbly bowing before the omnipotence of the modern Mammon of capital are lifting their heads and raising their voices in defence of their interests.  

Workers don’t need a crystal ball to see their future. The capitalists and their state, in their never-ending grasp for higher profits, are intent upon making the world a hell-hole of misery for the people. Yet if the working class were united, we could not only stop the assault on our standard and quality of life but could turn this planet into a storehouse of plenty for all. The problem is that people accept capitalism and its logic and therefore see no alternative to the current misleaders who defend that system at all costs. Many workers mistakenly believe that capitalism’s reforms can deliver for them. The reformists display little sense of the realities of capitalism; many believe that the growth of the welfare state will turn into a socialistic state as time goes on. The faith that capitalism can be made more humane on behalf of the poor is an illusion. It is wishful thinking. The answer to poverty is not a welfare state and more taxes on the rich but a new society based on human needs, not profits, which will have real solutions. As socialists who are loyal to our class, we support every effort on the part of workers to better their situation and improve their conditions. However, we are open about the fact that we will not be the ones who build and lead such struggles. That is the purpose of the trade union and social activist movements. Such mobilisations can show our fellow workers the power the working class has when united. The mass actions of demonstrations and marches must come from the bottom up and not be used as a tool by political parties for partisan recruitment. 

Break our shackles

Socialism cannot be an abstraction or some ideal in the far-off distance. Capturing the State machine is not a goal in and of itself. It is only a means to realise the goal, which is the emancipation of labour, of all exploited, by the creation of a worldwide classless society. It is the only way to solve all the burning problems facing humanity and the only way to avoid its relapse into barbarism. The future is with the rule of the freely associated producers. The future is a socialist democracy. The future is with world socialism. People have the power to take control of the ways of creating wealth and to subordinate them to our decisions. New technology far from making our lives worse has the potential to make this control easier. Automated work processes could provide us with more leisure, with more time for creativity. Cybernetics could provide us with unparalleled information about the resources available to satisfy our needs and how to deploy them effectively. But this alternative cannot come from within the system, from the insane logic of the market. Those who advocate halfhearted reform of the existing system preach capitulation to capitalism.

Without food, shelter, and a few other basic necessities, no human individual can survive. Contrary to other animal species, humankind cannot get such necessities through purely individual nor through purely instinctive endeavours. In a slave society, a slave can only get food by submitting to his master’s will. In a feudal society, the serf can produce his own food, providing he obeys the rules imposed upon by his baron, such as work for him for nothing, for example. In our capitalist society, the average person can only get food in exchange for money, and he or she cannot get enough money to buy the basic necessities of life without selling their labour power, their ability to work. Generalised commodity production and a market (money) economy was imposed through institutional changes and specific economic processes (like the Enclosures) upon tens of millions of human beings on all continents, against their clearly expressed wishes and their successive revolts. This was the historical chain of events that led to the emergence of ruling classes, the production of surplus value by the working class (i.e., the constant reproduction of capital and of a capitalist class). If a serf works three days a week on his own patch of field and three days a week on the lord’s manor, the origin of the lord’s income is quite clear: unpaid labour by the serfs. Likewise, a worker adds value to that of machinery and raw material by applying his muscles, nerves and brains to them during a work day, the fact that he reproduces the equivalent of his wages (or the value of his labour power) in, say, four hours a day while actually working eight hours, means that he gives his employer half of his work week for nothing, exactly as the serf did. There you have the source of profits’ (or more accurately, rent, interest and profit). In the case of a slave or a serf, the process is crystal clear but in the case of a wage-earning industrial worker it is obscured by all kinds of successively intertwined money transactions and market relations that makes it more difficult to see. But it doesn’t make it any less real. The capitalist class is compelled by generalised commodity production, by privately owned means of production and the resulting market competition to maximise capital accumulation. This limitless drive for enrichment (production of exchange-values as an end in itself) is made possible by the fact that the social surplus product takes the form of money.

The task of socialists is not to patch up the system. It is for the workers, ‘the associated producers’, to take control of production into their own hands, and to subordinate it to their own consciously assessed collective needs. Only then will those who actually perform the labour of one sort or another have a motive for a correct and honest assessment of the amount of their own labour available for production, and an incentive to use it in the most efficient and least arduous fashion possible. The only alternative to the anarchy of capitalist accumulation and the market is genuine socialism. The job of socialists is not to identify with those who want reforms in order to hold it together capitalism but to find ways of putting our ideas across and stand for revolutionary socialism for real people power.

Birthday Greetings, Karl