Organise for socialism

"Organise—organise—organise." Ernest Jones, Chartist

Socialists consider the economic factor the determining factor in the development of society. The primary concern of human beings has always been to feed, clothe and shelter themselves. As human beings lived together, certain necessities drove them to invent certain machines and with the invention of these machines production increased and with the increase in production changes occurred in the economic and social system. Struggles arose between groups and the victors made slaves out of the vanquished. A system of slavery arose and the forces of production continued to develop. More machines were invented; the forces of production increased; society developed further and ever further and class struggles arose; slaves revolted against masters; the social system based on slavery could no longer function effectively and that social system was displaced by a new system. What is known as feudalism came into existence? He who owned land had the right to exploit the man who worked on the land and this man who worked on the land was called a serf. In comparison with the chattel slave, he was a free man but nevertheless he could not leave the land. The discovery of the Americas gave a tremendous impetus to the development of industry; new markets came into being; new machinery was invented; the forces of production grew and with it a new and powerful class arose – the merchant class of the Middle Ages – and it is this merchant class that constituted the beginning of modern capitalist class. We call that class the “bourgeoisie” and this class began a struggle against the feudal nobility and finally conquered and became the dominant class in society. Thus you see that, in the opinion of socialists, a class struggle has existed since time immemorial. The chattel slaves struggled against the masters, the plebeians struggled against the patricians, the serf against the feudal nobility; and today we have the fundamental struggle between the capitalists who own the wealth and the wage workers who create the wealth. And is this struggle a result of man’s will or desire? No, it is a struggle that is due fundamentally to the development of economic forces.

 Look at our social system and you can see for yourselves how the class struggle operates. Worker against the employer and against Wall Street. Why is our society subjected to these struggles? Because each social group wants a larger share of the income that society produces. In comparison to the number of wage workers, the Socialist Party constitutes a minute group; the class struggle goes on without us. Unfortunately, it has not as yet achieved an influence which can permit it to play a decisive role in that struggle. The struggle between the worker on the one hand, anxious to get a higher wage, and the employer on the other hand, anxious to make more profit, is a struggle that will go on regardless of the desire or the intention of any man. There are some employers who are willing to give higher wages but they are prevented by the law of competition under capitalism. By and large, the employers are anxious to make more and more profits and, because of that, the class struggle must necessarily continue.

To achieve socialism workers must first gain political power. Revolutions cannot be prevented by any law. Like convulsions in nature, they are the result of the evolution of forces beyond the power of man to stop. The capitalist class under feudalism had economic power; but also required political power to consolidate and guarantee its economic power. So they obtained political supremacy by a revolutionary overthrow of the feudal aristocrats and nobility. The workers under capitalism have no economic power (except in the sense that they can bring industry to a halt by withdrawing their labour power) and neither have they political power. Before they can take over the means of production and proceed to construct a socialist society, they will have to capture the machinery of government. Whereas all previous forms of state served the purpose of guarding the property interests of a minority of the people against the majority, once the workers have used the state as the instrument of the vast majority of the population for the purpose of abolishing all forms of exploitation and because the necessity for any state exists only because there are classes in society, and one class requires the instrument of the state to rule over the other classes,  the defining coercive elements of the state will wither away.

What is the aim of the Socialist Party? You can begin by reading our Declaration of Principles. We want a social revolution. We want a socialist society where all the productive wealth is owned in common and there is no exploitation. The fundamental basis of socialism is the development of the forces of production to a point where enough can be produced to satisfy the needs of all members of society. The productive forces of society will be so greatly developed and the education of the people will be such as to enable society to follow the principle: From each according to his ability; to each according to his need. The fundamental feature of a socialist society is that all the means of production – the railroads, the mines, the factories – are owned by the people and the goods that are produced, are produced for use. Under the present system, which we call capitalist, the means of production are owned by private persons or corporations or the government and, although there may be some owners who are benevolent employers they operate their industries not because people need the goods that they produce but because they want to make a profit. In socialism, the people will decide how many pairs of shoes, how much coal, how many houses are needed to satisfy the needs of the people and proceed to manufacture them. The productive wealth of society – not personal possessions such as a laptop or a car – but the productive wealth of society – machinery, factories, mines – will be owned in common by the people, and goods will be produced for the use of the people. There are no classes under socialism – that is, there is no class that owns the wealth and no class that is exploited. Today a worker has only his labour power and he or she sells that to someone who owns machinery and he or she gets a wage in return and the man who owns the machinery makes a profit out of the labour power. That is what socialists term exploitation of labour.

Socialism is a world system. All peoples will cooperate to produce enough goods to satisfy the reasonable needs of every human being. Every region will produce that which it is best fitted to produce. If one part of the world can produce good machinery then let it not busy itself with producing agricultural products. Let some other area best fitted for the production of agricultural products produce those products. Peace will come to a world cooperating in this way, which will be made possible only by socialism, which will do away with capitalist cliques fighting for colonies and markets. We reject the idea that one nation or one people is superior to any other nation or any other people. To us all human beings are equal. The prejudices that exist are a product of the social system and not inherent in human nature. The brotherhood of man will be made possible and real under a socialist society which will do away with economic conflicts.

The word “revolution” does not necessarily imply violence. It simply means a radical change and social revolution means a radical change in society. Do we not speak of the Industrial Revolution, a revolution in science, a revolution in transportation? The French revolution was a social revolution because the merchant and capitalist class displaced the feudal class. The power to rule society was transferred from the landowning feudal nobility to the merchants and industrialists. Our goal is to transfer the economic and political power from the capitalists to the workers. There may be political revolutions that are not social revolutions. The revolutions that occur frequently in Latin America are political revolutions because they do not change the social system. A social revolution may or may not be accompanied by violence and no one knows exactly how it will occur in the future. The responsibility for a revolution lies not upon us but upon the ruling class and what they do when they are democratically appropriated and dispossessed by the majority. Throughout history, there have been men who dreamed of changing society. They saw the poverty, the oppression, the persecution and hatred prevailed in the world despite that it is capable of producing tremendous quantities of goods to satisfy, beyond all imagination, the needs of the people.  Capitalism has reached a point where mankind must take control of the productive forces and begin producing goods for the use of the people – and this means socialism – or else it will be hurled into the abyss. This is our belief and this is what we teach.

We do not advocate the idea that people should take up arms and destroy the government and thereby bring a change in the social system. Blanqui insisted that a social revolution required only a courageous, armed small group. Marx declared that the liberation of the people is the task of the people themselves and not the task of a few agitators, no matter how determined and courageous. The majority of the people must understand what is necessary and must be willing to struggle to achieve their liberation. In the Communist Manifesto is found the following statement:

“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority.”

Marx, therefore, accepted the fundamental principle: the necessity of convincing the majority of the people to accept the ideas of socialism. The Socialist Party aims to get a majority of the people to accept its ideas. Why should we advocate a violent change from capitalism to socialism? The fact that we want a majority of the people to accept our ideas proves beyond all doubt that we want a peaceful transformation. We want to take over the means of production peacefully. The only real possibility of avoiding violence is for the working class to organise so solidly and strongly that the capitalists will not attempt the use of violence.

The working class are the ones to initiate the struggle against the capitalist system. In the first place, they come more directly in conflict with the owners of industry – in the big steel mills, auto plants, mines, etc. In the second place, the workers are used to working together – cooperation is the key word under socialism and the workers in their factories learn to work cooperatively. They understand that it is necessary under conditions of modern industry to work cooperatively in order to build an automobile or a complicated machine. Our task in the Socialist Party is to inform our fellow-workers of our ideas. Our task is to convince them that our ideas and our solution to the problems of mankind are correct. We can use only the power of persuasion and no other power. We attempt to educate fellow-workers to act independently in their own interests on the political field and also to exhaust all possibilities of a peaceful change. The more we emphasise that possibility, the more the people understand that possibility and prepare for it, the less will be the violence. We are, of course, not pacifists. As much as we hate the violence that exists in society, we see no alternative to the necessity of destroying the violence of the minority with the violence of the majority.

The agony, the death of millions of human beings in senseless famines and wars are not abstractions to us. We feel them keenly and we react to them and we try to create a world where destruction and war and poverty and disease will not be the lot of mankind. We proclaim that it is possible to build a new social system guaranteeing every human being a decent livelihood and a chance to develop his or her individuality, free from economic worries, free from the dangers of war. We say that we have reached an epoch where mankind must go forward to socialism or else back to barbarism. We base our activities upon a theory that has withstood the test of time and events.

We have a world to learn--and a world to win.

There exists a crude view of humans as little more than machines encoded by their genetic molecular make-up with predisposed behaviour traits. While accepting the influence of genes, socialists see humans as responding and adjusting to their material environment. It is claimed by the critics of socialism it’s in our nature to look after ‘number one’ and that mankind is just too selfish for it to work together for the common good without being made to, either by stick or carrot. If you study the current capitalist society today the argument certainly seems true. It is a rat-race of rivalry and completion. Nations compete with nations, even in sport. Capitalists can only survive in business if they are more competitive than other capitalists. Workers are driven to turn against one another to acquire a job. In schools, children are brought up to participate in races for the best exam results.

Despite all this there is a deep element of cooperation under capitalism, for capitalism it not only involves people competing with each other, it also involves them working alongside one another on a scale never before in human history. In the modern factory or office hundreds or even thousands of people work together. Workers give such cooperation even when it is against their interests individually and as a class to do so. The most blatant example of this is wartime. The same cooperative selflessness which took place where millions with courage and bravery were prepared to sacrifice their lives for an ideal of “their” mother country will be available in a socialist society where selfless solidarity will again prevail.

Human beings have the capacity to reason and to reflect on our actions, but also we debate and discuss them with others. Thus, we can make our history. The Socialist Party cannot transform society but what we can start doing is help transform the people who may remake society – our fellow-workers. Our task is all about making socialists, not just recruiting members. It ought to be obvious to every socialist that socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to struggle for socialism and that means that they have some idea of what it is. If people who vote for a Socialist Party candidate do not do so because he or she is a socialist but because they do not know what is a socialist, of what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend on the consciousness of our fellow-workers and not upon their lack of knowledge. Socialism cannot be introduced without organised support for the socialist idea. Whether that support is won at the ballot box or through revolutionary action of workers’ councils is not as important as that it be won. One thing seems evident, though. If we cannot get people to mark a cross on a voting paper for socialism, there is little hope of getting them to take to the streets on behalf of the cause. Moreover, as long as the ballot can be used, even under difficulties as it is today, it should be used. But if that method is withheld from us in the future, we shall go forward until we do gain the socialist commonwealth by the best means at our command.

From the point of view of achieving socialism a hundred votes, obtained conducting a campaign where socialist ideas is at the forefront, are worth much more than ten times the number of votes gained from a campaign where the necessity for the struggle for socialism has not been made clear. A campaign of value is one that teaches socialism. During an election campaign, the workers are more likely to listen to a discussion on economics and politics than at any other time. Nor should the Socialist Party be shoved into the background. In convincing fellow-workers of the desirability of a socialist society, it is inconceivable that a real socialist campaign should not also attract members to the party.  Obtaining votes for socialism and new members for the party go hand in hand. It must be remembered that a big vote can be piled up by a reformist party more easily than by a revolutionary party. And to be disappointed or disheartened by a small vote is not to understand the nature of a socialist election campaign. Votes obtained by a campaign conducted on revolutionary lines mean that those persons who voted can be counted on as being genuine socialists while votes obtained by offering all kinds of false promises are votes of those who will vote shift to some other party the next election who offers better but equally as unattainable reforms as before.

The Socialist Party is the only party that points out during elections that there is no alternative for the working class other than socialism. The Socialist Party clearly states that that the fundamental issue in an election campaign is socialism versus capitalism. The case put to fellow-workers by the Socialist Party is that the problems confronting them cannot be solved in a permanent manner except through the destruction of the capitalist system. One can shout from now until doomsday that socialism is necessary and that it is better than capitalism but to educate fellow-workers The Socialist Party explains history and economics to agitate the minds of people.

The basic idea of socialism is that all the means of production and distribution be owned in common by all of the people and that every person, who is not too young, or too old, or too sick, cooperate in producing those things which every member of society needs and uses. Instead of having individuals or corporations or the State own all the factories and hire workers to produce goods only when a profit can be made from their sale, society as a whole will own the factories, and the workers will produce the things required to feed, house and clothe all of the people, and to satisfy all of their needs. An administration in various forms depending on local history and traditions will be elected by the people and they will figure out approximately how much of each article will be necessary to satisfy the local regional and global requirements of society and the factories will be set into motion to produce more than enough of each item. Every district and region will produce that which it is best fitted to produce. Instead of the anarchy and competition that prevails at the present, production and distribution will be thoroughly planned by recallable delegates at every level of production and distribution. It is impossible, of course, to furnish a complete blueprint indicating every detail of the functioning of society under socialism. The whole conception of socialism is based on the idea that industry has developed to such a point that more than enough can be produced to satisfy all the reasonable needs of the population. We socialists contend that technology has developed to a point where an abundance of goods can be produced to assure everyone a very high standard of living.

History teaches that when a system of society outlives its usefulness, when in the womb of the old society there has been prepared the possibility of a new social order, when the masses suffer needlessly, and when the ruling class is unable to solve the problems facing society—under such circumstances—the ideas representing the new social system are accepted and all the force and deceit at the disposal of the ruling class are helpless to preserve the old order. A revolution occurs and the next society in social evolution comes into being. And once people begin to rally around the ideas of socialism, nothing in the world can stop their progress. Nothing will save the present system.

Revolution - The Only Solution.

It is argued by many that although the present social order is undoubtedly exploitative and cruel, any attempt to create a new system of equality and freedom is doomed to fail because it is contrary to the unchangeable features of human nature and that the division of society into rulers and ruled, exploiters and exploited is inevitable because it rests on the ‘natural’ order of things. These nay-sayers tell us that there will always be some elite, (bureaucrats or technocrats) who will corrupt the revolution for their own ends and they will succeed because ordinary people are too conditioned and too dumb to construct and run socialist society – they require to be led by the intellectuals towards the promised land because the working class cannot emancipate itself. The ruling class justifies their privileged position since it is due to their personal superiority and that no other better system is possible because the masses are inferior. If their rule is sometimes hard, cruel and unfair, that is unfortunate but there no alternative.

People would not work if they were not paid for it, and they would grab whatever they could get if they did not have to pay for it, is the first and understandable response when socialists talk about a new society that is free from wages, free from money, free from private property, free from prices. Today, we are dominated by a way of thinking that is determined because we still live in a market exchange economy. When production is geared to social needs rather than profits, it is quite feasible that we can live and work without compulsion and to voluntarily contribute to the well-being of all to the best of our ability while in return freely accessing the collective fruits of everybody’s labour according to our needs.

 Some radical activists imagine that everybody will discuss everything locally and then each enterprise will set to producing goods to be able to exchange their products to supply each other’s needs and to satisfy the community’s requirements. Actually, things will not be so simple, and any attempt to realise that vision would only mean preserving market relations between independent enterprises, still not working to a common social plan. Those who call for shop-floor and assembly-line democracy should be aware that these by itself cannot transform capitalist social relations into co-operative ones. Too often we have witnessed the take-over of work-places by workers with no conception but to run it at a smaller scale of production, for it to be more “human” as a local “community” project yet still based on people working for wages under the supervision of (elected) bosses to produce commodities for sale on the market, confirming the socialist’s belief that capitalist production is the only system these “radicals” think can really work. Although it may help some of our fellow-workers to find a comfortable niche within the capitalist system where they can exercise a degree of self-management over some of their own affairs we should never forget that we seek to abolish wage-slavery altogether. The task of socialists is to strive for the authority over the world economy as a whole, and so that our fate is not still subject to the blind workings of economic laws beyond our control. If we want a world revolution, then somehow we will have to take on the functions of the decision making of the transnational corporations as well as government ministries. Just saying “the workers will do it” does not solve a thing. Who are these workers who will do it after the revolution, without discussing what they will do, before the revolution? Slogans simply demanding a change in power because it is “more democratic” will get nowhere. The issue of “who decides, who rules” only arises in the context of “what is to be done”.

A lot of production decisions have become fairly routine which could be readily taken over and transformed by workers’ councils. Workers will have no difficulty improving efficiency and productivity once the antagonistic system of employer/employee is done away with. Administration by a personnel department also turns into an essentially routine function made much easier by the elimination of “industrial relations” or “human resources” as it is called between hostile employers and employees.

 The purchasing office will be devoted to the core purpose – ordering supplies and raw materials where the sales department becomes concerned with the real actual demand from consumers. R and D continue with the development of improved and new products stemming from customer review and consumer research findings. These functions would all become aspects of production planning. They coordinate with the next level of the logistics and supply chain, from local to regional to global. All these networks exist now under capitalism and can be adjusted and adapted to be accountable at every stage of the process of production. Other tools of capitalism can be adopted such as “cost-benefit analysis” which measures benefit gained against resources expended.  Capitalism possesses no great technical mystery over its choices and allocation of social wealth. The “experts” and “specialists” who prepare the feasibility studies and recommendations are not the capitalist, but just highly-trained workers. By re-aligning their criteria, production for profit and the pockets of the rich, becomes production for the needs of the many. 

Public ownership is not common ownership

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

People, by and large, have lost confidence in the ability of the ruling class to maintain a peaceful, secure, orderly and prosperous society. Socialism is not a complicated doctrine. Socialism as a society dedicated to the interests of the people. The means by which society produces its wealth – factories, mines and farms – are transferred from private to common ownership, and exploitation eliminated. Socialism unleashes the creativity of the people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not toiling under a system of exploitation. The basic starting point of the socialist idea is that the working class is a revolutionary class and as such is capable of overthrowing the capitalist system.

All of the usual examples given of socialism/communism are nothing of the sort. They are either attempts to reform capitalism, or post-feudal attempts to introduce capitalist methods, such as Russian China, in the absence of a domestic capitalist class the state stepped in such as it did in Bismarck's Germany. Socialism and communism mean the same thing, common ownership or social ownership of the means and instruments for creating and distributing wealth. The distinction of socialism-communism is a Leninist distortion of what Marx was referring to when capitalism then was in its infancy and could not go straight over to a free access society. There is now no need for a two stage solution since the early part of last century. We can go straight into the post-capitalist society of abundance and plenty for all. Millions already do voluntary work. All the more so when they are freed from the compulsion of wage-slavery and work which will be superfluous and unnecessary inside a post-capitalist society.

Socialism is effectively a post-capitalist, production for use, democratic, free access, money-free society producing a superabundance of the necessities to enable free access i.e. moneyless distribution with democratic control by all and no elites governing over us, we govern resources ourselves, locally regionally and globally, using recallable delegation when required. The organising tenet is: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Anything else, and you are being sold a capitalist pup with its twin concomitants of war (business by other means) and poverty (absolute or relative).

The solution is not to be found in capitalism where the economic bottom line prevails, despite good intentioned people trying the impossible task of reforming a monstrous system over you by electing reform parties. The Labour Party, throughout its various terms in office, has always supported the interests of capital against labour because it is a capitalist party. It has never been, is not and never will be, a socialist party. They may see themselves a 'socialists' or identify with 'socialism' but they are a part of the problem, as reformers, rather than the solution to capitalism which is a post-capitalist revolution. Public ownership is not common ownership but state ownership and is not even a step towards socialism. Nothing to do with state ownership or corporate or private ownership. Nothing to do with centralised control either. Socialism is a post-capitalist system, which utilises the technological advances of capitalism to produce for use to satisfy all human needs, using self-feeding loopback informational tools for stock measurements and control with direct inputs, at local, regional and global, levels to allow calculation in kind, as opposed to the economic calculation of capitalism, only necessary to satisfy profit taking. We will not need a market in a post-capitalist free access, socialist society.

It is a post-capitalist, production-for-use, prices-free, society without elites and with free equal access to the collective produce. Government ceases to be over the people a part of class society and becomes the democratic administration over resources as part of a classless, elite free society run by us all.

The Socialist Party is Britain's oldest socialist party and second oldest political party and has consistently retained the definition of what socialism is, a revolutionary, post-capitalism, despite its usurpation by capitalist political parties to mean reform. The traditional conceptual models of 'right' and 'left' politics were borrowed from the French bourgeois revolution and are used still by capitalist parties to brand different versions of the same thing.  Socialism/communism is not some left-variant of capitalism. Socialists of our kind are not on the Left. The Socialist Party exists to get rid of the market system and introduce production for use.

Wee Matt

Be Moderate - Demand the Earth

We are socialists because we see the damage and the destruction wreaked by capitalism which inflicts harm and misery upon the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, crushes working people, sets one group against another and divides people at home and abroad. We see in socialism the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful world. Our political convictions prompt us to promote class struggle and to take sides in industrial conflicts. Socialism is the alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. Socialism is all about creating a society that allows each person to contribute according to her or his ability and to obtain whatever she or he needs. The primary task of the Socialist Party is the fight for socialism. From this task arises the character of our organisation. Without unity on essentials, no serious practice is possible. Members are our most precious resource and as we grow grows, its internal party life will become richer and stronger. All our members view capitalism as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few.  We advocate and work for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.). We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

For many the mere mention of revolution is too terrible to contemplate. It means civil war, bloodshed, and anarchy – altogether too horrible a thing. Decent, respectable folk, family men and mothers with children, have no sympathy with revolution and are for law and order. There is something rather alarming about such phrases as “class war,” “social revolution,” and “the overthrowing capitalism,” especially to those who are accustomed to tinkering and tweaking the system. But how is it that although mankind possesses greater command over the forces of nature than at any previous period in the history, can produce an infinitely greater amount of wealth with less labour than ever before, those who do labour and produce all this wealth are thus crushed by the forces they themselves should command? Why is there over-production of food and other necessaries of life that many want but cannot get because they cannot buy? The reason is because the workers have no control whatever over what they do produce. There is no orderly cooperation, but anarchical, self-destructive competition. The very introduction of new technology and automation, which would lessen the toil and lighten the drudgery but, instead, enhances the anarchy and aggravates the uncertainty for the working class. As long as profit-mongers rule the roost, those that provide the profits cannot benefit. The very power of the State itself, as was in the Post Office, is used to screw extra work, more surplus value, out of the wage-slaves, in order to reduce the taxation of the owning-class.

Socialists know right well that all existing parties are banded together against them, they know that Tory, Lib-Dem and Labour form but one party when the enslavement of the workers is denounced. But that makes no difference. The forces of to-day and of the future are with us, the cause we fight for will inspire people. We take up the battle where it was left by the Chartists. From generation to generation workers have fought for the people as we are fighting to-day. We inherit the results of their self-sacrifice and heroic exploits. It is for us then, as socialists, to appeal to our fellow-workers in all lands to bring about, in our own day, that world social revolution which can alone give freedom and happiness to mankind. Socialists say plainly that mere reform of our existing society is impossible, or if possible, useless. Socialists wish to see people well-housed, well-clothed, well-fed, well-educated, with plenty of leisure time to enjoy the pleasures of life. We are most moderate in our demands. 

The Socialist Party is revolutionary

“Both legally and actually, the worker is the slave of the possessing class, the bourgeoisie; so much so that he is sold in the market like a commodity whose price is subject to rise and fall like that of any other commodity. If there is an increased demand for workers, their price goes up; if there is a decreased demand, the price goes down; if the demand has so decreased that a certain number of workers find no buyer of their labour-power, as ‘surplus stock’, then they have to lie in reserve, and thus earning no livelihood, they perish from starvation. …The whole difference from the old, avowed slavery, consists in that the modern worker is seemingly free; because he is not sold once and for all time, but by instalments, by the day, by the week, or by the year, and also because he is not sold by one owner to another, but is forced to sell himself; for, he is not the slave of one man, but of the whole possessing class.” Engels

Capitalism has placed upon the backs of the working class the whole burden of labour and has deprived it of all the joys of life. In all class societies, there is one class that rules (dictates) over others. Capitalism is no exception. Our goal is the complete freedom for the working class from all slavery, political, and economic.  How will this happen, revolution or reform? The Socialist Party is revolutionary in principle because it puts up a totally new principle in place of the old, not just patch capitalism. We seek to demolish the old foundation and builds upon it a new one, a better one.  We want to abolish the system which is the root and source of most of our social problems. But this will not happen by street riots or insurrection. The first condition for a peaceful worker’s movement is, that we shall have some means by which we can raise our voice and we possess that with universal suffrage – the vote. We must strive for an independent, fully conscious, socialist worker’s movement. That simply means that it is aware of its purpose, its reasons, and task in society. Whoever speaks of the Revolution speaks above all of the abolition of capitalism, the abolition of its productive and property relations and the establishment of new relations.

Humanity will enter a whole new stage of history when all of our society has been transformed, the cancerous capitalist ulcers have been eliminated, and the community of workers has been established, then socialism, completely class-free society, will have been achieved. There will no longer be the need for the state, since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of our society. Socialism eliminates the anarchy of capitalism and its crises, by common ownership of the means of production and collective planning of the economy controlled by the whole of the people. Socialism will be able to make full use of the labour of everyone in our society which at present is often wasteful and superfluous to the needs of society. At the same time, there will be the development and introduction of new technology. As automation and robots replace workers, workers can be transferred to other jobs–and the work day and working week for all reduced. Machines will no longer be weapons in the hands of the capitalists to grind down the working class, and workers will no longer be a mere extension of the machine, as they are under capitalism. Instead, machines will become weapons in the hands of the working class in its own struggle to revolutionize society and become compatible with nature. Work itself will change completely because the labor of the workers will no longer go to enrich capital to further enslave the working class, but to improve life today, while providing for the future, according to the conscious plan of communities. Job satisfaction will be enhanced because people will not be working themselves, or someone else, out of a job, or that they are being driven to produce for the private benefit of an employer or stock-holder, always under the scrutiny of over-seers and with the constant threat of being fired. The organisation of work will be the province of the producers themselves. Work will enrich life, instead of a miserable means to sustain existence, as it is under capitalism. It is very easy to play the role of a prophet of doom but socialists are the heralds of great social change.

“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error” - Cicero

Correcting the Misconceptions

Since the Communist Manifesto was written the world that Marx and Engels envisaged, has not yet been reached anywhere. The most popular depiction of “socialism” is one of state ownership and a command economy, directed by the ‘revolutionary’ party in a virtual fusion of State and party. Of course, this was never the conception of Marx or Engels.  Socialism means that the means of production and the land belong to the whole people and are organized and run democratically. The way they organise themselves depends on the kind of enterprise it is; on the general way in which the society as a whole has evolved.  This means that there is no ideal form of self-management that springs up but that it is an on-going process, before, during and after the socialist revolution. The basic issue is that real power is in the hands of working people. Workers’ self-management does not mean enterprises acting each for itself, in uncontrolled competition but an integrated social plan, which is applied and worked out democratically. This presupposes a radical rethinking of the idea of rigidly-centralised planning. The socialist economy is composed of many different ultra-modern enterprises, within the coordinated framework of democratic social planning at a local, regional and global levels. The aim is to satisfy the real social needs of the citizens, with decisions made democratically from the bottom up by a process of interaction and delegation which is constantly readjusting and adapting to execute and meet the objectives.  The world should be thought of as a combination of communities, divided not simply for the sake of administrative control but also because they are homogeneous, coherent regions to be provided for and also to provide for others. These communes self-governed by their citizens and will have sufficient means to develop their own local plans within the general framework of wider production. This authentic socialist socialization. It end the centuries-old concepts of hierarchy, authority, ‘leaders’ and the ‘led’. It is a revolution not only of property relations but of social relations. It ends the whole barbaric past of humanity based on the exploitation and the subordination of some people by others. This is the only kind of socialism which is worth the struggle and the sacrifice.

The position of the Socialist Party is that the most preferable, the most desirable method of social transformation is to have it done peacefully by the majority. That opinion is based on a study of history, the historical experiences of mankind in the numerous changes of society from one form to another, the revolutions which accompanied it. Parliament has lost much of its prestige but its control over the forces of law and order and the armed forces means that it cannot be ignored. We can achieve socialism peacefully by the ballot – if the ruling class permits it. But neither did we represent ourselves as pacifists. The Socialist Party does not shrink from using force but we consider when faced by an overwhelming majority of determined and organised workers, they will accept their inevitable fate. Socialism is the doctrine of revolutionary action. But it has nothing in common with insurrection. The revolutionary plan which the Socialist Party contemplates is the action of the working class majority. Socialism will be won and built by our fellow workers , who those who meet the needs of society. They will create a society no longer based on chaos, but proceeds according to the planned fulfillment of genuine human needs. Classes and class struggle will cease to exist. Socialism will unleash a degree of productive forces unknown before in the history of mankind. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labor will be abolished and the guiding principle of labor will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held in common and private property will be eliminated. Standing in the way of social progress and socialism are two obstacles:

1. The capitalist class.

2. Socialism will be possible only when the workers decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation.

The class struggle is important and cannot be avoided because it marks the road towards the class-free society. With the end of class oppression, the state disappears. We can play no part in the building of the new society – that privilege must be left to those who come after us. Solidarity in the working class as a whole, coming from below, is an urgent necessity if we are to further the cause of Socialism.

Conditions Of Present-day Dishonesty

A survey conducted by Ontario's Ministry of Labour reported that victims of wage theft in Ontario have "lost out" on $28 million over the last six years. Just $19 million from the $47 million stolen from out-of-pocket workers has been recovered. Yet, only 0.2% of the guilty bosses were prosecuted - "Our study showed that the Employment Standards Acts Enforcement is still largely compliant-driven, but, that many employees face barriers, like, fear of retaliation - (Ya think?) that inhibits them from making complaints", said Leah Vosko, one of the lead researchers.

According to Ms. Vosko, "....even when violations are validated by the Ministry, penalties are rarely imposed on employers and the Dispute Resolution System provides opportunities for employers to avoid paying employees all that they are owed."

Forty-eight percent of complaints the Ministry receive are about unpaid wages, yet, only a mere 8.6 of the complainants are still in their jobs. 85% of the claims investigated were shown to be valid. Small businesses were found more likely to be in violation than big ones. Some 80% of employees at small firms were validated, these being mostly with five or fewer employees. The validations were 50% with companies with more than 200 employees.

About half of the complaints are for $1,000 or more, a huge loss to a worker. Since 2012 the Ministry has prosecuted successfully just forty-one of the law-breaking bosses.

It's understandable the bosses of small businesses are the main offenders, considering a small business is closer to the edge economically. Bankruptcy, even when avoided, is always a Damocles Sword for small capitalists, which makes them more intensive in their exploitation of their workers than big ones.

Nor, is this an attempt to defend them, but to understand the economic forces at work. It's easy enough to call all of the violator's dishonest jerks, but the plain brutal fact is, present-day economic conditions cause dishonesty and, as is obvious from the above, no tinkering around with complaints and prosecutions will do much good. Better an economic system where there is no need for dishonesty. 

John Ayers.

Socialism or reformism

At some level, perhaps not always too well articulated, socialists have been around for a long time. A lot of us came to socialism by searching for a word/term/phrase which would begin to express all of our concerns, all of our principles. The trouble with taking a label is that it creates an instant accusation of sectarianism. How does a socialist look at the world? Every socialist knows that capitalist society is characterized by inequality and this inequality arises from processes which are intrinsic to capitalism as an economic system. A minority of people (the capitalist class) own all the factories and resources,  which everyone else depends on in order to live. The great majority (the working class) must work out of sheer necessity, under conditions set by the capitalists, for the wages the capitalists pay. Since the capitalists make their profits by paying less in wages than the value of what the workers actually produce, the relationship between the two classes is necessarily one of irreconcilable antagonism. The capitalist class owes its very existence to the continued exploitation of the working class. What maintains this system of class rule is, which in the last analysis, means force. The capitalist class controls (directly or indirectly) the means of organised violence represented by the state – police, the courts and jails. Only by waging a class struggle aimed at the seizure of state power can the working class free itself, and, ultimately, all people. Socialists expose the myths about “democracy” to reveal a system of class domination that rests on forcible exploitation.

Socialists understand that, in its search for markets, capitalism is driven to penetrate every nook and cranny of social existence. Especially in the phase of  capitalism, the realm of consumption is every bit as important, just from an economic point of view, as the realm of production. So we cannot understand class struggle as something confined to issues of wages and hours, or confined only to workplace issues. The class struggle occurs in every arena where the interests of classes conflict, and that includes education, health, the arts, etc. We aim to transform not only the ownership of the means of production but the totality of social existence. At present, the capitalist class controls mass culture. Instead of collectivity and self-reliance as a class, there is mutual isolation and collective dependency on the capitalist class.

We are Marxist socialists, not petty reformers; we are socialists, not progressive liberals. If we are socialists, what are we actually fighting for? On the most basic level, socialism is a society dedicated to the interests of the working people where the means by which society produces its wealth – factories, mines, and farms – are no longer privately owned but is transferred to common ownership, and exploitation is eliminated. Socialism unleashes the creativity of the people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not labouring under a system of wage-slavery. Socialism can only be built if the majority of the people support it and are actively involved in building it. Socialists believe that the working class will transform society because it is the most dehumanised and alienated class, but is potentially the most powerful since the functioning and the survival of society depends on it.

The class antagonisms of capitalist society give birth to socialists in the struggle of the working class to free themselves from their capitalist exploiters by wresting from them the tools and machinery with which modern work is done. Only he or she is a socialist who perceives clearly the nature of the struggle and takes a stand squarely and uncompromisingly with fellow-workers in the struggle which can end only with the end of the capitalist system and the total abolition of class rule. We count everyone who is not with us and opposed to the capitalist class, as against us, especially those chicken-hearted “reformers” who are for everybody (especially themselves,) and against nobody. They are “socialists” for no other purpose than to emasculate socialism who  dare not offend their capitalist masters, for their rich rewards depend upon their treason of the working class. We have no patience with the frauds who come up with their quack remedies for the social ills of capitalism. A socialist is someone who believes that the wage system is slavery and that commercial competition is wasteful.

Humanity needs a socialist world

In the 19thC and early 20thC, the socialist movement knew better how to talk socialism. Nobody has ever come up with— or will come up with — any policy which will change the nature of capitalism. What workers get is exploitation and misery all the time, relieved occasionally by a boom but the worsened in recession. Those who doubt that capitalist society fails to satisfy the needs of the majority of people should look at the ways in which so many of our fellow-workers cherish remote hopes of escaping from their position in it. It is natural to want to break away from wage slavery. The chances are slim, but the likelihood that one’s subject position in the present order of things will continue without respite until one’s dying day is a dismal contemplation. How many dreams, we wonder, are based upon that lucky jackpot lottery ticket? This does not mean that we should not aim to get as much from capitalism as we can. All power to the unions! It does mean though that this approach to the satisfying of human needs is a limited one. It cannot solve the predicament with which human beings are faced in capitalist society. The fact is that the working class cannot opt out of the ill effects of capitalism without deciding to get rid of it. Reformers in spite of good intentions and with the best will in the world and the support of electors, have made plain the futility of trying to obtain beneficial results from a system that is basically harmful. Success for a few at the expense of failure for most is all that this profit-motivated system can offer. In the long run, the solution for the individual is the solution for mankind as a whole: to organise the world in accord with the needs of humanity.

The working class is not only held economic prisoner by the capitalist mode of production but it shackled by the frequently unperceived but overwhelming intellectual, social, political and cultural hegemony of the ruling class , which further strengthen the chains. Socialism is a method of understanding the world for the express purpose of changing it. Socialism shows how liberation can be won, not in fantasy by pious moral persuasion, but objectively and historically by class struggle and political action. The socialist movement will not advance significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism.  Only the revolution that replaces the class rule of the capitalists by the class rule of the workers can really establish democracy. Socialism as a class-free society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, certainly not a workers’ state with its monstrous bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority. Poverty is inevitable so long as capitalism exists, so long as the profit-economy reigns. Capitalism, greedily demands more and more profits. Only by overthrowing the system of capitalism will unemployment be done away with. The real job today is to spread the ideas of socialism, organise the workers in their own political party that will wipe out capitalism with its waste and be able to plan production and plenty for all.

The Socialist Party realises that only with a foundation of common ownership can society create the conditions for the betterment of human beings. The Socialist Party seeks a world where we can live in harmony and peace, where the interest of the individual is aligned to that of society as a whole. Let people remember that this is the system which causes their and other people’s problems will still be there. This economic system leads to slumps and wars and sets man against man in the struggle, not only to get to the top, but to avoid being shoved to the bottom. The competition for more things, higher status, greater power, will remain with the rest of its ill effects. The evidence of mental ill-health indicates the high number of people unable to cope with modern life. The inability or reluctance to face the facts of life in a class-divided, money-collecting system indicates the failure of the social organisation. Let us see it for what it is and consider the positive alternative that socialism offers. For the majority of people the lower portion of the social pyramid is where they must remain until society is changed. The important thing for workers is to recognise the need for such a change. To work for that end is the most worthwhile task of our time.

Hold High Our Red Banner

Why is the working class unable to use this recession of capitalism to make, or at least to prepare, for the road to socialism? It appears as if the acceptance of this capitalist society is a fact of life that the workers mostly no longer question. We socialists are up against the reality that another new generation has to be convinced afresh that socialism does, in fact, represent a better social system for people, that Marx’s idea of the eventual withering away of the state is not a pipedream, but a realistic sketch of the future state of human society. To produce a new socialist movement it is as necessary to re-educate a new generation. Only by intelligent debate and discussion and by cogent reasoning and intelligent reasoning and demonstration can we hope to convince them. It is impossible to blindly stumble into socialism. It will have to be organised and directed by the people themselves with, at their command, all the theory, knowledge, resources, and lessons accumulated by the world working class. Its know-how and organisation in politics and action must match and surpass that of its enemies. The socialist revolution consists of an entire process, on a global scale. Nothing less than the fate of humanity hinges upon the self-emancipation of the working class.

The Socialist Party is a revolutionary political organisation which seeks to educate the workers in order that they may organise to combat capitalism in every field of its activity. We emphatically insist that capitalism’s control of the political machine must be challenged at the ballot box. Capitalism is a social system which breeds conflicts. It is a seething jungle of struggles wherein individuals, classes, nations, and empires fight against each other. Individual wage-earners vie with each other for jobs; capitalists outbid one another for markets; classes struggle against each other in the economic and political arenas, and nations are prepared to wipe each other off the map for the sake of imperial conquest. But the struggle, international in its extent, which looms larger than all others, is the conflict between capital and labour. In this struggle, the former fights with ability and consciousness of aim, while the latter fights with great confusion and without a knowledge of its own strength. Because the political weapon is used by the capitalist class against labour, and because the political State is a machine to maintain class rule, there are some who contend that working class political action is futile. The task of socialists, therefore, is to educate and assist the transfer of power from capitalists to working-people.

The Socialist Party declares that as political power is used by the capitalists to enforce its economic power, for that very reason the workers must meet the capitalist class on the political field. The Socialist Party takes the political field with one plank upon its programme—Socialism. It emphasises that only socialists must vote for its candidates. The Socialist Party is a weapon of class struggle in the hands of the working class, transforming their consciousness into a material force for the capture of state power. If we turn towards the future, we must grasp the fact of that often misconstrued conception “the dictatorship of the proletariat” simply means the democratic rule of the overwhelming majority, which means that the people themselves take the running of society into their own hands and control it in their own interests. The aim of socialism is truly in accord with the sentiment for democracy and liberty. Socialists work towards the development of democratic rights to a degree never achieved under capitalism.

Capitalism is solely a profit-making system. The capitalist has no interest in the useful quality of the goods produced in his factory; the only thing that interests him is their selling quality because profit is only realised after commodities are sold. Thus it matters nothing to the capitalist what the nature of the commodity his capital is producing, or in what part of the world it is produced. The first and last essential of production for the market is profit. Capitalism reduces the worker to the same category as other merchandise to be bought and sold on the world’s markets. He or she is a commodity. He or she is a wage slave.

With socialism we have the basis for a complete emancipation of men, women and children as the government over persons is transformed into the administration of things. Goods are no longer sold for a market but are produced for use. There being no class struggles, there is now no need for a State, and the State withers away. When all the wants of life easily can be easily obtained, the cause for crime disappears and so police disappear. The essence of the State is its function of coercion but inside a socialist society the less is the exercise of this function required. The disappearance of coercion was just what Marx and Engels meant by ‘the withering away of the state’.  Socialist revolution will accomplish the elimination of classes, class divisions and class contradictions, and the elimination of social and political inequality. Socialism means the ending of exploitation of man by man, a society without class antagonisms, in which the people themselves control their means of life and use them for their own happiness. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism. Neither Marx nor Engels taught that the nationalisation of the forces of production by the State signified the establishment of socialism. That’s not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. Such nationalisation is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. In rejecting such “socialism”? fellow-workers show their sound common sense.

Quotes from Martin Luther King

"You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry ... Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism."

"The movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, who owns the oil? You begin to ask the question, who owns the iron ore? You begin to ask the question, why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water? These are questions that must be asked."

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing'-oriented society to a person- oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

"The dispossessed of this country the poor, the white and Negro live in a cruelly unjust society, they must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty."

The Law Ain't Neutral Buddy

A recent study of self-service checkout technology in the U.S., Canada and some European countries, concluded that it turns law-abiding citizens into petty thieves by giving them "ready made excuses" to take merchandise without paying for it.

The use of self-service lanes and smart-phone apps caused a loss of 4%, more than double the average, given that the profit margin among European grocers is 3%, the technology is a non-profit venture.

What the report failed to mention is the money the companies save by not paying wages to the workers that the technology has made redundant.

One million shopping trips were audited, amounting to six million items checked. 850,000 were found not to have been scanned.

Proving intent and deciding whether to press charges can be a legal and Customer Relations minefield, the report noted.

Shoppers claimed the technology was faulty, there were problems with the bar codes, or they didn't know how to use the check out facilities. The behaviour is termed "neutralizing your guilt", but, there's one thing that ain't neutral buddy - the law itself. It is the capitalists' law that exists to protect their interests, which includes keeping the wealth they've stolen from the working class who created it. 

As for workers, supposedly stealing in check-out lanes - we socialists hope you get away with it. 

John Ayers.

The Socialist Party vision for global human emancipation

"The liberty of opinion is the most sacred of all liberties, for it is the basis of all . . ." Ernest Jones, Chartist

Socialism does not aim at making people slaves of governments, but to get rid of all governments other than the ‘self-government’ of free citizens. Socialism is the recognition and adoption of the principle and practice of association as against isolation, of co-operation as against competition, of concerted action in the interests of all, instead of “dog-eat-dog” Socialism saddles upon each of us the responsibility of being our “brother’s keeper.” If a child, woman or man is hungry, socialism says there is something wrong in our social system, and upon us rests the responsibility of righting the wrong. If one family dwells in a slum, socialists say let us raze the slum to the ground and build decent homes for people to live in. If men and women are overworked from toil and drudgery, and so prevented from fully sharing in the joys of life, socialism tells us to end the toil and see to it that every man and every woman shall have a fair share of all that makes life worth living. Socialism means the complete end of the present capitalist system. Therefore those who do not believe in the necessity for and the justice of the total socialisation of the means of production should not call themselves socialists. We declare that the present capitalist system is based upon the legalised robbery of the wealth producers by the land-lords, the industrialists, and financiers, and the undoubted object of socialism is to get rid of these monopolists as speedily as possible. Among socialists, there may be differences of opinion as to the particular kind of tactics, political and economic for the realisation of socialism, but no genuine socialist would disagree with that object as stated. Socialism is the full realisation of the collectivist ideal, where not only will the means of wealth production be co-operatively owned by the people, but when there will be no regimentation or any dictatorial ruling class of the kind we have knowledge of today when even parliaments will disappear. Socialists desire a free state of society wherein exploitation will be impossible and minus armies of officials or parliamentarians. There is an alternative: that of adequately supplying the needs of all. A future where the world is to be co-operative, and not competitive.

William Morris describes socialism:

“…the centralised nation would give place to a federation of communities who would hold all wealth in common, and would use that wealth for satisfying the needs of each member, only exacting from each that he should do his best according to his capacity towards the production of the common wealth. Of course, it is to be understood that each member is absolutely free to use his share of wealth as he pleases, without interference from any, so long as he really uses it, that is, does not turn it into an instrument for the oppression of others. This view intends complete equality of condition for everyone, though life would be, as always, varied by the differences of capacity and disposition…”

The object of the Socialist Party is to secure economic freedom for the whole community, by that we mean all men and all women shall have equal opportunities of sharing in wealth production and consumption. Humanity cannot by any possibility remain in its existing chaotic economic condition. When we can expect to see socialism realised would be speculation and no socialist possesses a crystal ball for predictions. The Socialist Party works towards the defeat and the overthrow of the rule of the capitalist class over our lives, our society, and our world. We work for social equality and the radical transformation and/or abolition of oppressive institutions by the thorough democratisation of society. We seek to unite the many against the few with the inspiring vision of global human emancipation. The Socialist Party strives to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless across our world to foster courage, trust, and solidarity amongst those who have been beaten down by the current system, to turn our collective weakness into our strength. The Socialist Party aspires towards exposing capitalism before it poisons the planet to the point where it is unlivable. As socialists, we are citizens of the world. Our roots are in our communities and in our workplaces.

Capitalism is to be condemned

 The contradictions of life under capitalism have engendered deep-rooted feelings of frustration. The wealth pouring from the factories and the farms has not assured many of prosperity nor offered security about the future prospects. Instead, of an expected welcome release from burdensome toil, the prospects of automation and robots have become a source of anxiety, producing the threat of chronic unemployment and the spectre of a new recession to follow, rather than the promise of peace and plenty. No wonder people feel alienated.

The most pressing need facing humanity is to progress from the anarchy of capitalism to the planned economic system of socialism. The price to pay for delaying this task will be more poverty, increasing hunger, mounting disease and continuing wars. To these has now been added the climate change and global warming which could make all the higher forms of life extinct. Under the impulse of intolerable pressures the working class have repeatedly initiated struggles pointing in the socialist direction but to no avail, having stopped short of actually overthrowing and replacing capitalism.  It has now become almost a life-and-death question for people of the world to construct the socialist alternative to capitalism.

Socialism will only be achieved by emerging from the struggle against capitalism when the majority of the people create democratic organs that take into their hands the means of production and subject them to democratic planning. We either learn how to live a humane and harmonious way with one another and the environment around us, or we shall not live at all. The fundamental source of resistance to life under capitalism is the working class alienation. If an academic can show that alienation can be done away with under capitalism, that workers will no longer resist their conditions of life and work, then he demonstrated the end of the working class as the force for social change. But no matter how many times we re-define capitalism it does not get rid of the presence and importance of the working class. The working class has to look beyond capitalism. A socialist is one who, having investigated the causes of present-day social discord, decides that these causes are found in the private ownership of the means of wealth production and who therefore endorses the necessity for a co-operative commonwealth and common ownership in order to eliminate private or sectional monopoly, and secure the advantages for the whole people. For sure some reformists express a certain amount of sympathy with the idea of socialism, when all that is intended by them is a kindly feeling towards those in poverty, but by no means do they endorse the collective ownership and control of the land, mines, minerals, machinery and transport, without which no one can be a socialist. By common (or collective) ownership is meant ownership of the whole people, ie the raw material and machinery of production to become the property of the public, and industry to be regulated by experts in the common interest, and the workers engaged in the less pleasant or more arduous kinds of work would probably work fewer hours on a rotational basis than those in the more agreeable occupations.

Once again then, socialism (or social democracy) involves the transfer from present day private ownership to common ownership of all those agencies of wealth production necessary for supply of life’s necessaries for the whole people. The fact is that private ownership of the means of wealth production fails most lamentably to provide all the people with the necessities of life. The fact with private enterprise there are children by the million who never experience healthy conditions. The first and only item of importance to the capitalists is to obtain profit, never for securing public welfare.  

Of course, some individual capitalists may be well disposed towards the community and possess what they call Christian charity but they are competing in the world’s market against all other capitalists in the same trade also seeking a share of the market; to compete effectively, they must place the commodity on the market as cheaply as, or cheaper than, other competitors. In order to do this, they must ever have regard to cheapening the cost of production, and the bed-rock policy pursued in purchasing raw material to be worked up into the finished commodity, and also in the purchase of labour force, is to purchase as cheaply as possible and sell as dearly as possible. Therefore they keep wages down to the lowest possible margin, there is not an exception to this rule; it does not follow that an employer will necessarily be ever trying to reduce the wages of the men, there are two conditions generally operating to make that difficult, the one is the organised power of the workers to resist encroachments of the kind, and the other is that generally speaking men who receive the best wages are really the cheapest producers, but what the capitalist ever aims at is paying as wages of the lowest proportion possible of the total product of the factory. In short, as Karl Marx long ago explained, the capitalist is always after the “surplus” ie that the largest possible amount of the total value produced in the establishment shall come to him as profits, and therefore that the least possible should be absorbed as wages, expenses of management and general upkeep of the establishment.

It necessarily follows that each group of capitalists is continually on the lookout to save wages, and therefore every new device in the way of what is termed labour saving, which is really wages saving machinery is made use of and the result is that there is a constantly diminishing proportion of the total produce of labour going in the form of wages to those who perform the total labour and a constantly increasing proportion of output going as profit to the capitalist. Not a trade can be named but confirms this contention. That is not the worst phase of the matter. It will be seen that with the ever increased power to produce commodities the market is stocked with increasing ease, and by men who have been engaged in producing serviceable commodities producing so very much more than they receive in wages and therefore more than they consume, the markets are glutted, and these same men are thrown into the ranks of the unemployed, not because they have failed to work effectively, but because they have produced so abundantly and consumed so little of it, they are therefore discharged and prevented from getting even a sufficiency upon which to live. This is the direct effect of private ownership of the means of production for the purpose of making profits for the capitalists, instead of working co-operatively in the common or public interest.

We socialists declare that the whole world bears witness to the truth of the statement as to the effects of production for profit for capitalists and that being so we declare the present system stands condemned. A more grossly unfair system than the present could not be devised.

Some opponents smugly declare that socialism has been tried many times in various countries and has “always proved a failure.” None of these attempts have been of a genuine socialist character. Every government that can be named has been brought into existence for the express purpose of maintaining the domination of the propertied class, and to keep under subjection the proletariat or propertyless class. So long as individuals belonging to the propertied and dominating section continue to exercise control and ownership of the means of production, and decide as hitherto they have ever decided the character of the law and the control of the judiciary, no country is ready for socialism. Socialism can only exist when the people collectively own the instruments and agencies of production and distribution untrammelled by sectional monopolistic power, wielded by a bureaucracy.

We Mean Socialism

The word “socialism” has been so misused for so long that it is well worth re-stating its basic principles. Socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. The Socialist Party comes before you as a body advocating the principles of socialism. We seek a change in the basis of society - a change which would end the distinctions of classes and nationalities. Socialism will mean real freedom.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, not to be confused with the Socialist Party of England and Wales (ex-Militant Tendency), can be dated back to the Social Democratic Federation from which it split in 1904. The SPGB has an inherently hostile attitude to "leadership" which predates the rise of Bolshevism and relates to their originating in a split with the Social Democratic Federation led by a certain H. M. Hyndman who was quite an authoritarian character by all accounts. An avowedly Marxist party, it eschews Leninism, nationalism and war. Its basic objective is:

“The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.”

This is to be achieved through democratic elections and presently prevailing institutions, an outcome which the SPGB admits is beyond its present capabilities at this point but which we seek to hasten through political activity and consciousness raising. The road to the new society had lengthened and become rather overgrown with weeds. Socialism, communism and capitalism are among the most misused words in the world. A clarification of terms is necessary for us if we are to obtain clear visions of the future.

Socialism would entail the free association of the world's people, with every associate a co-owner of the entire world's vast array of resources, natural and human made. The global community would collectively make decisions on matching their needs with available resources. This would mean the end of wage labour, i.e. the selling of one's ability to work in order to gain access to social wealth, an end to separate nations and enterprises, an end to money and all forms of exchange. Once such social relations were to mature, becoming an unconscious element of daily activity, earth would become a big commune, and its way of living would be known as communism.

Capital is a social relation, a relation between people expressed through things. Goods were exchanged in previous social systems although the scope of exchange was much more limited and its occurrence much less frequent. But in capitalism, labour power becomes a commodity, something to be bought and sold. Workers sell their available time in return for the money needed to reproduce themselves as workers. In return, those few who own or control the means of production and/or investment funds, be they corporate owners or state bureaucrats, obtain control over the workers' time and energy, and thus can require them to produce beyond their needs. The capitalists' control of the products means that by selling them, they can potentially draw a profit from the surplus (beyond expenses) which is thereby produced. Some of this profit is used for their own consumption and vital but unproductive expenses, such as running the government and keeping track of money. But profits are primarily for reinvestment in profit-making activity. This is how investments grow. And growth is capital's reason for living, its ultimate priority, even if growth requires war. Capitalism’s survival, as well as its potential overthrow, depend on the working class.

Our socialist theory of society is that:

1. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production.

2. The working class neither owns nor controls the means of production.

3. As a result, the working class lives by producing wealth for the capitalist class.

The working class accepts the necessity of its dependence upon the capitalist class for permission to work for it, to get wages from it, and to buy means of consumption from it in order to live. The working class rationally resigns itself to continuous exploitation under capitalism as a tamed dog rationally continues serving its master to survive off its master’s scraps.

Socialism means that the means of production are owned and controlled by society so that what is produced can be shared out according to people’s needs. Socialism is founded on the idea of equality. Production is for need, not profit. One central point is that state ownership is not socialism. Socialism will not mean government control. Nationalisation aims to reach compromises with and to make concessions to the working class while leaving the present system of capital and wages still intact and in operation: no number of merely administrative changes, until the workers are in possession of all political power, would make any real approach to socialism.  Socialism means that the wealth of society is spent on everyone.

The whole wealth of the capitalist system comes from the labour of workers. Without that labour nothing would function and no profits would accrue to the capitalists. Although we produce all the wealth of society, we have no control over its production or distribution. The people are treated as a mere appendage to capital - as a part of its machinery. To get those profits capitalists have always controlled workers in their workplaces and kept wages as low as they could. This creates degrees of bitterness and resentment. This often turns into feelings of solidarity. The Socialist Party aims  for the realisation of socialism and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all nations. For us neither geographical boundaries, political history, race, nor creed makes rivals or enemies; for us,there are no borders, but only fellow-workers whose mutual sympathies are perverted by groups of our masters whose interest it is to stir up rivalries and hatreds between those in different lands.

Whether or not socialism is destined to arise, the purpose of socialists consists of educating our fellow-workers, in making them aware of their class condition. To win for socialism the greatest possible number of supporters, that is the task to which socialist parties must concentrate their efforts, using all peaceful means.

Plants Not Found In The Palace Garden

On August 10th, the Toronto Daily Star reminded readers that it was the eight "Anniversary" of the explosion at the Sunshine Propane plant at Wilson and Keele - a blast that was heard ten kilometers away. 12,000 residents had to flee in what was described as a 'chaotic evacuation'. Over one hundred fire fighters battled the blaze. A fire fighter and a plant manager were killed. Dozens were injured and many houses were ruined. Investigators found Sunshine used to swap propane loads from truck-to-truck, instead of emptying it into a buried storage tank, then, having a second truck load up. This saved the company several minutes a load, and, in business, time equals money and to hell with the potential for danger.

The company and its two directors were convicted of nine charges relating to Environmental Damage and also, for not following Provincial Safety Orders. Six thousand residents near the plant won a $23 million lawsuit to compensate for their losses.

What was never said, was, that the plant, where there was an ever-present potential for danger, was in a working class neighbourhood. Can you imagine a propane plant next door to Buckingham Palace or the White House? 

 John Ayers.