On the road to socialism

The need for educating, agitating and organising to keep the issues clear cannot be over-emphasised. All too many liberals, radicals, intellectuals, and, what is far worse, the much greater numbers of rebellious workers resisting their sad lot in life—all these, sincere, earnest and devoted—have been washed in and out of the so-called socialist organisations and their fringes and in the entire process never did get an insight or an inkling as to what it is all about. The simplicity of the socialist case is buried by friends and foe alike in mountains of “day-to-day” ISSUES so that there never is and never can be time for them to become acquainted with socialism, i.e., the socialist case.

Politics for the workers is usually an exercise in futility. They choose between various capitalist candidates on the basis of a few televised debates, and hope for a law now and then in their favour. In times of social turmoil, most of them support candidates who re-assure them and promise to keep things normal. Having only a vague idea of their own interests, workers are swindled into accepting the best deal they can get from the capitalist parties. Time after time they scab on each other, smash their most militant political organisations, police and suppress the “radicals” among themselves who have begun to wake up, dilute their collective strength by using ethnic minority groups within their class as scapegoats, and fight and die in defence of the very property investments which exploit them. Then they are told that to vote for anything but a capitalist party is “unrealistic” because only capitalist parties can win elections.

The government is a class instrument, the means by which law is made and enforced. It regulates matters which concern the capitalist class as a whole, but which no one corporation or capitalist enterprise can manage by itself: law enforcement, taxation, foreign policies, and suppression of threats to the capitalist system from riots and strikes. The schools teach us that government mediates between classes and that they owe something to the government because it represents us. But no government, in a society made up of two classes with irreconcilable interests, can represent the interests of both classes. If it represents the interests of one class, then it is by definition suppressing the other. Either the government represents our employers, or it represents us. Either the government represents our employer, or it represents us. And since it protects our employers’ monopoly over the nation’s wealth, orders us to risk our lives in its defence, limits our right to strike and safeguards their right to exploit us, and maintains our cages for our “rehabilitation” in the event that we rebel against their authority, we should recognise that “law and order” in their mouths is just one more of the many frauds by which they remain in the seat of power.

The workers, in short, are a subject class. They are prevented from changing their position by their failure to see government as a class weapon. The interests of the working class, whatever their colour, are to find jobs, obtain decent living and working conditions, raise their wages, cling to their civil liberties, and ultimately, put an end to alienated work, take over control of society’s wealth and distribute it for their own benefit.  What constitutes being a socialist? Broadly speaking, it is one who realises that capitalism can no longer be reformed or administered in the interest of either the working class or society; that capitalism is incapable of eliminating its inherent problems of poverty, wars, crises, etc.; and that socialism offers the solutions for the social problems besetting mankind since the material conditions and developments—with the single exception of an aroused socialist majority—are now ripe for a socialist society. If an organisation or an individual or a “victory” supports the continuation of capital-wage labour relationships by advocating or organizing to administer an improved, bettered reformed status quo (capitalism) instead of coming out for the socialist revolution (a frightening word which only means a complete social-economic change) then—it is NOT socialist.

There are many who believe in socialism, but because it is so far in the future, they think it best to spend your energies in the reform movement. Multiply them by thousands upon thousands who have thought, and do think; in the same way. Had all these people spent one tenth of the time for socialism that they spent in fighting for reforms, the socialist movement today would indeed be a large one, and the bigger the socialist organization gets, the closer we are to socialism. Only if people see the need for socialism, and work actively for it, will we ever obtain socialism. On the other hand, if everyone who reaches a socialist understanding comes to the conclusion that socialism will never come about in his lifetime, this is this the best guarantee that we will never see socialism. Indeed, workers who admit they believe in socialism and then fight for reforms under the excuse the workers are not ready for socialism, are in an unexplainable contradiction. They really mean to say that they themselves are not ready for socialism. In not fighting for reforms but in expending all our energy in educating workers to socialism, we know we are at least on the road to socialism. This is our case for not advocating reforms at the same time we advocate socialism. We ask that you consider it.

Socialism - the administration of things

There are just two types of people in the world: the people who own property and the people who sell their ability to work to those property-owners.  Marx thought that was created for a good reason: to increase economic output. Capitalism, for all its evils, has created abundance. The cost, however, is a system in which one class of human beings, the property owners (in Marxian terms, the bourgeoisie), exploits another class, the workers (the proletariat). Capitalists don’t do this because they are greedy or cruel (though many may be). They do it because competition demands it. That’s how the system operates. Capitalism is a Frankenstein’s monster that threatens its own creators, a system that we constructed for our own purposes and is now controlling us. The only thing that can reverse things is political action aimed at changing systems that seem for many people to be simply the way things have to be. We invented our social arrangements; we can alter them when they are working against us.

We urge our fellow-workers to learn well the lesson of class hatred taught to them by the master class; let the toilers of the world steep themselves in a knowledge of the class war, and act always with that as their guide. No compromise; No quarter, politically and economically, must be our slogan. The poverty and misery of the working class is due to robbery and the remedy is to stop the thieves by ousting them, first from political, and then from economic power.

The class struggle embraces a multitude of matters. It takes place over wages and hours at work. It takes place over working conditions, safety, speedup, etc. It takes place over firings, penalties for being late and absent. The outlets of this struggle are numerous and varied. The official strikes, wildcat walk-outs, the sit-down, and the slow-down. Other forms exist. When the worker reaches up and flips the counter on his machine a few dozen times without increasing his production, when he turns in production figures beyond what he actually produced, when he spends half an hour beyond that time necessary to perform his biological functions, he is engaging in a struggle against those who exploit him. When he tightens up a nut, takes it off, and then puts it on again to kill time on the line, he is carrying on a struggle against his capitalist employers. When workers have grievances, these arise out of the fact that a class is seeking to make more profit from them. When workers have grievances for higher wages, these grievances stem from the fact that the workers must struggle for their standard of existence against the class which seeks to keep wages down.

A school of thought believes economic action can be used as a lever to push the workers along a political road, towards their “emancipation.” How is this possible if the workers do not understand the political road, and are only engaging in economic struggles? The answer is that “leaders in-the-know” will direct the workers, much as a guide-dog steers a blind person. But these leaders can also lead the workers in the wrong direction, toward the wrong goals (nationalisation and state capitalism), as the workers later find out to their sorrow. The Socialist Party approach of education – rather than the non-socialist approach of leadership – is much better. Through education, it can be pointed out to the workers that strikes and go-slows arise out of the nature of capitalism, but that they are not the answer to the workers’ problems. These economic struggles settle nothing decisively because in the end the workers still wear the chains of wage slavery. It is the political act of the entire working class to eliminate the exploitative relations between workers and capitalists which can furnish a final solution.

Is not this giving leadership to the workers, to point these things out? In a sense it is, but it is a leadership of a different type. It is not the non-socialist leadership of a minority which knows (or thinks it knows) where it is going over a majority which does not know where it is going and merely follows the minority. It is the socialist “leadership” of educating workers to understand the nature of both capitalism and socialism, so that, armed with this understanding, the workers themselves can carry out the political act of their own emancipation. The non-socialist leadership is based on lack of understanding among the workers. The socialist leadership is based on understanding among the workers. This is the lesson of all the expressions of class struggle among the workers. These struggles can be used as a means of educating workers to the real political struggle – socialism. They should not be used as a means to gain leadership over the workers or to lead them along a political path they do not understand.

Many different and competing radical groups identify different incompatible societies as 'socialist'. The aim of the socialist movement is not a workers' state or a proletarian dictatorship.  It is the abolition of all classes in the human community created through anti-capitalist struggle. A socialist movement ends wage labour and abolishes itself as a class, with all other classes, creating a world human community. There are just two types of people in the world: the people who own property and the people who sell their ability to work to those property-owners.  Marx thought that was created for a good reason: to increase economic output. Capitalism, for all its evils, has created abundance. The cost, however, is a system in which one class of human beings, the property owners (in Marxian terms, the bourgeoisie), exploits another class, the workers (the proletariat). Capitalists don’t do this because they are greedy or cruel (though many may be). They do it because competition demands it. That’s how the system operates. Capitalism is a Frankenstein’s monster that threatens its own creators, a system that we constructed for our own purposes and is now controlling us. The only thing that can reverse things is political action aimed at changing systems that seem for many people to be simply the way things have to be. We invented our social arrangements; we can alter them when they are working against us.

All socialists who can be considered to have any claim to that title agree in putting forward the necessity of transforming the means of production from individual into common property. Socialism is a society without money, without a state, without property and without social classes. People come together to respond to some need of the human community and engage in collective activity that does not involve wages and the exchange of its products. The circulation of goods is not accomplished by means of exchange: quite the contrary, the by-word for this society is "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".  Productive activity will no longer be tied to the idea of ownership, but to an awareness of satisfying human needs. The creation of new social relations between people will lead to a very different human activity and so it must be understood that production will not simply be what it is today only without money. This new organisation of productive activity will not eliminate the need to estimate the needs and possibilities of the community at any given time. But these will no longer be reduced to a common denominator measured according to a universal unit. It will be as physical quantities that they will be counted and will interest people. "Consumers" will not be able to apportion blame to "producers" for any imperfections in what has been made by invoking the money they have paid, since none will have been given in exchange. We socialists do not recognise any particular part of the wealth produced as being due to the capitalist but contend that all wealth is produced by the labourers, and they, and they only, have a right to it.

With socialism the government of people gives way to the administration of things. The state is the defender of the dominant class. Capitalism, we are often told, can be made green. Incentives can be established. The corporations previously leading the way in pollution, plunder, and exploitation can, with a few adjustments, become the world's leaders in the development of clean energy and pave the way to a sustainable future. The truth is that the relentless pursuit of profit is incompatible with a world in which natural resources need to be stewarded and used with all the necessary care. Under capitalism, everything is a business opportunity.  The subtitle of Naomi Klein's book, ‘This Changes Everything’, notes, "capitalism versus the climate" and capitalism is winning. Extreme weather events are not viewed by business leaders as problems to be solved; rather, they are seen as circumstances of which they must take advantage.

Remove the masters of death

Capitalism is unpredictable and there is presently the sound of war-drums in the air, in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the South China Seas and in the Arctic. The world is in an economic slump also.

Socialism/communism, production for use and not for sale, abolition of the wages system, has never been tried to fail. All we have ever have been variants of capitalism. Capitalism cannot be reformed in this way except for brief periods if it proved useful for the ruling class. Capitalism depends on poverty (absolute or relative). How else will we present ourselves for waged slavery exploitation for the surplus value wealth only workers create? The end of the ruling class by the last great emancipation, that of the wage slave and the introduction of production for use, will end the necessity for the war machines.

"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor." Said Voltaire

War is not some natural event, but a consequence of a social system, where intense competition for raw materials , trade routes or geo-political interests are threatened by other members of a global minority parasite capitalist class. The capitalist social system and its bloodstained ethos of, primarily of individual accumulation of riches for the minority capitalist class, can be replaced by a classless commonly owned society of production for use. One where all human needs are met and access to them is free, where raw materials are shared and not owned, where the world is organised locally, regionally and globally by all its people with no elite vital interests.

The organising tenet of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs", will send capitalism's twin horrors of war and poverty to the dustbin of history. There are probably enough buildings in London to house everybody, certainly enough so that nobody need be homeless or live in accommodation without basic amenities. The problem with housing is same with anything else it is a commodity produced for sale on the market with a view of realising a profit. Because housing is produced for profit there is no possibility of a rational approach to housing within capitalism. As Engels pointed out as long ago as 1872:

‘As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution of the housing question or of any other social question affecting the fate of the workers. The solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation of all the means of life and labour by the working class itself’ (The Housing Question).

Immigrants are fellow workers and are equally victims of the housing shortage problem as anyone else, not the cause of it. We workers are not a nation. The nation state is the collective arm of the capitalist class and the referendum had damn all to do with workers but represents a division in the interests of rival capitalist groups. Workers have more in common with fellow workers worldwide than with their local or global capitalist class.

We need 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. Our business needs to become that of ending business and the ruthless competition which leads to war. The end of the ruling class by the last great emancipation, that of the wage slave and the introduction of production for use, will end the necessity for the war machines. You can't say "Not in my name" when it is civilians, but it's OK for fellow workers in uniform, who have been coerced into fighting their masters' battles are killed. Voting for a capitalist political party is voting for poverty absolute or relative and war by proxy by deed as business by other means as suppliers from the masters of death, the capitalist class as a whole upon whose interests all wars are fought. The 'tax payer' in whose interests all war is fought, for raw materials, markets, spheres of geo-political interests, is not a member of the working class, but of the global parasitic capitalist class. Taxation is a burden upon the capitalist class levied upon their profit. The weapons will always be in the wrong hands while we have capitalism.

Selling to the highest bidder is 'normal' and moral market behaviour in an aggressive competitive capitalist social system. The morality of it is determined by the accumulative economic and/or strategic outcome for the capitalist class engaged upon it. These are all upstanding 'moral' good guys and gals whose governments approved the conducted war science upon civilians of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is the social system which requires to be revolutionised into a human centred, commonly owned, production for use, cooperative world. The ethical behaviour and morality which proceeds from this will surely be different to the ones which presently prevail. All we need is a majority who are politically aware of those facts and conscious of the necessity of their shared role with fellow-workers worldwide, in bringing the post-capitalist society into being.

We don't need leaders.

We are not sheep.

Workers have no country

We have a world to win

Wee Matt

Against nationalism and nationalisation

We the working class create the wealth of society. But we do so only for the profit of the bosses on terms dictated by them. As workers, we are forced to work long hours in conditions which endanger our physical and mental health. We have no control over what we produce, how it is produced or what it is used for. Every aspect of our lives is dominated by the need for money. The working class is the dispossessed class. We depend on selling our labour power to the bosses. But since labour power, as a commodity is bought and sold like any other commodity, the bosses can refuse to buy it when it is no longer required. Ever greater numbers of our class are denied even the "privilege" of wage labour and forced to rely on state handouts.

The idea that state capitalism is or could be beneficial to the working class is still a powerful force holding back the class struggle. Nationalisation of industry is a state capitalist measure which offers no benefits whatsoever either to the workers employed there or to the working class as a whole. In mixed economies, nationalisation - like privatisation - has been a common method of carrying out wholesale industrial restructuring. In 19th century Europe, nationalisation was used to help develop "infrastructure" (railways, post, credit....) Nationalisation played an important role in the reconstruction of economies devastated by the Second World War. It ensured that capital was invested where it was most needed. At the moment, however, the priority is to increase competition in the labour market, and privatisation is proving an efficient means to this end.

For the bosses who own and control the means of production, all production has a single aim: profit. Nothing is produced unless it can be sold profitably, however much it may be needed. For the sake of profit mountains of food are destroyed. Resources are denied for basic health care. The houses and cities we live in are allowed to decay. Instead, resources are devoted to arms and armies1 so that the bosses can send us into war against rival profiteers. None of this would happen in a rationally organised society. It is the outcome of a society propelled by the lust for profit. For all these reasons the working class has no interest in the continued existence of this society. Bosses throughout the world are united in their ferocious opposition to our struggles. The working class must unite against them.

Nationalism is only one of the many reactionary forces which at present divide and weaken the working class. The nation state is the political organisation of capitalism. With socialism, nation states will disappear. As socialists ,we oppose every attempt to rally the working class to the cause of nationalism whether in the name of "national liberation" or the "defence of freedom and democracy. We call on the working class to oppose all wars between rival capitalist states by taking up and intensifying the class war against capitalism in all its forms.' against all governments and bosses, black and white, "socialist" and conservative. National liberation is no solution. In the 19th century, some liberation struggles led to the creation of new nation states which played a dynamic role in the development of world capitalism. This is no longer possible. Today, the new rulers may achieve a measure of political independence from the great powers but they can never free their country from the grip of the world economic crisis. For the working class in these countries "liberation" simply means exchanging one set of bosses for another - the new ones as violently opposed to working class struggle as the old ones.

The organisation of socialist society will be based or the collective 'administration of things', not on the political power of a ruling minority over the majority. The State, which throughout history has been the organisation of ruling class power, will have been abolished. Socialism is fundamentally a struggle to replace competition by cooperation, production for profit by production for need. This will make it possible to redevelop the large areas of the world devastated by capitalism, and to institute a system of global planned production. A socialist society such as we envisage is only possible on the basis of material abundance. The potential for this has already been created by the development of capitalist industry and agriculture. Goods will be freely available and free of charge. Money will disappear. However, socialism will not be like a huge supermarket where passive individuals simply help themselves. Work will be done because we want it to be done and want to do it - not because we have to in order to survive. The focus of interest in our lives will shift away from passively consuming, to include the new form of productive activity. This does not mean that overnight all productive activities will become passionately interesting... but a free society will strive to make them so by continually transforming the aims and methods of production. There will no longer be a mad scramble to exploit resources without concern for the future, or a rush to buy the "latest model" for prestige status and conspicuous consumption which gives the illusion of prosperity. The separation between work and leisure will disappear. People will freely associate to creatively use and transform their lives, by creatively using and transforming goods, activities and the environment, in an attempt to satisfy all our developing needs and desires. Community and communication will emerge in this common project: people will no longer be mere objects in the production process. The essence of socialism is the passionate transformation of the world and of ourselves, in the creation of a world human community.

Our role in the Socialist Party is, through our propaganda, to agitate, to publicise, to support and encourage in today’s struggle all tendencies which help lead to the spread of revolutionary ideas and a revolutionary spirit within the working class.

THE REVOLUTIONARY ALTERNATIVE TO THE LEFT

Most people think that the Left is the movement of the working class for socialism. Nothing could be further from the truth. It does seem to be about supporting the struggle of the workers, but when you look more closely into it one of the main features of the Left is supporting liberal capitalist parties such as the Labour Party or the Democrats in America.  The Left will also routinely advocate support for certain weaker, e.g. "third world” countries - meaning the governments of nation states, against stronger ones i.e. Western Powers. This is described as anti-imperialism as though the victory of the weaker country would do more than slightly alter the ranking of states within the world imperialist pecking order. Imperialism is a historical stage of capitalism and opposing it, as opposed to opposing capitalism itself via working class revolution, is meaningless. Then there is a common form of "radical" nationalism consisting of supporting so-called "national liberation movements", such as the PLO and the IRA, both who now exercise state power on behalf of their antagonist. Often it is argued, even if one disapproves of nationalism, that nevertheless nations have a right to self-determination, and one must support this right. An example of double-talk. The working class should not talk about its rights but about its class interest. Talking about a right to national "self-determination" (as though a geographical grouping of antagonistic classes can be a "self") is like saying that workers have a right" to be slaves if they want to. Siding with the working class against all capitalist factions necessitates opposing all forms of nationalism whatsoever. Last but not least, is the advocacy of the leadership of "revolutionary left" over the working class This division between a mass of followers and an elite of leaders mirrors the divide in mainstream capitalism (and indeed all forms of class society) between rulers and ruled, and serves well the project of constructing state capitalism, after the future revolution.

None of this means that socialists expect that all workers will come simultaneously towards revolutionary ideas, because to begin with only a minority will be revolutionaries, but their task is to argue their case with the rest of their fellow workers as equals. What the Left do, however, is to perpetuate the sheep-like mentality workers learn under capitalism and harness it to their aim to be in charge after the “revolution”. We say that if anyone is in charge, if the working class does not lead itself and consciously build a new society, then it will fare no better than in Russia and China and all the rest did. We believe that all left-wing groups, whether Stalinist or Trotskyist (or Maoist or whatever they call themselves) are merely radical capitalist organisations who, if they ever came to power, would erect new state-capitalist dictatorships in the name of the very working class they would then proceed to crush. This is not a matter of the subjective intentions of their members, whose sincerity we are not questioning here, but the objective result of their policies.

All the confusion created by the Left cannot hide forever the fact that since the time capitalism began there has been a real movement for a new and genuinely human way of life, for a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle. This movement has emerged again and again. Each time it has been crushed, but only to re-emerge, perhaps years or decades later. In place of capitalist society with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of all. Production for profit will be replaced by production for pleasure. When the ruling classes are fully overthrown we will be free to take on the re-organisation of everything. We can then gather in public assemblies and at work-place meetings to discuss our real needs and desires. No more will people be compelled to be competitive with each other. All of us will be a co-owner of the entirety of the world's wealth and means of production, as well as sharing in the entire natural environment.

Planning and decision making will not be a separate or specialised occupation. It will be an integrated part of production and of life for everyone. For the day-to-day matters of running, for instance, a given factory, decisions will be made at assemblies of all those involved. But nobody's activities need be restricted to a given "job" or locality. There will no longer be a "work day." Nor a separate "leisure" time.

The Malthusian view of the world says that it cannot support each individual with adequate food, shelter etc. as its population grows and grows. This idea is still quite prevalent but socialists keep pointing out because of improved technology, the planet can indeed support a growing world population. Many environmentalists would like to envisage a predominantly rural society, having rightly identified urbanisation with shanty-towns and slums under capitalism and so desire a closer connection with nature. But does city life preclude this, and do we actually want a predominantly rural environment. It is certainly desirable to have less of a division between towns and country in technological and productive terms. We probably should have small factories and workshops in villages and already many seek increased city farming. Concentrations of people can imply cultural and lifestyle diversity and homes can possess architectural variety.

The Socialist Party stands for the creation of a world without states, classes, money and wages, where production will be undertaken for need not profit but to directly satisfy all human needs. Some people describe this as "utopian". In one sense this is true: such a society does not exist anywhere, and never has. But we reject this "utopian" label if it implies that our goal has no connection with present-day reality. Some organisations engage in the class struggle in order to recruit members to their party, with the aim of eventually becoming strong enough to seize power. We oppose such groups. We do not set ourselves up as generals, directing the rest of the working class into battle. A genuine and successful revolution can only be carried out by vast masses of working people consciously organising and leading themselves. Besides, in the unlikely event that such groups did succeed in seizing power, the likely outcome would be in a so-called "worker's state" (with them in power), in which we would find ourselves working for "socialist" bosses, being paid "socialist" wages, and so on. If they share our future goal at all - and in most cases, they don't - it is only as a distant mirage which continually recedes in the face of endless "transitional periods".

Let us be clear about this: the only way capitalism can be dismantled is for the working class to immediately abolish money and the market, and distribute goods according to need (albeit with scarce goods being rationed for a time if necessary). Those who argue that this cannot be done immediately are in fact arguing for retaining the very core of capitalist social relations - if that is done the revolution is as good as dead. We believe that, despite the obstacles put in its way by both Right and Left, the working class has the power to destroy capitalism for real, and create a society without classes, without the state, national boundaries, oppression or inequality. A society not based on money or other forms of exchange, but on collective ownership of, and free access to, all society's goods on the part of the whole of humanity. This society, which we call Communism or Socialism or Anarchism interchangeably, will be the first truly free society ever to exist. Our task in the Socialist Party is not to be leaders but to be part of the process of creation of a revolutionary working class movement that will put an end to our world's long history of oppression and exploitation, and begin the long history of the free, world human community to come.

As for the Left, they can take their "transitional demands," "cadre leadership" and "revolutionary self-sacrifice” -- and shove it up their respective rear-ends. There will be no commodity exchange and  no State and no religious mullahs or rabbis to decide our activities for us; no "national interest." 

To whom does the future belong?

We are not prophets and we must restrict ourselves to tracing, in only the broadest brush-strokes, the picture of a future socialist society. The Socialist Party is committed to inspiring a vision of an alternative way of living where all the world's resources are owned in common and democratically controlled by communities on an ecologically sustainable and socially harmonious basis. We believe such a society will no longer require money, markets, or states, and can only be established democratically from the bottom up without the intervention of politicians or leaders. We are a principled movement for radical change seeking a society of cooperation and solidarity. The members of the Socialist Party share a vision of the future society as a worldwide, class-free, state-free and market-free cooperative commonwealth, based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources in the interests of the whole community, with production directly for use. The Socialist Party seeks to establish a free society, which will render impossible the growth of a privileged class and the exploitation of man by man. The SPGB therefore, advocates common ownership of the land, industry and all means of production and distribution on the basis of voluntary co-operation. In such a society, the wage system, finance, and money shall be abolished and goods produced and distributed not for profit, but according to human needs. The State in all its forms, embodying the ruling class, is the enemy of the workers and cannot exist in a free, classless society.

Socialism is the movement of the working class towards a new society. Society at the moment is run in the interests by a powerful elite that controls the means of producing and distributing wealth. That production has become an end in itself. Without constantly seeking to expand, capital faces ruin. To avoid that ruin, capital seeks to produce more commodities all the time. The influence of the commodity spreads into more and more areas of our lives. Every aspect of our life, every minute of our day and night is fair game to capital. Everything we do is becoming subject to the commodity. In our everyday life,we passively watch this domination.

Socialism means the end to buying and selling. It means and end to working for employers. It means and end to the nations, states, and corporations that perpetuate and protect commodity production. It means production for use and distribution according to need. It will be a society based on the free association of the people who live in it. It will bring the end of racism, sexism, homophobia, environmental destruction and greed.

Reforms of capitalism have been going on as long as the system has been in existence. Some of the most significant of these have been the extension of the voting franchise, the introduction of the so-called "welfare state", nationalisation, and de-nationalisation, increased regulation by the state and de-regulation. While the material living conditions at least, of the populations of developed countries, have improved since the 19th and early 20th centuries, inequality in the U.K., for example, is now greater than it was 50 years ago, according to a recent government survey. Stress in the workplace and in many other aspects of society has certainly not decreased, rather the reverse. Such trends can be observed on a global scale. Additionally, rampant poverty in underdeveloped countries is as widespread as it ever was. Wars and environmental degradation continue. All of this clearly confirms the correctness of the socialist assertion that the present system CANNOT be reformed in the interests of the majority of people and of the environment, in any significant way. What we need is a complete alternative. Genuine world socialism, with common ownership, its production for human need and real democratic control is very much that alternative. The most important of capitalism's reforms have usually NOT achieved what they are supposed to have achieved and even when some very limited success has been gained, these so-called "gains" have often been either very limited, temporary or partially reversed. The "Welfare State" is an obvious example of this.

Paul Lafargue in his 1883 critique of the capitalist work ethic - 'The Right to be Lazy' realised that an alternative to the drudgery and grind of wage slavery had become a real possibility. Under a system common ownership and democratic control, people would be free to choose how they worked and how they consumed; instead of toiling to enrich the wealth of a tiny minority. In 1998 Ken Knabb put it this way:

'If a household gets a washing machine, you never hear the family members who used to do the laundry by hand complain that this “puts them out of work.”

But strangely enough, if a similar development occurs on a broader social scale it is seen as a serious problem — “unemployment” — which can only be solved by inventing more jobs for people to do.

Proposals to spread the work around by implementing a slightly shorter workweek seem at first sight to address the matter more rationally. But the absurdity of 90% of existing jobs is never mentioned. In a sane society, the elimination of all these absurd jobs (not only those that produce or market ridiculous and unnecessary commodities, but the far larger number directly or indirectly involved in promoting and protecting the whole commodity system) would reduce necessary tasks to such a trivial level (probably less than 10 hours per week) that they could easily be taken care of voluntarily and cooperatively, eliminating the need for the whole apparatus of economic incentives and state enforcement.'

A socialist society is characterised by the formula:

 “To each according to needs, from each according to abilities.”

The Socialist Party – A Voice for Change

All questions shall be answered. All confusion shall be eradicated.

Socialists are working for a different and better world. Are YOU fed up?

• Fed up with the failures of this dreary system

• Fed up with leaders and the false promises of career politicians

• Fed up with poor hospitals, poor schools, poor housing and a polluted environment

• Fed up with having to live on a wage that hardly pays the endless bills

• Fed up with serving the profit system and seeing poverty amidst luxury

What happens individually and locally depends mainly on what happens in the country and in the world. That is why socialists are working for a different world. But it can't happen unless you join us. The job of making a better world must be the work of all of us.

The world we want is a one where we all work together. We can do this. Co-operation is in our own interests and this is how a socialist community would be organised – through democracy and through working with each other.

To co-operate we need democratic control not only in our own area but by people everywhere. This means that all places of industry and manufacture, all the land, transport, the shops and means of distribution, should be owned in common by the whole community. With common ownership, we would not produce goods for profit. The profit system exploits us. Without it, we could easily produce enough quality things for everyone. We could all enjoy free access to what we need without the barriers of buying and selling.

Politicians blame our problems on the lack of money, but this is not true. Money doesn't build hospitals, schools, houses or a healthy environment. The things that make a good community can only be created by the work of the people. We have an abundance of skills and energy. If we were free from having to work for the profits of employers we would be able to work for the needs of everyone.

The profit system dominates our lives. It plagues us with bills. The rent and mortgage payments, council tax demands, the food, gas, electricity, phone bills. Money is used to screw us for the profits of business. If we don't pay, we don't get the goods or the service. Without the capitalist system, a socialist community would easily provide for all of its members.

The challenge now is to build a world-wide movement whose job will be to break with the failures of the past. It won't be for power or money or careers. It will work for the things that matter to people everywhere – peace, material security and the enjoyment of life through cooperation. This is the challenge that could link all people in a common cause without distinction of nationality, race or culture.

We in the Socialist Party reject the view that things will always stay the same. We can change the world. Nothing could stop a majority of socialists building a new society run for the benefit of everyone. We all have the ability to work together in each other's interests. All it takes is the right ideas and a willingness to make it happen.

Our call for your vote is to show support for the ideas of socialism. We make it clear we are not seeking to 'represent' anyone nor promising to do anything for anybody. We are not would-be leaders, just names, a legal requirement for standing in an election, for people to put an X against if they want a class-free, state-free, money-free world of common ownership and democratic control. At most, in the unlikely event of us being elected, we'd just be the mandated delegates, the messengers, of those who elected us, who would be convinced of the need to replace capitalism with socialism and would have instructed us to speak up for this. An SPGB candidate for election is a member who has accepted our Party rule that "Candidates elected to a Political office shall be pledged to act on the instructions of their Branches locally, and by the Executive Committee nationally".

The SPGB of today are not the socialist "party" that founding members once envisaged it becoming, i.e. the mass of the working class organised politically for socialism. At the moment, the SPGB are not much more than a propaganda society or educational club and can't be anything else (and nor should we try to be, on principle). Possibly, we might be the embryo of the future mass "socialist party" but there's no guarantee that we will be (and it’s more likely we may just be a contributing element). But it is such a mass party that will take political control via the ballot box, and since it will in effect be the majority organised democratically and politically for socialism, thus it will the majority, not the party as such as something separate from that majority, that carries out the socialist transformation of society. But who cares? As long as such a mass socialist party eventually emerges.

Without having any delusions of grandeur, we try to organise ourselves today in our small party in the same way we think that a mass socialist party should organise itself: without leaders and with major decisions being made democratically by a referendum of the whole membership ratifying decisions made by conferences of mandated delegates or by elected committees.

At some stage, for whatever reason, socialist consciousness will reach a 'critical mass', or in other words when militancy becomes the norm, at which point it will just snowball and carry people along with it. It may come about without people even giving it the label of socialist.

We have had the internal debate within the SPGB of the Big Bang theory put forward by some members. They argue that a growing socialist movement would have an economic impact on the operation of capitalism before the overthrow of the capitalist class and the formal establishment of socialism. Socialists would use their influence politically encouraging the growth of the non-monetary, voluntary sector of the economy and should be instrumental in developing support networks for cooperatives. The capturing of political power would merely be a mopping-up exercise, designed to dispense with the remaining capitalist areas of the economy. It was fully acknowledged during the ensuing discussions that the growth of the socialist movement would have profound and perhaps unpredictable impacts. The SPGB does not hold that the growth of the socialist movement will leave capitalism completely unchanged until a cataclysmic revolution occurs. But we cannot now predict in any meaningful way the various ways in which capitalism will change as socialist ideas spread, so we do not think it is possible or advisable to incorporate some version of these changes into our political position.

Not many in the SPGB will find fault with the assumption that all aspects of our daily life, from neighbourhood to work, will be re-organised democratically and acquiring control over the State is complementary to that. It has always been the Socialist Party position to be organised on the economic front as well as the political front so to ensure the smooth change-over of production and distribution from capitalism to socialism. Our case is that political organisation must precede the economic, since, apart from the essential need for the conquest of the powers of government, it is on the political field that the widest and most comprehensive propaganda can be deliberately maintained. It is here that the workers can be organised on the basis of socialist thought and action, not on sectional interests as in the situation of trade unions.

If some of our critics are correct in surmising that even with an upsurge of class-consciousness  only those who supported reforms would be elected then can we equally assume that sectionalism would plague the industrial front , that struggle would be based on self-interest since what you seem to be implying is that workers are not capable of surmounting the intellectual challenge of differentiating between reformist parties presenting palliatives for the continuance of capitalism and revolutionary socialist parties taking advantage of concrete situations to obtain beneficial reforms. Let’s not forget that the Impossiblist tradition does have some parliamentary experience from the past. The Socialist Party of Canada did get elected to state legislatures. When people want something and where elections exist they will organise to contest elections as well.

As recounted in Desmond Greaves's biography of James Connolly about what happened when Connolly left the De Leonist SLP of America (which was committed to using the ballot box) to join the IWW (which wasn't) he said:
“He was asked if he approved of its repudiating the principle of political action. He laughed, 'It will be impossible to prevent the workers taking it”

Connolly also said:

"I am inclined to ask all and sundry amongst our comrades if there is any necessity for this presumption of antagonism between the industrialist and the political advocate of socialism. I cannot see any. I believe that such supposed necessity only exists in the minds of the mere theorists or doctrinaires. The practical fighter in the work-a-day world makes no such distinction. He fights, and he votes; he votes and he fights. He may not always, he does not always, vote right; nor yet does he always fight when and as he should. But I do not see that his failure to vote right is to be construed into a reason for advising him not to vote at all; nor yet why a failure to strike properly should be used as a gibe at the strike weapon, and a reason for advising him to place his whole reliance upon votes." 

RETHINKING SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party does not claim that we know the road to socialism in all its completeness. We do say, however, to know the direction this road takes and have set our political compass accordingly. The Socialist Party has managed to keep its gaze upon the destination - a free, socialist future. Our confidence has been strengthened by the fact that it has remained true to its course and to the interests of the workingmen and women at a time when it counts – during times of war when others claiming the mantle of socialist lost sight of the goal. We did not back-track from our principles, we did not vacillate, we did not retreat an inch. And that is how we shall continue. We stand out from our fellow-workers only in our socialist convictions to fight for socialism night and day, on all occasions and in all places. Our determination to wage class war for a new age, for a society free of war and oppression, of exploitation and inequality, for world socialism, assures us the right to call ourselves the Socialist Party.

Great threats hang over mankind, but at the same time, the chances for revolution are becoming clearer and nearer. Decisive battles to assure humanity of its future, to abolish war and misery, are approaching. It is up to all of us to transform the enormous economic forces of capitalism into prodigious prosperity for all people. Fellow-workers need to organise under the banner of the world socialist revolution to prepare for victory. We must rediscover the essentials of socialist ideas and restore them to its rightful place at the head of political activities. In the old days, socialists put promotion of Marxist ideas at the head of their activities and we need a revival of this socialist practice and form study circles to discuss world events and Marxism. The dawn of socialism, created by the people, for the people, is rising on mankind’s horizon.

The fight for socialism is a hard fight, and many will desert it. They retreat to a belief in the indestructibility of the capitalist world order, concluding that the revolutionary struggle for socialism is not worthwhile and condemning their fellow men and women as inadequate and incapable of achieving socialism. They see only the power of the present-day and bow down before it. Yet to save humanity from the chaos breaking out all over the world workers must know the road to the socialist future and take it resolutely. Marxism is for the workers’ movement what a map is for an explorer – a great treasure. Those disillusioned individuals who spread their demoralisation are aimlessly lost but keep offering short-cuts with bogus solutions. They dissipate our attention in all directions, approving and applauding whatever is the flavour of the day on the political menu.

The Socialist Party seeks to organise the workers, into one PARTY OF LABOUR to take the political power of the State out of the hands of the privileged few and place in into the hands of those who will use it to establish common ownership. Such is our aim: such is Socialism. Our method is the political organisation at the Ballot Box. The Socialist Party will assist in giving force, clearness and effectiveness to the working class movement and pledges itself to pursue, unfalteringly and undeviatingly, our objective – common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. 

Socialist Education

"The International shall be the human race."

The message of socialism is it promises to destroy the political, social and economic disadvantages imposed upon mankind. Socialism has gotten a bad name. Labourites defined their socialism only in terms of nationalisation. In Russia, a society calling itself socialist was a monstrous tyranny, where the workers were exploited every bit as cruelly as anywhere else. The liberating element of socialism was dismissed as utopian.  Many of our friends and colleagues remain aloof from the Socialist Party because the goal seems so far off and unattainable. For us in the Socialist Party, socialism is not some workers’ paradise in a distant and unimaginable future. We cannot forecast the date of the revolution. There are so many questions which it is quite futile to try to answer in advance by producing a detailed blueprint. There is, for example, no point in attempting to draw up any such plans. The reality of socialism will differ from any possible projection of it. But some of the seeds of the new society have been already sown and the struggle against the old one has already begun. The class struggle cannot be abolished or postponed under capitalism. When people take up the struggle for socialism, they need to know what they are fighting for, at least in general terms.

 Socialists have no illusions about the speed with which they may be able to achieve significant progress in the fulfilment of our aims. But it is reasonable to assume that there is a constituency which can be won over to socialist cause and that this constituency will grow as capitalism shows itself increasingly incapable of coping with the unfolding crises which it produces. Socialists will use the existing constitutional process, by means of a combination of electoral and extra-parliamentary activism. Socialists will not concern themselves with getting this or that policy passed but with changing the apparatus of the state. The capitalists always defend their class interests. If workers do not fight as a class, the capitalists will always triumph.

The diagnosis of a disease does not cure the disease. The mere voicing of complaints changes nothing. Democracy and solidarity, freedom and equality must be the fundamentals of socialist education. We teach the co-operative commonwealth, in which there shall be neither master nor servant, neither rich nor poor.

The Socialist Party, part of the World Socialist Movement, invites you to join its fight for working-class emancipation and socialist freedom. World socialism is the recognition of the reality of the modern world. It proceeds from the fact that the economy of modern society is a world-unit requiring international cooperation and division of labour for the further development of the productive forces. The class struggle arising from the class division between workers and exploiters within the countries requires class unity of the workers on a global scale. From its very beginning, socialism has called for the collaboration of the workers in the different countries in order that each might contribute their strength to world cooperative action. The Communist Manifesto called for common efforts of the workers in all countries for the common goal of workers' emancipation. 

“To escape its wretched lot,” wrote Bakunin “the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are drink and the church, the third is the social revolution.” And the social revolution, we never weary of declaring, is at hand. 

Just as the petty states, principalities and duchies divided Europe under feudalism has given way to centralized national states such as Germany and Italy in order to create a broader arena for the development of the productive forces, so, in the same way, the artificially divided national states have to give way to the federation of states as we see with the European Union trading bloc. In the future course of development, this must lead eventually to a world federation operating as a one world economy without class and nationalistic divisions. Socialists are the champions of this idea of internationalism, renouncing the ideas of nationalism. Forsaking popularity, the Socialist Party has always stood against patriotism, xenophobia, and national chauvinism and can show an unsullied record opposing all wars. Our fellow-workers have to live in the class-ridden system with its state power, and their wills are restricted by the limitations imposed but nevertheless, within their own organisations they can build a community of democracy – The Socialist Party, honestly striving towards equality and liberty. We do not rely upon the politics of parliamentary legislation. We do not trust our economic security to the good intentions of the possessing class. We have our own political weapons that we control. The working class must achieve its own salvation. It must develop its own social intelligence. Our aim is simply the education of the workers in the interests of the workers. This movement on behalf of independent working-class education is world-wide. Our aim is making fellow-workers completely conscious of what they want and evoking in them the thought that corresponds to their impulses. If once the thoughts of the labouring masses have mounted to the level of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their power irresistible. Socialist education will be the midwife of the social revolution. Our ways and means are: to arouse the interest, concentrate the intelligence, stimulate the will. Without these three precepts, nothing can be done. With them, all difficulties will vanish.

Make capitalism a memory

“I’m not arguing there are no decent people in the Tory Party...But they’re like bits of sweetcorn in a turd; technically they’ve kept their integrity but they’re still embedded in shit."  - Ian Banks, The Quarry

Our type of revolution is a democratic one, using capitalism's Achilles heel of democracy to remove ownership and control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, as commodities for a market for the profit of the few, 1-5% of the global population, from a parasitic minority class and making ownership and control, common for all of us wealth producers 95-99%, by producing for use with free access and wages and prices abolished. Real socialism in other words.

Most people have not heard of this, so you can't know want they want. Socialism is a post-capitalist society so it will seem alien at first. Just as capitalism must have seemed strange in feudal times. But nothing will stop an idea which time has come. The task of creating the socialist, post-capitalist, production for use, free access, a commonly owned world is that of the working class itself. There is no short cut to this. A post-capitalist revolution does not have to be violent when it is the conscious act of the immense majority. Most revolutions have been minority led ones.

Capitalism itself cannot be reformed or tamed to work in the majority interest? Capitalism can only exist upon the backs of an army of wage- slaves. It is impossible to create a fairer society and retain capitalism and the wages system. If you are born poor you will most likely die poor. Poverty is both absolute and relative.

Socialism-communism (they mean the same thing) is a post-capitalist, production-for-use, money-free, price-free, society without elites and with free access to the collective produce. Government ceases to be over the people a part of class society and becomes the people’s democratic administration over resources as part of a classless, elite free society run by us all. Nothing to do with state ownership or corporate or private ownership. Nothing to do with central control either. It 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 monetary calculation of capitalism, only necessary to satisfy profit taking. If you want a real democracy you will need to abolish the wages system, get rid of capitalism and usher in administering structures using recallable delegates where necessary.

We absolutely reject vanguardism. We get from capitalism to socialism by making the case for socialism and not selling them a reformist duck. The same old muddled Labourite, reformist claptrap masquerades as socialism, while retaining wage slavery for the many, and riches arising out of the exploitation of the many to produce a surplus for the few. There is no such thing and never will be such a thing as a communist state. The state management of the capitalist economy is state capitalism. The nation state is a capitalist entity. Workers have no country. Socialism has never existed to fail. You are simply restating capitalist propaganda about post-feudal attempts to kick start capitalism in the absence of a large enough capitalist class the state stepped into the breach. Effectively those examples of Leninism were state capitalist developments. The previous Labour governments were in the interests of the working class and you have a blind spot in this regards, through your misplaced loyalty to friendly sounding, pro-working class sentiments, which belie the actual actions of Labour, as a pro-business political party.

The old Soviet Union had damn all to do with socialism and was a state capitalist society.

Did it have waged slavery? Yes.

Did it have capital? Yes.

Did it have elites? Yes.

Did it have delegatory democracy? No.

Did the workers own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth? No

Socialism will be a society where wealth is owned in common by us all, in conditions of democracy with a superabundance of the necessities of life arising out of production for use rather than the production of commodities for sale to satisfy a market. All wealth comes from the workers. Workers run capitalism from top to bottom. The capitalist class are superfluous to modern production. Capitalists don’t invest to give anthing back to society. This is a conceited ideologically reinforced by-product. They invest to accumulate and will quite happily disinvest and make redundant their waged-slaves if profit is not forthcoming. The investments may not even be made by them these days, but by other highly paid worker managers on their behalf. The needs of capital to make a profit to accumulate ever more capital puts a brake on production to satisfy needs, as production is turned off when profits cannot be realised. Capital is just dead labour, it is useless unless used to exploit workers for their surplus value. It can’t build bridges, make widgets or man lifeboats. It is even useless as shit paper. It will feature in a museum of antiquity in the future where children will wonder at how stupid we all were, producing all of the wealth in society but being rationed out our access to it, with these useless pieces of paper and coins.

It is time workers realise that workers have no country and a world to win. They have more in common with workers worldwide, than with any home grown or global capitalist. Get off your knees and get rid of capitalism.

Wee Matt

Socialism is the Family

Many campaigners are busy engaging in personal study, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to political action. Sometimes this takes organised forms when they join one of the hundreds of “socialistic” groups operating throughout the country. They may be working people in the same factory or office, dealing with the class struggle. Or they may be residents of the same neighborhood, discussing community events. For most people, they share ideas and beliefs without being members of any party. Very often they are the ex-supporters of the Trotskyist groups and of the Labour Party folk who have abandoned their former organisational ties preferring an informal and more malleable method of uniting. It is increasingly apparent that the era of the leadership of those “socialist” parties is over. Any attempt to maintain such a leadership runs counter to the real interest of socialist advance. Radicals are now coming face to face with their most promising opportunity which inevitably involves a re-appraisal of what socialism is. A great part of the answer will lie in asking the right questions and already we are finding surprising answers. We have witnessed the rise of leader-free social movements – or should they be seen as movements where all are leaders? There has been the growth of much deeper and wider extension of democratic consciousness by the participants of protest campaigns. There is a current within radicalism to make democracy work. There is little prospect or need today for a monolithic, mass political party formation which assumes the responsibility of leading everything, and in which the most people cannot really function. But on the debit side of things in a urbanised industrial society where people do not possess control, and which has no greater ideal than money-making and profit-taking, feeds the urge to escape the alienation by romantic retuen to the idyllic imaginary past of the mom and pop convenience store and artisans in their handicraft workshops and friendly farmers in their fields. It is an indictment of capitalism when its victims retreat into fantasies of what was and not the reality of what could be. Socialism will re-charge its vitality when whatever new party of the workers must someday arise out of the labour movement. No one can rush the crystallization of such a class expression out of the existing ferment. But the time is approaching when a realistic possibility in this direction will bring results.

“From each according to ability, to each according to need.” As long as the socialist movement unequivocally stands for that principle, and directs all its policies toward its realisation, it will be revolutionary, the living voice of the social revolution. Socialism demands that every social condition, every art and every power of science which now contribute to the healthfulness and happiness for the privileged few shall be democratised and made common to all. Human character depends on nature to a very much small degree, and upon the environment to a very much larger degree. To-day the production and the exchange of wealth are functions carried on with an anti-social object, namely, the profit of a class of non-producers. That is the fundamental wrong of capitalism. That is the source of its poverty, its inefficiency, and its inequality. Capitalism must be abolished, because it is anti-social, and denies millions of an adequate opportunity to develop their skills, talents, and powers.

 Those who make the bread of the world cannot eat the bread their hands have made. No one is poor because there is not enough for all. No child suffers hunger because there is a dearth of food. No child wears rags or goes without shoes because good clothes and shoes cannot be made in sufficient quantity to supply all. When the hungry cry out loudest, the supermarket shelves groan with their weight of food and the warehouse are filled to overflowing. There exists a near-inexhaustible reserve of productive capacity available to supply every human need. Machinery and labour and raw materials are plentiful. On the one side we have abundant natural resources and wonderful powers of production; on the other side are have a great unsatisfied need which could be easily satisfied. But capitalism does not direct our productive capacity to the social good but for private gain. If our economic activities were inspired by a social purpose, no human want would remain unsatisfied so long as there were unexhausted productive powers and opportunities. All our resources and our skills would be combined to meet the needs of every human being. If we found ourselves incapable of producing plenty for all, we should, if we were truly social, see to it that all shared in the scarcity. On the other hand, finding ourselves capable of producing infinitely more than we need, we should, if we mere truly social, see to it that all shared the advantages of our triumph as producers. We should aim to make life better, richer, happier and more beautiful for all. We should see that the result of our progress was more beauty in the homes of all and larger leisure for all to enjoy the beauty. Inspired by the ideal of social well-being, we should see that no human being performed in pain a task which might have been performed in joy; that nothing ugly was produced which might have been made beautiful; that nothing was made which was unworthy of our best power; that our work was the worthiest, and performed under the worthiest conditions, of which we were capable.

So long as the prevailing capitalist system lasts this social ideal will remain unattainable. For capitalism is essentially anti-social. Its entire structure rests upon the production of things primarily for sale to the end that a ruling class may profit, instead of upon the social principle of production for use, for social gain, for the common good and joy of all. The only reason why men who are capable of building beautiful homes – as is shown by the palaces they build for the rich – build ugly, prison-like, gloomy tenements for themselves and their wives and children to dwell in is the fact that their labor is governed, not by the desire to attain supreme usefulness, but by the desire for profit. The only reason for the adulteration of food and drink is profit and it is profit which explains the wanton destruction of the food for which men, women, and children pine for, and for lack of which they starve and die. Only in a society which produces primarily for profit and class advantage could such a condition ever exist. Socialism brings a world redeemed from the curse of production for profit.  Production for use instead of profit, for the common good instead of for the gain of a few at the cost of the many, can only be made possible through the social ownership of the resources of nature and the means of production. And so everywhere the socialist movement is striving to bring about the common ownership and democratic control and collective management of all those means of production owned and controlled by individuals, or by groups of individuals.  Collective ownership of the means of production, with democratic management, is the central demand in socialists everywhere.

This does not mean personal possessions are commandeered. On the contrary, it is quite certain that common ownership of the great social agencies of production would result in making individual and family private property far more general than it is now. Millions of people have practically no private property at all to-day. They do not own the homes in which they live. They do not own the things they produce. They do not own enough to provide the necessities of a decent existence. When sickness, accident, or other misfortune, compels them to be idle for a few weeks they are reduced to dependence upon charity as the only alternative to starvation. Even in the most prosperous times millions of people are so divorced from property of all kinds that they never have enough good food to eat, enough good clothes to wear, or decent homes in which to live. Capitalism has never provided all people with private property. Socialism, on the other hand, would make it possible for every human being to have and own all the private property which that human being could use to advantage and without imposing any disadvantage upon another human being. Collective ownership and collective control of the means of production would not give the ownership of the tools of labour to the individual worker. That was once possible, in the days when production was of necessity carried on by hand labour. It is not possible with machine production, which is only carried on by the organised division of labour of masses of workers. But collective ownership would make it impossible for the idle few to exploit the industrious many. It would make it possible for the workers themselves to exercise an effective control over the products of their labour and their distribution. It would make certain a fuller enjoyment by the producers of the wealth they produce.

 Home and family is only a microcosm of socialism where there is equal care for the collective interest of the family as a whole and for the individual interest of each member. The comfort and advantage of each individual member of the family depend on sharing things in the home and maintaining them as the common property of all family members. No one can exercise a right to the sole ownership and control of these things without injuring another of the family. On the other hand, there are many things which must be regarded as belonging to individual members, if harmony is to prevail. If there is something essential to the welfare and happiness of all the family, which would give  someone a power to rule the rest and to deny them comfort, the happiness of the family is only assured by making those things shared by all. But things which the individual needs to own and control for the attainment of personal happiness and well-being, the ownership and exclusive use of which does not subject other members of the family to any deprivation or discomfort, belongs to that individual, and the harmony of the family depend on the ability of each individual in it to secure all such things necessary to the satisfaction of his or her wants. Socialism is an attempt to realise for the larger community that rational and fair responsibility which is exemplified by the family at its best on a smaller scale.

Reforms Have Little Temporary And No Permanent Value

ARC Productions, a movie and TV animation company, abruptly closed its doors on August 1, locking out its 500 employees, who became unemployed and the company won't have to repay a $23 million dollar government grant it got through a splashy photo taken with Elton John in 2009.

ARC, which was one of the largest animation studios, cited a "cash crunch", that caused its principal lender to seek a court-appointed receiver to take possession. The staff is owed their wages under the 2009 agreement and was to create 200 jobs over five years.

The loan was part of a business assistance funding program that began in 2004. Auditor General, Bonnie Lysyk, flagged $1.45 billion, with 80% awarded in a secret process, by invitation, only to certain companies. This raises questions about why they were chosen.

Opinions were sharply divided at Queen's Park, resulting in a couple of gems. P.C, M.P.P. Monte McNaughton, said the company's failure is why he's been pressing the government, for six months, to release a comprehensive list of their handouts to corporations and details on how many jobs were created. To quote:

 "The government needs to come clean, so, all taxpayers (meaning capitalists) can see whether they're getting value for money." He also called it 'crony capitalism' (is there another kind?), with no transparent guidelines, targets, or measurement of results."

Of course, Economic Development Minister, Brad Duguid, was swift to defend the government with this goodie:

 "You can't hold a company responsible to operate forever because they're operating in the real world." 

One wonders what Brad-baby would call the real world. The Business Assistance Fund is just another reform and in the real world, reforms have been shown to have little temporary and no permanent value. The only difference is, the one Mr. Duguid is defending, has no temporary value either, as the unemployment figures clearly attest. 

John Ayers.

The Need for Socialism

For the thinking worker, the only way forward is to build the world movement for socialism. We live today in a world dominated by capital. Capitalism as a ruling system is far from being eternal. In Britain and Europe capitalist economic relations (those between the class of capitalist employers and the class of wage workers) grew up within feudalism and became dominant with the English Revolution of 1640 and the French Revolution of 1789.  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. The development of exchange throughout history has led in the modern world to close ties being established between all the nations on earth. The emergence of capitalism as a social system greatly accelerated this process. It also brought forth two powerful, antagonistic classes, the decisive classes of the system: capitalists and workers. Its worldwide character meant that the struggle of the proletariat for its emancipation from class exploitation and oppression also became, and has remained, worldwide. Technological progress brings about a 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. By replacing private ownership of the means of production by common ownership, by transforming the anarchy of production which is a feature of capitalism into planned production, organised for the well-being 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.

Today, there is much ado over the leadership of the Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn. None of the current arguments around the question of party democracy or policy is projected in terms of the social relationships within socialism but, rather, advance arguments about a more efficient management of capitalism. There is almost a total absence of any class analysis or any criticism of the state as an instrument of class rule. Nowhere do the left or right of the Labour Party indicate how the fundamental problems and contradictions within the capitalist mode of production can be resolved; nowhere do they discuss the dispossession of the capitalist class.  Perhaps it is of significance is the definition of the enemies of the working class used by the left of the Labour party (and the Trotskyist hanger-ons) generally consists of the City, the IMF/World Bank and the multinationals”, all of which are part of finance capital. Industrial capital is not only largely excluded, but is, indeed, seen as the lifeblood of the nation. The nature of industry, production for profit, and the relations within production are not criticised. The problem is characterised as one of decline within manufacturing industry, not capitalism. The Left are “socialists” without any socialism. If the Labour Party holds out no solution, what are the alternatives?

When the Socialist Party say that we are revolutionary we are not talking about a small group running up the red flag at the barricades. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of fellow-workers consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way people relate to their job. We're out to change the whole system. What is necessary in order to bring all the separate struggles together into one common fight to overthrow capitalism. Socialists need to be realistic about their prospects and recognise our failings.  Nevertheless, we have to view the bigger picture. The capitalist system brings workers together, men and women, black and white, young and old,  in large workplaces in order to exploit us, capitalism ultimately gives us the collective strength to overthrow it. Everything rests upon the future struggles of the working class. The future of socialism depends on the creation of a powerful mass socialist party. We in the Socialist Party believe that we have made a start at building such a party. We have no illusions of grandeur but our mere presence within the working class movement give socialist ideas a chance. We understand the daunting scale of the task compared to by our present size, influence, and resources. We don’t regard ourselves as the vanguard. We know that only the working class can transform society. We don’t seek to put ourselves at the head and in place of that class. We seek only to make workers conscious of their interests and of their power and to direct that power at the capitalist system.

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