Industrial feudalism?

"While theologians are disputing the existence of a hell elsewhere, we are on the way to realising it here: and if capitalism is to endure, whatever may become of men when they die, they will come into hell when they are born." - William Morris

The goal of the Socialist Party is to replace capitalism with the economic and social democracy of socialism. The fact the goal is a lofty and ambitious one should not discourage people from seeking a better life. Socialism was born in response to the grave social problems generated by capitalism's uses of technology. Socialism grew out of the profound disruption of society capitalism caused. It was the pitiless and inhumane uses to which capitalism put the technology at its disposal to exploit human labor that made the socialist movement necessary. Socialism is not an idea that fell from the skies, but a natural response to the material conditions and social relations that took shape as the capitalist system of production developed. While technological advances have brought and will continue to bring profound changes to the manufacturing process, they are being used to increase the quantity of manufactured goods, but doing it by intensifying the exploitation of a dwindling number of workers. It is absolutely certain that capitalism will continue to introduce new and increasingly sophisticated technology into industry. It is a certainty that millions more workers will be forcibly evicted from the economy -- and not only workers in the manufacturing and extractive industries but millions who now hold service and so-called "white-collar" jobs. Indeed, that process is already well underway. Promises that "post- industrial" capitalism would create new and "high-paying" jobs to replace those that have been eliminated have proven hollow. A capitalist future of profound social dislocation and human misery is an absolute certainty because of the economic laws on which capitalism is based -- laws which compel every capitalist concern to strive for the greatest possible profit at the lowest possible cost. That can only mean one thing. It can only mean that permanent joblessness is the only future that millions -- perhaps the majority -- of workers can look forward to as long as capitalism survives.

However, the socialist movement has always recognised the tremendous material possibilities technological advances offer for eliminating the poverty, misery and suffering it has engendered -- not of its own accord, but as a direct result of the capitalist system of private ownership of the productive forces created by human labor and ingenuity. The whole purpose of the socialist movement, therefore, is to solve the grave social problems resulting from the march of technology monopolized by a numerically insignificant capitalist class so that the magnificent possibilities modern advances in new technologies hold out may benefit all of humanity. Accordingly, the socialist movement also sees in robotics and automation the productive instruments for the attainment of its goal.

At some stage in the mass displacement of workers by modern technology the fear that already touches millions of workers will mature into the awareness that they must act in their own defense. The understanding will grow that there is no solution to the problem within the capitalist system. Thought, discussion, enlightenment will produce action. The real question, therefore, is: At what stage will this occur? It is, of course, possible that the workers may remain apathetic even while the ranks of chronically unemployed grow to massive proportions. We do not think that they will, and we shall do all in our power to ensure that they won't. Nevertheless, it is possible. In this case, society would move into an era of what could be described as industrial feudalism which, while it would not last forever, might keep the workers in a state of industrial servitude for decades and decades to come. It is to avert such social regression that the Socialist Party works so hard to urge the organisation of the workers in accord with their class interests, and the consolidation of their power as society's producers.

A SOCIETY WITHOUT A STATE

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. The Socialist Party pledges itself to the overthrow of the whole profit-making system and the extinction of privileged classes. The Socialist Party declares war upon the wages system. Socialism is the common ownership by all the people of the factories and offices, transportation, communications, and all other instruments of production. Socialism means production to satisfy human needs, not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Socialism means direct control and management of the industries and social services by the people.  Such a system would make possible the fullest democracy and freedom. It would be a society based on the most primary freedom, economic freedom. For individuals, socialism means an end to economic insecurity and exploitation. It means workers cease to be commodities bought and sold on the labor market and forced to work as appendages to tools owned by someone else. It means a chance to develop all individual capacities and potentials within a free community of free individuals.

Socialism does not mean government or state ownership. It does not mean a state bureaucracy as in the former Soviet Union or China, with the working class oppressed by a new bureaucratic class. It does not mean a one-party run system without democratic rights. It does not mean nationalisation or state capitalism of any kind. It means a complete end to all capitalist social relations. The Marxian socialism upheld by the Socialist Party, however, is completely different from the Soviet or Chinese systems, or any existing system. It has nothing to do with nationalisation, a welfare state or any kind of state ownership or control of industry whatsoever. On the contrary, it would give power not to the state, but to the people themselves, allowing collective control of their own economic future. Far from being a state-controlled society, socialism would be a society WITHOUT A STATE. Marx once said that "the existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery."

The capitalist economic system lies at the root of all of modern society's major social and economic problems. Abolish strife-breeding capitalism and those problems are either eradicated or left to wither on the vine. The Socialist Party has long contended that only socialism can solve the major social and economic ills plaguing our society today. Socialism means a class-free society. Unlike under capitalism, where a tiny minority owns the vast majority of wealth and the means of producing it, everyone would share equally in the ownership of all the means of production, and everyone able to do so would work. There wouldn't be separate classes of owners and workers. The economy would be administered by the working-people themselves through democratic "associations of free and equal producers," as Marx described it. Communities collectively would decide what they wanted produced and how they wanted it produced. They would control their own workplaces and make the decisions governing their particular industry. With the abolition of the capitalist expropriation of the lion's share of workers' product, everybody would receive, directly or indirectly, the full value of the products they create, minus only the deductions needed to maintain and improve society's facilities of production and distribution. As Engels once described it, socialism would be a system in "which every member of society will be enabled to participate not only in the production but also in the distribution of social wealth." Under capitalism, improved methods and machinery of production kick workers out of jobs. With socialism, such improvements will be blessings for the simple reason that they will increase the amount of wealth producible and make possible ever higher standards of living while providing us with greater and greater leisure in which to enjoy them.

Socialism can only be built in a developed, industrialized society with a working-class majority. The Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions weren't socialist in character. They occurred in pre-industrial societies. Without a majority working class and the ability to eliminate scarcity of needed goods and services, the creation of a class-free society was impossible. Material conditions there bred conflict and made the continuation of the class struggle inevitable in such countries. In a socialist revolution, the workers take possession of the means of production, abolish capitalist class-rule and supplant the state with an administration of people formed by "associations of free and equal producers." In the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions, an elite "vanguard" party seized control of the state and used the state to control the means of production. Instead of establishing a classless society, the party-state bureaucracy became a new ruling class.

Socialist society will be a society of secure human beings, living in peace, in harmony and solidarity. We shall produce everything we need and want in abundance under conditions best suited to our welfare, aiming for the highest quality. We shall constantly strive to improve our methods and equipment in order to reduce the hours of work. We shall provide ourselves with the best of everything: the finest educational facilities, the most modern and scientific health facilities and adequate and varied recreational facilities. We shall constantly seek to improve our socialist society. Purposeful research, expansion of the arts and culture, preservation and replacement of our natural resources, all will receive the most serious attention. It will be a society in which everyone will have the fullest opportunity to develop his or her individuality without sacrificing the blessings of cooperation. Freed from the compulsions of competition and the profit motive that presently hurl capitalist nations into war, socialism will also be a society of peace. This all may sound too good to be true. Yet the world has the productive capacity to provide a high standard of living for all, to provide security and comfort for all, to create safe workplaces and clean industries. The only thing keeping us from reaching these goals is that the workers don't own and control that productive capacity; it is owned and controlled by a few who use it solely to profit themselves.

To win the struggle for socialist freedom requires enormous organisation and educational work. It requires building a political party of socialism to contest the power of the capitalist class on the political field and to educate the majority of workers about the need for socialism. A socialist political party is needed to educate the working class and to recruit workers to the socialist cause and to engage the ruling class on the battlefield of politics in a war of ideas. Find out more about the Socialist Party and join us to help make the promise of socialism a reality.

No condescending saviours

It requires a lot less mental effort to condemn than to think. The emancipation of the workers is an act of the workers themselves. The liberation of the working class is the task of the working class itself; it is a task to be carried out in opposition to “condescending saviors.”  If people wait for a revolutionary vanguard to lead them to the classless society or the free society, they will neither be free nor classless. There is enough evidence in support of the foregoing statement. Workers that they should only expect their total emancipation and any improvements in their lot from themselves, from their own efforts and initiative, and not from the miraculous intervention of a third party, their elected representative, whoever he might be, whatever party he might belong to, and whatever principles he might hold.

Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more and, actually, repudiates the socialist revolution. Reformism advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration. Reformism is not a moderate or too slow form of socialism, but its mortal enemy. We, socialists, refuse to join the reformists into the camp of capitalism. Reformism is trickery used to keep the working class under wage slavery. Reformists maintain that we can arrive at a certain “socialism” by winning reforms one after the other. What they don’t say is that whatever the employing class has to give up with one hand, is just taken back with the other. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. That capitalism will waste and misuse resources is not seriously in dispute.

The capitalist system is the major obstacle impeding the creation of a more equitable society. In the place of all coercive institutions, the anarchist communists seek to establish a system of collaboration between individuals and associations, and instead of accumulation and hoarding of wealth by a minority, they want the workers to be the possessors of the means of production as well as to see a division of the fruits of labor according to individual need. We are fully aware that in order to achieve this aim, we need to re-shape the structure and the goals of production by redefining them as means to ensure the well-being of all mankind, so that all members of a society could have the opportunity to pursue higher intellectual endeavours, and in that way put an end to the unjust acquisition of wealth by a minority at the expense of the labourers. Socialists claim that the innate demand for equity and freedom can only be satisfied through active participation in the production of goods and in the making of decisions which affect the whole society. Democratically-elected councils of workers in every industry and district will manage the factories and public services. Freed from the fetters of production for profit, the splendidly-equipped factories will pour out their products without interruption: the productive forces will leap forward to provide almost undreamed-of plenty. No longer will wheat be ploughed under and foodstuffs dumped to keep up prices!

Socialists argue that cooperation rather than competition is the driving force behind a flourishing society. Mutual aid and social solidarity, rather than unbridled individualism, is what helped our ancestors survive. The Aleoute people of Alaska enjoyed a long established tradition of equally dividing everything they gathered and hunted. If one member showed greediness when the division of resources took place, the other members handed their portion to the greedy man to embarrass him. For Hottentots of South Africa, it was outrageous and disgraceful to eat without having loudly shouted (three times) to see whether there was a fellow tribesman in need of food. These are only a few out of many examples of cooperation that Kropotkin writes about.

The Socialist Party does not campaign on its ability to solve problems like poverty, unemployment, crime etc but, uniquely, calls on the working class to organise for the democratic overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism where every human being on Earth would have the opportunity to co-operate in the production and distribution of wealth and, again, every human being would have free and equal access to the means to satisfy their needs whether or not they had co-operated in production. Obviously, if enough people declined to partake in the productive processes it would be impossible for everyone to avail themselves of the things they need. That is why socialism can only be built upon the conscious democratic decision of a majority of socialists and why the fullest democratic control would have to prevail in a socialist society.

All those people engaged in the wasteful functions that now exist in the world of capitalism, such as buying and selling, banking, insurance, armed forces, advertising, and marketing, together with the unemployed would be available to help in the task of producing and distributing. Problems such as slums and homelessness could be quickly corrected. Whereas today the purpose of food production is the maximisation of profits without regard to the damage caused to the land and the prospects for future generations, in socialism the primary consideration will be producing enough food for all in a manner consistent with the preservation of the land.  Today, it is a relatively small number of human beings who perform the work of providing essential goods and services; the rest of the working class, as we have noted, are engaged in functions that are meaningless outside the wasteful world of capitalism. It follows that, in socialism, the task of producing all the goods and services required by humanity can be accomplished with comparatively little effort. That which we now call employment—workers working for wages—will have ended with the abolition of capitalism so, effectively, there can be no unemployment. Obviously, in a wage-free, money-free world where people are able to avail themselves of their needs and are not required to work long hours for protracted periods of their lives, there will be much time for leisure. Speculating on how human beings might use that leisure, in a frontier-free world where transport and accommodation, like everything else, is free, might well be a further question worth discussing.

Forward to Socialist Revolution

Only a socialist revolution can prevent the relapse of humanity into barbarism. The socialist revolution consists of the entire process, on a world scale, through which the socialist mode of production is established. Marxism is the theory of the socialist revolution. Socialism is in accord with the sentiment for democracy and liberty and where this sentiment can find fulfilment. The word ‘socialism’ is more than the name merely for a new system of economic relationships. 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. The socialist revolution is the abolition of capitalist private property, the abolition of all exploitation of man by man, the common ownership of the means of production and their planned use for the benefit of the whole of society, leading to abundance. Socialists do not put forward this goal as a utopia, or as a mere vision of what would ideally satisfy people’s needs and make them all happy, but as a practical goal to be attained by the actual conditions of modern society. This is because only with a socialist economy can the contradictions of modern capitalist society be solved and the great technological forces of production can be fully utilised. Socialism will only be achieved by waging the working-class struggle and to wage this struggle and gain political power, the working class must have its own independent political party. The essential message of Marxism that the ruling class are not omnipotent and unbeatable, that their system of exploitation is not everlasting but can be abolished. It teaches that the working class is fully qualified to become the directors and organisers of economic and political life of the first truly human society.

History has already put the task of socialist world revolution on the agenda for today. Socialism can only advance and be won as a worldwide process. This is especially true given the global character of capitalist production and economic organisation. The consciousness, organisation and resources of the working class of different countries are yet far from properly co-ordinated or oriented towards the gigantic task of socialist revolution. But there is hardly any doubt about the fact that they are sure to join forces and merge with one another reaching beyond their national boundaries, and finally, overwhelm the entire world capitalist system. If the revolution comes from the majority then it does not require a party dictatorship.

The duty of socialists at this juncture is clear beyond any scope for misunderstanding. They must unite themselves and move forward in every country. They must actively participate in all forms of mass struggle against capitalist slavery and towards the goal— revolution and socialism. 

Deterioration By Leaps And Bounds

The Toronto Community Housing Corporation (T.C.H.) faces a $98 million hole in the budget. The recent council-approved budget requires all agencies and departments to find 2.6 percent in savings. This will definitely impact on the quality of life of the T.C.H.'s tenants. Much of the revenue for T.C.H. comes from rents, most of which are geared to the tenants' incomes. $200, million is provided in city subsidies annually, which covers just less than a third of the budget.

As tenants' incomes and revenues don't increase by leaps and bounds, it's not easy to operate the T.C.H., since operating expenses have increased by leaps and bounds. The cost for hydro within the T.C.H.'s 2,100 buildings has increased 43% since 2012, water costs are up 39%.

The 2.6% reduction in the subsidies is about $5 million in additional pressure, that, with the $96 million existing gap, will certainly mean homes will be boarded up this year and next. The City Council is short $1.7 billion which was expected from the Provincial and Federal Governments and has yet to materialize.

Lack of funding will necessarily cause lack of repairs. One of the worst hit is the Grassway Community at Jane and Firgrove. According to the Vice President of Management at Grassway, Sheila Penny...."People will soon be living in the air. They'll be living in nature". Crumbling brick exteriors, deterioration caused by water damage, has left 22 units uninhabitable. Backyards have been quarantined because of construction fencing being strewn with danger signs. To put it bluntly, lack of money means homelessness or living in a dump.

This has nothing to do with the Toronto City Council and its appointed administrators being incompetent, corrupt or indifferent. Some might be, that wouldn't be a moot point. Capitalism is a market economy, meaning goods have to be sold for a profit in the market. From profits come taxes, some of which pay for the administration of daily life in our cities. If the market goes down, as they all do, given the boom/ slump nature of capitalism, then obviously the taxes will not be forthcoming, the present situation in Detroit being a perfect (if one can use the word) example.

Politicians may do what little they can, but they cannot come up with an answer, because, within capitalism, there isn't one. 

John Ayers.

Towards Socialism

Our attitude to reforms under capitalism is clear—we accept whatever useful reforms that can be achieved by the working class, but we do not regard the struggle for reforms as an end in itself, and we do not think capitalism can be “reformed” into socialism. Our revolution against current society is not in the name of an abstract principle of justice (which is quite difficult to establish), but for the effective amelioration of humanity’s lot. We have, on the one hand, the labouring class, more or less poor and enslaved, and on the other the privileged minority. The latter must disappear, not physically (it is neither possible nor desirable to kill all the bourgeois. The workers must take possession of the means of labour and life without paying tribute and without serving anyone. This is the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. To be sure, we possess, even today, sufficient means of production to satisfy all reasonable needs, i.e., to provide well-being to all. Socialism isn’t an abstract concept, a scientific dream, or a distant vision, but destined to renew the world and establishing it on the foundations of human fraternity and solidarity.

The rolling back of the welfare state and the increased resistance to any reforms is not something random because of the whims of individual capitalists or because of particular world economic crises, although they do contribute. This phenomenon is due to the nature of the capitalist system itself. In their drive to continually increase profits the employing class attempt to find new markets. However, more importantly, employers continually strive to find new ways to increase profits, by increasing production, whilst at the same time paying less in on-going costs. To illustrate this point one only needs to look at the enormous profits that multinationals have made by out-sourcing their businesses to poorer communities like Bangladesh. Whilst the cost of materials may be lower in these countries, companies move to the developing world because the one production cost they can dramatically alter is an employees’ wage. Capitalists make their enormous profits by paying workers very little and in the developing world this wage decreases dramatically with wages being closer to the subsistence level. It is because the capitalist class continually strive to make a profit, and to increase their profits,  that workers find themselves in constant struggles with their employers for better wages and conditions.

It is clear that the only way to stop this continual battle for a meagre existence for basic working and living conditions is to change the system. We need to change the system yet most people still continue to attempt to work within the capitalist system. These people try to change the system from within, from within the Capitalist parliamentary system rather than focusing their efforts on ending the capitalist system for a new socialist system. If we focus on reforms we condemn the working class to continual struggles for their basic working conditions and we also transform socialist parties into parties of social reformism and legalistic and opportunistic parliamentarianism. What arises is not a dedicated socialist movement but attempts to unite a so-called broad left coalition made up of differing groups with different political objectives which often mean in reality alliances with openly capitalist organisations who have no inclination towards changing the system, and who associate themselves with various sections of the ruling class. Is a broad left coalition going overthrow the capitalist system? The answer is no, some progressive liberals are profoundly conservative with a small c and seek to keep the capitalist system intact.

Attempts to form alliances with these organisations appear to be for more populist reasons than principled, engaging in numbers games hoping to recruit from those of dubious connection to the working classes. It also leads to a form of top-down style leadership where decisions are made by a small group/groups of people, in secret conclaves away from open scrutiny.

Most politicians support reforms as palliatives. Reforms are only made to the extent that they can placate workers by offering them small concessions whilst at the same time retaining the Capitalist system.

The more radical reformists have formulated a policy that attempts to replace capitalism with socialism by stealth, altering the capitalist system from within by using the capitalist apparatus to do so. This theory suggests that we need to end capitalism in small steps or gradual stages thereby putting off the need for socialism to a dimly distant far away future.

This idea of some sort of left-wing unity coalition with reformists does not strengthen the movement but it weakens it. Ultimately it will mean that we will dissolve our movement for socialism into a movement purely in the pursuit of reforms. Reformism is the deception of the workers, who despite some individual improvements will always remain wage-slaves, as long as there is the domination of capital. Reformism actually means abandoning Marxism.

The revolution we conceive of can only be made by and for the people. It demands the assistance of the entire labour masses. Without the majority of working people, it can only be a coup d’etat or a putsch - not a revolution. The workers have no need of chiefs: they are quite capable of charging one of their own with a particular task. Socialism isn’t a religion, we have no religious faith in the working class. But the laws of capitalism are inexorable; they lead the employing class to increasingly exploit their workers. As Marx said it is the workers, the workers are the ‘grave-diggers’ of the capitalist system not some group of so-called left organisations.

Fighting for the world’s disinherited

The most important principle in socialism contained in the concept that the emancipation of the workers is the task of the workers themselves. The Socialist Party’s idea of politics boil down to this fundamental approach– to teach the working class to rely upon itself, upon its own organization and upon its own ideas, to maintain within the workers’ movement the need for democracy and never to submit to a leadership nor subordinate itself to the interests of another class.  There is no without the working class, without the working class revolution, without the working class in power, without the working class having been lifted to “political supremacy” (as Marx called it) to their “victory of democracy” (as Marx also calls it). No socialism without socialists. We regret that many who assume the name “socialist” fail to abide by such principles. That is what we build the fight for the socialist future on. That is what we’re unshakably committed to. But directly ask the so-called “socialists” if they believe that the working class can ever rule society and usher in a classless socialist regime? Ask if they believe that the working class has that capacity to do so? Not one of them, if honest, will agree because they accept that the working class will always be oppressed and exploited by someone or another. These intellectuals and academics cannot accept the idea that the workers can free themselves but require to be led by their superiors.

Socialists cannot imagine living as free men and women while others are unfree. Socialists understand that without resisting the capitalist system, there is no life worth living – for socialists the struggle against exploitation and social inequity is the essence of life. It is indispensable to the self-realisation of humanity and therefore to the attainment of his or her own dignity. Convinced internationalists as we socialists that we declare there is no cause of quarrel between the workers of the world that the working class has no country to fight for and that the only thing that matters is the class war and our eagerness to fight that particular war to a finish, the nationalist divisions appear alien and puerile to us. We say that the interests of the capitalist class and those of the working class are diametrically opposed to each other. To Marx, the workers when they become socialists do not become different from the rest of the working class. Their change in thought is an evidence of gradual transformation in the working-class movement. They remain of the workers, struggling with them for emancipation. The Socialist Party of to-day cannot bring socialism. The co-operative commonwealth will be inaugurated by the mass action of the workers. To assert the contrary is a denial of the cardinal principle of socialism – “That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.”

Circumstances compel workers to move along the road towards socialism. Economic laws operate whether they are known or not, but if we understand their operation we can bend them to our purpose and assist fellow-workers on the course they travel. As the Socialist Party, we must bring this knowledge to the workers. Whenever the power of the ruling class asserts itself, then the workers must fight. The State is the political expression of the dominant class, and since that dominant class uses the machinery of the State—law, justice, force—to maintain its own privileges and to impose its will upon the labouring mass, the workers contest their claims by political action. The distinction between political and industrial action is false; they are the two poles of the same movement. All socialists are agreed that their object is the social and economic freedom for all, through the social ownership and control of all the material means of production and existence. They must all agree upon this in order to be socialists. Those who do not so believe are not socialists, whatever they may say to the contrary notwithstanding. General agreement on the object, however, by no means presupposes universal agreement on policy of how to implement socialist ideals and there are wide differences. They are matters to discuss, to argue out, to confer about, and, so far as the practical work of the moment goes, to come to an agreement upon. It is for such purposes that our own party holds its annual conferences.

Anti-Parliamentarians have been disappointed with the meagre results of electoral activity and political action. The function of a Socialist Party is not simply to elect members to Parliament to act as “statesmen” to co-operate with bourgeois politicians in carrying small pettifogging measures of reform.  Political action is not to be despised, nor is any other that will help to break down the domination of the master class and hasten the emancipation of the proletariat. It will be time enough to forswear political action when the master class no longer strive to retain their mastery over the political machine. The Socialist Party’s primary function is to organise a political party, independent, class-conscious, proletarian and socialist. The function of industrial organisation lies with the trade unions. These two functions are not absolutely distinct and separate, they are co-ordinated, and to some extent interdependent. Yet they are not identical. The trade unions can help us, we can help them. The object of a Socialist Party is the realisation of socialism. The object of a trade union is to make the best of existing conditions and to gain the best terms for its members.

Socialists point out the economic basis upon which democracy must stand in order to achieve liberty. It proclaims all liberty to rest back upon economic liberty, and all individuality to be rooted in economic unity. It affirms that there can be no liberty save through association; no true commonwealth save a cooperative commonwealth. It makes clear that democracy in the state is but a fiction unless it is realised through democracy in production and distribution. Socialists offer history as the proof that there can be no individual liberty or social harmony in a competitive struggle which makes every person battle for economic sustenance. The Socialist Party present ourself as an uncompromising and yet harmonious organisation that shall command their enthusiasm and their support. We must give what is asked of us, or perish as a present-day movement. If we stand for the unity of human interests, we must prove our sincerity by uniting. If we stand for brotherhood, we must act like brothers, and not like the so-called Christians who call one another brother and then proceed to devour one another. If we stand for the cooperative commonwealth, then let us begin to cooperate among ourselves. Let us give trust, and we shall receive trust. Let us show confidence in one another, and we shall receive confidence. Divided by strife and suspicion, we fail the world’s disinherited. United by patience, by goodwill and brave comradeship, we shall conquer the world and make it a fit place for free men and women  to live in.

Yet we will let no person take from us one jot or iota of the principles upon which socialism bases itself. Socialism needs no religion imposed upon it from without, and the less it has of such the safer it will be its course. But it does need to be shot through with that spirit of passion without which no great movement ever prevails. Only a factional and divided socialist movement can defeat socialism. There is no power in capitalism that can prevent the consummation of a united and harmonious socialist movement in the cooperative commonwealth.

Unsolvable Within Capitalism

Falling gas prices are prompting Americans to rekindle their love for bigger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs. This is bad news for the makers of hybrids and electric cars. Seventy-five percent who traded in a hybrid or electric car, so far this year, have replaced them with all gas cars, (according to a survey released by the New York Times, August 19/2016.) This is an 18% increase on the figures from 2015 figures and the year's not over. President Obama's aim was that one million electric cars would be sold in 2015, but, in the last nearly two years, it is 442,000. Furthermore, 16.2% of U.S. greenhouse emissions come from SUVs and pickups.

Primarily, it's the working class who are buying the cars that pollute, which proves the problem of too much greenhouse emissions can't be solved within capitalism.

Better wake up folks, before it's too late! John Ayers.

The insane system called capitalism

"One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman; two men with the same idea in common maybe foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question." - William Morris

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. Workers have no country to live or die for, but we do have the world to win. The emancipation of the last great social class, the wealth producing working class will end waged slavery and class divided society. Social evolution suggests that no mode of production is cast in stone and the dynamics of change also affects capitalism as a social system. Studies of social systems with distinct social relationships related and corresponding to their specific mode of production have identified, for instance, primitive communism, chattel slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. All of these societies changed from one into another due to the contradictions inherent in that society and also due to technological advancement which each society found itself incapable of adapting to. Capitalism reached this point over a century ago. It’s time to move on to socialism.

Opponents of the arms trade argue that it promotes war. But they have got it the wrong way round. It is economic competition in which ‘might is right’ that promotes the arms trade. As long as capitalism lasts with this built-in competitive struggle between states over economic matters there will be a demand for arms and so an arms trade. No state which has, as Cameron put it, a ‘comparative advantage’ in arms production is going to renounce this profit-making advantage on ‘ethical’ grounds. This means that, given capitalism, the opponents, despite their sincerity and however justified their objection to arms and arms trading which socialists share, will, unfortunately, be tilting at windmills. The only way to stop it is to join us in campaigning to end capitalism. Removing the international arms trade is a nice ideal but an impossibility within a capitalist social system. It is similar to wishing for lions to become vegetarian. Aggressive competition is the norm.

You should not single out just one capitalist political manifestation for your ire. The Labour Party has just as enthusiastically endorsed capitalist war, with some exceptions in its ranks but Conservatives sometimes do so for different reasons. Opponents of the arms trade argue that it promotes war. But they have got it the wrong way round. It is economic competition in which ‘might is right’ that promotes the arms trade. As long as capitalism lasts with this built-in competitive struggle between states over economic matters there will be a demand for arms and so an arms trade.

 You are not a 'machine head' but a thoughtful, sincere individual. What an indictment on capitalist education when you can only bring the faulty and religious 'human nature' argument to bear upon the much greater prevalence and the evidential fact of socially conditioned human behaviour which is more likely to be cooperative in essence. If this were not so we would have extinguished the human species long ago.

History is a series of class struggles for supremacy. The examples of history which you can cite are all examples of ruling classes fighting within themselves with coercive measures to make workers comply as cannon fodder, so resistant to violence are we in the main and far from typical human behaviour. Still, war-free complex societies are known to go back a long way. Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in Turkey dating from around 7,500 BC, famously lacks any sign of warfare, or of social or gender stratification.

The State, which is an organisation composed of soldiers, policemen, judges, and gaolers charged with enforcing the law, is only needed in class society, for in such societies there is no community of interest, only class conflict. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is, in fact, an instrument of class oppression. It is irrelevant whether the government is professedly capitalist or allegedly labour.

One of the main criticisms that world socialists have of attempts to reform the insane system called capitalism, is that gains obtained one year may disappear when the economy dips, and you find yourself back at square one again. That looks to be what is happening as we enter a period of recession. A slump is the market's way of correcting a serious failing – that is, the diminishing levels of profit returning to the owning class. That recalibration must occur inside capitalism, regardless of the damage to be incurred by those dependent on the state, such as children, the unemployed and the poor.

So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of capitalism, and so long as they are prepared to place in control of Parliament parties that will use their power for the purpose of maintaining capitalism, there is no escape from the effects of capitalism. The workers will continue to suffer from the normal hardships of the capitalist system when trade is relatively good, and from the aggravated hardships which are the workers’ lot during economic recessions.

The workers just need to get off their knees and tell the politicians including St. Theresa of Maidenhead and Blessed Jeremy, to lead their business friendly capitalist supporting parties out of the way.

Wee Matt

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.”