A society for individuals

WITH WORLD SOCIALISM

A new era has begun to dawn. New and still bigger mega-fortunes are being made. The labour movement has to prepare itself for a further round of bad weather and rough seas. The Socialist Party doesn’t have some hopeful gospel to preach to you. If you’re a realist, and you’re observing the things going on around the world you’re apt to feel some despair. There is vast despondency and desperation. But it’s not that easy to lose hope. Humanity possesses qualities of determination, courage and an extraordinary resoluteness to persevere in the face of adversity. In English we say “hope springs eternal”. In Russian it’s “hope dies last.” We might feel anguish and despair but our evolutionary impulse is for survival. Hope is an unstoppable power. Our hope says we are going to keep on fighting for our goal. It is the fight members of the Socialist Party signed up for. We will never cease fighting for our ideas. We intend to put our broken human society back together but this time just a little differently - without the exploitation and oppression. Capitalism continues to kill us and the only real solution is to end capitalism.

The thing about social movements is that they move. They morph into new forms and evolve into different expressions. It is common for a movement to develop in one part of the world and be adopted by another country. This is even more common in modern times as the economy has become increasingly globalised and the internet has made communication easier. Protests turn into inspiration for others to take up. Socialism will become the movement of movements that unites the many single-issue groups into a force too powerful for the ruling class to defeat, a movement exposing the contradictions in society that cannot be solved by the current economic and political system. Socialism shows the system-wide problems that require both the economic and political systems to change. There are many triggers that are likely to spark mass protests and resistance. Get ready.

Socialism is a worldwide state-free society where money and markets have been abolished and production is collectively planned by all. It is the abolition of all exploitation and oppression, where the segmentation of human beings into classes, nationalities, races and genders has been transcended. Rather than mere worker ownership of factories or state-control of resources, socialist society is one within which “value” as we know it has been abolished and free access to goods has replaced markets and rationing. The previous development of capitalism makes such a society possible. Socialism is universal human emancipation.  Such a society will not emerge not through immediate insurrection or apolitical utopian experiments. It is to be achieved through social revolution on a mass scale. The workers cannot take political power through a putsch or coup nor can it come by an alliance with sections of the capitalist class. The State cannot be gradually evolved into socialism. It is fundamentally representing the interests of the propertied classes, structurally designed to serve the needs of capitalism. Socialism is a society based on the cooperation of all humanity. We promote world revolution as opposed to “socialism in one country” or other national roads to socialism. From this we reject all capitalist wars. Nationalism in all forms stands as an obstacle to revolution. The fight against racism is a fight to unite the working class to defeat capitalism.

The development of capitalism, a system which now dominates the entire planet, brings with it massive toil, suffering and crisis along with revolutions in production. It also creates its own gravedigger – the global working class. By socialism we mean a world where waged labour has been replaced by free associations of producers and all are able to participate in the total benefits of society’s wealth, based on the principle “from each according to their ability, to according to their need”. National boundaries are to be replaced by the free movement of people and the ending of the division of humanity into false communities of the nation. The dominance of markets and money, products of private property, is replaced by humanity taking collective control of production so as to reorient it towards meeting our needs and desires through scientific and democratic planning that transcends the irrationality of the market. It is only the cooperation of society as a whole that can provide the real basis for the individual to achieve their full capacity. We have no interest in turning the world into one giant labour camp with a monolithic culture that crushes the individual. Rather we aim for a new era of human development where the limitations imposed by the weight of class society have been surpassed, where one’s daily life is not structured around the earning of a wage or salary but the desire to better oneself and achieve their full capacity. Socialism is not a technocratic vision to be imposed but is created through the collective activity of working people re-organising society where the State will become more and more useless, eventually fully withering away.

A Vision of the Socialist Future

Sometimes a fellow-worker wonders how he or she is ever going to understand the theory of socialism. You can’t even understand Karl Marx words without a dictionary. At least that’s the way it looks at first. Many find themselves thinking, “Well, this socialism stuff is all right for college graduates but. I only work for a living. How am I going to understand these books on economics and philosophy when I don’t even read the Socialist Standard?” The class struggle bubbles and boils and at first sight it seems to be quite a mystery to understand. Yet it is each and every day of your life and take part in it yourself. Recessions, wage-cuts, strikes, picket lines, and sometimes revolution. No working man or woman should think just because it is called scientific socialism that he or she can’t hope to learn it. The worker can learn the most important elements a thousand times easier than any university-educated boss. It is a study of the everyday things that working people know more about than anybody else: the factory and office, where they spend all their working hours; the machinery, which they become almost a part of; and the products which they, and only they, produce.

 Marx simply showed how capitalism is different from other systems in the past and that capitalism had a beginning and it’s going to have an ending. That the next stage in history is socialism, a system which operates in a different way than capitalism,  directly for the benefit of the people. It produces for use and not for profit. He explained that Mankind have the possibility of running the world to benefit the majority.  He and Engels were educators, eager with their books to teach. There are others in the Socialist Party trying to do the same, explaining the day-to-day class struggle, anxious to be a helper to make the task not such an impossible thing as you first thought. And later when the class struggle heats up, you’re going to step up and tell dozens – maybe hundreds or thousands – of other working people how to turn resistance into revolution. And discover you weren’t so dumb as you believed. The whole idea of socialism is we wouldn’t be producing for profit – for sale on the market. That’s the main thing. We would manage the whole industry ourselves. We’d co-operate with other industries’ workers doing the same thing.

Maybe you think it’s going to be a long, long time before the working people take power and create abundance for all. You explain the case for socialism to your neighbours and work colleagues and they don’t accept the idea. You see, some people hold on to the same old prejudices that are against their own interests. And you wonder how and when all these workers will overthrow their ruling class. How are you ever going to get the working people together because you see the workers divided by religion, race, nationality and gender.  People still go on talking capitalist crap. How are the workers of the world ever going to get together? lt isn’t going to be easy to organize the whole world. We’ve a big job ahead of us. But the main job of uniting the working people is being done by our enemy, the capitalist class. Yes, even though they encourage racism and nationalism they are uniting us. They are uniting us by subjecting us to the same conditions. They are uniting us by making us work together. They are uniting us by giving us all the same lousy wages and squeezing us into a common mould. The people all over the world are suffering the same united misery under their capitalist masters, regardless of what flag these masters fly or colour of skin. We have a common fight against a common enemy and there is the camaraderie of struggle. We share the same desire to smash our shackles. 

The whole capitalist world is a prison for our class and we are beginning to see it, we can’t help but see it. As we see it more and more, unity in the struggle will be forged. For we are shackled with a common chain. And the same key to free us fits all the locks.

The capitalists own everything. We just own our debts and our muscles. We have to give the capitalists our muscles so we can pay our debts. Here’s how it works. Say a knife represents all the plants, machinery, tools – everything we work with that the capitalists own. Suppose this chunk of bread is the earth itself. Pretend for now that you are the whole working class of the world. I’m the capitalist class because I own the knife.

I let you work with this knife and cut that bread. There, you made ten slices. Well, I put those ten slices away in my cupboard and give you a pound. You take the pound, go out and buy five slices of bread. Here’s the five slices. You and your family eat it up tonight. Then tomorrow you come to work and slice some more bread for me.

After this goes on for a while, I acquire a hoard of bread stored up in that cupboard. And it isn’t any use to cut up any more, because it’ll only get moldy. So I tell you to go home, and wait for me to call you back to work. Well, you’re out of work, and you can’t buy any bread, so I have to lower the price. I can’t make much money that way, so I dump a lot of it in the ocean so the price will go up.

Things get tough and strength in your muscles are getting weaker. That looks bad for me because I’ll need you later on. So being the big-hearted person I am,  I give you a half a slice of bread a day for nothing – no money at all. Of course, I say you’re a lazy bum because you won’t work, and it’s your fault that I don’t give you any work. But that generosity makes me feel pretty good. I think of myself as a philanthropist

Finally, I get resume business again. I get you to sharpen up the knife once more. You cut out twenty slices a day instead of ten. To show you how big-hearted I am, I give you one pound and fifty pence a day. And it isn’t my fault if the price of bread has gone up because I am selling more bread in the rest of the world.

In the meantime, my cupboard is once more getting bigger than ever. I lay you off again, take back the knife again and eat my bread while you starve. What can you do about it? WHY DON’T YOU TAKE THAT KNIFE AWAY FROM ME?

No single individual really rules. A CLASS rules. The capitalist class. Like all previous class rule, capitalist rule is the rule of a tiny minority, based on the foundations of scarcity economy. The only way a minority has or can or ever did rule over the majority is by supplementing brute force with deception, lies and legends. What the capitalist sells is the product of our labour. And that’s where they get the money to hire more employees to build more plants. That’s where they get the money to live in palaces and swim in champagne. And all they return to the worker is enough to scrape along on. The chains of wage- slavery are worse than real chains in a way. Your hands work faster and pile up wealth faster for the boss when iron chains are not in the way. Only NEED chains us all. Only cringing poverty before mighty wealth of ONE individual. But it’s a powerful chain – for the BIG BOSS. We don’t all wear the exact same uniform of the chain-gang convict. But it doesn’t take long for dust and hard labour to do its work and make us all look alike – inside and out.

When we take over the industries, our class, THE WORKING CLASS, will rule. Then we’ll have real democracy, workers’ social democracy. We working people will be running things in the interests of our communities and society. There will be no presidents or dictators in our system, for the simple reason that we’ll be constantly getting better leaders to take care of the interests of those who will then PROFIT from the power – the WORKING PEOPLE themselves. When we working people take over production, we’ll have some real rights for the first time in history. The main thing we’ll do is make more than enough for all to live a comfortable life. The fear of want and penury will be gone. We’ll make the work easier by using the many inventions that capitalists buy up and bury. And we’ll encourage far more inventions from people who can hold up their heads for the first time and look their machine and the whole factory over from top to bottom. Instead of us all being one tired-out bunch, drab, grey, and regimented by the power of capital, we’ll BE individuals. Things are going to be different. We’re going to be working for ourselves, not as sweated slaves for a few lousy bucks, but as people working for other working people instead of for profits. Making the things our family and neighbours want – and making them in far greater amounts than the fattest capitalists ever dreamed of.

“Who’s going to do the dirty work under socialism?” is one question that is just thoughtlessly echoing boss-class, people who never have dirtied their hands in their lives.  If we stop to think a second we’d say “Who does the dirty work under capitalism?...THE WHOLE WORKING CLASS.” The only dirty work will be the job of cleansing all the filth the capitalists have left behind – like clearing up the waste from their environmental destruction. Our new society will have no need of pollution or war. It will have every need for strong, healthy, happy human beings and every reason to help them to be so. Our workers’ society will spare no expense to make all jobs safe and clean. With socialism, no one is going to do the dirty work. 

Returning Land To Their Natural State? Not If You Go Bankrupt!

The toxic wastes of the Canadian oil patch in Alberta has been spreading in the boreal forest since bitumen mining began there in the 1960’s. 

The mix of clay, water, toxic acids and leftover bitumen has sprawled into artificial ponds big enough to cover an area twice the size of Vancouver. More than one trillion litres of the gunk called trailings fill these man made waste lakes. It would take five days for the same amount of water to pour over Niagara. The ponds emit methane and other greenhouse gases. They attract and kill migrating birds and are totally inhospitable to aquatic life. No fish and few invertebrates can live in them. 

According to Jodi McNeill, policy analyst for the environmental think tank, Pembina Institute, ”The ponds have grown and grown over the last five decades. If we continue kicking the can down the road we will be leaving a legacy of ten’s of billions in clean up costs to future generations”. 

Oil companies are required to return the lands they develop to their natural state, which is a joke, especially when they go bankrupt, which one did last August leaving 4,000 uncleaned wells and pipelines. The Alberta Energy Regulator has estimated it will cost $130 billion to clean up the mess if they can. It may not be so easy considering leakage from the ponds has got into the surrounding groundwater and the nearby Athabasca River. 

Of one thing you can be sure of – everywhere capitalism sticks its filthy tentacles it destroys life in one way or another.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

No Capitalist Will Say To A Worker, ”You Are An Idiot For Letting Me Exploit You”.

The arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on Dec.6 sent shock waves through stock markets and around the world. She is the company’s chief financial officer and daughter of its founder Ben Zhengfei.

 The arrest was in response to a request from the US, who want Ms. Meng extradited as part of an investigation of an alleged scheme to use the global banking system to evade US sanctions against Iran. 

Prime Minister Trudeau said that though he had no prior knowledge of the arrest, nevertheless stated it was made by the appropriate authorities. The Chinese got quiet snotty about it and retaliated by arresting two Canadians in China, a diplomat and a businessman, who have no connection with the matter.

 Fearing Ms. Mehg a flight risk she was released on bail, but has to wear an electronic ankle bracelet. 

Whether the lady is guilty or not is hardly the point, which is capitalism is a system based on deceit. No capitalist ever has, or will, say to a worker, ”You are an idiot for letting me exploit you”.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John &contributing members of the SPC

The Day of the People has Arrived

 Every worker must be troubled by the reality we face today. Our trade unions appear practically helpless before the offensive of the employers. The potential power of those organisations created to protect our interests appear practically impotent today. Capitalist governments have passed crippling legislation to handicap the labour movement. The simple truth is this: the trade union movement has been disarmed by the profit-greedy billionaires, beguiled by the fiction that the government was the impartial umpire between the classes.

When indeed will the time be ripe for the establishment of socialism? This question the slippery-tongued left-wing intellectual always dodge. We need not wait any longer for their evasions and ambiguities, for their procrastination and delays. We have seen how they postponed, blocked and sabotaged the campaigns for a socialist society, telling our fellow-workers that they are still not ready for such a revolutionary change. But our enemy, the capitalist class, have not waited.  They have politically paralyzed, politically dismembered, politically emasculated organized labour, bound and gagged by ruling class courts. From the capitalists’ point of view, ANY expression of socialist ideas represents a great DANGER. Those who will have courage and wisdom enough to resist them means the continuing life of socialism itself. All of the poverty and greed, bloodshed and suffering on this planet is a part of the capitalist system. And we intend to change it.

The physical and mental labour of our fathers and grandfathers has produced the factories, railroads and other riches that lie around us. But generations upon generations of our remoter ancestors produced the things that made our fathers’ labor more productive too. The tools and technology we have today, the accumulated capital of the past and the rightful heritage of all humanity, these are the things that make our labour so productive. Our brains, too – finer and more subtle instruments than our ancestors had, enable us to work more efficiently, to produce better things. But still, we as laborers have only ourselves to sell – only our labor power. All that we produce – all that we labor to make – belongs to the buyers of our labor power. Our ancestors built up such a tremendous storehouse of tools and knowledge, such a magnificent productive system, that it is impossible for each worker to own the tools that make labour so productive.  Our heritage is turned against us. The capitalist, who owns the means of production – the instruments of our labor, finds us disinherited in the market place, with nothing to sell but our labour power. While our labor creates our work places and his pleasure palaces – our labor-power is rewarded with slave’s bread, masquerading under the name of a “living wage.”

The Socialist Party has to be able to come up with the ideas and language that resonates enough to create solidarity across our whole class. We need to expose the political manipulation that are preoccupied with just profit where working people tend to be considered as an afterthought, if at all. We must reveal the indifference of elite to the pain of the poor and working people. They feel as if they can get away with anything with impunity, immunity and no accountability. We are living under  right-wing authoritarian populism; of a chauvinistic, xenophobic and nationalistic. We need to instill much more vision among our fellow workers.

The Socialist Party seldom win popularity contests in the current political climate even though it believes that poverty is unacceptable and unnecessary. Anyone with an inkling of understanding of socialist ideas, and anyone who has ever been a have-not under a capitalist regime, knows that “caring” capitalism is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism in order to maintain itself has to put profit and economic growth ahead of people’s needs. If in a time of “economic boom” profit and people’s needs coincide, then we are told to believe that this will always be the case, that capitalism brings the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Socialists see this as a feeble brainwashing technique. It insults our intelligence.

The Socialist Party has explained the subject position of the working class under capitalist society, and has showed that this subjugated condition can only be abolished by converting the means of living from the private property of the capitalist class into the common property of society as a whole. This conversion could be carried out only after the capture of the political machinery by the workers, organised in a sound socialist movement. The Socialist Party says that reforms failed either to remove the cause of poverty or to change the general direction of capitalist development. Hence the necessity for revolutionary political action. Our object is the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole people.

The time for waiting is over. The time for action is now. It is time to rip the blinkers off the eyes of the entire working population and instill within them the confidence that they possess a formidable political power and economic strength.

Life Under Capitalism, A Losing Battle.

The Parkdale area of Toronto ain’t exactly a hang-out for the rich and famous, in other words you don’t live there if you can afford not to. 

Since 1971 the Parkdale Community Legal Service Clinic, has done an amazing job in fighting evictions, rent increases and, as they put it: ”Bad landlords”.

Some residents have said without the clinic they would be homeless or dead. Sadly the clinic itself may soon be homeless. 

In mid-October it was served with a termination notice by landlord, Martin Usher, ordering it to be out of the office space it has rented for 18 years by Jan 1. 

Naturally they will fight it, but win or lose, it just goes to show that the more one tries to resist the effects of life under capitalism, the more one is fighting a losing battle.

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

Elevating Profits. To Hell With Safety.

On December 5, Ontario Auditor General, Bonnie Lysyk, issued a scathing report about the state of elevator safety in the province. She slammed the agency that regulates elevators, The Technical Standards and Safety Authority, for falling down (no pun intended) on the job. 

Ms. Lysyk said 80 per cent of elevators failed their inspections in 2018 and that there had been 487 safety incidents. The report noted that the agency does not have consistent inspection standards, and ”A number of companies dominate the market and have been failing to make sure elevators meet safety laws”. 

The report did not add they were probably cutting corners for bigger profits and to hell with safety.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

We need a rational world, Not a rationed world

The Socialist Party advocates the principle of common ownership. There was a time when it seemed to many that it was possible to tame the State and create a “welfare state” for the benefit of all. Yet it has only offered us crumbs. The apathy and despair endemic to our culture are symptoms of the powerlessness people experience over their lives. The State cannot build a socialist world for us, that must be built by ourselves. We seek to abolish capitalist commodity production and wage labour and replace these with a system where the wealth of society is owned in common, managed by the people themselves, and used to produce and allocate goods and services to each equitably and according to their needs. This socialist revolution will liberate us from both the need and the drive to create wealth for the rich, making possible a socialist mode of production that seeks to benefit all of humanity. Mutual aid is essential and promotes the positive flourishing of our collective humanity.

The Socialist Party’s object is the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole people. What do we mean by common ownership? Do we propose taking over all the means of production, etc., and then divide them up amongst the whole people? Of course not. Industry and transport are all too large and too complicated to parcel out piecemeal division. In fact, one of the benefits capitalist production has conferred upon society is just this: that it has organised production on a social scale, though the process has brought misery to millions of workers and small proprietors. If we were to attempt to “divide up” existing wealth, therefore, we would have to take a step backward in development and revert to the primitive productive methods of our forefathers. And even if it were possible to take such a step backward, we would then be faced with two hopeless tasks: (1) To produce enough to satisfy the needs of the present huge population, without the productive, transport and other facilities that exist to-day; and (2) with private property of a primitive kind in existence to prevent the regrowth of huge amalgamations, such as exist to-day. We do not propose a “divvying up” society’s wealth.

What we do intend is that all the means of producing and distributing the things we need shall be taken over and administered as the common possession of one huge family—the human family. In other words, that each will be free to eat, drink and clothe himself according to his needs, and that in return each will contribute his services to production according to his capacities and the requirements of the times. This will involve the organisation of production according to plan. That is, it will be necessary to determine roughly: (1) The production required; (2) the raw material and machinery, etc., required; (3) the amount of work required to ensure the necessary production; (4) the allocation of the population to the work required.

Socialists are not hero worshippers because the emancipation of the working class can only be the job of the working class itself. That as long as it sits back trusting passively in some leader or savior or even party to “do good” for the people, it will never get an inch nearer to the great goal of freedom. The Socialist Party does not seek to “bring” socialism to the people; we seek to bring about  the conditions where the people win socialism for themselves.

When the new society has settled down to production on the new plan of organisation there will be ample leisure for each individual to employ himself in ways productive of pleasure. To some leisure time devoted to invention; to others the devotion to the different arts will be the outlet for their superfluous energies. Others again will like to spend some time in travel and it is just here that the new arrangement promises most. Modern technology has so simplified production that it has reduced the part of each to a comparatively simple one, and the tendency in this direction is still rapidly proceeding.

Working people live their whole life on the poverty line, some of them a little below it and some of them a little above it, but most of them precariously poised on it. Recession or war, unemployment or over-wok, hunger or obesity, collapse of economy or collapse of the environment – these are the alternatives presented by capitalism. It’s not difficult to prove that this is an insane world. Every issue of the Socialist Standard offers proof of the absurdity of the capitalist system. Even the capitalist media finds itself admitting the irrational character of this social system. Suffering and sorrow are the fate of individuals bent on self-destruction. Poverty and financial crises drive many into depression and to suicide. If one did not foresee a socialist solution to all of these problems, it would be easy to lose one’s mental balance. Our critics like to make fun of us and call us “crazy dreamers” But they are the ones who are supporting  this lunatic asylum called capitalism.

 You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Vulture Capitalism. Another Pension Fund sucked Dry

Two motions have been brought before the Ontario Superior Court, by 12,000 former Sears workers who feel they have been royally screwed, having been forced to take a 30 per cent cut on their pensions. 

The main focus of their ire is Eddie Lampert, a hedge fund billionaire, who took control over the ailing retail giant in 2005 and helped run it into the ground until it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017. 

What has upset the plaintiffs so much is that in December 2013 a $509 million dollar dividend was paid by Sears-Canada to its shareholders; you can bet they had a merry Christmas. 

As Bernie Sanders said, "Once again vulture capitalists have hollowed out a company to line their own pockets".

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

Why is socialism still relevant?

Part of centenary celebrations. Speakers Dick Donnelly and Bill Martin.

Capitalism Humbug, would’ve been better.

A letter came in my mail from Toronto’s Scott Mission, which calls itself, A Christian Ministry of Mercy and Love, asking for a donation to feed the homeless at Christmas. 

To quote, "But for those who are homeless and alone, there is no such thing as a holiday. Every single day is a new struggle to find food to eat and a safe place to stay”, which could also be said of many who are not homeless, especially as many parts of major cities are not safe. 

They also said, "for the last 77 years we have relied on the lords provision…”, well he’s not doing a very good job. Each meal they said would cost only $4.25, but what the good folks at Scott Mission don’t say is they’ll be starving the next day and for many afterward. 

What good is Christmas Spirit to them then? Perhaps Scrooge almost had it right when he said ‘Christmas Humbug'. Almost ‘cos' Capitalism Humbug, would’ve been better.

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

Workers face the same problems result of living within the same system.

The last contract negotiated between GM and the auto-workers union, Unifor, which was in 2016, ensured that the plant in Oshawa would be in operation well past 2019. Imagine their shock and everyone else’s when GM announced it would lay off 2,700 workers there in December 2019. 

This was all the more amazing because GM had recently made $500 million in improvements at the plant and, to quote Mayor John Henry, ”those trucks are selling like crazy”. Unifor has been informed that, "There is no product allocated to the Oshawa plant past December 2019.

 Furthermore it will affect their suppliers and businesses in the Oshawa area. 

So one minute you think you’ve got a future and the next minute you find out the truth – that’s life under crapitalism.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

Make Socialism a Reality

Socialism is a practical possibility. Human beings are quite capable of co-operating as free and equal men and women, to produce the wealth they need and to run a social system in which the satisfaction of these needs will be the guiding principle. The Socialist Party asserts that men and women can so organise the conditions of work that they can get pleasure from working and making useful things. The idea of a wage-free, money-free society terrifies the master-class. After all, how would they get their living without surplus labour to feast upon? Most people live in one of two quite different worlds. There is the world of sumptuous palaces for an opulent, parasitical few which the unemployed rich enjoy and there is the world of overcrowded slums for the poor, dispossessed multitudes.

 Capitalism is a brutal social system which splits the human race into two distinct classes: one a tiny, unproductive minority, able to wallow in the best of everything because of their ownership of the means of production and their unearned income from investments, and enormous number of propertyless workers who are restricted to shortages, enduring exploitation in spite of the fact that they are the actual creators of all the world’s real wealth.

The vast majority of people today are wage-slaves. In order to eat they are forced to work for the master class who own and control all the instruments of production. The masses who produce but do not own are robbed by the few who own but do not produce. They are robbed because they are paid in the form of wages only a small part of the value they create when they process raw materials into commodities. The workers must be paid less than the true value of the goods they produce for if they were paid the real value of those goods the master class would not be able to sell them for a profit. The profit which keeps the robber class in idle luxury come from the unpaid labour of the working class. That is what capitalism is all about and it cannot work any other way. Capitalism cannot operate in the interests of mankind.

What the poor cannot buy they must do without. If they cannot afford to buy food then they must starve, and capitalism will let them starve to death outside warehouses which are crammed full of good food which is rotting because the needy do not have the money to purchase it. Profit comes before people. Capitalism decrees that goods which cannot be sold for profit must not be produced, no matter how desirable and necessary they may be in order to make the world a better place for humanity. It also decrees that, at times of so-called glut, goods which cannot be sold must he destroyed as there is no money to be made by giving commodities away. That is why ‘surplus’ food (surplus only to the demands of the market, that is) is burned or dumped into the sea while underprivileged people are dying of hunger.

Capitalism causes unemployment, slums, poverty, famine, crime and war. Those social cankers are built into capitalist society and cannot possibly be eradicated as long as capitalism lasts. They are the natural and unavoidable consequences of the money system, the profit motive and the private property basis of society—the three fundamental rocks of capitalism. War cannot be charmed out of existence by reformist measures such as peace treaties and disarmament agreements. It is spawned by the national economic rivalries inseparable from capitalism. The structure of society must be altered in order to get rid of the social system which causes all the trouble. History proves that reforms achieve next to nothing—what we need now is a world-wide social revolution.

Instead of goods being produced simply to be sold to make a profit for the capitalists the privately-owned means of production should be converted to the common property of all Mankind so that everybody can have free access to everything that is produced. That would make money unnecessary as people would have no need to buy what they already owned. The working class would own the goods because they would be the people who had produced them. They produce everything now but capitalism deprives them of the fruits of their labour and relegates them to wage-slavery. But once production is organised to satisfy human need money will be superfluous and social equality will become a reality for everyone in the world of abundance which science could make possible tomorrow in a different social set-up. And when men have free access to all they need there will not be anything for them to fight over.

The capitalists employ every trick in the book to mislead people that capitalism is the best of all possible systems. Which it is—for the rich. But for the robbed millions who are the only useful, essential members of society capitalism is a curse. Unfortunately, it isn’t difficult to dazzle the masses of people with all the ostentatious ritual and ceremony, the pomp that the rulers stage for that purpose. The master class know how to divert the workers' attention from social conditions to irrelevancies. 

We Need Real Socialism

The Socialist Party insists that the workers must win political power and capture the State machine to obtain supremacy over the capitalist class. The property-owning class can only "command” the economic conditions by being in political control. Their economic interests unite the capitalists into political parties to control the governing machine so that their economic interests can be defended. Hence the fierce competition to win a majority of the working-class voters to maintain capitalist control. The capitalists are combined through the political government in order to hold the proletariat in subjection. Anarchist politics ignores the enormous power of the State machine to suppress revolts. It ignores, too, the lack of resources of the workers when on strike or "locked out.” Revolutionary Syndicalism/Industrial Unionism cannot establish socialism, for it organises the workers by industry and divides the workers up into industrial sections, each concerned with its own industry. The Socialist Party hold that the workers must first of all realise their common interests and unite into a class organisation as socialists struggling for political control. The forms of the workers' economic organisation under capitalism will reflect the growing class understanding and Socialist ideas of the workers. The Socialist Party rejects “workers’ management” as a solution to workers’ problems. We insist on the abolition of wages. We say that tinkering with administrative forms is of no use. Buying and selling must be abolished. The wage packet—the permission to live—must be abolished.

Wherever one turns, one discovers disappointment with the Labour Party at its manifest failure of to make an impression upon the various evils of the worker’s life. Some supporters of the Labour Party appear to consider that their leaders’ failure is personal; that it is due to not having the right men in office. It is plain, however, to anyone understanding the above facts, that no shuffling of ministers in the Government can accomplish any vital change. Any attempt to interfere with the normal operations of capitalism could only introduce chaos and intensify the very evils of which the workers complain, thus bewildering their supporters and producing an even more rapid reaction than that at present in progress. Economic laws cannot be set aside by the emotional rhetoric of orators, however sincere they may be. The only logical alternative to capitalism to-day is socialism, and as the majority of Labour Party supporters are not socialists, they will not support any fundamental attack upon capitalism. The present leaders of the Labour Party are astute enough and experienced enough to realise this, and they possess sufficient control over the party’s wire-pulling machinery to hold the left-wingers in effective check. Reformers plan to re-arrange the wages system. They imagine that slavery can be operated in the interests of slaves! They are wasting their time.

At present the majority of the workers lack the necessary knowledge to organise for socialism. Only economic development coupled with intelligent propaganda can teach them. In the meantime, all the efforts of calculating schemers and well-meaning blunderers can only bring them disappointment, disillusion and despair. The Socialist Party has said this for over a century, and it is prepared, if necessary, to go on repeating it. Day by day the truth of our contention is being confirmed. The bitter fruits of compromise are apathy. The attempts of reformers to gloss over and patch up the class-struggle have failed. For ourselves, however, not having based any hopes in the Labour Party, we find no cause for despair. The need for our existence becomes plainer than ever. Out of a realisation that compromise is futile will grow the conviction that the socialist policy of unswerving determination to end capitalism by attacking unceasingly its political props is the only fertile one. The failure of Labour is but the echo of the failure of Conservatives.  It is capitalism which fails to permit the workers to enjoy the fruits of their work. The interests of the workers demand a social change, a change from the private ownership of the means of living to the common ownership thereof. To that end we summon those workers whose blinkers are falling from their eyes to organise for the capture of the powers of government in order to achieve their emancipation. Capitalism is a society of unrelenting insecurity and poverty. The lot of all workers under capitalism. Their day to day struggles will be more frequent and intense, and the outcome a continuing vista of repetitive struggle over the same issues—work and wages.

Men and women will never be free from exploitation and oppression until all work is voluntary and access to all goods and services is free. Socialism means a world-wide society, democratically controlled, without profits, wages or money. This is a practical proposition now. All attempts to solve such problems as war, poverty, hunger, alienated and degrading toil, inside a society based on wages and profits are sure to fail. We, alone of all political organisations, use the slogan “Abolition of the wages system!”

It is true that the capitalists, like all ruling classes, live in great luxury and possess immense power. But it is a mistake to think that the workers are poor because the capitalists consume so much. On the contrary, the wealth actually consumed personally by capitalists is an insignificant (and diminishing) fraction of total wealth produced. Taking the consumption of the capitalists and sharing it out amongst the workers would result in a rise for us all of only a few shillings a week. It is a fact that our masters live off the fat of the land, but if they starved we should still be slaves. Socialists are not primarily concerned, like moralists of “fair play,” to indict the caviar and yachts of the super-rich, but rather the misdirection of production: the subordination of consumption to accumulation and the immensity of organized waste and destruction.

The wages system is the universal badge of class servitude and exploitation. When the class system of capitalism is scrapped, the wages systems will go with it. Poverty and insecurity are inherent in this capitalist society. Wages only represent enough wealth, on average, to keep workers in working order and to provide replacements when they wear out. Capitalism necessarily degrades both workers and capitalists in a thousand different ways. But this degradation presses harder upon the workers whose whole lives are spent as appendages to someone else's pursuit of profits, mere extensions to the productive resources of another class. They are harried and driven, deceived and deluded by more refined methods and to a greater degree of intensity than any exploited class in history. They are divided and subdivided and taught to take up the spurious ideology of their masters as their own. All wars in the modem world are predatory—fought by workers who own no means of production, to enable the victorious sections of the capitalist class to re-divide the plunder. Workers clearly have no stake in such a set-up.

The life of the working class is spent in struggles to maintain a meagre level of existence at the mercy of blind economic forces they as yet can only understand vaguely, if at all. Leisure becomes a respite between work shifts and work becomes a drudge to be regarded as a necessary evil, instead of an essential means of self-expression through social creativity. As much as workers hate employment and have little interest in what they do, they live in fear of unemployment and develop neuroses of resentment against “outsiders" or “foreigners” who are seen as a threat to “their” jobs. They fill half the hospital beds with cases of nervous and mental disorders which arise from the pressures to which capitalism subjects them. Yet, epithets such as "agitator" and “trouble-maker" are commonly applied to anyone who seeks change.

With the advent of socialism, goods and services of all kinds will be produced solely for use. Social products will no longer be exchanged, but will be freely available, because the means of production will belong to society as a whole. There will be no means of exchange or any other barrier between people and the things they need. The pattern of conduct that follows from common ownership will be a harmonious one; just as that arising from class ownership is antagonistic. Human dignity will again be able to assert itself, free from exploitation. The conditions which cause war and poverty will disappear. People will willingly co-operate because they will be conscious of their involvement in society and will be in control of their environment. The fact is that in order for socialism to be established, a majority of the world’s workers must understand and desire it. From the basis of this understanding, new, truly human relationships will arise in place of the crude cash nexus.

Taking Socialism Seriously

We need to hold to a vision of the future we want to see and work to make it a reality. It’s been a tough for those of us in the Socialist Party trying to overthrow capitalism but that doesn’t mean we should give up—in fact that would be among the worst things we could do. What stands in the way of socialism are attitudes of despair and despondency. And the business of the Socialist Party politics is, among other things, to change those attitudes. The Socialist Party holds the socialist future in our hearts and minds so that it can give us the perseverance to keep up the struggle. We resist capitalism not because we are guaranteed success but because it is right. Our compass should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end in mind so not to lose our way. An important part of our task today is to recover socialist theory from distortions.

Socialism aims at giving meaning to the life and work of people, enabling their freedom and their creativity to flourish. Socialism is not state ownership or government planning or even a rise in living standards. Socialist society implies the organisation by people themselves of every aspect of their social life, seeking to build the world without oppression and exploitation.  The purpose of socialist revolution is instead to provide today’s society with a form of organisation that corresponds to the material possibilities open to us. Today's world has all the objective material capacities to put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that it perpetuates. This is the basic and primary reason for working for socialism.

The Socialist Party is often asked to lay out in detail our idea of what socialism will be like. A detailed blueprint is possible only where we have, in advance, comprehensive knowledge of all relevant facts. We do not possess such comprehensive information about the future which is not laid out according to a prearranged pattern, but is itself modified by our actions.  The most we can do or need to do, therefore, is to offer a general rough sketch. We learn about the details filling in the gaps provided by the rough sketch as we go along. If we are reasonably sure of the main outlines, we go ahead and find out what happens, adjusting ourselves flexibly to experience.

 Yet there are many elements to the socialist ideal— “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”; the disappearance of the State; the breaking down of the barrier between intellectual and physical labor; “society of the free and equal” In order for the society to be just and equitable, it must embody socialist principles. We need to make a fundamental change in society. SOCIALISM MEANS EXPANDING DEMOCRACY NOT ONLY IN THE POLITICAL SENSE BUT IN AN ECONOMIC SENSE. The socialist idea of a free and equal cooperative commonwealth is a practical one under an economy of abundance. A world without money, and without any kind of substitute for a monetary exchange, would not be a world of chaos, as some might suppose as the alarmists would have us believe. A world without money be like? I think it would be a world without poverty and hunger and unemployment; without economic misery and without fear for the future. It would be a world where men and women could choose their particular vocation and might work at the thing for which is best suited. It would be a world where everyone might be well and comfortable, fed and housed.

The Socialist Party counter the illusion that there can be world peace, explaining that there could be no lasting solution on the basis of capitalism. The form of the conflict could be changed, there could be interludes brought about by war weariness and exhaustion, above all the development of the class struggle could cut across nationalism and sectarianism for a period of time. But, so long as capitalism remained, the underlying problem and with it the basis for ongoing conflict would remain also.

This is our opportunity

“To escape its wretched lot, the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are drink and the church, the third is the social revolution.” -  Bakunin (‘God, and the State,’ 1871)

The Socialist Party proposes great changes in the way our world is organised and run.  The idea of the impossibility of life without the market still predominates. Scouring the world for profits, capitalism has expanded into virtually every corner of the planet and created a global economy with an international division of labour. The capitalists have reaped unprecedented profits yet it is unable to solve the problem of growing poverty. As long as capitalism lasts only a few superficial cosmetic changes can be made in it. No matter that we remain a tiny minority. No matter that we face defeat. The more we proclaim the fundamentals of socialism, the more fertile the soil in the future. We, in the Socialist Party, seek the co-operative commonwealth, in which there shall be neither master nor servant, where people are not shackled and gagged by the system under which they work. 

Instead of the market choosing what to produce and when and how to distribute it, the Socialist Party say society should have rational planning. However, we decline to get lost in describing the fine details. What is the future of mankind? That is for mankind to decide, not the Socialist Party. Presently we are incapable of foretelling all the conditions of how this future will be like. Those who demand intricate blueprints of socialism are either political foes or sceptics. They insist upon a blueprint not to fill in any gap within it but highlight a weakness to undermine the idea. But we are able to depict socialism with broad brush strokes to indicate necessary components and signpost its direction. There is not much more to arranging socialism than there is to a happy family household. Socialism is the rational distribution of the necessaries of life according to need. A person’s needs are food, shelter, clothing, education, health care, and entertainment and leisure.  We cannot precisely define needs but socialism is bound to produce different longings and needs and we are confident that those can be furnished by ever more innovative technology

A community would get together in some presumably democratic way (no one way fits all) to organise the coordination among the individual production units.  So, the planning mechanism is where people would get together, exchange views and opinions, agree on a plan. That planning be done at a world level, at the regional level, at the local level, depending on circumstances. Obviously, if the planning is mostly local, and there has to be some coordination among the localities, then how much of that coordination is needed depends on the division of labour and the supply of materials. The more it does for itself, the less coordination needed but we are not talking about autarky. There will have to be cooperation among worker self-managed enterprises.

This age of plenty for all, an era of shared abundance for all has already been technically possible for several decades. Why wait any longer to usher in an age of peace and prosperity. Socialism will bring together the planning of production to meet human need, the development of science and technology, and the free access to goods. There is no obstacle to society being run on the socialist principle: ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.’

 Our rulers are absolutely united on what they must do as a class to protect themselves from any challenge to the system of private property and to their privilege and power. There is a manipulation of people’s thinking,  the age old tactic of “divide and conquer,” with the intent being to isolate one section of society in order to control the rest.  The ruling class’ tactics is to disarm and divide the working class. The ruling class uses every question to assert alliances along national and colour lines, inciting bigotry and xenophobia particularly among native born. The ruling class is waging a vicious, relentless campaign for the hearts and minds of the people. It emphasizes “me, me, me, and to hell with everyone else." The Socialist Party is engaged in a war of ideas to win the hearts and minds of fellow-workers.  

People are confused. They don’t know where to throw a blow or who to blame for their poverty and misery. The ruling class understands that as long as the mass of people lack a vision and remain confused about who is their friend and who is their foe, it can maintain its supremacy. Mankind's future must not be decided by those in power, the financiers, the industrialists, and the politicians. It must be decided by working people who must organise and speak out with one voice.  We demand life inside socialism before death under capitalism overtakes us all. The struggle for socialism has become the fight for the very existence of mankind.

The Socialist Party cause is a vision of humanity creating a new world, a world free of exploitation and strife. No force on Earth can stop workers from taking what rightfully belongs to them. No force can prevent working people from coalescing into one unified workers movement but it cannot progress without a goal. That aspiration is a world free forever from want, from race and national hatred and from sexual oppression and human exploitation, where the ever-expanding material and cultural needs of the people are satisfied by an ever-expanding technology that has freed humanity from toil. Today, the level of the means of production makes realising this cause possible. The Socialist Party aim is one of prosperity and social harmony. In 1904 we formed our organisation to accomplish this end. With little hope of a decent future, the working class will always present a threat to the capitalists. However, a movement of sorts is taking shape. The movement consists of the social activity of millions of people to reorganise society to be ecologically sustainable.

Workers have to live in a class society and their wills are restricted by the limitations imposed by the State; nevertheless, within their own organisations they can aspire to community of democracy and a socialist commonwealth.  The Socialist Party is part of the movement of independent working-class education world-wide. Without interest, knowledge, and will, nothing can be done. With them, all difficulties will vanish. For as Goethe once said, “You need only blow upon your hands.”

The future is up to all workers

The Socialist Party is a political party, which means that its concern is the struggle of the working class as a whole. We stand for socialism: a new system in which the people own and control the economy. Capitalism is an outlived system whose lifeblood is profit and exploitation, whether or not represented as the “welfare state” and whether or not its government is administered by liberals or self-styled “socialists.” Capitalism perpetuates poverty, unemployment, racism, and war. Socialism will only be gained by waging the working-class struggle. 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 spirit of our time is revolutionary and growing more so every day. The capitalist system is doomed. The signs of change confront us upon every hand. For countless ages the world has been a vast battlefield and the struggle for existence a perpetual conflict. In this struggle which has appealed to the basest and not to the best in man the cunning few have triumphed and now have the masses at their mercy. The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system and for the rule of the people; the only party that boldly avows itself the party of the working class and its purpose the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to own the World's resources and industries, the toilers will be struggling in the hell of poverty as they are today. The Socialist Party is absolutely the only party which faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly that it has a definite plan for ending these conditions. The Socialist Party is the party of the exploited workers. Private property and competition have had their day. The Socialist Party stands for social ownership and co-operation. The one is capitalism; the other socialism. The one industrial despotism, the other industrial democracy. The Socialist Party demands the overthrow of the wages system. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is what the Socialist Party stands for in this campaign. We demand the means of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand the equal rights of all the people regardless of sex, race, color, or nationality.  We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people. The point about socialism is that it would replace a hierarchical, bureaucratic and undemocratic society – capitalism – with a genuine democracy in which the working people controlled their own representatives. The self-emancipation of the working class through their own struggle and the democratic society which follows such emancipation are at the heart of socialism. 

The attitude of the Sociaalist Party is clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is created by the workers. It claims that the workers must commonly own and control all the processes of wealth production. In a word, the Socialist Party strives to build socialism. We carry this struggle on to the political field in order to challenge the power which the present ruling class wields through its domination of the State which it wins at the ballot box. By its victory at the ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the capitalists are able to repress labour.

We are convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be abolished. The  State is not and cannot be a true democracy. It is not elected according to the needs of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the press. By its money the capitalists can buy up the media to create false election issues. The electorate is not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the media representing capital, puts before the workers. But we cannot build socialism and leave political control in the hands of the ruling class. We have seen what power the conquest of the State gives to the capitalists in its struggle with Labour. It is through its political strength that the capitalists can deprive us of every shred of civil rights the loss of which makes the peaceful agitation for the revolution impossible. Capitalists if necessary will resort to the use ofcoercive methods and even  the armed forces. The control of these forces flow directly from capitalist control of the State which it secures at the ballot box. Therefore, in order to achieve a peaceful revolution, the working class must capture the powers of the State at the ballot box and prevent the capitalist class from suppressing workers. This destructive function is the revolutionary role of political action. But this destructive political function is necessary in order that the industrial constructive element in the revolution builing socialism may not be thwarted.

The Labour Party has no message for the working class and no method whereby the workers may destroy capitalism and construct socialism. The Socialist Party alone puts forward such a position as a revolutionary political organisation that believes in revolutionary political action.  We urge our fellow-workers to use their votes to capture political power—not to play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to uproot the political State. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is to believe in parliamentarism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary party, in that sense. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of sweeping away all antiquated institutions which stand in the way of the industrial union owning and controlling the means of production. . The social revolution is on now. It is for us to bring it to its consummation. For the first time since the beginning of human history, a great upheaval will have for its aim, not the substitution of one class for another, but the destruction of classes, the inauguration of a universal humanity. But this new social system cannot be created and inspired by a minority. It can only function with the approval of an immense majority of the citizens. It is this majority that will gradually create from capitalistic chaos, the various types of social property, co-operative, communal, and corporative, and it will only demolish the last remains of the capitalist edifice when it has firmly established the foundations of the socialistic order and when the new building is ready to give shelter to mankind. In this enormous task of social construction, the immense majority of the citizens must co-operate. Destined for the benefit of all, it must be prepared and accepted by almost all, practically indeed, by all; because the hour inevitably arrives when the power behind an immense majority discourages the last efforts to resist its will. The great  thing about socialism is precisely that it is not the regime of a minority. It cannot, therefore, and ought not, to be imposed by a minority.