How is society likely to evolve in the future?

The many discoveries of all the sciences, from astronomy to nuclear physics, amply demonstrate that the universe as we know it today is in perpetual evolution. Nature is in constant movement, continuously changing. Mankind itself is the product of this uninterrupted evolution of nature from inanimate matter right through to a living, intelligent being. Historical materialism is the science that studies one particular form of evolution – the evolution of human society. It is the evolution of “human society”, rather than of individual men, for a society cannot be reduced to a collection of individuals any more than a human being can be reduced to a sum of cells. Society is a specific reality whose evolution is governed by a specific set of laws. Society has been evolving ever since the beginning of humanity.

Despite some inadequacies, Marxism explains the social phenomena accompanying the evolution of society by society’s constant need to ensure its subsistence and reproduction, and its tendency to try and reduce its operating costs (to put it somewhat crudely). This explains why in its struggle to survive and reproduce, human society has at times been obliged to engage in some activities judged rather severely by the moral standards of today, such as slavery. This also explains why society came to be and is still divided into social classes, a reality that socialism is the means to ending. did not invent human aspirations for a just, egalitarian and free society; men have cherished this dream for a very long time. What socialists did was to take these aspirations and shape them into a revolutionary project to achieve the better society to which mankind aspires. Economic expansion accompanied by widespread suffering and injustice is not desirable social progress. A society motivated by the drive for private gain and special privilege is not progress. The hungry, oppressed and underprivileged of the world must know social democracy not as a smug slogan but as a dynamic way of life which sees the world as one whole, and which recognizes the right of every body to the highest available standard of living.

The aim of the Socialist Party is the establishment by democratic means of a cooperative commonwealth in which the supplying of human needs and enrichment of human life shall be the primary purpose of our society. In spite of great economic progress and expansion, large sections of people do not benefit from the increased wealth produced. Wealth and economic power continues to be concentrated in the hands of a relatively few. The gap between those at the bottom and those at the top of the economic scale has widened. Billions still live in want and insecurity, deprived of a decent life, condemned to a cheerless life. In short, the world is characterized by glaring inequalities of wealth and by the domination of one group over another. The growing concentration of private wealth has resulted in the economic dictatorship by a privileged few over the many.

The world's productive capacity is not fully utilized. Its use is governed by the dictates of private economic power and by considerations of, private profit. The drive for profit has despoiled our rich resources of soil, water, forest and minerals. This lack of social planning results in a waste of our human as well as our natural resources. Our human resources are wasted through social and economic conditions which stunt human growth, through unemployment and through our failure to provide adequate education. We need the wise development and conservation of its natural resources. Our industries can and should be operated as to enable our people to use fully their talents and skills. Such an economy will yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of abundance for all. Opportunities for enriching the standard of life are greater than ever now. However, unless careful study and intelligent planning to meet the potential benefits for humanity, the evils of the past will be multiplied in the future. The technological changes will produce even greater concentrations of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment and the displacement of populations. The challenge facing working people today is whether future development will continue to perpetuate inequalities or whether it will be based on principles of social justice.

The Socialist Party reaffirms its belief that our society must build a new relationship among people--a relationship where everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop his or her capacities to the full, working together in the people's interest. The Socialist Party will not rest content until every person in all lands is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and an opportunity to live a rich and meaningful life as a citizen of a free and peaceful world. This is the cooperative commonwealth which the Socialist Party invites the workers of the world to build.

For people whose clothes are in rags we don’t offer to stitch them together with patches. We offer to make new and better clothing. The Socialist Party always put the interests of the working class first and foremost.

Elvis Costello's Shetland Connection

A nationwide NUS strike began in January 1988. It was organised in solidarity with workers in the Isle of Man who had been sacked for not accepting new contract terms.

The union had negotiated a weekly ferry service that acted as a lifeline for the Shetland Islands. It would carry essential supplies for the islands, and staff would not take payment - rather the money would go to charity. But some crew from the St Clair ferry joined the picket, meaning it would not make the Shetland sailing.

Shetland's Folk Festival has always been ambitious - bringing international artists to community halls, bars, and an audience that otherwise may not have been able to see them. An inescapable part of the experience for visiting artists is to make the journey up from Aberdeen on the overnight, 14-hour ferry.  The strike action put the festival at risk.

Elvis Costello negotiated the passage of the ferry in exchange for performing a benefit concert for the workers on his return to Aberdeen. He probably single-handedly saved the Shetland Folk Festival that year.

Good to his word, he hired the Aberdeen Music Hall and performed a variety concert in May 1988. In Melody Maker, he was reported as saying: "I agree with the NUS side of things. Anything we can do to get publicity for them...must be good. I spoke to the pickets and they are just ordinary blokes trying to protect their jobs."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-47879328

Is there a future?

When the Socialist Party points to the continual struggle between employers and workers, and to the accompanying strife and ill-will as evils which are inseparable from a social system in which property is owned by one class and wealth is produced by another, we are often met with the answer that the discord, the strikes and lock-outs, are the result not of the economic organisation, but of the defects of the human beings concerned. Capitalism is systemically and inherently hard-wired not just to exploit labour power and to concentrate wealth and power in ever fewer hands, but also to push a livable planet passed its existential tipping points.

We cannot understand the mental acrobatics of so-called socialists who propose to take office in order to continue capitalism. Not being a class party, the Labour Party cannot obviously be a working class Party. Such an accommodating party can, therefore, find it easy to secure “rich friends” and finances from the only other section of society, apart from the working class—the capitalists. What Labourites, in woeful ignorance, or wilful deceit, calls bits of socialism, are merely state-owned or government controlled departments of capitalism. These the capitalists prefer not to own for their own convenience. 

Socialism means common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by the whole of the people. Such cannot be brought about in bits and pieces by any party or government; it can only be established as a system of society, when there are a greater number seeking socialism than there are opposed or apathetic to it. The Labour Party shows that they are prepared to take office with non-socialist support. The Labour Party must, therefore, if elected without the endorsement for socialist reconstruction, must carry on the present system. Be their intentions the most honest, they are powerless to avert or remove the evil the present system begets, notwithstanding the remedies they propose if elected. When our fellow-workers, through education, become socialist in outlook, they will elect and control socialist delegates. They will cease to be followers and will be leader-free.

We can change it all if we want it all, and surely we do seek everything for everybody. Without bold and focused action, our future is in critical danger. If there is no future for a mass worldwide socialist movement then there can be little chance for humanity in the future. We either transcend the capitalist system by constructing a new society or we face the common ruin of all. Failure to establish the alternative to the profits system will bring what Arundhati Roy has called “the endgame of humanity.” It’s “socialism or barbarism...if we’re lucky” (Ivan Meszaros).

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called capitalism "irredeemable."

"Capitalism is an ideology of capital — the most important thing is the concentration of capital and to seek and maximize profit," she explained, during an interview. "To me, capitalism is irredeemable," she added.

The irony here is that AOC isn’t really a socialist. She is a progressive neo-New Dealer who calls for the reform of capitalism, not its abolition.

Change the World

We live now in a time of recession. One effect of the recession is to cause a lot of misery to a lot of people whose big mistake was to take what they thought was their big chance when they thought the time was ripe. They committed themselves to a massive debt. They were confident that the market would continue to rise. They simply couldn't lose. We all know what happened next. The economic situation which the pro-capitalist pundits claimed to have designed and constructed to work to the eternal benefit of everyone ready to take their chance, and which would last for ever, abruptly changed. There is now no shortage of experts to tell us what went wrong for the investing class. They borrowed too much money. They ran their affairs like there was no financial tomorrow. This presented few problems as long as the boom lasted, as long as sales went up taking profits with them. But when the slump began to bite, the big borrowers had difficulty in just paying the interest on their massive debts. They borrowed to seize what looked like a great opportunity; in the event it turned out to be a trap. Pressure of competition pushed the banks into lending; if one backed off there were plenty of others only too willing to exploit what they saw as an unending source of profit. The banks have now been brought face to face with the realities of capitalism— that it is a system of unpredictable swings, falls and rises, not to be controlled by financial experts or economists or politicians. At times it seems to offer the opportunity to some individuals or some firms to get rich fast. If they missed the opportunity they would not be working the system as they should. With luck it comes out right for them; in other circumstances there is disaster. And none of them, from the heights of the City of London or Wall St to the manager at your high street bank branch shows that they understand how the system works and that it cannot be controlled. Reformers traded off their vision and hope of the socialist future for a few privileges and comforts of the present, sharing out the crumbs.

We cannot leave political control in the hands of the ruling class.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. 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 Socialist Party is a revolutionary political organisation and therefore believes in revolutionary political action. It urges the workers to use their ballots to capture political power—not to play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to uproot the political State and to hand to our fellow-workers the constructive task of building up the administrative bodies of a socialist society. The attitude of the Socialist Party is clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is created by the workers. It claims that the workers must own all the processes of wealth production and control through all their various administrative councils. 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. We are convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. There is no equivocation.The political State is not and cannot be a true democracy. It is not elected according to the industrial and social wants of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the media. By its money the capitalists can buy up the mass media which then present false election issues. Voters are not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the TV and press, representing capital, puts before the workers. In order to achieve a peaceful revolution. Labour must capture the powers of the State at the ballot box

Humanity should be marching forward to socialism and freedom, not backward to barbarism. Outlived and outmoded capitalism has no secure future anywhere. The Socialist Party face the future with full confidence. And its task is to work for the common good of all. We possess a belief in mankind and its capacity to survive and improve. It is the recognition of reality, the most important and decisive reality there is. The gloomy prophets of doom see the obliteration of human society, but they ignore the history and the evolution of humanity, which demonstrates above all else the unconquerable will and capacity to survive and go forward. It is true that the human race, threatened with global warming and climate change, is indeed confronted with a problem of survival on this planet. But the human race will survive. And in order to survive, it will do away with the social system which threatens its survival. Socialism will win the world and change the world and make it safe and secure for all.

For a New World

We repudiate any idea of any socialist party "holding office" or "forming a government". The establishment of socialism will not be like a change of government, with the socialist party winning an election, forming a government and using its parliamentary majority to legislate socialism into being.

We do not say to fellow-workers: "Vote for us and we’ll introduce socialism for you".

What we say is: "If you want socialism, this is something you will have to do for yourselves; only you can establish socialism, not some party on your behalf".

What we are talking about is not a change of government nor a change to be achieved by a government, but a change in the basis of society—a social revolution, to be carried out by the actions of the immense majority. We advocate that this social revolution should be accomplished by democratic political means; so contesting elections, going into parliaments, etc will be involved, but the mechanics of electoral systems in particular countries are mere technical details. The important element is the socialist consciousness and democratic self-organisation of the working class who are the immense majority.

When the socialist movement has reached the stage when it is near to winning control of political power—the socialist political party really will be the majority working class organised politically for socialism. This means that it will be up to the socialist-minded majority itself to decide how to handle the sort of tactical issues you raise as hypothetical problems.

All we can say now is that whatever is decided will be decided democratically, in the light of the fact that socialism cannot be established unless and until a majority want it, and in accordance with the socialist principle that under no circumstances should socialists take on any responsibility for running capitalism.

The change-over to the situation you mention where a person elected for a locality would be the mandated delegate of the people of that locality won’t be able to take place until a classless society has been established. This, along with the procedures and practices it implies—report-back meetings, mandating conferences, referendums, right of recall, rotation of posts, etc— will in fact be the basis of the democratic decision-making structure of the new society. Socialists see society and the individual as reciprocal terms; the one couldn’t exist without the other.

We don’t want power; we want the majority to take power into their own hands. This in fact is the aim of the socialist revolution: to bring the means of production under the democratic control of all the people. But if this is the case why not organise just to take over the means of production? Why bother to also organise to win control of parliament and the state? This has been the main difference between us and those anarchists (by no means a majority, by a long way) who agree that common ownership can only come about through the majority organising themselves consciously and democratically.

We favour the socialist majority taking electoral action, as well as organising at their places of work, because we see this as the best way for them to ensure that the socialist revolution proceeds as smoothly and peaceably as possible. To try to ignore the state, whose role today is to uphold and protect capitalist property rights, would be a completely irresponsible policy as this would be to increase rather than minimise the risk of violence. Given the existence of a socialist majority, the sensible way to proceed would be to use the vote to take the control of parliament out of the hands of the supporters of capitalism, so neutralising the state while at the same time giving the socialist revolution an unchallengeable democratic legitimacy.

Unless you subscribe to the so-called “iron law of oligarchy" which says that elected representatives will always sell out, you have to explain why the socialist majority would be able to control the delegates it might send to some such extra-parliamentary body as a congress of workplace committees or a conference of neighbourhood councils (or whatever else it is you see as the alternative to parliament) but not those it sent into parliament. We say that, if they can do it in the one case, they can do it in the other too.

The phrase “workers’ control” is today frequently used as if it were some sort of definition of socialism. In fact it is not, implying as it does the continued existence of a working class and control of the productive system by units less than society. Clear thinking is uncommon on this whole question of workers’ control. It seems to be a slogan full of meaning. A closer examination discloses its inadequacy. 

The Socialist Party recognises the need for an organisation to arrange the affairs of society as a whole via a network of interconnected free federations of local communities with as much decentralisation as feasible. In our view the State, as a coercive instrument, only flourished in class societies and was the instrument whereby a ruling class controlled society. In the class-free society of the future there would be no coercive government machine, control would be purely administrative. With socialism, there could be no permanent conflict groups; society as a whole would exercise democratic control over the means of production.

Against the Nats and Independence

WORLD SOCIALISTS

The All Under One Banner (AUOB) group are planning the largest ever march for Scottish independence in Glasgow next month, Saturday, May 4. It hopes to attract more than 100,000 people.

Manny Singh of AUOB declared, “The message is simple and it has not changed. Scotland must become an independent country, and Scotland needs to decide its own future.”

Members of the Socialist Party ask in what way is the life of a Scottish wage slave basically different from that of an English, an American, or the Chinese wage-slave? There is no basic difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because we will still be subject to the wages, labour and capital relationship.

Workers have more in common with people like ourselves in other countries than with the privileged owning class of the country where we happen to have been born and work. The world-wide working class has a common interest, to end its exploitation and solve its problems, to join together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the planet will have become the heritage of all, so that there can be production to meet needs and not for profit. One World - One People, where cultural differences will still be celebrated, but where we’ll all be citizens of the world.

The interest of the working class in all countries is to reject all nationalism and to recognise that they have a common interest with people in other countries in the same economic situation of being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies in order to get a living. That interest lies in working together to establish a world-wide society of common ownership, democratic control, and production for use, not profit.  

Independence will not give the people of Scotland effective control over their own affairs.It is only feasible in a class-free, money-free, frontierless society. It is for the Scottish workers to see that their position demands that they should fight only for their class emancipation and that nothing, constitutional reform or national independence, should draw them away from their determination to fight for the realisation of socialism. What is the “independence” some Scots yearn after, if it means being trapped inside the confines of capitalism?

This is what we mean by socialism

Socialism will not be and cannot be established by decree. It cannot be legislated into being by any government, no matter how admirable. Socialism must be created by the people, must be made by every worker. There is no other way. Humanity must choose between the continuation of the capitalist system which leads to destruction or socialism which will make the Earth one country single and indivisible. Capitalism means conflict and bloodshed. Socialism stands for peace and the end of war. Socialism means peace and freedom for the entire world. Wars are inevitable under capitalism. Only socialism will bring permanent peace.

Workers must acquire a clear understanding of their real position under capitalism, of the nature of capitalist society as a whole, and of their mission in history. They must act consciously for their class interests. They must become conscious of the fact that these class interests lead to a socialist society. When this takes place, the workers are a class for themselves, a class with socialist consciousness. Against the ideas of capitalism and reformism, the Socialist Party works for the ideas of socialism. It combats the insidious ideas of capitalism so that the working class as a whole may be better equipped to fight its enemy. To imbue the workers with this rounded-out class consciousness, or socialist consciousness; to organise the struggle for socialism – that is the function of the Socialist Party. Socialism cannot be achieved, and the workers cannot effectively promote their interests, without class consciousness. Class consciousness means an understanding working class, a self-confident and self-reliant working class. The Socialist Party needs to win the working class to the principles of socialism. Socialism will never come by itself. It must be fought for. Without an organised, conscious socialist movement, socialism is impossible. The socialist revolution is the overthrow of capitalist despotism and the establishment of workers’ rule.

Capitalism is a world system, and it can be ended only on a world scale. The Socialist Party is internationalist because it considers nationalism reactionary and it is the brotherhood and equality of all the human race which is our aim. We consider that national frontiers have become an obstacle to further economic and social progress and a direct contributing source to conflicts and wars. It is internationalist because it understands that the class-free socialist society cannot be established within the framework of one country alone. Socialism cannot conceivably be restricted to one country, no matter how big it is. Socialism is world socialism, or it is not socialism at all. Just as socialist economy could not exist side by side with a capitalist economy in one country, so a socialist nation could not exist side by side with capitalist nations in one world. A socialist people would understand, to begin with, that “socialist” and “nation” are mutually antagonistic words. Socialism is worldwide , and to the extent that more and more nations wipe out the national divisions and unite their economies for socialist production, to that extent would the benefits flow more lavishly to all the people.

The struggle for socialism can best be conducted under conditions that are most favourable to the working class. The most favourable conditions are those in which the working class has the widest possible democratic rights. Hence, it is to the interests of socialism and of the working class to fight for the unrestricted right to organise, the right of free speech, free press and free assembly, the right to strike and the right to vote, the right of representative government, and against every attempt to curb or abolish these rights. It is the capitalist class which is, by the very nature of its position in society, anti-democratic. Its monopoly of wealth and power denies the common people real equality in the exercise of democratic rights. The more the ownership and control of the means of production and exchange are concentrated in the hands of the few – the greater is the centralisation of authority and power in the hands of the state and the further are the masses removed from control of economic and political conditions. Without the attainment of democracy all talk of the conquest of power by the working class is deceit or illusion, and that without the realisation of complete democracy all talk of the establishment of socialism is a mockery.

First ,it must be pointed out that there is no socialism “in practice” in Britain or anywhere else. A few nationalised industries which pay profits to the recent private owners in the form of interest on government bonds – profits at the same rate as under private ownership – can hardly be called socialism. A few nationalised industries directed and controlled by the late private managers now given fancy positions on government boards, while worker participation in industry control is only an empty gesture, is not socialism. Production for the market, with emphasis on export trade, as is the case in the UK, is not socialist production.

Scots in Debt

Nearly 700,000 people in Scotland have problem debts or are at risk of having them, a  Debt advisory charity StepChange Scotland report has warned.

StepChange Scotland which helped 30,000 people struggling with money issues last year, said council tax arrears were a problem for 46% of them.  The charity said those they helped had on average £12.64 a month after paying housing, heating and council tax.

Problem debts were "primarily a symptom of poverty, poor housing conditions, welfare cuts, ill-health and insecure work", the report said.

Sharon Bell, head of StepChange Scotland, said, "The vast majority of StepChange clients are in problem debt due to circumstances they could not have prevented or planned for, such as unemployment, ill-health or reductions in income. We are seeing a record level of demand for help with problem debt with over a third of our clients having an additional vulnerability, such as illness."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-47860914

Who we are

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class despite not receiving its mandate at the polling booth. The working class, the only class without which society could not exist, is the coming ruling class, and its emancipation, which will follow the abolition of the wage system, will mean the freedom of humanity, based upon cooperative industry; and it will also mean the end of the brutal struggle for existence in human society and the beginning of the first real civilisation the world has ever known. If someone seeks to make his or her vote count against the private ownership of the earth and the tyranny of class rule and for industrial democracy and the freedom of the race will cast that vote for the Socialist Party. It is the only party that believes that the people have capacity for economic and political self-government; the only party that proposes to make this in fact a government of and by and for the people. The Socialist Party proposes to transfer the sources, means, and machinery of production and distribution from the private hands to the collective people, so that wealth may be produced in abundance, not to enrich a small class, but for the comfort and enjoyment of all. The Socialist Party insist that the basis of exploitation — the use of men and women for personal profits and power — lie in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action. 

The ideas, demands and movements of workers’ participation, workers’ control, self-management, direct workers’ rule, workers’ democracy, etc., are deeply rooted. These ideas imbue and permeate, in one way or another, the rise of world socialism. The Socialist Party’s declared purpose is to abolish the wage-system, and supplant it by a system of industrial co-operation in which the workers themselves shall have full control for the community’s benefit, and to this end recognise the necessity of organising the political power of the working class to attain industrial democracy. To gain control of production and distribution for the benefit of mankind instead of capitalism is the object of the Socialist Party. 

Socialism is not about getting more wages, less hours and better conditions, but of acquiring political power and social control as the means of solving social problems for the workers, and of making the workers themselves representative of a new society working for the good of all and the profit of none. Socialism is industrial democracy. The Socialist Party is the great foe of capitalists and is intent upon insuring the free development and the liberation for the workers in society and the liberation of society. The capitalists are a class, a useless, dangerous, parasitic minority that can be dispensed with. 

Socialism is not government ownership or control of industry. Socialism struggles for the end of the state, not the enlarging of its functions. The state is an instrument of capitalist class rule. The present parliament, army, police and courts serve the interests of the capitalists. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the government of persons, but the administration of things. Socialism is the reorganisation of society on the basis of ownership by the working people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfill their needs.  A true socialist society must be change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of ownership, administration and control of the affairs of a nation by the men and women who produce its wealth. In the place of the present system of society where crime and poverty are rampant, a new society will arise. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of working people. No attempts to reform the system can do away with this exploitation. The only way workers can come to control society and create a society based on freedom and a decent life for all is through revolution.

The Socialist Party is internationalist. The working class is an international class and socialism must be an international system. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything which turns workers of one country against those of another. We are only "patriotic" for our class, the working class. We realise that as workers we have no country. The flags and symbols mean naught to us but oppression and tyranny. As long as we quarrel among ourselves over differences of nationality we weaken our cause, we defeat our own purpose. The whole world is now chained to the capitalist system. Socialism must be achieved by the independent action of the working class. The liberation of the working class can only be won by the struggles of workers themselves.

Ideas must be met with ideas

The distribution of wealth begins in the process of production and the fight over the surplus it produces. This is the heart of the labour-capital relationship and of the accumulation process. Capital accumulation will become a source for further expansion and greater exploitation, strengthening the hand of the bourgeoisie over the workers and intensifying the exploitation. The working class has always been inspired by one idea—the overthrow of capitalist society, built on slavery, exploitation and violence. In this struggle of labour against capital, the working class can win only by mustering all their forces against the common enemy, bound in one strong proletarian organisation. This is why for the working class, in order to save itself from economic enslavement and from the menace of war—unity is imperative. It is up to the workers to be ready, and resist with a might never exerted before. Every determined fight binds the workers together more and more and so prepares for the final conflict. Every battle lifts the curtain more and more, clears the heads of our class to their robbed and enslaved conditions, and so prepares them for the acceptance of socialism, and the full development of the class war to the end of establishing socialism.  A win at football is the result of many moves and counter-moves. We do not lie down when our side loses a goal. No, we pull up our sleeves determined to get two goals in return. Let us be up and at ‘em. We attack where we are strong and we attack when the opposition is weak. It’s the “battle plan” for the working class in class warfare.

Without a clear understanding of basic questions, we will hesitate and flounder in confusion. And the capitalist class will gain and keep the initiative. There is no logic, no pattern to the capitalist system. Its apologists and its defenders are almost always wrong. The enemy’s cynicism, the demagoguery and the ability to shift principles are there for all to see.

Certainly, the day-to-day struggle over conditions of work and pay do not automatically lead to revolution; these struggles have been going on in Britain for 300 years; and we would surely have had a revolution by now if they were sufficient. And near on a hundred years of experience of the Labour Party politicking should be enough to convince us that reformist roads to socialism are doomed to fail. The capitalist state is strong enough to accommodate the gradualist manoeuvres of the left wing. Revolution will only occur in Britain when the working class mobilises to assume overthrow the whole capitalist class and assume control over its state machine. The working class is fighting – it has always had to fight for its survival – but that fight is not yet conscious. People learn through the ability of the Socialist Party to sum up the experience of the working class, not simply by hearing abstract calls for socialism.

Racism, nationalism and sexism are the scourges of the working class. It is used by demagogues to set working people at one another’s throats, to prevent a united working class from confronting the capitalists in a powerful class struggle that could put an end to oppression and exploitation once and for all. Capitalism only survives because of its ability to divide and conquer. For peace and good will among the workers of all races, creeds, sexes and nationalities is the beginning of the end of the rule of the bosses. The ruling class knows this all too well. The workers have been slow learning this lesson. The destruction of every barrier; racial, religious, national or otherwise that divides the workers is the first step in strengthening our class. Clearing away all the differences that have been planted in the ranks of the workers by the employers and their stooge politicians, will demonstrate the solidarity of the working class. This solidarity will inevitably express itself in the economic struggles. 

More importantly, these economic struggles will intensify the class struggle, heighten the political thinking of the workers and impel them to decisive political action against the bosses. The employers of the workers are members of another class, an enemy class that conducts continual class warfare against the workers as a class. The bosses know the source of the workers’ dissatisfaction and unrest, that it springs from work, living conditions, and place in society. The argument often used was that if the company’s profits went up by such and such a percent, so the workers’ wages should go up that much, too. With a better understanding of the workers’ “fair share” of the capitalists’ pie-in other words, the crumbs, we try to show how it boils down to a question of one class against another, with no common interests between them.

On with the battle of ideas

The Reality of the Real World

Something dangerous is happening. Manipulation of the media has become one of the growth industries where fake-smiles present fake news offering fake facts. People are abdicating their power to control their own lives to those committed to the continuation of their exploitation and whose task is to trample all over their political intelligence. All sorts of people who profess to know the facts go on telling us that the old inequalities have disappeared and the rich are no longer with us. Something dangerous is happening and it is only if we all organise ourselves for ourselves that it can be overcome.

But the facts are not really in dispute. The ownership of land, factories, transport, etc, is still predominantly vested in the numerically small capitalist class. Capitalism has performed the historical task of clearing the way for socialism; apart from anything else it has reduced the class struggle to one where there are only two classes. When the working class have won the struggle they can set up socialism immediately; there is no need for any half way house.

The proponents of a transitional society never define it in any concrete terms; what sort of class structure will it have; who will own the means of production; will there be a coercive state machine? When the international working class want socialism they can have it; the socialist revolution is the next step in social evolution and there is nothing in between.

The Socialist Party stands in opposition to capitalism, a system of minority power where the productive machinery is possessed by a minority class: 10 per cent of the British population own more than half the accumulated wealth. Under capitalism the vast majority of people own no major stake in the productive machinery—they only own their mental and physical energies which they must sell to capitalists. The working class is in a position of compulsory exploitation, and are only permitted to produce wealth if it can be sold on the market. And it will only be sold on the market if it is profitable for the capitalists. In other words, wealth is produced under capitalism for profit and not for use. If there is no profit there are devastating consequences: food is dumped in the sea while people starve; cars are left standing in fields; homes remain unoccupied; workers are actually paid not to produce wealth. The Socialist Party seeks to end the profits system, not to re-arrange the furniture within it. Our message is quite clear: abandon the broad church; reject the high priests of the Labour Party and their self-appointed vanguards; dismiss the archaic dogma of reformism.

When workers understand socialism they will consciously and democratically organise their own emancipation. You cannot get social change in the interest of the majority of the people unless the majority of the people want it. If the state is not used by the working class it is going to be used against the working class. So a socialist majority must gain control of the state machine. The socialist majority will elect delegates to do what the workers want, not leaders to act on our behalf. The ruling class cannot rule without the acquiescence of the working class. Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto that the socialist revolution will be unlike all previous revolutions because it will be a revolution of the majority. It is true that Socialist Party does not support demonstrations demanding capitalist reform. We do not kid workers that the system can be humanised.

We run society from top to bottom; workers produce all the wealth. It is the working class which possesses the power to determine the future. Any attempt to establish socialism which left power in the hands of a parliament committed to the running of capitalism and armed forces committed to the defence of capitalism would be bound to fail. The present system survives because of minority power. Any conception of revolution or social change which is based on working class followers placing their faith in an enlightened vanguard is fundamentally anti-socialist. Where access to the state does not exist, workers must establish political democracy. The Socialist Party wants socialism without leaders or followers. We don’t need shepherds because we’re not sheep. It is claimed that the average worker cannot understand the case for socialism and that we are too bookish. It is elitism to imagine that workers cannot understand what we can understand. The Socialist Party relates theory to experience in all our propaganda: we talk about and analyse capitalism and socialism. The Socialist Party will not participate in struggles to appoint new leaders because we are not followers. The Socialist Party has a clear analysis of capitalism and our case against what exists is based on a clear idea of the future socialist system. Unlike the non-socialists and the reformist organisations, the Socialist Party seeks to make the working class aware of the nature of capitalism, the necessity of establishing socialism in its place, the need for democratic political action to achieve this and the impossibility of doing so by means of social reforms.

It is true that the struggles for reforms of the working class, their resistance to exploitation, have helped to gain “elbow room” and that these struggles, along with the needs of industrial capitalism, have brought about, in varying degrees, the electoral franchise and the possibility of organising and carrying on propaganda. Nowhere has it produced socialism, nor will it do so. That will be done only after the working class have been won over to socialism—the function of socialists and carried on by no-one else. How much farther and faster the movement for working class emancipation from capitalism would have gone if, instead of allying themselves with sterile movements to “reform” capitalism, and nationalist movements to establish one capitalist rule in place of another, the working class had understood and acted upon the international socialist message of the Socialist Party.

The age of scarcity has passed.

“...When the workers come into the world, we find that we are outcasts in the world. The land on which we must live is the property of a class who are the descendants of men who stole the land from our forefathers, and we who are workers, are, whether in town or country, compelled to pay for permission to live on the earth; the houses, shops, factories, etc., which were built by the labour of our fathers at wages that simply kept them alive are now owned by a class which never contributed an ounce of sweat to their erecting, but whose members will continue to draw rent and profit from them while the system lasts. As a result of this the worker in order to live must sell himself into the service of a master – he must sell to that master the liberty to coin into profit the physical and mental energies…There is only one remedy for this slavery of the working class, and that remedy is the socialist republic, a system of society in which the land and all houses, railways, factories, canals, workshops, and everything necessary for work shall be owned and operated as common property...” James Connolly

The working class asks very little, just peace, homes, security, decent working conditions, a reasonable education leisure and recreation. Yet capitalism still fails to provide these basic necessities. Workers have undergone years of treachery and betrayal and still political parties try to lull us with fairy tales about how wonderful things will be if we just give them a parliamentary majority. Has history not provided us with sufficient evidence to prove that capitalist politicians have nothing to offer us but more, and larger doses, of the same old medicine – exploitation, unemployment and war? They have proofed themselves to be loyal servants of the ruling class and ardent defenders of the capitalist system, fundamentally no different from one another. The voters are right to be concerned about the candidates’ obvious lack of integrity. Their mistake is to consider such corruption and hypocrisy to be an individual matter, not an absolute necessity of capitalist politics.

We believe that the working people deserve better. We need a socialist party to challenge the fundamental social, economic and political basis of capitalist society and expose the condition of hunger, misery and war that are bred by it – one who will advance the fight for socialism. A party of which the elected delegates will remain the servants – not become the masters. Our goal is socialism – everything we do is in the direction of that objective. Socialism will be victorious only when the working people take possession of all the basic means of production. The attitude of the Socialist Party is clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is created by the workers. It claims that the workers, through various industrial and administrative councils, must own and control all the processes of wealth production. 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.

Capitalism promotes competition, strife, and bloodshed. In its path to destruction hundreds of millions of helpless people are being crushed by increasing poverty and insecurity. The clinging to capitalism, the ownership of the world by a small propertied class, is driving the people of this planet swiftly along the path to ruin. The hope of humanity and the road to progress lies in the revolt of the wage-earners against the propertied class, the capture of political power from the propertied class, and the appropriation of the land and the means of production from the propertied class. Only when the world is run by the workers of the world for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of a capitalist class, will security of livelihood and peace between the nations be obtained. That is socialism, the social or common ownership of everything managed by the chosen representatives of the workers. To transform capitalism to socialism is a revolution. In that sense we call ourselves revolutionists.

New struggles are now looming on the horizon and the working class can be expected to begin the writing of a new page in its history. The future lies with socialism. No amount of misinformation and disinformation will be able to hold back the development of socialism. Socialist ideas will prevail, preparing the way for the overthrow of capitalism and the transformation of society. The only possible hope of the working class is common ownership of the means of production.