Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism

Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism Campaign

A Global Social Media Experiment

Comrades,
We are informing you about an exciting new project. We urge you to become involved in it. If you know of others who might be sympathetic, even if they are not members of our organisation, encourage them to become involved as well.

Basically, this is an experiment. But it is an experiment on a large scale. In fact, it is the first serious attempt ever to organise the practical collaboration and cooperation of socialists right across the world.  The purpose of the exercise is to significantly boost the amount of publicity that we, as a movement, receive by using the immensely powerful tool of the social media to draw attention to the literature, websites and existence of all the companion parties of the World Socialist Movement.

The idea is very simple and it requires an absolutely minimal amount of effort on your part.  That is why it is called the “Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism” campaign. It will take up only 10 minutes of your time every month (although, of course, you are welcome to spend more time on it if you so wish!)

If you have internet access, the chances are you have a Facebook account. If you are on FB you are probably a member of several FB groups. There are, of course, countless thousands of FB groups but what is being proposed here is that you join a few of these that are of a political nature. It’s probably best to focus more on Left-leaning groups than others as the members of these groups are more like to be receptive to what we have to say.

Here are just a few random examples; you probably know many more:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/greatphilosophicalproblems/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thespectreofcommunism/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1434654420087854/

If you are not on Facebook, and do not wish to be on it, there are many other forum websites to join such as Quora (where several of us are already active) or Reddit. If you don’t wish to reveal your identity, for whatever reason, it is very easy to use a pseudonym.

So how does this project work? The idea is so simple. Let us say you have joined 10 Facebook groups of a political nature. What you do each month is create a post with a link to a particular piece of socialist literature. Perhaps it could be a particular article in this month’s Socialist Standard. You can add a simple comment like “Great article!” or “This is interesting...”. You can then copy and paste your comment plus the link in all 10 of your Facebook groups - it would take about 10 minutes to do everything – and sit back and wait for the responses! That’s pretty easy, isn’t it?

The point is that anyone clicking on the link you posted will be directed to the SPGB’s website at https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/   

Once there, the chances are they will begin to look around that site and read other material. The more of them who do this, the more publicity contacts we create. And the more publicity contacts we create, the greater the possibility of more individuals eventually coming to join our movement. We now know for a fact that, these days, internet is becoming more and more THE main route through which people come into contact with the socialist movement and join it.

Of course, we need to promote not just the SPGB but other Companion Parties too. These also have their own literature and websites. Linking to them will help to provide publicity contacts for these parties too.  
Here is a list of them:
https://www.wspus.org/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/nz/

As stated, this project or experiment, is the first serious attempt to mobilise possibly hundreds of individuals across the world in a coordinated attempt to promote our cause.  As isolated individuals it is very difficult to make any kind of impression on public opinion. But, by working together collectively as a movement, we can benefit greatly from the Reinforcement Effect. We can begin to make serious progress in attracting more workers to the socialist cause.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, as the saying goes.  We strongly urge you to join with us in this collective effort.

PS: If you do know of good websites on which to post links to WSM literature, let other people know! Contact your Party HQ and share the information. This will attract more people to use the website you recommend and, therefore, your own interventions on this website will become more effective through the power of reinforcement!

No More Propertyless

Socialism is the name given to that form of society in which there is no such thing as a propertyless class, but in which the whole community has become a working community owning the means of production—the land, factories, mills, mines, transport and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. The first condition of success for Socialism is that its adherents should explain its aim and its essential characteristics clearly, so that they can be understood by every one. This has always been the primary purpose of the Socialist Party's promotion of its case for socialism. The idea of socialism is simple. Socialists believe that society is divided into two great classes that one of these classes, the wage-earning, the proletariat, is property-less the other, the capitalist, possesses the wealth of society and the proletariat in order to be able to live at all and exercise its faculties to any degree, must hire out their ability to work to the capitalist. Naturally, the possessing class, takes advantage of its power makes the working and non-owning class pay a large forfeit. When workers fight the employers on wages questions and the conditions of labour they are really fighting against consequences of the private property system. The existence of the private ownership of the means of production means also the private ownership of the things produced and their sale as commodities in competition one with another. Labour also is a commodity and those who sell their labour power, the members of the working class, manual and brain-worker alike, also compete like other commodities.

The class primarily interested in the change from private property to social property is the working class. The goal of socialism as a class-free society has its starting point in the propertyless condition of the working class. The Socialist’s goal represents the consummation of the struggle of the working class—its emancipation from the system which gives rise to that struggle.

All the misery, all the injustice and disorder, results from the fact that one class monopolises the means of production and of life, and imposes its laws on another class and on society as a whole. The domination of one class degrades humanity. Where men and women are dependent on the favour of others, where individuals do not co-operate freely in the work of society, where the individual is submitted to compulsion humanity suffers. It is, therefore, only by the abolition of the reign of capital and the establishment of socialism that humanity can come into the fullness of its heritage. We maintain that the means of production and wealth accumulated and inherited by humanity should be at the disposal of human activity in all its forms and should free them. Socialism will abolish all primacy of class, and indeed all class, restores humanity to its highest level. The thing to do, therefore, is to break down this supremacy of the ruling class. The aim of socialism is to transform capitalist property into social property. Socialism alone can give its true meaning to the whole idea of human justice. The community itself must have the right of ownership over all the means of production.

Those great social changes that are called revolutions can no longer be accomplished by a minority. The co-operation and adhesion of a majority, and an immense majority, are needed. A society takes on a new form only when the immense majority of the individuals who compose it demand or accept a great change. How, then, can a system based on the free collaboration of all be instituted against the will, or even without the will, of the greater number? The Socialist Revolution will not be accomplished by the action, or the sudden stroke of a bold minority, but by the defiant and harmonious will of the immense majority of the citizens. Whoever gives up the method of winning over the immense majority to our ideas, will give up at the same time any possibility of transforming the social order. The common good is our object. It can only succeed by the general desire of the community. 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. Destined for the benefit of all, socialism must be prepared and accepted by almost all because when the time arrives, the power behind an immense majority discourages the privileged class's last efforts to resist its will. The 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. There is only one method for socialists: the conquest of political power by a majority.

The socialist form of society is now a necessity. It will be obvious at once that the basic principles of Socialist society are diametrically opposite to those of Capitalist society in which we live. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class.

The Socialist Party is not anti-trade union. On the contrary, we are the most ardent of trade unionists. Socialists want their fellow-workers to recognise the cause of the struggle their trade unions are compelled to wage. Recognising the cause as rooted in the private ownership of the means of production and the propertyless conditions of the working class, the Socialist Party wants all the struggles of the unions to be co-ordinated, so that behind every industrial conflict there will be available the appropriate power of the working class. Socialists want sectionalism to be superseded by a united working class securing victory of the working class over the capitalists. This means that the trade unions should recognise that all the efforts of the working class must be directed to the goal of the conquest of political power. Their fight in the industrial field must be linked with the fight to obtain socialism which, backed by the might of the working class, would transfer the ownership of the means of production and distribution from private hands to social ownership. 

This is the way forward – Let us take it

Capitalism, with its anomalies and insecurity, breeds many brutal and inhuman ideas. Race hatred is one of them. A fierce class war is raging throughout the world. All capitalist governments are openly fighting the battles of the exploiters. The capitalists are using the present economic crisis to increase their power of exploitation and oppression. The struggle of the workers, even for the most elementary needs, is met today with suppression.

Capitalism is rife with divided interests. The working class, who depend for their living upon selling their mental and muscular energies, should ignore them all, save one. That one is their own interests as the exploited class. When they have come to grips with that, they will get down to some fundamental questioning of society.

The Socialist Party is the advocates of the greatest social transformation of all time, from capitalist competition and production for profit to socialist co-operation and production for use. It is impossible to imagine that a society, based upon wage-slavery for the bulk of the population can be developed into the new system without a campaign of education and persuasion. It has consistently opposed a palliative movement of reform, and proposed a persistent active effort of the workers towards the great goal of socialism. The strategy of the Socialist Party is the conquest of political power to enable the transformation of competitive production for class profit to co-operative production for communal use without passing through a period of internecine bloodshed and civil war. The Socialist Party is an uncompromising working class political organisation. It is fighting the battle of the wage workers of the world and stands for their welfare without qualification or evasion. Its demand is that all the means and instruments of production and distribution shall be used for the benefit of the actual producers of wealth. The capitalist government of America protects the rich and assists them to rob the poor and toiling masses. And that is the fight, the only fight that you as a worker should be interested in, the struggle between the capitalist class and the working class for political power and the ownership of the machinery of production. It is the age-long class war

The Socialist Party platform is a plain and simple declaration of principles and policies which all may understand. It is an honest and direct expression of working class interests. It was not framed merely with a view to winning votes. Its utterances are straightforward and to the point. There is no ambiguity; no evasion of vital issues. There is no attempt to compromise with capitalism; no effort to throw a sop to the enemies of labor; no adherence to the miserable fiction that the interests of labor and capital are identical. The Socialist Party, in short, proposes to place the workers in possession of all the wealth they produce. The Socialist Party does not disguise the fact that its aim is the entire abolition of rent, interest, and profit, and the common ownership and operation of all industries. It demands by peaceful, legal, and constitutional methods that wage slavery be entirely abolished. As long as workers confine their political activity voting for the candidates of capitalist parties capitalism is safe. Isn’t it about time that you realized that you can get nothing worthwhile under capitalism? All you can get under capitalism is unemployment, starvation, high cost of living, slum tenements or shanty-town shacks, poverty, misery, disease, and war. The only way in which you can put an end to this profit system which keeps you in poverty, misery, and degradation, and gives all the good things of life to the rich, is to conquer political power for your class. This is not an easy task. The capitalist government is a machine which holds the workers by force. It is the instrument by means of which the capitalist class is enabled to maintain itself as the ruling class in society, even though they are a small minority of the population. Don’t let yourselves be fooled by political promises any more! You will only be betrayed again. There is only one way out of this misery, poverty, and exploitation — you must overthrow the capitalism. Under the present capitalist system of production commodities are produced for profit and not primarily for use. Too long we have stood the misery the bosses have forced on us.

Most people realize the capitalist system fails to supply the needs of the vast majority of the human race, and that it must be overthrown before the workers can have freedom. But there is considerable difference of opinions as to the means by which this can be accomplished. Some advocate armed insurrection, or military action; and some revolutionary industrial unionism. The Socialist Party suggests the ballot. The system must be changed. That is the only way — there is no other. The capitalist system is based upon the production of commodities for profit — for the profit of a small group who own the means of production, and who do no useful work. This means exploitation, wageslavery, and misery for the masses who do all the useful and necessary work. The only way out is to introduce a system of society in which production is carried on for use, for the benefit of all.

Look ahead. What are the prospects which confront us if the capitalist slave-drivers remain in power? Nothing but new wars, slavery, poverty, starvation, and perpetual oppression. The threat of global warming means the spectre of starvation haunts the entire world. You’ve still got a job. But how long will it last? We've got a job today. We may not have it tomorrow. The bosses have plenty to eat. It isn’t THEIR business that we can’t earn enough for a decent living. It isn’t THEIR business that our children have to go to school hungry. NOTHING IS THEIR BUSINESS EXCEPT MAKING MONEY! They are trying to make even bigger profits now. Now the bosses see their chance to break up the unions. They want to grind us down still more. They intend forcing lower wages and longer hours on us.

When we can convince a majority of our fellow-workers that the putting into practice of our principles will bring about an era of industrial freedom — the only true freedom — then we know our goal will be achieved. It cannot be gained until we do this. We do not believe in minority rule of any kind, no matter by whom. We do not believe in dictatorship, whether of the plutocracy or the misnamed “dictatorship of the proletariat.” We have been for centuries and are now suffering from dictatorships, and we want to help abolish them from the face of the earth. We subscribe to the right of a majority to decide under what kind of system we shall live. Any other method means chaos. Our business is to do our part in convincing the majority that they must use their organized industrial and political power to achieve their freedom. We believe in using every effort to overthrow the present economic system called capitalism. We believe in using every effort to capture the political power of the state to be used in overthrowing this system. We believe in it because we also believe that the peaceable method of the ballot is the most efficient method; that it is real “direct action.” We refuse to allow ourselves to be moved from our position by a few romanticists who think they can “create” a revolution by following the methods of those in other countries where the industrial environment and institutions of government were very different.

Let us proclaim our solidarity with the Workers of the entire world! Let us resolve to join hands and march shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters. Capitalism is international. The class war is international. The labour movements of all countries must unite to wage the class war on an international scale. Long live the international solidarity of the workers of the world!

Everything is possible

The Socialist Party stands for the self-emancipation of the working class. Thus as revolutionary workers, we want to be open with our fellow workers. The Socialist Party is still very small, and we have no illusions that we will get big votes. We know that there is much work to be done to transform the present situation where the majority of workers feel powerless to change things. The Socialist Party has before it a long, uphill battle to become a relevant force in working class politics. Nevertheless there are growing numbers of people who are not prepared to quietly accept the present system. The Socialist Party is very different from that of other parties. We are not vote catching, but delivering the message that what the capitalist system offers is simply not good enough, and it´s time to stand up and fight for change. There is no reason we can’t carry socialist ideas to all. Socialists must be out there in the streets and on the door-steps The message they convey must be clear unambiguous and consistent.

Socialists have long been alive to the profound and inherent injustices of capitalist society. Capitalism has proven to be an extremely tenacious and resourceful system, making the switch to socialism far more prolonged than had originally been envisioned. As it turns out, capitalism has substantially more resilience than could have been foreseen by Marx, Engels The central reality facing advocates of socialism is that capitalism has remained on the scene as a viable and vigorous socio-economic system for far longer than most Marxists would have predicted. At the same time, the gnawing contradictions of capitalism have not at all disappeared. Capitalism remains an inherently exploitative system and, while broad sectors of the population manage to do more than just get by, it is also true that the polarisation between the extremes of wealth and poverty has sharpened over the years. The contrast between those whose lives are organised around obscene levels of accumulation and consumption and those who live in utter poverty and desperation has never been more glaring. Racial minorities still bear the main brunt of the irrationalities of capitalism. Renewed anti-migrant discrimination is the order of the day. Immigrants and refugees have been greeted by “native-born” and “white only” sentiment and legislation that effectively locks them into functioning as cheap labour in industries and services with no benefits or job security. Largely politically unenfranchised and unrepresented, they also face incursions on their civil liberties by the repressive apparatus such as ICE. Divisions within the working class impede its ability to effectively struggle against exploitation and oppression and have retarded the development of class consciousness. 

Capitalism is a system in which producing and appropriating classes are dependent on the market for the conditions of their self-reproduction. It is a system in which class exploitation is mediated by the market. The only way of supplanting production for profit by production for need. The basis of capitalism is exploitation. The capitalists have an interest in promoting the highest rate of exploitation possible. It is through exploitation that they maximise their profits and maximisation of profits is the basis of capitalist production. Thus, businessmen have an interest in paying the lowest wages consistent with capitalist reproduction (they cannot kill off their working class). They have an interest in a longer working day, poorer working conditions (safety, ventilation, etc. are all costs of production). In other words, they have an objective interest in promoting a situation that makes the life of the worker increasingly intolerable. Workers, on the other hand, have the opposite point of view. They seek higher wages, to reduce the working day Hence the two classes have conflicting interests. There is only one possible resolution: the end of capitalist society and the creation of socialism, where the working class controls the means of production, operates the factories, land, etc., in its own interest.

Why is this the only possible solution? There are two basic reasons. Initially exploitation is an injustice–the basic injustice. As long as there is this injustice with its attendant effects (racism, sexism, etc.) there will be a movement to eliminate it. Thus, only with the elimination of the injustice can the movement be put to an end. As workers are (eventually) the majority of the population, they are in a position to end exploitation; they have sufficient power (if understood) to accomplish this end.

Second, capitalists cannot exist without workers, but workers can exist without capitalists. As it is workers who actually do the producing, they are quite capable of undertaking this activity in their own interests. Hence, the logical conclusion to the struggle under capitalism is the elimination of capitalism and the transition to socialism. But this cannot be accomplished unless workers are aware of their objective interests and are organised to achieve this. A working class which does not have the necessary knowledge to effect its own emancipation will not spontaneously evolve into a transformatory force. For this to occur, workers in large enough numbers must develop sufficient knowledge concerning the nature of capitalist society, the nature of socialism and the necessity for revolution to change the world. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to assist the establishment of a society in which it is no longer needed–it must seek to eliminate itself. When most are socialist, then no special socialist organisation is necessary.

We spend our whole lives ruled by fear. In socialism fear will disappear when everyone lives in security. It would be a far, far better world. We are now at the beginning of the journey towards socialism. Before us is a long hard road, with many ups and downs.

THE ENEMY IS CAPITALISM; THE GOAL IS SOCIALISM! 

Let the workers rejoice. Let the rich tremble.

Whoever wishes to see an end to capitalism and state capitalism must replace these by the producers own organisations. Collectively in the factory, collectively in industry, and collectively in their respective communities they must organise themselves to administer the means of production and the whole of economic life. A survey of the literature of socialism shows that only a meagre body of work has been written concerning the economic foundations of that form of society which it is intended should replace capitalism. Concerning socialism we can provide and cannot treat the question at any greater depth other than offer only a few pointers. Explaining in detail how socialism will unfolded is premature.

Capitalism is based on the class of those to whom belong the means of production of the whole world. These are linked together by connections of business and interest and by a political solidarity. Socialism has its social base in the working masses of the whole world. They are the real living force of the new society which must replace capitalism, but they continue to be tricked by their ignorance. The Left sings the “Internationale” but does not apply it in practice.

The coming revolution is a socialist revolution. It will replace capitalism by socialism, expropriate the capitalists, abolish the exploitation of man by man and lead to class-free society. It will dismantle the state of the rich, abolishing the overgrown oppressive system of a huge army, police and bureaucracy and replace them with the administration of people themselves. The socialist revolution will bring genuine freedom and democracy to the overwhelming majority of the people. Fundamental to the socialist revolution is the constitution of the working class as a class for itself.

Socialism is imperative not only because capitalism creates and increases the number of inequalities and injustices, but also because capitalism is dooming the continued existence of a civilised world to barbarism. The Socialist Party advocates a socialist revolution because we don’t think that capitalist society will crumble under the pressure of its great number of inner contradictions. We think that socialism will replace capitalism because of a broad social consensus achieved on the basis of a constant evolution of the consciousness of the people as a whole. We think that revolution is necessary to the achievement of socialism, the passage of political power into the hands of the working class.

Common ownership must not be confounded with public ownership. In public ownership, often advocated by notable social reformers, the State or another political body is master of the production. The workers are not masters of their work, they are commanded by the State officials, who are leading and directing production. Whatever may be the condition of labour, however human and considerate the treatment, the fundamental fact is that not the workers themselves, but the officials, dispose of the product, manage the entire process. In short, the workers still receive wages, a share of the product determined by masters. Under public ownership of the means of production, the workers are still subjected to and exploited by a ruling class. Common ownership by the producers can be the only goal of the working class.

Let the workers rejoice. Let the rich tremble. There is a party opposed to the parties of the rich, a party of the socialist revolution. A genuine socialist party. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The socialist revolution will build a new world, a world free of misery and oppression. Our only hope lies in revolution—the sweeping away of this rotten system of exploitation.

It rests with us to make an end of this.

The bosses are all one – for profits – against labour. The capitalist class are beginning to step up the pressure. Their struggles for trade, territory, resources, can be summed up in one word – PROFIT! The capitalist class does not change its greed for profits any more than the leopard changes its spots. The workers, remember, are the guys without whose labour there could be no profits at all for the capitalists. To protect their profits, the bosses are at our throats more fiercely than ever before. One can gauge the rottenness of the capitalist system in the present struggle of workers for a decent living wage. Working people are being driven into debt. The system can’t be salvaged by reforms– and isn’t worth saving anyhow. They use the recession to eliminate job security for everyone. ALL THIS IS HAPPENING WHILE THE PROFITS KEEP ON ROLLING IN. This onslaught on the workers takes place at the moment when stock-market share prices have never been so high. We have only one choice – we’ve got to fight back. World-wide, workers have always answered the boss attacks. Time and again, workers have won, through solidarity and militancy. An increase in wages does not bring about increased prices. It does mean, however, a direct and immediate reduction in the capitalists’ profit. That is why employers at all times stubbornly resist the wage demands of their workers. That is why capitalists always seek to reduce wages. The lower the wages paid, the higher the profits made. The more intensely the worker labours, the more value he creates; therefore, the more surplus-value; therefore, the more profit. The greed for profits knows no limit. The capitalists produce goods for profit and not for any other reason. No crocodile tears here about the burning need of people to be re-housed, the lower paid workers condemned to live in terrible conditions in the slums, the painful dilemma and unhappiness of newly-married young couples, at what should be one of the happiest periods in their lives, compelled to live with their in-laws under crowded conditions, suited almost perfectly to produce the maximum friction and conflict. The purpose of producing cement and bricks is not for housing but for profit. Business is business!

Capitalists attack you with every weapon at their command. They have battered down your wages and benefits to starvation levels. They have cast many on the scrap-heap of unemployment. They have gagged your every protest at your misery and your indignation. Working men and women! To hell with their capitalist politics! We want an end of class tyranny and oppression. We must stand together against them. The only struggle for us is the struggle of the workers against their exploiters. To demonstrate our strength and our unity we must stand together. Let us mass our forces in unity in the present struggle and be prepared for the struggles of the future. Show that you back a fight. Attempting to compromise with the capitalist class only ends in compromising the labour movement. It demoralises the workers. We are convinced that by the struggle against capitalism our fellow-workers will be compelled to adopt the ideas of socialism sooner or later. Big Business is moaning about “socialism”. Give them something genuine to moan about! Where capitalists rule, there are increasing unhappiness for humanity and mounting degradation of the environment. The Socialist Party must show the cause of the present difficulties and advance the solution to our fellow-workers and counter our enemies who endeavour to attempt to put the burdens of the crises on the working class and persuade people that everything under the sun is responsible for these crises except the capitalist system itself. It must be clear that there is only one way to solve all the present social problems is to abolish capitalism and the exploitation and proceed to the building of a socialist society. The working class must be won over in the immediate future for the most energetic fight against capitalism and for the survival of civilisation. We must place the blame on the shoulders of those who are responsible for the present position—the capitalists. Supporting the Socialist Party gives the capitalist class an indication of the determination of the workers in the class struggle. We have to develop only class solidarity. Reforms are powerless to solve the problems which arise from the capitalist system so long as the exploitation of man by man, production for profit, and the struggle for markets remain. For generations workers have been fooled by reformist propaganda. It must be clear that the only way to solve the many crises we face is to abolish capitalism and all that it involves and proceed to the building of a socialist society. For the revolutionary way out of capitalism we must win the support of every man and woman who desires to see the anxieties, frustrations and fears caused by capitalism.

We are well aware of the many times our fellow-workers comment on the lack of growth in our Party. We are fighting against the oldest and most experienced and the most treacherous and cunning capitalist class in the world. Our role as a revolutionary political party, fighting for political power in order to build socialism, is primarily to create a strong enough class understanding that the capitalist robs the workers of the surplus value produced by them. Here the antagonism between the working class and its exploiters is most sharply expressed and so often reflected in open clashes around demands on wages, hours and conditions. For this reason and because the only weapon possessed by the working class in its fight to overthrow capitalism is the weapon of organisation. We have so far failed to explain with sufficient clarity each issue from the standpoint of our class as a whole. We should find the best way to use every one of these sectional issues to clarify the workers’ political understanding and bring them further along the road, whose goal is the achievement of power by our class. We stand at the threshold of great class battles. Ours is the responsibility to future generations.

War against war

One of the greatest aims of the socialist movement is the elimination of war. It has become almost commonplace to realise that modern war threatens not merely suffering and death to vast millions, but the actual destruction of human civilisation, returning mankind back into the stone-age. It is the socialist movement alone that has a solution to offer. The first step in the struggle against war is a clear understanding of the nature and causes of war. A mere horror at the dreadfulness of war – which is shared by the great majority of men – is useless, and worse than useless.

The Socialist Party points out that so long as capitalism endures, wars will come, that war under capitalism is not an “accident” or an “exceptional event” but an integral part of the very mechanism of capitalism. War is just as much a part of capitalism as are economic crises. You cannot have capitalism without having periodic crises, and you cannot have capitalism without periodically having wars. The causes which bring about wars, the inescapable need for every advanced capitalist nation to attempt to expand its markets, gain cheaper sources of raw materials, find new outlets beyond the internal market for capital investment, can none of them be eliminated without eliminating capitalism itself. The driving force of the capitalist mode of production is the necessity for the continual accumulation and expansion of capital. This necessity is inescapable. Capitalists must constantly attempt to expand capital, in order to maintain profits. Every capitalist government, including the UK and U.S. Governments are therefore committed to war as an instrument of foreign policy by the very fact that they are capitalist. To ask them to renounce war is like asking a someone to give up oxygen. Modern war is neither accidental nor due to the evil of human nature nor decreed by the Gods. War is of the very essence of capitalism, as much a part of capitalism as wage labour. To speak of capitalism without war is like speaking of a human being without lungs. The fate of the one is inextricably hound to the fate of the other.

It follows then that the struggle against war is simply an aspect of the struggle against capitalism and for socialism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and must lead to war. War is not the cause of the troubles of society. The opposite is true. War is a symptom and result of the irreconcilable troubles and conflicts of the present form of society, that is to say, of capitalism. The only way to fight against war is to fight against the causes of war. Since the causes of war are part of the inner nature of capitalism, it follows that the only way to fight against war is to fight against capitalism. It therefore follows that the only possible struggle against war is the struggle for the socialist revolution. The Socialist Party is absolutely clear on this point. No one can uphold capitalism and fight against war, because capitalism means war.

This is the truth of the matter. If capitalism necessarily brings about war, you obviously cannot get rid of war without getting rid of capitalism. To divorce the struggle against war from the struggle against capitalism is in reality to give up the struggle against war, so far as any possible effectiveness is concerned. Many people claim to be working for peace; but at the same time they do work against capitalism. To these persons we must say: You are fooling yourselves. Which do you really want – peace or capitalism? You cannot have both. If you are unwilling to end capitalism, then your striving for peace is futile which helps no one but the war-makers.
 the overthrow of capitalism itself is the only conceivable means for stopping war. Socialism, and it alone, will end war because socialism and it alone will eliminate the causes of war. The socialist revolution, when the question is finally and fully understood, is the only anti-war policy.
 

An accident or incident can perhaps cause war if all the other conditions for war are present. But there is no such thing as an “accidental war”. The only way to end the possibility of such madness as fascism and war is to destroy the system which inevitably leads to these horrors. The Socialists Party has always claimed that at the bottom of all modern war there is an economic cause. Economic causes are the root of wars. But today with nationalism as the cloak behind which the economic causes work and it is easier than ever to obscure this fact. Nationalism is the cover for the diplomatic intrigues and machinations of politicians and capitalists.

The socialist revolution can and will eliminate war because, by overthrowing capitalist economy and supplanting capitalism with socialism, it will remove the causes of war. With socialism there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war. Artificial economic barriers based on national boundaries will be removed. The expansion of the means of production, under the owner-ship and control of society as a whole, will proceed in accordance with a rational plan adjusted to the needs of the members of society. Thus, with socialism war will disappear because the causes of war will be done away with. Since the victory of socialism, and this alone, will defeat war, every step on the path to socialism is a blow at war. In the struggle against war, properly understood. The Socialist Party does take a merely negative pacifist position of being against “war in general”. We are actively for the victory of the working class in the class war, since only through such victory can war in general be done away with. The only true struggle against war requires at every stage the utmost clarity. Working people of every land must understand who their enemy is. They must understand that the enemy is not the people of Russia, or China, or Iran, or of any other nation against whom the government may wage war, but that the real enemy of every country is the enemy at home – the capitalist class and its government of “the home land”. Workers must understand that any war which “their” country undertakes will be a war to serve the interests of capital, no matter what noble talk about “democracy” or “peace” or “self-defence” or “collective security” is used to justify it. And therefore workers must oppose to the utmost any and every conception of patriotism, nationalism, or support of the government for the conduct of any war.

For the enjoyment of all, Not the enrichment of a few

On the battlefields of the class war, the Socialist Party is an exemplar of fraternity, combativeness, incorruptibility and uncompromising hatred of exploitation and injustice. What passes as socialism has dwindled into a group of non-influential sects, abandoning whatever original socialist principles they held. Socialism disappeared as a serious political force.

Among the more significant traits of the world's workers' movements has been the persistence of its unexpected developments that often confounded its critics, confused its friends, and baffle its own leadership. Momentary lulls in the class struggle obscure the emergence of new features. Even in the most placid and passive periods, the struggle does not completely vanish.

False theories produce failed results. For example, many so-called socialists preached the idea that the way to achieve socialism was by a gradual transformation of the capitalist governments and industry, bit by bit. When they had the opportunity after being elected, they declined to take control of industry and place it under the control of the workers. Instead they strengthened capitalism when it was weak, so that they could, according to their illusion, gradually transform capitalism into socialism. They became physicians to capitalism instead of its undertakers. In one unanimous voice, labour union officials proclaim undying devotion to the capitalist social system. But in their capitalism, mills are made of marble and machines of gold. It is the steady uninterrupted rise of living standards; it is the perpetual growth of union power; it is ever-expanding democracy; more security, more rights for the common man and woman. They demand so much of capitalism that it irks the capitalist class. Some politicians, businessmen, or economists gingerly suggest that perhaps in some unknown future we must adjust to economic down-swing or that the possibilities for progress are somewhat limited. Labour leaders denounce such pessimists for lack of confidence in the American way of life. They support capitalism because they expect so much from it but they understand this much: what they get will ultimately depend upon how hard they are ready to fight in strikes and in politics. The labour leader, full of faith and optimism in capitalism will travel willingly alongside the reformist parties on the road to a fictitious future. Working people have been deliberately disarmed and emasculated in order to keep them perpetually cowed and at the mercy of their masters. The Labour Party must be judged not by the pretentions of its spokesmen but by its actual and effective contribution to the well being of the people. While pretending to be protectors of our welfare, they have betrayed workers' trust and have sacrificed the happiness of millions to bloat the pockets of a few capitalists

The ideal of world socialism that inspired and aroused so many was corrupted into the theory of “socialism in one country” which resulted in the defeats of the workers of the world. Socialism is more a more advanced economy than capitalism. It must develop and extend the international division of labour already achieved under capitalism, thereby giving greater well-being to the people of the entire globe. With socialism, we will not go backward into a self-contained, national economy, as “socialism in one country” proposes, but to even greater internationalism. Workers must reject the concept of “socialism in one country” put in its place the original idea of world socialism.

The ruling class has always spread the idea that they are indispensable. The more redundant they have become, the more insistently they try to preach this illusion upon workers’ minds: “How lucky you are to have us on your backs to direct you. You couldn’t get along without us.” In reality, the employing class live on the toil and produce of their workers and couldn’t exist without them but to maintain and uphold their exploitation, the bosses are forced to twist the real state of affairs into its opposite. The capitalists, in order to justify their existence, declare that they alone are competent to rule the state and control industry. They maintain that workers are wage-slaves by nature and therefore cannot assume commanding positions in political matters and economic life, without overturning the foundations of civilisation. The opposite is true. The capitalist class possesses its present power, property rights, and privileges as a result of long outgrown historical conditions. This class of parasites no longer performs any essential functions in modern society, any more than the appendix performs any useful function in the human body. Society does not depend today upon the exploiting class but upon the working people they oppress. If these workers put down their tools, then production stops. But if every share owner were to die or be dispossessed tomorrow, the workers in the factories would continue to turn out products. The worker who now operates a lathe can direct a machine shop tomorrow and an entire industry the day after. This has been done under capitalism by a few individual workers who ascend higher in the social ranks, break away from their original class, and,, become managers and executives themselves. What is done by isolated individuals under capitalism can and will be done collectively by organised workers inside socialism, who will own, organise and operate industry by means of democratic councils. They will then produce not for the enrichment of a few but for the enjoyment of all.

The capitalist rulers try in every way to keep the workers down and to lessen their self-confidence. They want to prevent the workers from understanding their own organised power and from developing their capacities as a class to rule and reorganise the world. The feudal kings and nobles once regarded the rising merchants as contemptuously as that bosses now treats the workers. Kings and queens and their loyal court asserted that the Divine and hereditary right of managing state affairs and deciding great economic questions belonged to them alone. The merchants and manufacturers were supposed to be fit for nothing but store-keeping and servility. That did not prevent the representatives of capitalism from demanding and winning supreme economic and political power. Likewise the plantation-owning Southern slave-holders thought themselves superior to the Northern industrialists and financiers . These very capitalists crushed the slaveholders in the Civil War.

Let the organised workers take power and they will learn the art of governing and technique of economic administration no less easily then the capitalists. And they will make social advances that the capitalists never dreamed of.

The happiness of humanity is not in the past, but in the future.

What is socialism? Socialism offers the sole solution, to the major problems which dominate all others, meaning the question of poverty and the question of exploited labour. The Socialist Party holds that the exploitation of labour, with all of its consequences will not disappear until the day the means of production –– land, machinery, and all that serves production –– will be transformed from privately-owned property into commonly-owned property.

Our fellow-workers must understand just how deeply socialism is in their interest and cannot stand aloof to a party which tells them, we bring the cure to the abuses that you suffer in society. It is of the utmost importance for a worker to know socialist principles and its methods of struggle. Any worker who genuinely investigates our teachings will be quickly convinced that they need to become a socialist, not only because they will find the satisfaction of their class interests, but also because socialism explains how social evolution itself pushes humanity towards socialism.

Why does the Socialist Party hold that only with the socialisation of the means of production can we find the solutions to workers' problems? If we study the society in which we live , we will learn that what becomes ever more constant, ever more universal, and which repeats itself . We speak of the contradiction of the continual struggle that exists between the two principal factors of any kind of economic progress: labour itself, on the one hand, and what is called capital in the economic game. Therefore, on one side we have labour disarmed and alone, represented by the working class, and on the other side all-powerful capital, under the control of the capitalist class.

Many environmentalist call for de-growth, a return to a more idyllic rural condition. They seek handicraft production where skilled artisans are at the same time workers and owners, and the only labour they exploit is their own, in cooperatives and small workshops. They perceive that the great corporations have put an end this former harmony where workers directly owned the means of production. Mighty capital dominated the individual craftsman and the small workshop and put an end to them, except in some exclusive niche corner of the market. Many saw the evils that the machinery of technology has brought and would have us destroy them. They forget what abundance they brought to the productivity of human labour, ignoring the betterment of life has been mechanisation of production. Returning to the old forms, to the old style of domesticated cottage industry of the past, would mean the giving up all the scientific and technical progress which has provided immense benefits to millions and millions.

All for All

What was once small activist actions are spreading into an ever-growing global environmentalist movement that the mainstream media and ruling-class establishment can no longer ignore. We find it inspiring that so many people have turned out for Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion's protests.  The Socialist Party has sympathy with their objectives. We understand their analysis of capitalism as a system that can only put profit before people and planet. However, no matter how well-intentioned, the goal of those who reject capitalism should be to break the consensus that supports capitalism and organise politically – democratically – to a replace private ownership with common ownership. It’s the profit system that is the problem. It brings pressure to bear on economic decision-makers to opt for the cheapest methods of production on pain of being driven out of business altogether. If consideration of what is in the general human interest is to prevail, then the profit system must go. It must be replaced by a production-for-use system—which can only exist on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources by the whole community. In a genuinely socialist system The tyranny of the market and competitiveness will have gone and we’ll be free to employ the most appropriate methods of production and transport.

It remains a short-coming of the environmental movement that it still possesses no real vision of a future society to replace capitalism. A thoroughgoing change to a world without classes, nations, governments or profit is needed. Sadly, the green eco-warriors despite their sincerity and effectiveness of much of their critique of capitalism, have yet to find the genuine alternative. Nevertheless, they have raised the question if people are just to stand passively by, looking on, while the world around them descends into dystopian disasters, as something inevitable beyond their control. Instead, they stand up and act together for climate justice.

The shortest distance between capitalism and an alternative society is a straight line.  Let’s campaign for the abolition of capitalism and not misdirect our energies in trying to humanise capitalism, which can only – as you recognise – put profit before people. That’s why socialism is so important. Yes, it is, as we are often told, a ‘nice idea’. But when it takes hold of people's imagination, it could become much more than that and blossom in a world beyond capitalism, a world fit for humanity. The present discontent over climate change unrest could be the first signs a positive movement in the broader class struggle. The liberation of humankind must be the work of the people themselves and must be majoritarian and democratic. No elite can substitute. To succeed the socialist revolution must be essentially non-violent and democratic involving the vast majority of the population. To attempt a social revolution without such majority support almost inevitably results either in a counter-revolutionary regime or in a revolutionary dictatorship which destroys the goals for which the revolution was undertaken.

The Socialist Party does not get involved in conventional politics or seek to form the government. We cannot agree that we should engage in the day-to-day struggle as well as agitate and organise for Socialism. To do so runs the great risk of becoming yet another conventional political party since engaging in the day-to-day struggle of people under capitalism necessarily involves advocating reforms. A reform programme would attract people who want a palliative rather than a cure. In a democratic party as we are, such people would come to dominate it and turn it into an instrument for trying to get reforms rather than for carrying out the social revolution. The best way to avoid this danger is for the Socialist Party, while not opposing sound reforms and always being on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors, is not to advocate them.