Radical Socialism

The working class battle against the capitalists. The capitalist class has never stopped–and will never stop–its efforts to destroy and weaken the workers' movement. We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity. It has vast productive potential, but only means poverty and oppression. It brings hunger and war to the working people. It imposes draconian austerity cuts in living standards on the already poor, simply in the interest of still greater profits for the capitalist class. Capitalism is responsible for the thoughtless destruction of the environment. The profit motive is incompatible with safeguarding the world’s resources. So long as it is profitable, environmental destruction is perfectly ’logical’ under capitalism. Humanity’s problem is not limited resources but the waste of resources which is an essential part of the process of capital accumulation. Socialism will provide the opportunity for a society planned for the majority rather than for profit to be able to flourish, a society in tune with land and nature.

Its armaments industry monopolises and directs most of the world’s research and cynically profits from a series of local wars of unparallelled destructiveness. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s guiding principle, the quest for profit, which takes precedence over any human interest. Capitalism undermines the future of humanity. Capitalism brings nothing but misery and exploitation. From the standpoint of the vast majority of the world’s people it is already an obsolete system, and the productive forces and technology it has created will have to be turned to the benefit of humanity as a whole under a new social system. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit the labouring people. The only solution is to destroy it and build a new social system. If the workers are dissatisfied with capitalism but have no faith in themselves or their class and if they seek to be led by saviours they offer themselves up to be puppets of ambitious politicians.

When workers study conditions and get a true understanding of the essential points, they can neither be chloroformed into inactivity nor carried away by half-baked theories. They do their own thinking instead of trusting to politicians or would-be leaders to do it for them. The science of economics gives the key to the understanding of conditions. Economics is the science which has to do with satisfying the material needs of man-with the production and distribution of wealth. Wealth is any form of natural resources adapted by labour to suit the needs of man. All wealth is produced by labour, but it is taken by the capitalists, who give the workers in the form of wages just enough to keep them in working condition and to reproduce their kind. The capitalists own the natural resources and machinery of production. Two percent of the population-the big capitalists-own sixty per cent of the wealth, while sixty-five per cent-the workers-own only five per cent. The capitalists live in luxury and extravagance never before heard of in the history of the world. They control government and all institutions of society by means of their wealth; they get their wealth by means of controlling the job, the source of all wealth; and they control the job because they are organised. Being comparatively few in numbers, it was easier for them to organise than for workers. Consequently they have organised first, and, as long as the workers remain unorganised, there is none able to dispute their power. By controlling industry, they control the means of producing all the necessaries of life-all that satisfies the material needs of man. Their power is economic. In their hands they hold the meal ticket of the world. Economic power is the basis of political, military, and all other forms of social power. As long as the capitalists retain control of industry, nothing can break their power. Governments bow to them, courts hasten to do their bidding, politicians grovel at their feet, media distort facts in their interest. While the capitalists indulge in luxury and in extravagance, the workers are condemned to lives of poverty, ignorance, toil and privation. They lack economic security. Poverty and the fear of poverty render their lives miserable. The average worker is not more than a few weeks removed from a state of dependency. If he should become sick or injured, he would soon become a burden to friends or relatives or to public charity. Thousands are killed annually in the industries. Hundreds of thousands die from occupational diseases. Millions of children are deprived of education and are stunted and dwarfed physically and mentally by slavery in factories and mills. Other millions go hungry to school and suffer from countless diseases brought on by malnutrition. Having no standing before the law, workers are hounded by the police, victimised by the courts and subjected to all kinds of abuse, injustice and tyranny.

It is useless to trim the branches or cut them off, for as long as the root is functioning, new branches will grow. The only way to abolish capitalism is to strike at the root, and thus kill the tree by cutting off the sources of its nourishment. This is radical action and it is the only radical action. The word "radical" is derived from the Latin word "radix," a root. It means "pertaining to a root." Radical action means action that deals with causes instead of tinkering with effects. The workers have a power infinitely greater than that of the capitalists. That is their power to produce wealth-to run industry-to carry on production. They can do this without capitalists, while without workers, capitalists are helpless. But the power of the workers is unorganised and therefore ineffective.

Global Revolution Is Civilisation’s Last Chance.

The working class is the main force of revolution by its social condition, in the struggle to overthrow the capitalist class and its system. The capitalist system is behind all the ills that burden humanity today. Poverty, deprivation, racism, sexism, inequality, economic insecurity, political repression, unemployment, homelessness, corruption and crime are all inevitable products of this system. For sure, they have all existed before capitalism but all these problems have found a new meaning in this society, corresponding to the needs of capitalism, drawing their rationale from the needs of the system that rules the world today and serve specific interests in this society. The capitalist system itself continually and relentlessly resists efforts to eradicate and overcome these ills, standing in the way of the people to change the system. The reality of capitalism today bodes a horrifying future for the entire people of the world. The domination of the capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism. Capitalism has long been the central obstacle to social progress. The only definitive solution to these problems is the elimination of capitalism and its institutions, and the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, rational economic and social planning. The fundamental task of the Socialist Party is to build toward the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

Just as the capitalists have solidarity against the workers, so must we have solidarity of labour. The hope of humanity and the path to progress lies in the revolt of the wage-slaves against the propertied class, the capture of political power from the propertied class, and the expropriation of the means of production and distribution from the propertied class. This great change means that the working people will own the world in common, produce wealth in common, possess in common all wealth produced, and by common agreement distribute that wealth to the benefit of all. This is the task of the workers, but one forced on us by worldwide misery. The impotence of all attempts to patch up capitalism, justifies the Socialist Party's position that only the social revolution can lay the foundations for the political and economic security of mankind.

Wherever a wage worker confronts an employer the possibility of strife and conflict is born. The worker lives by selling the use of his or her body—the employer lives by buying that use. It lies in the nature of things that the buyer should on instinct struggle to buy cheap and the seller to sell dear.

Malnutrition and hunger threaten working people unless the production and distribution of food is taken out of the hands of the capitalists. The bosses of the food corporations will not produce food except for profit. This acute and chronic problem of food shortages can be tackled only by changing the motivation of production. That motivation must no longer be for sale and for profits through sale, but for human beings, to satisfy their needs.

On with the fight, comrades!

The time has come for a new beginning

It has been said often enough that there can be no blueprints for the future because the people themselves will decide how to build the new society as they are building it. Fundamentally, the Socialist Party accepts that, and therefore refrains from attempting to present any detailed blueprints. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to put forward ideas for discussion about what a revolutionary government might do to start building socialism. Consistent refusal to do so suggests no blueprints as a cop-out and an excuse for no ideas. We need to develop a clear statement of the measures a revolutionary movement would aim to take, so people can decide whether or not they want to fight for a revolution. Too many “parties” talk about “revolution” in the abstract, and none at all seem to be serious about it concretely. “Revolution” does not mean that we would “demand” that the corporations do this or that. It means that we, the working class, take over the running of industry and make the decisions ourselves.

There is war. It is class war. It is waged by the representatives of one class, the oppressors, against the mass of another class, the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. The wish of the capitalist is to press sweat and blood out of the workers, and there is the desire of the workers to fight their class enemy, who feeds upon them. Every one who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial and only “regulatory,” is misleading you. Under capitalism you cannot protect both “industry” (meaning the capitalists) and labour (meaning the workers)! When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labour”. When you protect labour you make it possible for labour to get more out of industry. The essence of the capitalist State is service in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism. The capitalist State is a glaring fact. It is flesh and blood of the capitalist system. It stands in the way of the workers’ progress towards a new, free life. You cannot reconcile oil and water .

Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it with a system of production for use and not for profit all over the world. The Socialist Party calls for a radical cure and not a reformist salve to heal the ulcer and retain the body of capitalism. Capitalism has become an obsolete oppressive system that ought to be lopped off like a gangrenous limb. The injustices of slavery and serfdom were eliminated by abolishing the social institutions of slavery and serfdom themselves, not by prohibitions against maltreatment of slaves and serfs. The injustices of wage labour, including unemployment, will be eliminated by abolishing the social institution of wage labour itself, not by directions to employers to treat their workers better.

Socialism means that political power should pass from the hands of the capitalist class into the hands of the working people. The means of production and distribution, the land, the factories, workshops and mines, the means of communication, should pass into the possession of the working people. That production should be developed not by the competition of the various capitalist enterprises for profit, but on the basis of a planned economic system, whose aim was to raise the material and cultural level of the people, in such a way as to raise the standards of the working people and to enlarge the productive power of the socialist industries, and not, as it is under capitalism, to enrich a powerful class of capitalists and their hangers-on. In other words, the working people would own the industries, plan the industries and work for themselves and their communities not for the capitalist class. There is nothing in common between Socialism and nationalisation, exemplified in pre-privatisation days of the Post Office, the BBC, British Rail and the Coal, Electricity and Gas Boards . The object of capitalist nationalisation is not to lay the foundations of a new society. It is to provide an efficient state service for the industries which remain in private hands. 

The Socialist Party has always criticised the capitalist system because it gave rise not only to recurring economic crises, but to ever more devastating wars. Pro-capitalist leaders challenge socialist principles on two main points. They are denying that it is necessary for society to take over all the main industries in order to plan for the welfare of the people They say that all that is necessary is the existing nationalisation plus some State control. and they are denying that capitalism in its struggle for markets and sources of raw materials, in its struggle to oppress the workers and in order to obtain maximum profits, is really the cause of war. 

The social revolution required to transform capitalist enterprises into communist collectives obviously involves far more than government decrees transferring ownership. The revolution itself would have produced workers’ councils in many establishments, which would have taken over responsibility for management from the previous authorities. Revolution occurs when those who presently hold power are unable to do what has to be done, and when the only way it can be done is for their opponents to take the power to do it. Under slavery, public officials were necessarily slave owners. Under feudalism magistrates were necessarily landowners and under capitalism captains of industry were necessarily capitalists. But social relations change. All it needs is revolution to change them.

Socialism Is the Goal We Fight For

For too long the ideals of socialism has been placed in moth-balls. The labour and radical movements are in general disarray, striving to understand and overcome a heritage of class collaboration. Around the world there is no revolutionary socialist movement worthy of the name. But the elements exist for the development of a mass party. First of all, there is the injustice, inequality and institutionalised oppression of capitalism – a system which generates a growing dissatisfaction among the majority of working people. A better future will not come about automatically or simply because many people want it. It will only come about if we are able to draw enough people into the struggle to create it. But the effectiveness and success of that struggle are not predetermined. The global system of capitalism have adversely affected the living standard of the working class. The latest technologies in commodity production and distribution has created financial and political crises. In capitalist society, despite all the changes which may have occurred, the state remains the centre of decision serving the capitalists.

There is a class war to end wage-slavery, to end capitalism with its evils of misery and degradation. The war to end war. And until that war is ended we do not want peace—because such peace will be the peace of the beggar and the slave. Socialism can be realised only as the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. The class struggle is the motive force of history. All the political actions and judgements of a socialist party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. Every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliating them, by cooperating with them has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers. It is by carrying the class struggle to its necessary conclusion, that is, the abolition of capitalism that the socialist society will be realised. Real socialists today rally to the ranks of the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party serves the “have-not” class, the exploited. It stands for the abolition of the profit system, the end of wars growing out of the profit system but most of, for peace and plenty for all. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to stir the apathetic, to capture the attention of the indifferent, to stimulate the faint-hearted as to indicate the way to social harmony. Socialists condemn the competitive system. Production today is left to the care of those whose sole concern is to make profit for themselves, and although life and death depend upon industry, never yet has there been any organised attempt to rationally regulate industry in the interests of the majority.

There is no room for fence-sitting in the class war. You are either for the millionaires or for the workers who are robbed. You either stand for production for sale and profit or for production for use and free access. Either revolution or reform. There is no middle way. Whether we like it or dislike it, if we are conscious, we cannot ignore the stark reality that our society is a class divided society. Until the classes, the class exploitation, the class struggles and the class instrument of oppression and coercion, that is, the state, disappear in course of development of class struggle from the arena of development of human society, the society remains as a field of intense class battle.

You either favour missiles and bombing or you refuse uncompromisingly to fight their bloody wars. The Socialist Party's peace policy starts from this basic fact of the inseparability of war from capitalism. If capitalism makes enduring peace impossible, then the system must give way to a better one, whose aim is not profit-making but the satisfaction of the needs of humanity and whose basic means of expansion thereby calls for free cooperation instead of the intensification of competition and the exploitation of labour. The socialist peace program boils down to the struggle of the workers to end capitalism.

All the arguments against socialism are variations of a single theme – its alleged impracticality.

The first argument against socialism was the theoretical assumption that capitalism had always existed and would naturally always continue to exist because it corresponded with “human nature.” Hard facts upset this naive assumption. Capitalism was shown to be but a newcomer among economic systems; it is less than five hundred years old. Moreover the decline of other systems after their rise indicated a similar fate for capitalism.

Another argument is that socialism represented a beautiful ideal but lacked a basis in reality; socialists were therefore nothing but Utopians. The working class, created by capitalism itself, has shown to have a decisive economic interest in the development of socialism, and since socialism signifies a higher level of economy and culture, leading to a class-free society, the working-class movement in this direction represents the interests of society as a whole. In addition, the worldwide industrial system established by capitalism provides a sufficient base for the enormous increase in productivity required to realise socialism. The growth of socialist sentiment is inevitable, for the development of capitalism itself impels it.

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.