Racism is a product of capitalist society

“Competition is the completest expression of the battle...which rules in modern civil society. This battle, a battle for life, for existence, for everything, in case of need a battle of life and death, is fought not between the different classes of society only, but also between the individual members of those classes. Each is in the way of the other, and each seeks to crowd out all who are in his way, and to put himself in their place.” Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England

The Socialist Party has long pointed out that the fight against racism is an indispensable element in, and part of, the struggle for working-class emancipation. The capitalist class can be effectively challenged only by the economic and political strength of a united working class. If white workers are to free themselves from capitalist exploitation, they must contribute to the building of a labor movement that embraces the struggles of minority workers against racism.

That the vast majority of blacks and whites are workers is the key to understanding racism as a social problem. Job competition and class divisiveness, rather than class consciousness and unity, are an old story. The real conflict today is not between blacks and whites, but between the social classes, between the capitalist class and the working class.

There is, in the conditions laid down by capitalism, a constant competition between all workers, individually and collectively, for access to the jobs they need to secure a livelihood. The demarcation of black and white is a false and deliberately nurtured breach in the ranks of the working class. It is used to distract workers from the ultimate source of their employment problems under capitalism.

White workers who heretofore have been quiet on the subject of race, but who are increasingly threatened with layoffs and other ramifications of capitalism's present economic crisis, are becoming resentful not of the economic condition, along with the economic system that generates the condition of insecurity, but of black workers who, like themselves, merely want the opportunity to live healthful and decent lives.

Blacks are not alone in trying without success to secure economic security for themselves and their families. Lack of it is not a condition peculiar to the black worker. It is a condition common to the entire working class. Millions are unemployed, and millions more will follow them as the economy of capitalism is faced with worsening crises. If workers, black and white alike, are to achieve the economic and social well-being all working people desire, they will have to come to recognize that not a race, not a color, stands between them and their realizable dreams. What stands between them and what we all want is a social class, the capitalist class, that controls the means of wealth production and utilizes labor like any other commodity. All workers, some with more success than others at given times, must sell their abilities to the owners of industry and the social services. No race, as such, controls the tools and jobs. It is a class, the capitalist class.

Capitalism will promote racism and discrimination everywhere. The solution to inequality is not to share it or spread it around, but to root out its capitalist cause. Capitalism cannot deal with these problems. Indeed, capitalism is the source of many of them and can no more eliminate these social byproducts of its existence than a leopard can change its spots. Few problems demonstrate more graphically the vicious and antisocial characteristics that the present social system engenders and prolongs than racism. Moreover, that problem has, time and again, exposed the hypocrisy and opportunism of politicians and various reformers. Decades of lip-service and legislative action have had only limited impact on some of the more overt effects of racism. The record of failure that marks decades-long efforts to eliminate racism attests to the impossibility of overcoming that evil by a narrow and contrived approach to any or all of its manifestations. It illustrates the need to treat those manifestations, not in isolated frameworks, but in their full social context. Bluntly stated, the negative results to date are due to the fact that the basic cause of racism hasn’t been admitted, let alone addressed. One thing is certain. So long as the destructive competitive spirit generated by capitalism continues to permeate every aspect of society, racism will not only prevail, in many respects it will grow worse. For it is primarily a product of the conflicts generated among workers of all races as a result of the competition for jobs, housing and social services, all of which are steadily falling further below the need and the demand.

Capitalism is providing the social context for an upsurge in naked racism. All workers are hurt by—and thus have an interest in actively resisting—racism. The capitalist class that controls and profits from the wealth produced by working people clearly benefits from racism because it enables employers to impose lower wages on minority workers and thus increases capitalist profits. Further, racist ideology among the working class divides it, weakening its ability to resist the austerity now being imposed by the ruling class. In fact, racism has in the past, and will continue in the future, to pit worker against worker and to prevent them from taking collective action against capitalism. In this way, U.S. racism acts as a powerful force militating against working-class solidarity and is as such one of the main pillars of capitalism. In implementing the austerity aimed at boosting profits at the expense of workers generally, the ruling class has not hesitated to fan the flames of racism. Capitalism is generating a social atmosphere in which racist ideology and racist violence can grow.

All workers have a stake in fighting racism. The lower wages paid minorities and high minority unemployment rates increase job competition and thus exert a downward pressure on all workers’ wages. As a result, capitalists reap every higher profits from the working class as a whole. The fight against racism must challenge the capitalist status quo that reinforces it. For example, under capitalism, there are a limited number of jobs. Accordingly, white workers tend to see gains for minorities as coming at white workers’ expense. At the same time, the disproportionate share of unemployment borne by minorities and the failure of the labour unions to fight on their behalf has left millions of jobless minority workers without access to the economic power they might otherwise have to defend themselves.

A movement to defeat racism once and for all must seek to replace the racist social institutions, artificial economic scarcity and profit motive of capitalism with a collectively owned and democratically administered economy that produces on the basis of satisfying human need. In the face of the upsurge in racism, workers must link the demand for an end to the more intense exploitation and oppression suffered by minorities to the class struggle for socialism. For the struggle against racism cannot be successful unless and until it is transformed into a force for building the working-class unity needed to end exploitation generally. If workers want to end the misery engendered by the capitalist system, it is necessary that they recognize that racial antagonisms are a tactical measure of capitalism to prevent working-class unity. A working class, conscious of its potential and the means to achieve a livable world for all, can put an end to economic insecurity and the interracial distrust it breeds by putting an end to capitalism.

"Capitalism has ever striven to keep the workers divided. Without division in their ranks capitalism could not and cannot preserve its rule of human ruination. Nothing was more effective to that end than the fomenting of racial animosities and racial conceit. These means capitalism employed and still employs. The successful use thereof has kept labor a dislocated giant." Daniel De Leon

Ours Is The Fight For Socialism

The working class worldwide have suffered under the blows of the ruling class. There is confusion and disorientation. The only way out is struggle. We, the working class, must organise in the teeth of all obstructions. We must build solidarity across borders, because only international solidarity can beat the power of global capitalism. We can make a revolution to overthrow capitalism and create a world socialist cooperative commonwealth.

Social revolution is no longer an aspiration of the future. it is an immediate demand. All reformist parties – no matter how eloquently they commit to “socialism” and “socialist” ideals – base their political aims wholly within the framework of the capitalist state by winning reforms from capitalism, by becoming the government to “transform” the capitalist government into a “welfare” or “workers'” state. What does this mean in practice? It means that they all act in all crucial situations as an agent of the capitalist within the working class. A reformist party is powerless. A reformist party will not overthrow capitalism, since it functions within the framework of capitalism. It is a device for preserving capitalism, not a means for its overthrow. It is a mighty obstacle in the path of the revolutionary movement, not a boost forward. Socialism, of course, has nothing in common with the reformist illusions. We are not here to play the filthy game of capitalist politics. Capitalism, having its foundation in the slavery and exploitation of the masses, can only rule by corrupt means and its politics are essentially the reflex of its low and debasing character.

The Socialist Party concern itself with analyzing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution.

The aim of the Socialist Party will be the realisation of a socialist, class-free society. Our aim is to replace world capitalist economy by a world socialism, mankind’s only way out, for it alone can abolish the contradictions of the capitalist system which threaten to degrade and destroy the human race.will abolish the class division of society, i.e., simultaneously with the abolition of anarchy in production, it will abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a united commonwealth of labour. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its energy to the development and strengthening of its own collective might. After abolishing private ownership of the means of production and converting these means into social property, the world system of socialism will replace the elemental forces of the world market, competitive and blind processes of social production, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying rapidly growing social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of colossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society-there will be a planned utilisation of all material resources and a painless economic development on the basis of unrestricted, smooth and rapid development of productive forces.

 The abolition of private property and the disappearance of classes will do away with the exploitation of man by man. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy: instead of being merely a means of livelihood it will become a necessity of life: want and economic inequality, the misery of enslaved classes, and a wretched standard of life generally will disappear; the hierarchy created in the division of labour system will be abolished together with the antagonism between mental and manual labour; and the last vestige of the social inequality of the sexes will be removed. At the same time, the organs of class domination, and the State in the first place, will disappear also. The State, being the embodiment of class domination, will die out in so far as classes die out, and with it all measures of coercion will expire.Culture will become the acquirement of all and the harmonious development of all the talents inherent in humanity.

You need to be a socialist

Working people are being victimised by an array of absurd contradictions.

Getting something for nothing is what capitalism is all about. That is what capitalists do best. Indeed, that is all they do. Capitalists do not earn, or create, or build anything. They live by profiting from the work done by others. They live off the labour of the working class. The names these two classes bear tell the story. Workers work and capitalists capitalise on the work that workers do. Capitalism exists and can only exist as a system of exploitation. Capitalists are the exploiters and workers are the exploited. Capitalism condemns millions to lives of poverty and despair just to enhance the worthless lives of a few. It is not the welfare queens or the work-shy who bleed leech off others. It is the capitalist vampire that is sucking the working class dry.

Basic needs remain unmet while goods and products that could satisfy these needs sit in warehouses or storage lots, inaccessible to the working people who need but can’t buy them. Billions of dollars are being spent on armament industries while schools, hospitals, public transport and other social services are curtailed or eliminated for “lack of funds.” Workers have demanded too much improvement in the quality of the environment, too much job security safety, too much retirement protection, too much health care, too much equality, too much housing, too much pay, etc. Less pay for workers, less spending for job safety, less investment for pollution controls mean more profits for the capitalist owners of industry. Less spending for education and social services generally means more tax cuts for the capitalists, more money to invest in business expansion. Placing blame upon the greed of the workers diverts attention from the underlying causes - profit-motivated production and private ownership of the economy, policies which are fostering increased competition among workers for the limited number of jobs and social services capitalism has to offer. In this way, the ability of workers to mount a unified defence against enforced austerity is crippled.

Even when a capitalist economy is relatively healthy, the needs of workers are never met. This is so because the capitalist economy does not operate to meet workers’ needs. It operates for capitalist profit. That profit is generated through the exploitation of working people—that is, by paying workers wages that amount to only a fraction of the wealth they collectively produce. In a socialist economy based on common ownership of industry, the workers’ condition would be the reverse of what it is today. Production would be for social use instead of for private profit. Through elected delegates, they would democratically administer the industries and make all economic decisions. Resources would be allocated and production would be carried out on the basis of social needs and wants. A socialist economy would thereby free society of the limitations now imposed by capitalism. Such a society will not, of course, come into existence by itself. If the working-class majority is to become master of the nation’s economic forces, rather than its victims, workers must organise to wrest control from the capitalist class and to lay the foundation for a socialist society. Specifically, working people must break with the political parties of the capitalist class and organise politically around their common class interests. The Socialist Party goal is the transformation of the present economy into a socialist economy run by, and in the interests of, working people. 

This is why you must be a socialist

Capitalist rule forces the masses of people to compete with each other for survival. The unity of the workers of all minorities and nationalities can and will be built not in competition over the division of the pie but in the common struggle to take the whole pie and the means to continually enlarge it. For the working class, the fight for equality is not a fight to “suffer equally under capitalism” but a crucial part of the struggle to end capitalism and the misery it causes to people. Working people who try to find a clear way through the hardships of present-day conditions are faced with a hard task. 

On every side is confusion. Rising prices, falling wages, the uncertainty of a job, or the deepening misery of months and even years of unemployment; wars and ever new threats of war — all these are the daily conditions of life now. Amid all these ills there is no guidance or help from the old sources to which the workers used to look. The trade unions have little to say, engaged mostly in desperate endeavours to keep their membership from disappearing. Politicians are ready to make all kinds of promises for a beautiful future time when they shall be the government.

The capitalist world sinks ever deeper into its many crises. It heaps torment upon torment upon backs of the toiling class. For countless millions of human beings life today is a means hunger and unbearable wage-slavery. Everywhere workers look anxiously for remedies. But they can find no way out of the blind alley. We are not fooled by the sloganising of the Left that the working class is in a revolutionary upsurge. The mass of people are not revolutionists as yet. But nor are our fellow-workers entirely docile. There often comes signs of fresh hope. We see all around signs of the dawning of the new day of socialism, and we shall work for the coming of that better day for we see no way out save in a complete overthrow of the capitalist system. A father who casts a vote for the continuance of that system is as much of a murderer as if he took a gun and shot his own child.

From all quarters of the globe comes cries of distress. Poverty and low wages, and unemployment, are driving millions to despair. Now they are once again at the cross-roads. Only the conversion of private property in the means of production – land, mines, raw material,machinery, transport and communication – into social property, and the transformation of the production of goods into socialist production, carried on for and through society, can bring it about that the great production and the continually increasing productivity of social labour may become for the exploited classes, instead of a source of oppression, a source of the highest welfare and of all-sided harmonious development. This social transformation means the emancipation, not merely of the worker, but of the entire human race which suffers under the present conditions. The Socialist Party proposes no new class privileges and exclusive rights, but for the abolition of class rule and of classes themselves. It struggles in the present society, not only against exploitation of the wage-workers, but against every kind of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against gender or race.

The greatest need of to-day is clear understanding of the present conditions and positive marking out of the path to travel. Where can it be found? Through all the unrest and discontent of present times at home and abroad there is only one party that is consistent and unhesitating, that has exposed the confusion of shams and lies and stood firmly by the struggle of the working class. That party has been the Socialist Party. When the Labour Party and the capitalist politicians were prattling on about improving conditions by reforms, the Socialist Party declared that capitalism had out-lived its usefulness and the time was now for a socialist revolution. All sorts of politicians proclaim a new world, a new heaven upon earth. New cults and idols are held out before the workers, all shams to conceal from the workers their growing enslavement and hide from them the issue of Revolution. Alone the the Socialist Party asserts that capitalism its continuance would only mean growing chaos, and that the only path for the workers was the path of the workers’ revolution. Workers are beaten down because they were divided and uncertain, of their path, because they are duped by the trickery of fake leaders in alliance with the capitalists. The capitalist bear down upon the workers and leaving a trail of want and misery.

The struggle of the working class against economic exploitation is of necessity a political struggle. The working class cannot effect the change of the means of production into the possession of the collective society without coming into possession of political power. To shape this struggle of the working class into a conscious and united one, and to point out to its inevitable goal, this is the task of the Socialist Party. In all lands the interests of the working classes are alike. With the world trade and the global market, the condition of the workers of every single land always grows more dependent on the condition of the workers in other lands. The emancipation of the working class is therefore a task in which the workers of all countries are equally interested. Recognising this the Socialist Party declares itself at one with the class-conscious workers of all countries.

Robert the Bruce - the real history

The  film - Robert The Bruce - will have its premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival tonight.

Angus Macfadyen who plays Bruce and co-wrote the script is a supporter of Scottish independence.

Perhaps this is an opportune moment to draw attention to the Socialist Standard article on Bruce. 

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2014/2010s/no-1319-july-2014/bruce-and-bannockburn/

"...Bruce at Bannockburn never fought for the people of Scotland – he fought to place a crown upon his head."

But not solely of Scotland but of Ireland, too

https://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/03/bruce-invader.html

Fact of the Day

Almost half of workers ran out of money before payday last year, with some having to go without food as a result, according to a survey for Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS).

Life Expectancy Pessimism

The connection between austerity and dwindling life expectancy is hard to shake off, says David Walsh, of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health. The city once had some of the worst life expectancy rates in the western world – for example in the central area of Calton, a place blighted by poor housing, illness, high smoking rates, and violence.

Inhabitants suffered high death rates linked to drug and alcohol abuse and suicides. As a result, at the beginning of the 21st century, the male life expectancy in Calton at birth was 54, one of the worst figures in the UK. Glasgow subsequently made major efforts to improve death rates in Calton but is now watching life expectancies slide back towards their old levels.

“I think it is pretty clear that austerity is to blame,” says Walsh. “We have taken away these people’s safety nets.”

The grim future facing these young adults was summed up by Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology at University College London. “If you were to go to a young man growing up in Calton who is doing drugs and alcohol and smoking and is unemployed and is unemployable and say to him: ‘Look, you really shouldn’t smoke.’ Well, you wouldn’t get far with him and, in any case, he might be quite rational for not making long-term plans because he does not have a long-term future.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/23/why-is-life-expectancy-falling

The need is for socialism

With socialism, all power to make social decisions will be vested in the people. Our industries, their ownership, and how they are run will be based on the means of producing all goods and services owned collectively by all the people. The industries will be administered democratically from bottom to top by representatives elected directly by the workers in each industry and subject to their control. All representatives will be subject to recall at any time by those who elected them. Production will be carried out to satisfy the people’s wants. There is nothing in this which in any way resembles the workings of class-divided capitalism and its political state. Democracy founded on common ownership of the instruments of production and distribution and on economic freedom is the only form of society that can solve the problems capitalism has imposed upon us. It is the only social structure that can release the abundance for all now locked up in the capitalist economy. 

For you, as an individual, social democracy will mean a full, happy and useful life. It will mean the opportunity to develop all your talents. It will mean direct participation in the decisions of a society of free human beings. In socialist society, class divisions and exploitation will have been eliminated. Production will be carried out for use by all rather than to serve the profit interests of a small minority.

In each plant and enterprise, people will collectively determine workplace policies and will elect committees to plan the overall operations where the workers will participate in determining how best to implement and assure the efficient running of their economic unit. The workers will also elect representatives to a local and regional committees and to a central council representing all the industries and services. They will draw up the necessary production, expansion and improvement plans and allocate these to the various industries. All persons elected to posts in this economic administration, at whatever level, will be subject to rank-and-file control, and to removal whenever a majority of those who elected them find it desirable to replace them. The principles of workers’ democracy—i.e., the right and power of the majority to recall all elected representatives, the abolition of bureaucratic privileges, etc.—would ensure that control remained in the hands of the people.

In socialist society, for the first time, the people will consciously direct their economic activity and democratically provide for their own well-being and security. Not only useful labour, but the fruits of that labour as well, will be available to all. The only limit on production would be social needs and wants. The allocation of resources will be democratically planned by a society in full control of its productive forces.

Genuine socialism is the hope of humanity

We live in times of political change. There has never been a free people. Human society always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of society. Wage-slavery is a fact. It is clear to every class-conscious worker that there is a class war being waged by the capitalist classes to secure a greater share in the exploitation of labour. It is a matter of paramount importance that we, as socialists, apprehend the basic conditions underlying the strife, and that we prepare to meet the consequences to the world’s workers that will issue from it. This address to socialists and the working class generally is directed to such an understanding. In the confusion arising from false issues of the capitalist class, put forward to mislead the workers, we must ever be on our guard against the crafty apologists of wrong posing as friends of labour.

The Socialist Party of Ireland seeks to organise the workers of this country, irrespective of creed or race, into one great PARTY OF LABOUR. It believes that the dependence of the working class upon the owners of capitalist property, and the desire of these capitalists and landowners to keep the vast mass of the people so subject and dependent, is the great and abiding cause of all our modern social and political evils – of nearly all modern crime, mental degradation, social strife, and political tyranny. Recognising this, it counsels the working class to organise itself politically with the end in view of gaining control and mastery of the entire resources of the country. Such is our aim: such is socialism. As to the necessity for working-class organisation there can be no question. The point to be decided is: How shall the workers organise? Our method is: political organisation at the ballot box to secure the election of representatives of socialist principles to all the elective governing public bodies of this country, and thus to transfer the political power of the State into the hands of those who will use it to further and extend the principle of common ownership. What is needed is unity of thought and action. Far better no organisation at all than a fake form which divides the workers against themselves and misleads them in the interests of the employing class. As working-class organisation grows stronger capitalism grows weaker. It has already outlived its usefulness. It is unable to run industry efficiently, and fails to supply the needs of the great majority of the people.

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class, the party of emancipation, made up of men and women who scorn any compromise with their oppressors; who want no votes that can be bought, and promises no offices and no support under any false pretences whatsoever. The Socialist Party stands squarely upon its class principles. Its central task today is to consistently expose the enemy and point to the aim of overthrowing capitalism and building socialism, to raise the general level of consciousness and sense of organisation and instill a revolutionary outlook among fellow-workers. Ignorance alone stands in the way of socialist success. The capitalist parties understand this and use their resources to prevent the workers from gaining knowledge and understanding. Capitalist parties cunningly contrive to divide the workers. The Socialist Party is uniting them upon one issue: the abolition of wage-slavery.

We therefore appeal to all workers to throw in their lot with the Socialist Party and assist it in giving force, clearness and effectiveness to the gathering working class movement. And on its part that Party, conscious of its high mission, pledges itself to pursue, unfaltering and undeviating, its great object – common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. As socialists our basic goal is the emancipation of labour. We oppose any so-called right to own or exploit the labour of others. The Socialist Party's aim is the establishment of the cooperative commonwealth. Socialism is not a scheme or plan. It is the next stage in social evolution. Many believe the Socialist Party is going to take all you own and divide it among the poor. We don’t want your paltry possessions. It would do us no good. We want the Earth.

Solidarity and Unity

If the workers of the world do not awaken in time then a terrible fate awaits for all. Long hours, low wages, misery and war—these have been the offerings of capitalism in the past but now we face the existential threat of global warming and climate change. The greatest need of the workers is world socialism, the cooperative commonwealth.

The workers of the world have endured years of slaughter, starvation and suffering. Many millions of men, women and children have died of want while fat capitalists have lived in luxury. Present-day life means nothing to you except the same daily grind of hopeless toil, poor food, poor clothing, poor housing, and an early death. Wake up! Show yourself to be worthy of more than a slave's position. Sweep away the capitalist class; conquer supremacy for the working class; and then get down to the serious business of building up institutions necessary for carrying on the business building a society where the people will own and control all means of wealth production and distribution in common. You must now choose between revolution for the establishment of socialism or degradation. The capitalists of the world are aiding and abetting one another. The workers must unite and overthrow them. The issue is clear—either revolution for socialism or more misery under capitalism.

The Socialist Party desires to impress upon you the practicability of the action we urge. No abstract theories are necessary. All that is necessary is that you, workers, should recognise that while a few men own the means whereby you live, you must be slaves to these men; once you see this then you must be prepared to take action to accomplish your freedom. You know that the government uses the police and military force to repress you every time you try to do anything for yourselves. These men are members of the working class like you are, efforts must be made to win them over to the side of the workers. This is your first step, and it is not so hard as it may appear; the workers in the army suffer under a system which is worse than factory life, also, and they are coming to understand that when they are discharged from the army they can only expect a miserable pension. Everything about which they only dream now could become a practical certainty through the co-operation of workers for the defeat of the capitalist class. 

You must show fellow-workers that the only ones who have interests in common with them are their own fellow-workers. We have everything to gain by the overthrow of the capitalists and nothing to lose. This is the way the workers of the world should be moving, and succeeding in their task of ridding the world of the system of society which means only misery for the workers. Nothing short of the complete overthrow of the capitalists and their institutions can prepare the ground where the workers shall control their own destiny. Workers, upon your shoulders rests this mighty work, your whole future depends upon its success.

Militarism on the march to war.

In the face of the latest ominous developments, the Socialist Party restates its conviction that only one thing can prevent the catastrophe toward which the world is heading is the establishment of world socialism. There is no acceptable alternative. The Socialist Party condemns in no uncertain terms any attack on Iran and regime change by U.S. Forces. There has been no evidence of any officially countenanced assaults on American citizens. 

The Socialist Party appeals to U.S. workers to take a stand against the war-hawks — and against the capitalist system that repeatedly causes such senseless acts of war. A socialist transformation of society would create an economic order under which the means of production would be socially owned and democratically controlled by workers. Socialism would place power in the collective hands of the working class. With the elimination of the profit motive, the principle of social use would guide production. The need would no longer exist for military spending artificially to stimulate the economy, or to maintain a large military machine to enforce access to foreign markets. Under capitalism even relatively small cutbacks in military spending could lead to increased unemployment and the creation of economically depressed areas. Under a social system based on production for use, the elimination of unnecessary production would simply reduce the workweek of the entire labor force because the entire industrial process would reflect the needs of the whole population. American working people must also learn the lessons of history or we’re going to be forced to relive old mistakes.

Capitalism is a predatory social system. The U.S. ruling class has continued its escalation of militarism as long as there are profit interests benefit from it.The capitalist class and its political parties couldn't care less if the government of Iran (or any other country) is democratic or anti-democratic. Its government will "wheel and deal" with any foreign tyrant if its purposes are served. It had no qualms about supplying Saudi Arabia despots and Muslim fundamentalists with weapons. That may seem inconsistent or hypocritical to some, but it is not. Supporting or opposing foreign governments has nothing to do with political principles or ideologies and everything to do with the material and profit interests of America's capitalist ruling class. Capitalism needs foreign markets; it needs foreign sources of raw materials for its industries; it needs large supplies of cheap labor; and it needs strategic control over those markets, supplies of cheap labor and sources of raw materials. Without these things it would choke and collapse. Getting and securing them is the fundamental foreign policy at work. How they are gotten and secured is a secondary consideration.

We must establish a society in which the means of life will be socially owned and democratically controlled; in which production will be carried on for the benefit and use of all; in which we will manage our affairs through an industrial form of government. This is the only way we can end the ruling-class rivalries that lead to war. The crying need of our time is determined, resolute action to awaken the working class to the imperative need for a socialist reconstruction of society.

To avoid future wars, therefore, the capitalist cause must be abolished. Society must be reorganized on socialist lines, replacing private and state ownership and competition with social ownership and cooperation. We must make the factories, mills, mines, railroads and all the other means of social production the collective property of society so that we can produce things to satisfy human needs instead of for the profit of the few. Only then can the competitive, war-breeding struggle for international markets, spheres of influence and sources of raw materials be ended. Only then will the nations of the world have an economic foundation for lasting cooperation, harmony and peace. The Socialist Party believes that the American working class must at last come to recognize that the competitive capitalist system of private ownership of the land and plants of production, means of transportation, mines, etc., is in fact the basic cause of the present state of world anarchy, and of wars, declared and undeclared.

"The capitalist class will wreck a railroad, scuttle a steamer, or fire a building to achieve its ends. It will shoot down; it will murder and kill to advance the price of its commodities. It will declare war in order to dispose of its goods. Nothing, not even what it now considers the most sacred, is allowed to stand in its way. Whatever menaces it is ruthlessly swept aside. No compunction being shown in the matter of expansion, none will be or is shown in the matter of defense." - Daniel De Leon

Time to end wage slavery

We live in times of political change. There has never been a free people. Human society always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of society. Wage-slavery is a fact. It is clear to every class-conscious worker that there is a class war being waged by the capitalist classes to secure a greater share in the exploitation of labour. It is a matter of paramount importance that we, as socialists, apprehend the basic conditions underlying the strife, and that we prepare to meet the consequences to the world’s workers that will issue from it. This address to socialists and the working class generally is directed to such an understanding. In the confusion arising from false issues of the capitalist class, put forward to mislead the workers, we must ever be on our guard against the crafty apologists of wrong posing as friends of labour.

The Socialist Party of Ireland seeks to organise the workers of this country, irrespective of creed or race, into one great PARTY OF LABOUR. It believes that the dependence of the working class upon the owners of capitalist property, and the desire of these capitalists and landowners to keep the vast mass of the people so subject and dependent, is the great and abiding cause of all our modern social and political evils – of nearly all modern crime, mental degradation, social strife, and political tyranny. Recognising this, it counsels the working class to organise itself politically with the end in view of gaining control and mastery of the entire resources of the country. Such is our aim: such is socialism. As to the necessity for working-class organisation there can be no question. The point to be decided is: How shall the workers organise? Our method is: political organisation at the ballot box to secure the election of representatives of socialist principles to all the elective governing public bodies of this country, and thus to transfer the political power of the State into the hands of those who will use it to further and extend the principle of common ownership. What is needed is unity of thought and action. Far better no organisation at all than a fake form which divides the workers against themselves and misleads them in the interests of the employing class. As working-class organisation grows stronger capitalism grows weaker. It has already outlived its usefulness. It is unable to run industry efficiently, and fails to supply the needs of the great majority of the people.

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class, the party of emancipation, made up of men and women who scorn any compromise with their oppressors; who want no votes that can be bought, and promises no offices and no support under any false pretences whatsoever. The Socialist Party stands squarely upon its class principles. Its central task today is to consistently expose the enemy and point to the aim of overthrowing capitalism and building socialism, to raise the general level of consciousness and sense of organisation and instill a revolutionary outlook among fellow-workers. Ignorance alone stands in the way of socialist success. The capitalist parties understand this and use their resources to prevent the workers from gaining knowledge and understanding. Capitalist parties cunningly contrive to divide the workers. The Socialist Party is uniting them upon one issue: the abolition of wage-slavery.

We therefore appeal to all workers to throw in their lot with the Socialist Party and assist it in giving force, clearness and effectiveness to the gathering working class movement. And on its part that Party, conscious of its high mission, pledges itself to pursue, unfaltering and undeviating, its great object – common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. As socialists our basic goal is the emancipation of labour. We oppose any so-called right to own or exploit the labour of others. The Socialist Party's aim is the establishment of the cooperative commonwealth. Socialism is not a scheme or plan. It is the next stage in social evolution. Many believe the Socialist Party is going to take all you own and divide it among the poor. We don’t want your paltry possessions. It would do us no good. We want the Earth.

Reformism V. Revolution

We live in a critical period for civilisation and we are now living in the shadow of annihilation from climate change. In the midst of this, people still show a stubborn adherence to reforms, a belief in the possibility of major improvement of conditions under capitalism, and a rejection of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Why is this so? Why the general political apathy and rejection of revolutionary changes in society, when humanity as a whole is in the grip of life and death struggle? It is now difficult to imagine that the term ‘social democracy’ once embodied workers' greatest hopes. There was a desire to bring about a profound social change and to abolish capitalism itself by gradual means. Then came the patriotic jingoism of World War One. Everything changed. From now on, social democracy saw the state not as something to be overthrown but instead as one of the principal instruments of its reformist policy. Socialism came to be re-defined. The major tendencies within the labour movement began to see its objectives as gaining more parliamentary power, initiating state-run public services, appointing more 'socialist' ministers to implement ‘left-wing progressive’ social legislation under the auspices of the state. 'Socialist' aspirations were integrated into the state apparatus. Their 'socialism' had been diluted by a programme which is in no sense socialist.

Reformism presented an outward semblance of radical aims and theory, but becomes in fact directed towards the goal of securing the maximum benefits for the working-class within capitalism. Reformism's basic political method is that working people should devote themselves primarily to voting for suitable politicians to win elections to become the government and so to pass legislation to regulate capitalism and, on that basis, to improve their working conditions and living standards. The implication is that class struggle is not necessary. If a reformist government can secure stability and growth in the interests of capital, there is no reason to believe that employers will oppose a reformist government. However, so long as capitalist property relations remain the bed-rock of the economy, the state cannot be neutral and an honest broker. This is not because the state is always directly controlled by openly pro-capitalist parties. It is because whoever controls the state is brutally limited in what they can do by the needs of capitalist profitability and because the needs of capitalist profitability are very difficult to reconcile with the interest of working people. In capitalism, you cannot accumulate capital by economic growth unless you can get investment, and you can't get capitalists to invest unless they can make what they judge to be an adequate rate of profit. Since high levels of employment and increasing state services in the interest of the working class (dependent upon taxation out of the employers share of surplus value) are predicated upon economic growth, even governments that want to further the interests of the exploited for example left-wing governments must make capitalist profitability its first priority.

Reformists viewed genuine socialism as a far-off goal and little more. Revolution was a possibility but not in the foreseeable future. Reformism pushes aside the revolutionary aspirations in the working class. When reforms fail, a series of new reforms becomes the expected course of events. Our fellow-workers become their own reformist advocates. The role of the Socialist Party is to generalise the lessons drawn from the day-to-day class struggles to resist reformism. For reformists capitalist crises and accompanying social problems can be cured within the system with palliative policies; for revolutionary socialists they can not. The acceptance of gradualism is the acceptance of the dominance of bourgeois institutions to be negotiated with and not challenged. The reformist’s method is one in which the self-activity of the working-class is necessarily minimised, its militancy curtailed. To accommodate reformist theories is to assist in turning the labour movement away from socialism itself. Reformist tactics are the effective enemy of revolutionary strategy. When movements of revolt arise and begin to march, the reformists are obliged to reject them as a hinderance to its own baby-steps towards improving conditions. It expresses no revolt of their own and cannot acknowledge other revolts. Again and again we have witnesses the spectacle of reformist politicians limiting the scale of protest, and then telling people that the failure to make gains shows that such action cannot work. Reformism always shies away from social conflict.

Reformism as a powerful ideology within the workers’ movement is far from dead. The hold of reformist ideas among people remains strong. Reformism is always with us, but it rarely reveals its presence and usually goes by another name, Despite its friendly manner it is our main political foe and we should understand that. If we wish to attract people to our socialist banner and away from reformism, it will not be through outbidding reformists in terms of palliative policies and amelioration programmes. It will be through our understanding of the world.