NO POWER IN THE WORLD CAN STOP US!

The Socialist Party has long contended that only socialism can solve the major social and economic problems plaguing our society today. But many people have been taught all their lives that "socialism" means the state-controlled system that existed in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states, exists today in China or Cuba. the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions weren't socialist in character. They occurred in pre-industrial societies. Without a majority working class and the ability to eliminate scarcity of needed goods and services, creation of a classless society was impossible. Material conditions there bred conflict and made the continuation of the class struggle inevitable in such countries. Socialism can only be built in a developed, industrialised society with a working-class majority. In the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions, an elite "vanguard" party seized control of the state and used the state to control the means of production. Instead of establishing a classless society, the party-state bureaucracy became a new ruling class. 

The socialism upheld by the Socialist Party, however, is completely different from any existing system. It has nothing to do with nationalisation, a welfare state or any kind of state ownership or control of industry whatsoever. On the contrary, it would give power not to the state, but to the people themselves, allowing collective control of their own economic future. A socialist political party is needed to educate the working class and to recruit workers to the socialist cause. Socialism would bring social democracy -- the rule of the people -- to the most vital part of our lives, the economy. 

Socialism means a class-free society. Unlike under capitalism, where a tiny minority owns the vast majority of wealth and the means of producing it, everyone would share equally in the ownership of all the means of production, and everyone able to do so would work. There wouldn't be separate classes of owners and workers. The economy would be administered by the workers themselves through democratic "associations of free and equal producers," as Marx described it. The workers collectively would decide what they want produced and how they want it produced. They would control their own workplaces and make the decisions governing their particular industry. Engels once described socialism as a system in "which every member of society will be enabled to participate not only in the production but also in the distribution of social wealth." Far from being a state-controlled society, socialism would be a society WITHOUT A STATE. Marx said that "the existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery. The people themselves, through the democratic associations of workers, would administer the various levels of society.

Socialism will allow for us to carry on production for use in the most modern production conditions we can possibly create, utilising the safest and most manufacturing methods. The more we collectively produce, the more we shall collectively enjoy. All of us will be useful producers, working but a fraction of the time we are forced to work today. But we shall not only be useful producers, we shall all share equitably in the wealth we produce, and our compensation will literally dwarf anything we can imagine today. 

In socialist society there will be neither involuntary unemployment nor poverty. The young will be educated not only to prepare them to participate in social production but also to enable them to expand their interests and develop their individual interests and talents. 

The aged will be cared for, and not by any such demeaning methods as are used today. We shall provide all their material needs and create a social atmosphere in which they can live lives that are culturally and intellectually satisfying. It will not be charity, but their rightful share as former contributors to production.

Under capitalism, improved methods and machinery of production kick workers out of jobs. With socialism, such improvements will be blessings for the simple reason that they will increase the amount of wealth producible and make possible ever higher standards of living, while providing us with greater and greater leisure in which to enjoy them.

Inside socialism, we shall produce everything we need and want in abundance under conditions best suited to our welfare, aiming for the highest quality. We shall constantly strive to improve our methods and equipment in order to reduce the hours of work. We shall provide ourselves with the best of everything: the finest educational facilities, the most modern and scientific health facilities and adequate and varied recreational facilities. We shall constantly seek to improve our socialist society. Purposeful research, expansion of the arts and culture, preservation and replacement of our natural resources, all will receive the most serious attention. It will be a society in which everyone will have the fullest opportunity to develop his or her individuality without sacrificing the blessings of cooperation.

Freed from the compulsions of competition and the profit motive that presently hurl capitalist nations into war, socialism will also be a society of peace.

In short, socialist society will be a society of secure human beings, living in peace, in harmony and human brotherhood.

This all may sound too good to be true. Yet the world has the productive capacity to provide a high standard of living for all, to provide security and comfort for all, to create safe workplaces and clean industries, and to help other nations reach these same goals. The only thing keeping us from reaching these goals is that the workers don't own and control that productive capacity; it is owned and controlled by a few who use it solely to profit themselves.

Organising to bring the industries under the ownership of all the people, to build a socialist society of peace, plenty and freedom, is the only real alternative workers have. For, as William Morris once wrote, "While theologians are disputing the existence of a hell elsewhere, we are on the way to realising it here: and if capitalism is to endure, whatever may become of men when they die, they will come into hell when they are born." 

Revolutionary Times

There are times when social and economic problems become so 

bad that people are forced to choose between the social system that makes their lives difficult and a new one that will make their lives better. Times like that are called revolutionary times. They don’t come often, but when they do the question of HOW to make the change that’s needed becomes as important as WHAT that change should be. We face that kind of choice today. Capitalism—the social system we live under—no longer serves the interests of the people. It creates countless problems that it cannot solve. It uses technology to throw people out of work and to make those who keep their jobs work harder. It creates hardship and poverty for millions, while the few who own and control the economy grow rich off the labour of those allowed to keep their jobs. It destroys the cities that we built up. It is destroying the natural environment that is the source of the food we eat and the air we breathe. Every attempt made to prevent these problems, or to keep them from growing even worse, has failed. 

The reason is that society is controlled by a small capitalist class that owns the industries and services that everyone depends on. The workers built and they operate all of those essential industries and services. However, they do not own and control them. They are the majority, but they have no voice in deciding what to produce or how much to produce. Their needs and desires count for nothing when those decisions are made. When a small group owns and controls what everyone needs to feed, house and clothe themselves and their families, when that small group makes every important decision that affects the lives of the vast majority, it is called a dictatorship. Capitalism is economic despotism and it spoils and corrupts everything that is good and decent. Technology that could and should be used to lessen the need for arduous toil and to enhance our lives is used instead to eliminate jobs and increase exploitation. Poverty is as widespread as it has ever been. Joblessness, homelessness, helplessness and hopelessness are spreading. Economic insecurity places an unbearable strain on our families, our children and ourselves.

The Socialist Party seeks to build a serious socialist movement that will be bound together enough to act as a united body. Socialism is not a “dogma”. Historical materialism teaches us that nothing is static. 

The Socialist Party's goal is a class-free society based on common ownership and control of the industries and social services, these to be administered in the interests of all society by society. 

The Socialist Party is the political party of the working class. This is so because it is the sole protagonist of the policies and principles that the working class must adopt if it is ever to achieve its complete emancipation from wage slavery and, at the same time, save society from catastrophe. 

The Socialist Party is the only organisation demanding the abolition of capitalism and advocating the socialist reconstruction of society. It has been doing so for well over 100 years. It is the political party through which the workers can establish their majority right to reorganise society. To establish socialism, political unity under the banner of a mass political party of labour is needed.The role of the party is to educate workers to the need to abolish capitalism, to agitate and to express the revolutionary mandate of the working class at the ballot box. 

The Socialist Party aims to capture and dismantle the political state and pave the way for a new form of administration, a participatory democracy. To establish socialism,workers must unite as a class, based on the principle that the working class is involved in a class struggle with the employing, capitalist class, a struggle that cannot be ended under the capitalist system and until capitalist ownership of the industries and services is replaced with social ownership and democratic community control. After the revolution, the administration of all production and distribution will be the function of the various democratically elected or delegated bodies and organs at all levels and where easily and immediately exercisable power to recall exists to remove any administrator who, in their judgement, fails to serve their interests in office. Thus production will at long last be for use and the benefit of all.

Should we keep a social system that is destroying the lives? Or shall we do the common sense thing by making the means of production our collective property, abolishing exploitation of the many by the few, and create security and abundance for all? The workers can expect no help from the beneficiaries of capitalism. The capitalists, just like the slave-owning and feudal classes before them, will try to keep their strife-ridden and poverty-breeding system. The workers can only rely on themselves to build a better world and free themselves through their own class-conscious efforts. By workers we mean the working class. We mean all whose intellectual and physical labour contributes to the development, manufacture and distribution of the goods, services and information that our complex society needs. We mean all those who must sell their physical and mental talents and skills on the job market, and who depend on the wages and salaries they receive in exchange. We mean white-collar and blue-collar, production and office workers, those who research and develop as well as those who build, distribute and serve. We mean the whole working class, including the unemployed and those forced to settle for part-time or temporary work. The working class makes everything and it makes everything work. Collectively, it has tremendous potential power. The working class runs the industries from top to bottom. The potential economic power that rests in its hands is enormous.

The Socialist Ideas of the Socialist Party

What socialists do under capitalism is spread the case for socialism. Our main aim is to propagate socialist ideas in place of existing authoritarian and irrational ideas that help maintain capitalism. This involves us combating those ideas such as racism, nationalism, the idea that we need leaders, must have armies, need money, and also religion. Socialism doesn’t require people to behave all that differently from how most of us do most of the time at the moment, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours we exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, cooperation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages. The Socialist Party is not trying to lead anyone anywhere but are merely pioneers pointing the way.

The Socialist Party reasserts that the working and ruling classes of the world have nothing in common, and that every attempt to prevent the working classes of the world from uniting in their own interests requires the unqualified condemnation of all those who profess to speak in the interests of labour, regardless of their assertions and pretences to the contrary. The Socialist Party is in sympathy with the principle of unrestricted emigration of workers from one country to another and that attempts to limit, control or manipulate the working classes of the world is meant to serve the interests of the ruling classes of the world and also requires the unqualified condemnation of all those who profess to speak in the interests of labour. We oppose scapegoating migrants as the source of stagnant or falling wages, declining living standards and unemployment, and are hostile to any call for punitive measures against them. Unemployment, and whatever pressure immigrants place on wages, is a direct result of the competitive capitalist system itself. It is a by-product of the system of wage labour, which forces workers to compete for their livelihoods on the basis of the conditions laid down by the capitalist system. Accordingly, efforts to scapegoat migrants only serve to divide workers against one another, place greater hardships on migrants and their families, and draw attention away from the capitalist source of these problems.

The Socialist Party recognises that millions of workers who have migrated to in hopes of improving their lives have been bitterly disappointed and subjected to the most ruthless exploitation. It is clear that capitalism with its private ownership of the economy and exploitation of wage labour is responsible for economic hardship and insecurity for all workers; that it compels workers for economic reasons to leave their home countries and seek employment elsewhere; that immigration laws, whether promoted by so-called liberals or conservatives, only serve to benefit the capitalist class. Accordingly, the critical issue facing workers today is the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Therefore, be it. The Socialist Party extends a fraternal hand of welcome to all immigrant workers and invites them to join in our efforts to abolish capitalism and establish the free and democratic Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth throughout the world.
The working class to organise a socialist party of its own to express its will to abolish capitalism, and to organise itself in the workplaces of the country to enforce that decision by taking, holding and operating the economy in the name of society. Only then can the working-class majority take control of its own destiny to ensure permanent prosperity, to uproot the cause of international conflicts, and to lay the foundation for worldwide cooperation and a lasting peace. 

Who Are We? What Do We want?

Hunger, misery, disease, and death is the daily lot of too many of our brothers and sisters around the world. Too many men and women are subjected to horror and tyranny. Capitalism is a social system which breeds conflicts. It is a seething jungle of struggles wherein individuals, classes, nations, and empires fight against each other. Individual wage-earners vie with each other for jobs; capitalists outbid one another for markets; classes struggle against each other in the economic and political arenas; and nations are prepared to wipe each other off the map for the sake of imperial conquest. But the struggle, international in its extent, which looms larger than all others, is the conflict between capital and labour. In this struggle the former fights with ability and consciousness of aim, while the latter fights with great confusion and without a knowledge of its own strength.

From the Socialist Party goes the message of unity and international class solidarity. We are socialists because we believe that socialism will solve the miseries of the world. We hold that socialism is practical. Capitalism has only known how to cause humanity unhappiness; socialism will establish peace and happiness. Working people of Britain must be shown what binds them with to the working men and women of all the world. This situation, so unbearable for the exploited classes, can only be altered by the destruction of the capitalist system and the establishment of a socialist system of production and distribution. Reformist tactics have proven to be wholly illusory. To pursue them further will cause ever more misery.

The Socialist Party is a political organisation. Politics is our means. It is our justification for existence. We are not a party of property rights. We have the ideal of abundance and security and peace and democracy for all. Our greatest of hopes is an age of brotherhood of all men and women without hunger, without ignorance, without war.

Every day the capitalists try to discredit socialism and tell the workers that it is not a worthy goal to fight for. The propertied interests seek to mould the ideas of the workers in such a way that their intellectual, industrial, and political activities may not be directed against Capitalism. Capital reinforces its economic power through its control of the political machine, so, on the other hand, it wields political power due in great measure to its control of the press—the greatest weapon it has, educationally, for moulding the ideas and therefore the political activity of the workers. Capitalism, let us reiterate, uses its various avenues of activity in such a way that they support each other, and all of them combined reinforce the wages system. Thus the media, in the hands of capital, attacks labour in the field of education, industry, and politics. 

The capitalist class understands the need of political action. It intends to be prepared in order to crush the attempts of awakening labour seeking to organise its forces. The workers will be confronted by the whole economic force of capital in alliance with its political force—the State. Can the Socialist Party, therefore, neglect the political field, which is at present one of capital’s strongest buttresses? The Socialist Party says no. We dare not leave the enemy entrenched in any position from which it can threaten the working class. We hold the political weapon as the instrument by means of which the workers can capture the State in order to uproot it. The Socialist Party advocates political action because it is the destructive arm of labour which will overthrow capitalism. Many are opposed to political action for no other reason than that they have not realised all that it means. Because the political weapon is used by the capitalist class against Labour, and because the political State is a machine to maintain class rule, there are many workers who contend that working class political action is futile, if not dangerous. Our political declaration is to aim at the capture of the political machine in order to tear the State, with its armed force, out of the hands of the capitalist class, thus removing the murderous power which Capitalism looks to in its final conflict with Labour. In a word, the revolutionary value of political action lies in its being the instrument specially fashioned to destroy Capitalism. Just as industrial unionism is necessary to construct Socialism.

We are convinced that socialism is the only hope of the workers. Neither reforms nor palliatives can in any way remove the great economic contradictions inherent in capitalism. Socialism contends that the only solution for the social problem is to be found in the reorganisation of society upon the basis of the social ownership of the means of wealth production. This plan is neither based upon emotion nor sentiment. It is based upon economic necessity. Since wealth is socially created it must be socially owned and controlled. Until that is done capitalism will stagger from one contradiction to another; from one crisis to a worse one; from one conflict to an ever fiercer one. Labour as the creator of all economic wealth demands the control of its product. To facilitate this end, the Socialist Party has outlined the ways and means whereby the world cooperative commonwealth may be inaugurated.

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.