Socialism is Humanity’s Last Hope

 

‘The poor have no country, in all lands, they suffer from the same evils, and they, therefore, realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be the more thoroughly to enslave the people must fall’ (International Working Men’s Association, 1866). 

 

‘In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and “rights”’ (Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question, 1909).

 

 ‘I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World’ (Eugene Debs, 1915). 

 

 ‘The old lie: It is sweet and right to die for one’s country’ (Wilfred Owen, 1918). 

 

 ’Imagine there’s no countries; It isn’t hard to do; Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion, too’ (Imagine, John Lennon, 1971).

 

Borders may be altered, even disappear, but such re-arrangements of frontiers can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. The solution to that problem will not be found by struggling for independence or a union, but by striving for the world socialist commonwealth.  It would be a true world community, with no countries nor borders, no passports nor visas. 

 

A typical geography school lesson consists of studying maps of the world divided by lines going up and down and across marking all of the different countries. Where are these boundaries when you look at a photograph of the earth from space? Countries are artificial areas and have had many different shapes in recent history according to the fortunes of the ruling class owners in territorial negotiation and war.

 

Some our critics  give themselves sleepless nights over an imaginary dilemma that we will have to wait until the whole world is  fully industrialised  to vote capitalism out of existence. Firstly the emergence of undeveloped and developing nations as industrial powers does not depend on their own unaided slow rate of growth, but is speeded up by making use of experience and materials and technology of more advanced countries. It can be extraordinarily rapid, as witness the emergence of Japan and of Korea in past decades while in more recent years it has been the progress of China. Secondly the socialist movement does not grow at the same rate as industrialisation, so that the supposed difficulty of large socialist movements in some countries held back by small socialist movements in others is a myth. And, of course, our critics know this very well. So the true position is not that the few tiny socialist parties in the advanced countries are waiting for the benighted masses in Asia, but that the few socialists in all countries are patiently working to win over the masses in all countries. What rightly concerns the companion parties in the World Socialist Movement is the political backwardness of the workers  in their own land. Poverty is by no means only a problem for “under-developed” countries — it is a worldwide working class phenomenon. Every single wage slave, whether he lives in the midst of advanced “free enterprise” or the relative backwardness of Bangladesh, is never free from the threat of being one of tomorrow’s hungry. The vast majority of the world's population, who do not own or control the means of producing and distributing. wealth, are only ever entitled to have access to what they can buy. It is a dangerously insecure existence and it is madness for the workers to look to the bankers to change it for them.

Thirdly, just as capitalist production methods exercise influence in all countries and enable the backward to advance rapidly, so also the experience already gained by socialists in the advanced countries enables the socialists in the developing countries to progress more rapidly than they would if in isolation.

 

Socialism, undiluted and unadulterated, is what the Socialist Party wants. As to why we want it, only look around you. Millions are in need of food, health care, housing, etc., and the means exist ready to hand whereby they can produce them. Generations of workers have put their faith in legislation and reforms, but we are as far away as ever from economic security. The social revolution offers the only way out. Muster, then, under our banner, with a view to its speedy accomplishment.

End Exploitation

 

Socialism has not failed. On the contrary, it has never been tried and the growth of a genuine movement to bring it about has been deliberately frustrated by Establishment lies and misrepresentation. It is because the case for socialism is so overwhelmingly logical that those who oppose it out of narrow self-interest use their wealth, their power and their privilege to distort its meaning and to deny valid arguments about its nature and its feasibility a place on the political agenda. These are interests that have successfully pretended to you that you have to put up with capitalism and its disgusting abuse of humanity because there is no alternative to that system. Because socialism and democracy are indivisible, the task of the Socialist Party is to build the political means of convincing a majority to opt for socialism. We do not pretend that it is an easy task but, confronted with capitalist reality, it is an urgent and essential one. The antidote to  a society based  on the private ownership of production, but one built on the planet’s resources being owned in common and democratically managed. Such a society would not need money, and would instead be based on free access to goods and services.

 

Why do so many members of the working class find it difficult to understand the socialist case? Certainly not because of its complications. The Socialist Party declares that the workers have it in their power to build a society wherein the wealth produced shall be freely available to everyone without the need to buy, sell or exchange everything that is required. To imagine themselves having access to the goods that they have worked to produce without having to ask “How much?” or "Can I afford it?” puzzles many workers. They have come to recognise everything as the property of some person or persons. They accept without question the fact that goods are only available to them when they can afford to buy. The proposal that there can be a condition of things where the institution of buying and selling does not exist, makes them look for a flaw.

 

The Socialist Party does not advocate such a system of society just because it would be nice to live that way. He recognises that the present system of producing things in order that they may be sold, and that someone may make a profit out of the process, is the cause of all working class problems. From this root cause arises the poverty of the workers with its attendant problems of housing, malnutrition, overwork and unemployment, economic insecurity, crime, etc. Also from the same source comes  great catastrophes, Destruction of the environment and destruction by war. To eliminate these evils it is necessary to remove the cause. So what must we do? If the cause is private ownership with its production for sale, what stands in the way of abolishing this condition? Private ownership. Only things that are owned by someone can be sold or exchanged. When goods are produced they are not made available to the producers. They remain in the hands of those who own the tools and machinery which are used to make them. By virtue of their ownership these people have the right to say what shall be produced, how much shall be produced and how the goods and services shall be distributed. The whole of the structure of present day society is directed towards maintaining this order of things. The majority of the workers accept this system, governments administer it, police, judges and jailers enforce it, soldiers, sailors and airmen fight for it, and the owners of the land, mines, factories, transport systems, workshops, etc., thrive on it. Only the socialist challenges it.

 

To those who boggle at the idea of having the needs, comforts and luxuries of life made available to them; to those who take fright at the idea of a society without goods for sale, we would say this: Our proposals are not the result of a dream. They are the product of the study of social development and a recognition that socialism is the next stage in that development, not merely because we wish it but because it is inevitable if society is to continue. There is nothing difficult or incomprehensible about socialism once you cease to regard it as too simple to be true or as an idea of men who seek to trick you. All that is necessary is for you to give up seeking arguments in favour of maintaining the system that keeps you in subjection. Give a little earnest thought to the socialist case in a sympathetic manner. We know what the result will be. Then bring your actions into line with your ideas and the job of establishing socialism is as good as done. 

Not NOW

 

'Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.'- Engels, November 29, 1847.

There is now the Now Scotland movement pushing for Scottish separatism. 

Nationalists talk about Scottish culture and the Scottish way of life. But in what way is the life of a Scottish wage slave basically different from that of an English, an American, or  a Russian wage slave? There is no basic difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because there will still be the wage labour and capital relationship. Independence for Scotland therefore is a myth which further confuses the Scottish section of the working class and blinds them from the real struggle – the class struggle. 

The Scottish nation, whether independent or united with England, is divided into classes, as is society elsewhere. It is this division which accounts for the existence of the evils from which the Scottish workers suffer. English rule did not account for the fact that the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands led to the congestion in its industrial slums. The clan chieftains themselves turned out their own kin-folk in order to make way, first for sheep and later for deer, in order to fill their own pockets. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the Scottish working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one.

The Socialist Party rejects allegiance to any State and regard themselves as citizens of the world. We accept the boundaries between States as they are (and as they may change) and work within them to win control of each State with a view to abolishing them all. Our aim is the establishment of a democratic world community, a cooperative commonwealth, without frontiers.  Our  aim is to abolish masters of every nationality and to organise the production of wealth for their common good.

The liberation for Scottish workers can only come about by overthrowing capitalism itself. If this is not done, no amount of separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders.

If they speak consciously and openly to the working class, then they summarise their philanthropy in the following words: It is better to be exploited by one’s fellow-countrymen than by foreigners.’ (Marx, 1848)

The Socialist Party: In Search of Tomorrow Today

 

We know that it is only on at the level of a world scale that the problems facing wage-workers in all countries can be solved. Our message, then, is equally addressed to all fellow-workers across the globe and not just to those in the UK. world socialism is the only solution to the problems of wage-slavery in the country you reside, problems which are basically the same—unemployment, struggles to keep wages up with prices, bad housing, schools and hospitals, racism, insecurity and so on — precisely because they have a common cause — the capitalist system of class monopoly of the means of existence and consequently production for profit. Capitalism is international. Economically, it operates as a single system dominating the whole world but, politically, it is divided into a hundred or so artificial “nation-states”. Each of these states seeks to ensure the loyalty of its subjects by inculcating into them, from the cradle to the grave, the idea that they are members of a “nation” with a common interest against those of other “nations”. Socialists reject this mistaken and dangerous idea, regarding themselves not as British, Irish, French, American or whatever but as members of the human race, as citizens of the world.

 The real division in the world is not between people of supposedly different “nationalities” but between two social classes both of which are international: a class of capitalists and state capitalists who own and control all that is in and on the Earth and a class of people who, excluded from such ownership and control, are obliged to work for an employer (private or state) in order to live. Wage and salary earners everywhere, whatever their language, legal nationality, skin colour, have a common interest.

The world capitalist class are continually competing against each other to sell their goods profitably on world markets, to obtain cheap and secure sources of essential raw materials; to find fields in which to invest their capital more profitably. They also compete for strategic areas in order to protect the markets, trade routes, raw material sources and investment fields they have got or want. The various armed states into which the world is divided are used by rival groups of capitalists to protect and further their interests in these clashes. They represent, in other words, not the interest of the majority of their subjects, but that of the dominant section of the capitalist class established within their borders.

In these clashes of interest between the various national capitalist groups success greatly depends on the military might of the states involved. States, and the capitalists they represent, do not deliberately seek war; for them this is often the last resort, when negotiations failed. But all states are obliged to maintain as powerful an army as they can afford, not necessarily to be used on every occasion, but to threaten and to be taken into account in the negotiations and manoeuvrings that continually arise from the underlying clashes of economic interest that are built in to capitalism.

Capitalism, in other words, is a permanent powder-keg or rather, these days, a permanently-primed nuclear bomb. Its very structure as a competitive profit-seeking system generates the degradation of the environment and wars.

But there is an alternative way of organising the world. There already exists a global network of productive units (farms, mines, factories, railways, warehouses) capable of turning out sufficient wealth to more than adequately feed, clothe, house and educate every single man, woman and child on this planet. Technologically, this is possible, but it will only become possible socially when the resources of the world have become the common property of all the people of the world. In other words, after the abolition of private and state ownership everywhere. Or, what amounts to the same thing, the abolition of all ownership and property since in a socialist world the resources, natural and man-made, of the planet will belong to nobody; they will not be owned at all, but will simply be there to be used. Naturally, the people of the world will have to organise themselves to use these means of production and this is the second feature of socialism: democratic organisation.

On the basis of this common ownership and democratic control production will be directed solely towards satisfying human needs. The restriction of the profit motive will be removed and as much will be produced as people will democratically decide will satisfy their needs, both as individuals and as a community. The waste of capitalism, such as on armaments and wars, will be eliminated, thus making doubly sure that ah abundance of wealth can be produced, an abundance to which every member of socialist society can have free access, without payment of any kind, according to what they judge to be their need.

Socialism will see the abolition of frontiers too and the dismantling of the various armed states into which the world is now divided. As classes will have been abolished, people really will become citizens of a united world.

If this alternative of a class-free, money-free, state-free world community, without frontiers interests you and you would like to know more or would like to help us, we invite you to get in touch.

WHAT WE WANT AND WHY.

 

Knowing as we do the ambition and aspirations of our fellow-socialists to grow our movement, we fear that the progress we have made has been unsatisfactory. But no matter what our adversaries may say, and however slow progress may so far have been, the future is with us. One is apt to forget that capitalism, though it has lasted far too long for us already, has after all only had a short run, compared with preceding stages in the evolution of human society. Even so, it shows already unmistakable signs of being decrepit scarcely coping with all its problems and dilemmas. Just observe the pitiful helplessness of the whole crowd of capitalism’s henchmen and hirelings, of its spokesmen in the media, excuse its failures. Note capitalism’s prominent men and women, its scientists, its military experts  warning and imploring the ordinary men and women throughout the world to end the menace of global warming which they, the politicians know not how to end.

 

One wishes that the ordinary men and women throughout the world would put an end to the sordid system of competitive capitalism.

 

The task of spreading this knowledge is left to the socialist. With our scant means, and all the wide channels of propaganda closed against us, it is indeed a heavy task. There is only one ally for opening the workers’ eyes and driving home the lesson that nothing but a fundamental change as proposed by socialists, can help. That ally is the constant deterioration of conditions and the glaring failure and futility of all efforts and measures to cope with it. With all the long and painful experience before them, the workers should certainly no longer be as ready as they have been in the past, to swallow the rubbish that capitalism is the only possible system and that common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by society as a whole is supposed to be a Utopia.

 There is the task, a hard task admittedly, but worth the doing. Life to the socialist means unremitting toil in the cause of socialism, perseverance in spite of all discouragement, the marching onward in the face of all doubts and difficulties. Even if we of this generation do not see and taste the fruits of our sowing, yet even then we shall have our reward—in the knowledge that we have fought on the side of energy against apathy, of youth against the decrepit, of life itself against death.

 

Socialism has not yet been achieved and the capitalist class are still strongly entrenched in possession of property and power. Large numbers of workers now realise that capitalism cannot provide comfort, security and peace to the populations of the world, but much has yet to be done before mere discontent with capitalism can be transformed into an understanding of the need for replacing capitalism by a social system in which the means of production and distribution shall be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole community. Much of the discontent of the working class, instead of being directed to the building up of political parties having socialism as their aim, is being frittered away uselessly in “Labour” parties aiming to reform capitalism by democratic means or in "Communist” parties which have the object of introducing state capitalism. Neither in aim nor in method does the Socialist Party or its companion parties in Canada, India, New Zealand and United States of America fall into either of these two camps. These parties hold that the sole aim of the genuine socialist movement is and must be to achieve socialism; that this can be done only when a majority of the workers have become socialists; that the road to socialism is by gaining control of the machinery of government by democratic, parliamentary means; and that the Socialist Party, while extending the hand of fraternity to the workers of all lands, must on principle refuse to ally itself with the parties of capitalism, whether they openly avow themselves such or whether they pursue the aim of capitalist reform under the name of "Labour” or “Communist.”

 

Many of the adherents of reformism and advocates of state capitalism pay lip service to internationalism, yet, like the British Labour Party on the one hand and the Communist Party on the other, are prepared to lend themselves to the furtherance of capitalist imperialism. Socialists can have no part or lot in capitalism and imperialism.

 

Unlike those parties, which degrade the name of socialism, the Socialist Party and its companion parties have an unbroken record of loyalty to socialism and working-class internationalism in peace or in war. In the Great War, 1914-1918, and in the World War, 1939-1945, the Socialist Party stood by the principles of socialism and proudly proclaimed its refusal to give support to capitalist war. True to our international Socialist principles we seek contact with Socialist workers in other countries who take their stand on the same principles, with a view to setting on foot at last a genuine world socialist movement free from the national prejudices and compromise policies that up to the present have hindered the earlier march of the Internationals.