Peace between the people! War against the exploiters!

 The ideas of socialism  held by the Socialist Party are on the ground of a conviction arrived at by reason, observation and evidence, and they are prepared to stand or fall by this test. The mere repetition of an abstract socialist slogans is not of itself sufficient to make a person a socialist. We must be prepared to adopt and act upon the implications which the formula directly involves and the doctrine of the class war involves opposition to all measures in the interest of any section of capitalism. 

Socialism will be the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialist society will no longer proceeds in chaos, but according to the planned fulfilment of genuine human needs. Socialism will unleash a level of productive forces unknown before in the history of mankind. The aim of the Socialist Party is to replace the world capitalist system with a world  cooperative commonwealth. This will mark the end of classes and private property. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated. As classes will not exist, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will gradually have withered away.

Capitalism to-day must answer to the charge of clogging the cogs of progress. A block will be placed upon social evolution if capitalism continues. The Socialist Party accuses employers of being thieves.” But each employer is but a part of the system. No single employer can lessen exploitation and continue to exist. It is the system as a whole that must be judged.

At one period in history there was a justification for the individual ownership of property. When each worker took the raw material and made tools, and then with these tools manufactured cloth or shoes or tilled the ground, each thing  produced was to a great extent the product of individual work. To-day this method no longer exists. All things are produced collectively, and still there survives the idea of the “sacredness of private property.” It is to-day the corner stone upon which rests the whole superstructure of capitalist society and class rule. Private property for the worker is but a farce, since the class that preaches most of the virtues of private property is the one that takes from the producing class all that it produces except a scanty subsistence.

Socialism, and only socialism, will create a true world community, a world without national barriers, without international rivalries, without master and slave nations and, hence, a world without war.  Its primary duty will be to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of eliminating poverty, homelessness, hunger and general instability. Its sole criterion would be the needs of the people. Socialism will guarantee peace, security and freedom and prevent the destruction of mankind. Socialism will end the root evil of modern society, i.e., the private ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery and land, which produce the necessities of life.  With socialism, these instruments of production will become the property of society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life and with it the factor of profit as the prime mover of production, the sharp divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation and collaboration between the peoples of the earth. In abolishing classes in society governments will become administrative bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the instruments of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main reason for existence is to guarantee the political as well as the economic rule of big business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of this class. World socialism will assess the industrial potential of the world, determine its resources, the needs of the people and plan production with the aim of increasing the standards of living of a free people, creating abundance, increasing leisure and opportunity for cultural enjoyment. Socialism will not concern itself with profits and war, but with providing decent housing for all the people. Socialism will provide work without exploitation. For the aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and intensification of labor, but the utilisation of machinery, technology, science and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to enjoy the benefits of social progress.

The modern world contains all the pre-conditions necessary for socialism. All about us we observe gigantic industrial establishments containing machinery which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Mankind has developed a marvellous technology. The discovery and control of atomic energy has not only made it more possible for man to control his natural and social environment to create a fruitful life of abundance, but has made it imperative. Socialism will place at the disposal of science and the scientists all the material means to help create an ever-improving social life for mankind. Under capitalism, scientists are mere wage workers hiring out their skills to private industry. The fruits of their intelligence, learning arid research become the exclusive property of the capitalists who profit from the labour of these scientists. Thus, science has become subordinated to profits rather than to the common good of all mankind. Yet the future society depends in large measure on changing this relation of science to society. Only socialism can place science where it properly belongs: in the service of the people.

Humanity is at a crossroads. We can travel the road of capitalism, i.e., we can travel the road of chaos, war, poverty and barbarism, or we can take the socialist road toward true freedom, peace and security, the road toward a society of plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.

For common ownership and common sense

 The principal characteristic of this society is commodity production on the basis of capitalist production-relations, in which the most considerable and important part of the means of production and exchange of commodities belongs to a numerically small class of persons, while the overwhelming majority of the population consists of working people, who are obliged by their economic situation either continuously or periodically to sell their labour-power, that is, to become wage-workers for the capitalists and to create, by their labour, profit for the higher classes of society. By substituting social for private ownership of the means of production , and introducing planned organisation of the process of social production, in order to ensure the well-being and all-round development of all members of society, the social revolution  will abolish the division of society into classes, and thereby free all oppressed mankind, since it will put an end to every form of exploitation of one part of society by another.

The Socialist Party is not a reform party, but a revolutionary party. It does not propose to modify the capitalist system, but abolish it. An examination of its principles shows that it stands unequivocally for the common ownership and collective control of all the means of  production and distribution — in a word, socialism. The total abolition of the capitalist system is our uncompromising demand, and with that as our controlling purpose, we  march direct towards the goal of emancipation. That advance may be slow, but it is without side-tracks and  diversions into dead-ends.

In the present society the means of manufacturing  are the monopoly of the capitalists. That the working class is kept dependent on these is the ultimate cause of misery and all forms of oppression. The goal of the Socialist Party is therefore to abolish the existing mode of production (the wage system) and  convert private  into the common property of society. The fight is for the liberation of the working class from its present position, to create a free people with  the abolition of class rule.  It is not a fight for new class privileges but for equal rights and equal obligations for all. In order to free the working class from dependency, it is necessary that production become common property, at the disposition of all members of society, so that it belongs to all workers and is divided in a just manner, ending  the wage system and every sort of oppression in whatever form such may reveal itself. 

The Socialist Party is the friend of trades unionists. It does not believe in destroying the unions, but in moulding and adapting them to modern needs in the economic struggle. The trades unions are ours, built by our labour and created by our suffering, and we propose that they shall serve the  purpose for which they were intended by rescuing them from those who would restrain and subvert them, that they may pursue unfettered their march to emancipation. We are opposed to all the existing political parties, and we are going to fight them all.

The  first plank of our political platform is the socialisation of all the means and instruments of production.  We recognise the class war between the property-less and the possessing class as the inevitable historic outcome of the capitalist system and of the direct economic and social antagonisms which it has engendered and fostered. Those antagonisms can only be resolved by the complete control over all the great means of production, distribution, and exchange, by the whole people, thus abolishing the class state and the wages system, and constituting a co-operative commonwealth.  We want our fellow-workers to have clean air, pure water and to have sunshine; we want planned homes; we want recreation and leisure for young and old; we want vocational education for all who seek it; we want a chance for every human being to be strong and live a life of happiness. And we want everything that is necessary to give them that: playgrounds, parks, lakes, beaches, refreshing streams  rivers, swimming pools, social centres, libraries and reading rooms,  music, dance, song, and joy for all. There was but one way to get all of that — go after it and get it. The central core of the activity of the Socialist Party is considering ways and means of emancipation from the bonds of capitalism. No one hesitates to admit that our revolutionary  task is Herculean; no one underestimates the power of opposing forces. Socialism offers a remedy for social ills. Socialists strikes at the very root of capitalism by proposing to transfer the means of production and distribution, i.e., the land, mines, factories, transport, machinery, etc., from capitalists to the whole people to be operated by them in their collective capacity for the good of all, and this it proposes to do by the ballot of a triumphant majority of awakened, class-conscious supporters. The revolution is to be complete, but it is to be achieved by the ballot. More and more are doing their own thinking and are conscious of their class interests in the economic struggle. They are organising everywhere. The movement is worldwide.

Socialism is the future of all humanity

 

In the course of human evolution when existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of mankind, when the system serves merely to enslave, rob, and oppress mankind, it is time to rebel against and overthrow these institutions. All human beings, irrespective of nationality, colour, or sex should share from the bountiful table of life. The history of capitalism is the history of repeated crimes, injustice, oppression, outrage, and abuse, all aiming at the exploitation of the people. Our planet is rich in resources, enough to supply everybody with all possible comforts, and insure well-being to all but is in the hands of a privileged few, while the nameless millions are at the mercy of ruthless employers and unscrupulous and corrupt politicians. They have engaged in continual war and slaughter, devastating the environment and destroying the best and finest qualities of humanity They have fostered  superstition and ignorance, sown the seeds of prejudice and strife, and turned the human family against itself.

Fellow workers, understand your importance in society and your historic mission as real men and women and then organise for socialism. Social ownership of the means of producing wealth for use and not profit. That will destroy the power of the few to dominate the lives of the majority.  Men and women are by nature gregarious; it is natural for them to join together in communities. In past societies the means of living, simple though they were, were held in common, this social solidarity and the human need for food and shelter were in conformity; but this condition long since ceased to be. The means of wealth production have become privately owned; and slave and slave owner, feudal lord and serf, and finally wage-worker and capitalist master have faced each other in conflict. It is now not the community, but the capitalist class which owns the machinery of wealth production. This class lives on the proceeds of the robbery of the workers who, by their property-less condition, are compelled to operate that machinery for its owners, in return for doing which they receive as wages only part of the product.

The aim of the Socialist Party is the cooperative commonwealth. The scramble for profit has wasted and despoiled our rich resources of soil, water, forest and minerals. The lack of social planning results in a waste of our human as well as our natural resources. Our human resources are wasted through social and economic conditions which stunt human growth, through unemployment and through our failure to provide adequate education. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of enriching the standard of life. Industry can and should be so operated as to enable our people to use fully their talents and skills. Such an economy will yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. Technological change can cease the widespread distress, despair and misery. The Socialist Party reaffirms its confidence that our society will build a new relationship among peoples - a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality of opportunity. In such a society everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop his or her abilities to the full. The hungry, oppressed and underprivileged of the world must know democracy not as a smug slogan but as a way of life which sees the world as one whole. The Socialist Party strives for a world society free from the fear of aggression and domination. The Socialist Party will not rest content until every person in every land is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and an opportunity to live a rich and meaningful life as a citizen of a free and peaceful world. 

In socialism there will be no wages system, no profit, and consequently no capital. The means of production will be communally owned. Only the abolition of capitalist private ownership will solve the poverty problem of the workers, and that the use of the vote by the organised workers for the conquest of the political machinery, is the method. The Socialist Party holds that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself,” and to that end the Party devotes all its activities to the making of socialists, knowing full well that when a sufficient number of our class realise their class interest, they will organise and put socialism into operation. Leaders will not be required; all will know the way. All that is required is workers who will propagate the knowledge of socialism. No other party believes these things are necessary.