Why Socialism

 

Charity and compassion, a recognition of social injustice and a desire to remove it, is not socialism. Condemnation of inequality we find in religions. Socialism is not sentimental philanthropy. Socialism is based upon capitalist society and its class antagonisms.  A movement that leaves out an understanding of the class struggle is not socialist. The Socialist Party pleads guilty to the charge that we seek  to increase  hostility to the existing capitalist system with its greedy clique of industrialists, financiers, politicians and prostituted media. Our party is class-conscious, revolutionary and uncompromising with no time and no use for what is commonly called reform. You cannot reform rottenness. The only reform of the capitalist system which is possible is its overthrow and destruction. Capitalist politics are essentially corrupt.The Socialist Party does not intend to mend this system; we propose to put end it.

 

The point we wish to make is that the capitalist system is a class system and that we live today under class rule, whatever the government, they are simply the functionaries of the ruling class and could not, even if they were so inclined, change conditions resulting from the class ownership of the means of production, that is to say, the means of life. The World Socialist Movement, the only political organisation in the world today whose declared purpose it is to abolish class rule and establish a cooperative commonwealth whose fundamental principle is the equal rights and freedom of all. Abolish capitalism, the private ownership by the few of the means whereby the great mass live, gives economic freedom. Among the capitalist parties there is no economic difference so far as the great mass of the people is concerned. They are all committed to capitalist ownership, class rule, and wage slavery. The Socialist Party is not seeking to get the votes  except upon the one condition that those who give it their support do so not only of their own will, but have intelligence enough to know what they are voting for and what a vote for socialism means to them. The Socialist Party does not by the trickery and fraud obtain votes and would scorn to stoop to that level.The Socialist Party refuses to traffic in ignorance, to build upon and exploit ignorance, so that a few may be in luxury and hold fat office as the fruit of their part in robbing and degrading their unfortunate fellow beings.

 

Our message to our fellow-workers is that the first thing necessary for you is to understand is that you are bound irrevocably to every other worker. As individual working-person you are ground into dust, you are reduced to slavery, and you are at the mercy of the masters. When you unite, however, you outnumber capitalist.If we are to emancipate ourselves from wage-slavery, we must unite upon the economic field and upon the political field, but above all things we must unite. The solidarity of the working class is the supreme demand of the hour. You are fighting them with your stomachs. We socialists want you to fight them with your brains. James Connolly once said that it is empty bellies against fat wallets.The Socialist Party holds  a vision of better and fairer days to dawn upon the earth, when mankind  shall no longer in their madness destroy the  beauty of centuries. We work towards a spirit of fraternity and an end to brotherly hatred.  The problem of poverty can only be solved by the social and economic revolution.

 

There is absolutely no reason for anyone in a planet as rich in resources as this one to go  hungry, to be homeless or to suffer lack of health-care. The desperate and hideous ills of the capitalist economic system are unnecessary. When all of society has been transformed, the problems left over from capitalism have been eliminated, and the community of producers has been established, then a completely class-free society, will have been achieved, and humanity will enter a  new stage of evolution. There will no longer be the need for the state, since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of society. Socialism will be able to make full use of the labour of everyone in society, while at the same time developing and introducing new technology and scientific methods to expand output. As machines can replace workers, workers will not be thrown into the streets, but will transfer to other jobs and the work day for all workers will be reduced. The nature of work itself will change completely, because the labour of the workers will no longer go to enrich capital to further enslave the working class, but to improve life.

Why we are different

 

Many parties of opportunism and social reform all themselves socialists. We have no monopoly of the word so if they  should describe themselves as socialist, we cannot prevent it. But in the end, we are confident that the cause will know its own. 

The Socialist Party desires above all things to advance the case for socialism, and by socialism we mean, the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production on a co-operative basis, and this involves the complete end of the capitalist system. We claim a kinship, and express our  sympathy and solidarity with all helping on the overthrow of capitalism and who seek the building of the socialist co-operative commonwealth. Knowledge and experience have demonstrated that no reform under capitalism can be of any benefit to the working class as a whole, and that person, or be it party, that pretends to stand for socialism, which means the abolition of wage slavery, and yet advocates reform, cannot be our comrade.

Reformists say that ultimately they stands for  socialism, but in the meantime they play politics and makes every effort, like the capitalist reformers, to win the votes on superficial popular issues.

The Socialist  Party, quite differently, states boldly that the only issue for the working class is the abolition of the wage system and to rescue themselves from their commodity status in modern society. And this is to be done only by a revolutionary organisation of the workers on the political field, not for reform (let us leave that to the capitalist reformers), but for revolution. Reformists are pledged to a policy of class-collaboration – which means only a renunciation of the fight for socialism. The  Socialist Party calls on the workers to rely upon their own independent class power. Let us leave any “immediate demands” out of our platform and leave reformers to wrangle over reforms. Let us make our chief task to spread the propaganda of revolution.

The capitalist system of production, under the rule of which we live, is the production of commodities for profit instead of for use for the private gain of those who own and control the tools and means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit spring all monopolies (arising from and following competition) and out of it, naturally, grow an overwhelming percentage of social evils, and the entire problem of misery, want, and poverty that, as a deadly menace, now confronts civilisation.

Socialism is human association which teaches that the only way to attain the just distribution of wealth to those who produce it is through the common, collective or social ownership, control, and operation of the means of production and distribution, such as land, mines, factories and transport It asserts that this production should be for use and not for sale or profit, thus doing away with all private ownership of the means of subsistence. The cooperative commonwealth is its goal. Those who want to see socialism grow can work for socialism. Let all others get out of the way. Every worker, whether reformist or revolutionary, socialist, religious or atheist, can find a place in the same trade union, because all these political or ideological differences will not prevent them from fighting in common against the bosses.

Workers can be together in one and the same trade union, because the task of the trade union is only a struggle for wages and hours of work. But political party has entirely different aims. It has a platform not only against the individual bosses but for the transformation of the whole economic system. A political party is sound only when it has members who accept its entire political, economic, and social principles; furthermore, not only members who are unified on the objective, but also in the methods of carrying it out, in tactics.

The road to world socialism

 

Only world socialism can give us peace and security. The capitalist world constantly totters on the brink of self-destruction. The capitalist parties are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain the system today only by piling additional burdens upon the people. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. The only road is the road to world socialism and freedom: the overturn of the putrid capitalist system in all lands. Capitalism is founded upon production for profit. Socialism is postulated upon production for use. We, socialists, oppose the reformists leading the workers into the camp of capitalism. The working class that must overthrow capitalism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary red banner unfurled.

Our opponents accuse us of sectarianism and with “dividing” the working class. To divide the workers implies preceding unity, and this never existed. Instead of dividing them, we are arousing them from their servile submission to capitalist subjugation. Better a thousand times that labour is divided fighting for freedom than united in the bonds of slavery. Our aim has always been to unite all workers within one socialist party for the achievement of their emancipation. The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of government or by violent insurrection. No sane person prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence the Socialist Party relies upon a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish their end. Economic freedom can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and collective ownership there can be no compromise, no concessions. One produces for profit, the other for use. The Socialist Party make no pretence of attempting to serve both capitalists and workers. That is a political sophistry which socialism leaves a monopoly in the hands of the political spokesmen of capitalism. The present structure of society — capitalism — with its pretensions to democracy on the one hand, and its commercial rivalries on the other, is all based on the exploitation of the working class and the division of the loot.

Ours is a world of unlimited natural wealth. We have allowed our rich resources, the common heritage of all the people, to be monopolised by a privileged few, who claim the right of exclusive ownership of our vial industries and pretend to manage them as trustee for the benefit of all. They have betrayed their trust. They have operated the industries solely with a view to their personal enrichment and in total disregard of the needs of the people. They have operated them without plan, system, or responsibility in wild competition and speculation, in disorder and chaos, and they have run them into ruin and destruction. They have paralysed production, spread misery, and deprived millions of workers of their means of life. Those much vaunted captains of industry have proved themselves as incompetent as they are unscrupulous. If capitalism spells anarchy and chaos, it also means class hatred and war. We socialists demand that they surrender the means of production and distribution to the people. We propose that the people reclaim their common heritage from the usurping owning classes and reorganise the economic life of the country for the common good. What the world needs is not a few threadbare patches on the outwork and tattered outer garment of the capitalist system, but a remodelled, new, sane and equitable social order. Liberals and progressive” will not fulfil the crying needs of the time — it is a confused agglomeration of superficial political views, radical in phrases and token gestures, without sound economic foundation, without definite programme, without organisation, and without power or will to act.

Socialism alone offers a reasonable and effective way out. Socialist campaigns are not made to catch votes. Our purpose should be to state principles of the party clearly to the people. Reformists view that the class struggle can be won step by step concessions wrested from the state by means of “constructive” reform and social legislation; each concession would act as a rung in the ladder of Social Revolution, upon which the workers could climb step by step, until finally, some bright, sunny morning, the peoples would awake to find the cooperative commonwealth functioning. Workers organisations actively competed for votes, on the basis of social reforms, with the bourgeois-liberal political parties. And so they catered to the ignorance and prejudices of the workers, trading promises of immediate reforms for votes. Claiming that they are victories for socialism when, as a matter of fact, the object of these master class measures is to prevent the growing class consciousness of the workers, and to divert them from their revolutionary aim.

Hope replaces fear, abundance replaces poverty

Nowhere in the world has socialism been established. The aim of the Socialist Party is to establish socialism. Our  aim to make the working people the masters of their own destiny, to win political power, and build socialism. Socialism means no privileged elite, only the right of working people themselves to manage their own affairs. It means creating a worldwide brotherhood and sisterhood. In capitalism, a few, by virtue of the ownership of the means of production, has control over the whole productive process and possesses corresponding privileges, together with the control of government. The rest of the community possesses nothing but a minimum of personal possessions, the ability to work, and some hard-won political rights. A conflict of interest is inevitable. Society rests at present upon the basis of private ownership, of the common means of living society is divided by interest, association, education, outlook, and psychology into at least two classes—the owners and non-owners of the means of producing the essentials of life. Because the owners possess the essentials of existence they are able to dictate terms to the non-owning mass. Because the owners are few and the non-owners are many they can only conserve their monopoly by manipulating the minds of the masses as well as the machinery of political administration. All the capitalist politicians, their spokesmen and defenders, do everything they can to persuade the working class not to form a political party of their own. They do not limit themselves to persuasion, but put direct obstacles in the path of such a step.

The  struggle to end the exploitation must begin as a struggle to undo in the mind of the worker that our masters are intent to keep enslaved, to ensure we are content with our wage-slavery and attempt no resistance.  Involved is educating working people in the principles of socialism,  teaching the workers the need for unity and solidarity in their inevitable class struggle against the bosses, their State, and their system. Socialism means workers imposing their will upon a system controlling all economic life. Socialism means that your bread and butter are secure no matter what you think. Socialism means that you are free and entitled to speak your mind. Workers must become a class for themselves. They must acquire a clear understanding of their real position under capitalism, of the nature of capitalist society as a whole, and of their mission in history. They must act consciously for their class interests. They must become conscious of the fact that these class interests lead to a socialist society. When this takes place, the workers are a class for themselves, a class with socialist consciousness. Workers require a clear, thoroughgoing understanding of capitalist society, their position in it, and the need to replace this society with socialism.

To help to imbue the workers with this class consciousness, or socialist consciousness that is the specific function of the Socialist Party which is composed of those workers who already understand the nature of capitalism. Our aim is to develop the same understanding among all the workers, so that they no longer fight blindly but with a clear and scientific knowledge of who their class enemy is, of what the working class itself can and must do in society to change things in the interests of the working class as a whole. 

The Socialist Party makes clear to the workers the full meaning of their fight. It shows how even the local struggles, against one capitalist, are really class struggles against capitalism. It combats the open and the insidious ideas of capitalism so that the working class as a whole may be better equipped to fight its enemy. It aims to improve the position of the working class, to strengthen it, to clarify it and supply it with the most effective weapons in the struggle. To put it briefly, a revolutionary socialist party is needed to win the working class to the principles of socialism. Socialism will never come by itself. It must be fought for. Without an organised, conscious, active revolutionary socialist party, the triumph of socialism is impossible. What is a socialist revolution? The socialist revolution is simply the overthrow of capitalist despotism and its replacement with the brotherhood and equality of all peoples of  humanity. Socialism is world socialism, or it is not socialism at all. A  class-free socialist society cannot be established within the framework of one country alone. Just as socialist economy could not exist side by side with a capitalist economy in one country, so a socialist nation could not exist side by side with capitalist nations in one world. one or the other would have to win in the end.

The Socialist Alternative

 

The words socialist and communist are changing their meaning to provide a smokescreen for reformers. Some “Marxists” suggest that socialism mean a “first stage” in the development of communism, an invention to camouflage their conservative gradualism. Marx described socialism as the society of the free and equal, emancipation of all mankind. The process of production, freed from private and State oppression, without class friction will yield abundant wealth. Social peace will reign, for, the capitalist class and State bureaucracy being abolished, there can be no antagonism of classes and will give the producers freedom at work and at leisure, freedom for self-expression in their handiwork, and instead of the deadening machine drudgery of the wage-slave for the capitalist, there will be the joyful creation of beautiful things by free men and women for the use of the whole community. A sane society would no more think of rewarding someone because nature had endowed the person with higher intelligence, than it would think of rewarding another because nature has gifted him or her with good looks. All will be looked after’

Socialism  is a word that has been so misused for so long that it is worth re-stating that its meaning is that the means of production are owned and controlled by society so that what is produced can be shared out according to people’s needs. The economic laws of capitalism, expressing relations based on the exploitation of man by man, cease to operate. The law of surplus-value, the basic economic law of modern capitalism, disappears as does the law of capitalist accumulation, the law of competition and anarchy of production, together with the categories which express capitalist relations; capital, surplus-value, capitalist profit price of production, wage-labour, the value of labour-power, etc. Socialism means, first and foremost, the abolition of private property in the means of production in the interests of the majority. Socialism means a class-free society,  a society where a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy wealth, while the majority live only on their labour to produce it.  It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour. The whole structure of socialist society makes any accumulation derived from the exploitation of the work of other human beings impossible from the first. The kinds of jobs created by socialist society are non-exploitative. 

We say that we live in a class society. We don’t mean by this that some people have different life-styles from others, live in posh areas or have snobbish attitudes and accents. Class is the material reality on which our society and all others in the world today are based. The vast majority of people  work to produce profits for the few, whether they assemble cars or televisions in a factory, type figures into a word processor or check out groceries at Sainsbury’s. Or else they sweep streets, dig coal or scrub floors for the ‘public sector’ so that the system can keep going, with the rich making as much profit as possible and the needs of the poor supplied at the lowest possible cost. This is the working class, and without its labour the lights would go out, food and water would be cut off, communications would break down and society would cease to function.

At the top, a tiny minority of people own most of the wealth and exercise most of the control. They decide when factories will close, when prices will go up, when capital will be moved around so as to browbeat governments into doing what they want. Some belong to families who have held wealth and power for generations, others insist that they have ‘worked their way up’ and are ‘still very working class’. But they are all part of the ruling class, and their wealth gives them power. Governments must look after their interests, and keep everyone else quiet enough for the system of power and profits to go on working.

The essence of the future free world community is not a change in the ruling personnel  that  working people get to  direct their work themselves, collectively. The fundamental change is not a change in the passive realm of consumption as so many environmentalists tell us, but in the active realm of production to build a well-planned world economy. Those on the left who  persuade themselves that a government are going to run society in the interest of the Brotherhood of Man and the Co-operative Commonwealth deceive themselves.

 A capitalist political party is one that is controlled by capitalists; that makes laws and administers government in the interest of the capitalist class. A capitalist political party is one that elects men and women to office to protect the capitalist class while they steal the wealth produced by the working class. A leopard may be recognised by its spots. So with the pro-capitalist parties. Also beware of so-called “reform parties” with attractive propositions for fooling the workers. They will offer us anything to get into office, but they won’t promise to give up their profit-making system, nor abolish the private ownership of capital or capitalist class rule, both of which are the curse of the working class. Reformist parties advocate capitalist political schemes for fooling the workers.  In order to rescue the people from the clutches of the capitalist class, the reformists say we must have public ownership and then the private capitalist will no longer squeeze us with the profit system. The public will be its own capitalist. It will squeeze itself. We do not try to justify the situation in the former USSR and its satellites, or present-day China or Cuba, which claim to be socialist societies but where it is quite clear that men and women have not been liberated. None of these are societies where the working class is in control; they are ruled, and harshly ruled, by a class of bureaucrats whose aims are at the bottom the same as the aims of our own ruling class: to exploit working people, accumulate capital and compete with one another internationally. 

In Defence Of Socialism

 

The pandemic has  the world to the brink of chaos, and and compels us all to ask—what now? The time has come when big changes are necessary. The pandemic has shown more and more clearly capitalist society’s inability to fully serve the needs of the people. While  poverty and unemployment have been the lot of the common people, the billionaires and the big corporations have made fortunes out of the misery of coronavirus.  The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.

 World socialism, with planned production to meet the people’s needs, would make it possible to realise the practical things that people want—such as a shorter working day with increased leisure, a decent standard of living, and a solution of the housing shortage.  The planet’s productive resources—the land, factories and transport—are now owned by a small class of rich people. These rich capitalists draw their incomes, not from their own labour, but from the labour of working people. The workers produce wealth far in excess of the wages they are paid, whether these wages are high or low. The surplus they produce above their wages is not paid for, but is taken as profit by the capitalists. The wealth is produced by those who work by hand and brain, far in excess of the wages they are paid. The surplus goes to the capitalist owners or shareholders as profit. This is capitalist exploitation, the basis of all forms of rent and interest, the source of all capitalist wealth. Capitalism makes mockery of its argument that rent, interest and profit are deservedly earned by the enterprise and the risks taken by capitalists freely competing with one another. Capitalism makes a farce of democracy, leaving overwhelming economic, political power and ideological power in private hands while keeping control out of the hands of the people. People are divorced from the process of decision making. Governments come and go, but the capitalist state goes on. The capitalists attack all the essential rights and liberties that have been won over many years of struggle by the working people and the drive to dictatorial and authoritarian rule is deepening in many countries.

The capitalists use their profits to pile up new profits. The constant aim of the rich owners of capital is to increase their profits at the expense of the working people. They keep wages, social security benefits and pensions down. They install new technology  that displaces labour, to reduce their wages bill and make still larger profits. Always there is poverty in the midst of plenty.

The World Socialist Movement has always aimed to take the means of production and distribution out of the hands of individuals and the government, and to transfer them to the ownership of the people as a whole, so that they can be used for the common good, the foundation on which working people can build a new life. With socialism we know we shall be in a position to gain ten times the result achieved by capitalism without the social cost we pay now for the tenth part. The capitalist system is inevitably marked by gross inequality.

Social ownership, production to meet the people’s needs instead of production for private profit, opens the way to a better life.  Common ownership means an end to the chaos and wasteful competition of production for profit. Planned production and distribution ensures the development of new productive resources to provide what people really want. Socialism therefore means the opportunity to live our own lives free from the fear of poverty. Socialism does not mean the levelling down of living standards. It does not bring bureaucracy and tyranny. On the contrary, socialism draws more and more people into planning and making their own future, and frees their creative energies for great economic, social and cultural advances. A socialist society means above all a better future, a real opportunity for everyone, where there are neither masters nor servants but only people working collectively together to share in a happy, prosperous life. Our planet has great resources for the benefit of all. The essential problems facing  people stem from the nature of modern capitalist society. Only when this system is replaced by socialism, by the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution can global problems really be solved.

We don't need capitalism

 

We live under an age of pain, misery and corruption. Many workers don’t think of themselves as being part of a class with political power. They feel isolated and in competition with other workers—and sometimes even see them as their enemies because of their skin colour, religion, national origin and so on. Socialists look towards our fellow-workers because they hold tremendous potential power by producing all of the wealth in society.  Realisation is  growing in  the midst of the chaos of a world in crisis of the utter failure of the capitalist system to bring justice, peace and equality to the masses of working people, let alone true democracy and freedom from want. Capitalism’s inability to solve the most fundamental problems of humankind is increasingly being revealed. Capitalism is incapable of acting in any other way but in its own interests and against the interests of the rest of humanity and the planet itself. 10%, the capitalist class, enslaves the other 90%. The capitalists own and control the politicians, the media, the police and the military. It is a system that has outlived its usefulness. The profit motive is the engine that drives capitalism. And the system itself fuels this engine by consuming the wealth of the world and accumulating more of it. Where do the profits go? The wealth goes into the pockets of the 10% t of the world’s population, the capitalist class. Nothing stands in their way of the accumulation of more wealth. 

Socialism based on fulfilling human needs and wants instead of profit, is able to turn the tables, and make all efforts to prevent natural disasters from having such a devastating impact. A socialist world will be able pull all of its resources together—with no mind to profit—to minimize human suffering and look after the welfare of all survivors. What a relief and pleasure it will be to live in a world socialist society that will consider the health, safety and welfare of people and the planet first and foremost, without having to satiate the greed of private capital ever again. Capitalism has no solutions to offer for the problems it creates. In reality, the development of new technology would allow for a different kind of life. Under capitalism, the economy is organised to guarantee bigger profits for the few. Automation and robotics, for the capitalists, means a reduction of the number of jobs available and not a reduction of the length of the working day.

Marx defined socialism as “an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force.” That is, a communist society is a society without classes, a society in which production won’t be ruled by the desire for ever greater profits for a tiny ruling class but by the needs of the whole society in the greatest possible harmony with nature. Money will no longer exist. Neither will the state. There will not be a minority accumulating all the wealth while the vast majority lives in poverty, forced to work just to survive. A socialist society will allow people to live a life free from all forms of oppression, one in which the time spent at work is reduced to a minimum and “free time” is spent not merely on the reproduction of one’s labour power, i.e., on the necessities of life that enable us to return to work the next day, but on actually living our lives. The goal is to establish a democratically planned economy and a society where the slogan “Our lives are worth more than their profits” is a reality. This is what we fight for.