A Clarion Call for Socialism

 

What the Socialist Party begins with is an examination of the capitalist system as it exists. We try to understand and explain what is happening in society in order to play a role in changing it. We look to the working class as the major force with the power to transform the existing disorder and create a new social order on a planet-wide basis, to meet the needs of all humanity and to oppose the tiny number who profit from the exploitation and oppression of the vast majority. Our function as a political party is defending, maintaining, enriching and applying the principles of revolutionary socialism. Humanity is marching forward to socialism and freedom, not backward to barbarism and slavery. The Socialist Party faces the struggle for this future with full confidence and unshakable optimism. The gloomy prophets of the eclipse of civilisation and even the obliteration of human society, ignore the history and the evolution of mankind, which demonstrates above all else its unconquerable will and capacity to survive and go forward.

It is true that humanity, threatened with environmental destruction, is indeed confronted with a problem of survival on this planet. But the we will survive. Against the ideology of pessimism, despair  and "fate revolutionary optimism will overturn the whole world and in order to survive, people  will do away with the social system which threatens its survival. Socialism will win the world and change the world, and make it safe. It will not only a new economic system which has been born. A new culture will be born. A new science will be born. A new style of life will be born. 

Socialists hate capitalism with our heads and with our hearts. We believe that in order to advance to socialism it is necessary for the working class majority to take political power out of the hands of the capitalists. Socialism is a society where the means of production and distribution are socially owned in the hands of the working people. An absence of this understanding has been the Achilles’ heel and a long standing weakness.

 The task of the Socialist Party is to give our fellow-workers a socialist perspective, socialist consciousness, to help the working class  to understand the capitalist system under which they live; how to end it by winning political power, and to replace it by a system of socialism.A revolution means a change in political power, it does not mean a violent bloody insurrection. Revolutions can be  peaceful and legal if permitted to be so. The stronger the movement, the more certain becomes the possibility of a peaceful transition. We do not stand for violence, but if violence should be used by the old ruling class against the people, then the people themselves will find appropriate methods to deal with it.

The Communist Manifesto ends with this ringing call to action:

"Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

"Workingmen of all countries, unite!"

Such a mighty clarion call for revolutionary worldwide action has yet to be surpassed. The words are even more true today. Workers in alliance can lay the political and social foundations for worldwide solidarity based on planning and the common ownership of the means of production.

We workers cannot obtain plenty and security, deliverance from misery and war, by trying to reform the capitalist economic system. We have to abolish it. And we cannot abolish it except by the revolution. With socialism there will be  no aristocracies of birth or wealth. No individual or group was to be allowed to exploit and oppress others. Not for a favoured few, but for all  the population there will to be abundance, security, an equal voice in democratic decision-making. The material and technical resources for such a society, unquestionably exist today. Everybody can have a comfortable home, ample food, decent healthcare and security against accident, sickness, and old age; opportunity for recreation and education and the sense of independence and self-respect that goes with all these things.

Instead under capitalism we actually have widespread poverty and mass misery. This appalling contrast between what might be and what is does not,  arises from the nature of the economic system – capitalism – under which we operate.

A revolution in technology has occurred where goods and services  are produced and distributed not by individuals in individual enterprises, but through socialised enterprises. Ownership and control, however, of these enterprises, and with it the right to make profit from them, to exploit the labour of those engaged in them, is still on the same individual basis. It is  impossible for this antiquated system of private ownership and profit to function, to supply the needs of the population today. The system acts  as a brake upon production so that, as the phrase goes, we have “want in the midst of plenty:”  The socialist revolution will end immediately private ownership and control over natural resources and over the plant for production, distribution and communication which the toil and skill of working people have built. Ownership and control would be vested in society as a whole.

Scientists and technicians will work freely and with adequate resources in order to plan for still greater efficiencyand bring greater abundance of leisure as well as goods. Socialists envisage planning on the global scale. National boundaries are as artificial and restrictive and socialism is  a world economy. Every effort to establish “planned” production under capitalism breaks down, since the warfare between rival capitalists, within a nation and between capitalist groups in different nations disrupts such efforts. The removal of the brake of private ownership which shuts down factories, wastes raw materials and stultifies the scientist and technician, and putting in its place the social use of natural resources and the productive plant, will mean an immediate and substantial improvement in the standard of living of the masses. That improvement can be continuous. The spectre of insecurity will disappear. The undemocratic economic domination of the few over the many will be at an end.
 

This is the choice – capitalism which means  chaos or world socialism which means a higher level of civilisation and culture.

Canadian Workers are heavily in Debt

As the economy slips onto a higher gear, many Canadian workers are heavily in debt, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

 The consumer debt index poll of around 2,000 people, conducted by the accountancy, tax and business consulting company, MNP, revealed insolvency is at its greatest level since 2017.

 Around a third of Canadians polled said the pandemic made their debt worse or created more debt for them or their family. 

So once again capitalism creates a problem and the working class, who are the biggest debtors, pay for it - no pun intended.

S.P.C. Members.

Food Price Rises. Not a Problem for the Capitalist Class.

The pandemic has hit Canadian's hard at the supermarket. 

According to Stats-Canada, the average retail price of prime rib increased 12% between January and May 2021. Food price increases are outpacing general inflation and exceed the 5.5% increase forecast in the 2021 Canada Food Price Report, which had predicted food costs for a typical family would increase this year by $695, bringing total food bills to around $14,000. 

cost of producing food in Canada has increased more than 20% since 2012. 

Of one thing you can be sure, this will affect the working class in Canada a hell of a lot worse than it will the capitalist class.

S.P.C. Members.

We Demand the Earth for All

 

 What dizzying speed the world has changed and been transformed by new technology even to the most remote regions. Mankind has been threatened by war, and now we dread the consequences of climate change and its immense and uncontrollable forces. All the conditions to assure the world socialism are now at hand except one: the existence of a class conscious majority

We believe in democracy. We adhere to democratic principles. We are opposed to dictatorships, whether right or left-wing. The Socialist Party aims for a social system based on production for use, not for profit, a system of production and distribution owned in common and democratically controlled in the interests of the people. We believe in the attainment of our ends by peaceful means, through political action, education and campaigning. We appeal to your reason, not to your emotions.

We live under the capitalist system. It is founded upon the principle that profit is of more value than people. Any system under which workers are deprived of the fruit of their labour is unjust. Any system that deprives them of the right to work deprives them of the right to live. The present system divides society into two classes, the capitalists and the working people. The dollar counts for everything, men and women for nothing. Human life is not taken into account by capitalism. We do not attack individuals. We oppose the system. The competitive system of commerce ruins all, even eventually the capitalists themselves. Capitalism is industrial despotism. Socialism is industrial democracy.

We stand before you as socialists. We hold that socialism is the only salvation. The capitalist system teaches people to regard each other as threats, the socialist system teaches people to regard each other as brothers and sisters. Many oppose socialism, but it is generally because they know nothing about it. Socialism is industrial democracy. Socialism seeks economic as well as political equality. What good does it do a person to have political freedom but be a slave under the economic system? As long as one is born master and another servant, there can be no well-being for mankind. They say you must change human nature. We say change the conditions and you will change human behaviour. In his book ’The Sane Society’, Erich Fromm stresses the insanity of capitalism. Against this insanity of the capitalist system, the Socialist Party declares that the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new system, organised on the basis of common ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. It must be genuine socialism. 

Socialism will operate in its spirit of mutual aid and cooperation. The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system and for the rule of the people; the only party of the working class and its purpose is the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to own the industries, the working people will continue to endure the hell of poverty. The Socialist Party is absolutely the only party that faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly that it has a definite and constructive plan for dealing with these conditions. The Socialist Party as the party of the exploited of both sexes and all nationalities and colours, the working class in a word, constituting a great majority of the people, demands that the industries shall be taken over by the workers to be operated by them for the benefit of the whole people. Private ownership has had its day.

The Socialist Party stands for common ownership. All the other parties uphold the wage system; the Socialist Party demands its overthrow. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental and physical achievement. We demand total control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own needs

We demand the Earth for all the people.

Capitalism with Equality?

Though it has no Canadian content, I came across a little goodie, too good to ignore.

 Ireland's most prestigious golf club, Portmarnock, has after 127 years admitted women into membership and have hailed this as a ''Wonderful victory in the battle for equality.'' 

Of course, it is; every woman can afford the £2,000 membership fees as sure as they can afford the fees for a round of 27 holes for £259 or 36 for £345. 

It’s also wonderful, that some armies allow women to fight and kill in the interests of their bosses. 

When they speak of equality, they mean equality with men under capitalism, a system where equality doesn't exist.

S.P.C. Members. 

Working Class Students Get Stuck with The Bill.

Canadian undergraduate students can expect their tuition fees to be at least $9000 in September. Graduate students in professional faculties will pay more, saddling them with debts for years to come. Unsurprisingly, politicians are in disagreement about it. Doug Ford, cut fees 10% for the 2019-20 year, but abolished a system of grants and told the universities to make up the difference. The federal NDP is advocating loan forgiveness up to $20,000, dependent on family income, plus future negotiations with the provinces to achieve free post-secondary education. Trudeau's comment was a typical politician’s speech, ''The issue for me is not that every family needs free tuition, and knowing that the government has a limited amount of thing that it can spend on before it starts raising taxes in a way that nobody wants, and you have to make choices - is it better to give more support to those who really need it, or give a minimal amount of support to everyone, including the wealthiest who don’t necessarily need it?” The upholders of capitalism can argue all they want, but the bottom line is working-class students still get stuck with the bill, a shit-load of debt, and no guarantee of a job.

S.P.C. Members.

Socialism is the theory of social harmony.

 

Ursula Le Guin

The State in a class-divided society can be nothing other than an instrument in the hands of the class owning the property and means of production in society. All talk of reconciling class interests is simple deceit. It is impossible to reconcile the interests of the slave owner and the slave, the exploiter and the exploited. The Socialist Party aspires and works at home and abroad for the elimination of class exploitation and the abolition of the poverty, misery and suffering which increases so long as the private property system continues, who aims at making this country and all its wealth the common property and heritage. A patriot and nationalist is an enemy of the people, a tool of the small class which holds the great mass of the people in subjection and slavery to rent, interest and profit.

The Socialist Party strives to end capitalism in their own countries, to unite with other socialists in other countries and to unite all the forces as the means to ending capitalism throughout the world. Socialism alone can guarantee the peace of the world because it removes the economic causes of war. When the people of the world socially own the world and its wealth there will be no possibility of groups of vested interests fighting to secure the world’s resources for private gain. 

The Socialist Party opposes a social order in which it is possible for one person who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.  All things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. The time is coming, in spite of all opposition, all persecution, when we shall have the universal commonwealth—the harmonious cooperation of every land with every other. The dawn of a better day for humanity is coming. The people are awakening. Let the people everywhere take hope.

What, then, are the objections to the Socialist Party? First, socialism is impractical, though a beautiful ideal. Second, socialism stands for the overthrow of capitalism, hence it must be repudiated as dangerous. Such criticism is formed by hearsay or mistaken interpretation. A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish.

The true criterion of the practical, therefore, is not whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish; rather is it whether the scheme has vitality enough to build and sustain a new society. In the light of this conception, socialism is indeed practical. More than any other idea, it is helping to do away with the wrong and foolish; more than any other idea, it is building a sustainable new world.  The Socialist Party urges men and women to think, investigate, to analyse every proposition. For example, the Green New Deal is no harbinger of a new social order. It hides behind the mask of “radicalism”. Socialism’s economic arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive associations - free access - applying the best means of producing with the least waste of human energy and nature’s resources.

The State is a huge machine for robbing and slave-driving of the poor by brute force. Unfortunately, there are still people who continue in the false belief that the government maintains social order and harmony, that its purpose is to protect people from crime, and that it prevents the con-man from fleecing his fellows. The State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every law, stealing in the form of private property laws, killing in the form of war and it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. Everything is blamed on human nature. How man horrible crimes have been committed in its name.  The greater the charlatan, the more definite the insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. 

Socialism really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; liberation from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles of government. Socialism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; a society that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations. This is not a Utopian fantasy but the conclusion arrived at by men and women the world over. Socialism does not stand for uniformity; it does, however, stand against everything that hinders human growth.

Socialism is Coming

 

The Socialist Party calls upon the workers to muster under its banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change and building class consciousness among fellow workers. We, the working people, are well capable of assuming control and continuing to administer and operate the essential industries and social services, without any masters above us.  It will be our fellow workers who will make the people's ownership, control and administration of the new social structure a reality. Despite  threats to workers' lives, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all is within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be achieved only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising, politically and industrially, for socialism. 

 It is the division of society into property owners and propertyless people which lies at the root of the crisis of the capitalist world. Millions of workers  extract raw material from the earth. They own neither the land nor the machinery they use, nor the products they raise.

Millions of other workers manufacture the raw materials into finished products. They own neither the machinery they use nor the products they manufacture. These are the property of the capitalists and the landlords.

The vast majority of people in society to-day are thus at the mercy of the private owners. They cannot organise the distribution of the wealth which they and their comrades have co-operated to produce, because they do not possess this wealth. It is the property of the private owners.

Here is to be found the fundamental reason why the socially necessary goods are obtainable only in the market-place as commodities. The private property owners have no other means for the disposal of the goods others have made for them. They cannot give the goods to society, for that would be an abandonment of the right of private property to extract profit. They cannot distribute the goods according to the needs of the people, however vast and urgent those needs may be, because private property production is governed by the law of production for profit irrespective of the needs of the people. The criterion of all capitalist enterprise is—does it make a profit? When it ceases to make a profit it goes bankrupt—it is finished and the workers are cast on to the scrapheap of unemployment.

For the capitalist there is no other way of disposing of the goods produced other than through the exchange market, the laws of which are not need nor beauty, nor quality. It is a transaction between individuals exchanging property, however repeated, however multiplied, however varied. One can have exactly according to his means to pay. If you have £1 or its equivalent you can have £1’s worth of goods. If you have nothing, then you can exchange nothing.

 The Socialist  Party calls upon all who comprehend the critical nature of our times, and who are increasingly aware that fundamental change in our society is needed, to join us in the effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, supported by all the technology of modern civilisation.

 It is at this great moment in history when  crisis-ridden capitalism is showing its inability to solve the immense problems confronting humanity, that great progressive movements will arise all over the world. Great possibilities are urging our fellow workers forward when mankind can plan the rational control of production and distribution for abundance for all, as the basis of a class-free and peaceful society. 

 Some dismiss socialism as the alternative to capitalism because of its failure to so far as yet  to succeed.  If socialism were really to replace capitalism, why hasn’t it already done so? It would be futile, of course,  to deny the fact that socialism is still to be established anywhere. But it is not proof that socialism is impossible, nor that our efforts to achieve socialism in the future is hopeless.  Such pessimism destroys the confidence of the working class in itself, spreads cynicism, paralyses action, holds back the advance to socialism, indeed it can lead to its capitulation  The capitalist class is no longer a progressive class. It cannot lead mankind forward. It can only drag it backwards. Based upon private property, it has long-since fulfilled whatever progressive role it had to play in the development of society. Capitalism now fetters the productive forces, drags society into degradation and catastrophe. The policy of class collaboration does not help mankind to building a new social order, but its sentimental pleadings and petitioning for “better treatment” maintains the psychology of the slave bowing to the masters. The servile intellectuals of the ruling class atomise and alienate the workers, highlighting their waverings, their backwardness, the competition amongst them for jobs, and cite these things as the reason for their lack of hope in the people. They spread their pessimism like a poison into the workers.  We need to see political clarity grow, casting out of fear and the development of the firm conviction that socialism offers the way out of the crises and paves the way to the next great evolution of society.

Socialism - the solidarity of the humanity

 

The world is in crisis. Few can deny that the world today is in constant upheaval with widespread turmoil and conflict. Yet, after decades of new deals, fair deals, wars on poverty, civil rights legislation, government regulations, deregulations and a host of other reform efforts, capitalist millions who need and want jobs are still unemployed despite the official claims that unemployment is at historically "low" rates. Millions more are underemployed, working only part-time or temporary jobs though they need and want full-time work. Millions aren't earning enough to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families despite the fact that they are working.  Racism is on the upsurge; so, too, is contemptible discrimination against migrants generally. 

In most nations infrastructure continues to crumble. The educational system is a mess and getting worse. The health care system still fails to meet the needs of millions. Slum housing abounds. Even the foregoing cannot give a full picture of the wide-ranging plague of social and economic problems modern-day capitalism is imposing on society.

 Working people stand perilously poised on the brink of yet another nightmare. Capitalism has caused a climate emergency. Widespread pollution of our environment continues. 

It is impossible to contemplate the horrors of capitalism and remain neutral unless one is emotionally numb.

For workers, capitalism has meant widespread unemployment, accompanied by homelessness and demands for high rents by landlords. At the same time, the exploitation of those with jobs has become more intense. Mass poverty escalates while multi-million fortunes are accumulated by the big capitalists and landlords. 

The Socialist Party adheres to Marxism as its basic worldview. Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in anger, protest and condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be finished with for once and for all with the economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social system. That new social order must be organised on the sane basis of common ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism.

Capitalism is a system of commodity production (that is, the production of goods for sale and not for direct use by the producer) which is distinguished by the fact that labour-power itself becomes a commodity. The major means of production and exchange which make up the capital of society are owned privately by a small minority, the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie), while the great majority of the population consists of proletarians or semi-proletarians. Because of their economic position, this majority can only exist by permanently or periodically selling their labour-power to the capitalists and thus creating through their work the incomes of the upper classes.

 Under capitalism, social production replaces the individual production of the feudal era. It is based on the ever-greater socialisation of labour. However, although production is social, ownership is private. The working class produces the commodities which constitute the wealth of capitalist society, but it does not own them. They are appropriated by those who own the means of production – the capitalist class. 

The contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of appropriation is the basic contradiction of the capitalist system, impelling its development and giving rise to the motive force of capitalist society, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

It also manifests itself as an antagonism between the high level of organisation in the individual factory or enterprise on the one hand, and on the other, the anarchy of production prevailing in the social economy as a whole. Anarchy of production is the tendency of capitalist producers, in general, to produce to the maximum without regard to their competitors or to the capacity of the market to absorb their production.

Technological development under capitalism, stimulated by competition, together with other conditions favourable to the concentration of capital, leads to the steady growth of larger enterprises at the expense of many small ones. At the same time, it reduces the employers’ demand for human labour, which lags behind the supply, resulting in the development of a large pool of unemployed, a ’reserve army’ of labour, and intensified exploitation of those in work. The existence of such a reserve army enables capitalism to expand rapidly in ’normal’ times, providing a ready-to-hand supply of extra labour in boom times which can be laid off whenever it suits capital.

By replacing private ownership of the means of production with social ownership, by transforming the anarchy of production which is a feature of capitalism into planned proportional production organised for the well-being and many-sided development of all of society, the proletarian socialist revolution will end the division of society into classes and emancipate all of humanity from all forms of exploitation of one section of society by another.

Thus, fundamentally, capitalism is a system of exploitation of the working class (the proletariat) by the owning class.  Governments cannot get rid of the evils of capitalism or solve the problems of the working class. Rather, it intensifies them. Only socialism, which results from the class struggle of workers against capitalists, can solve them.