The Coming Revolution

 

Society’s emancipation from the chaos of climate change, war, want-amid-waste and alienating mental stagnation, must await the socialist education of the working people, for which purpose the Socialist Party exists. Capitalist propaganda not only put forward the demonstrably false idea that revised capitalism could operate in the interests of the workers but also perpetuate the additional and even greater crime of tagging “socialism” to such proposals. Other parties manifest such inconsistencies that the worker, confused and disillusioned, loses any progressive urge, and either return to political apathy or else goes as far as active antagonism to any movement styling itself working-class. It should here be noted that widely extended education, improved health services and other public welfare measures—claimed as evidence of socialism—are in fact normal features of capitalist growth in many countries.

 

A knowledge of socialism enables man to command by knowledge these social forces and change society for the benefit of all. We need a new economic system. Capitalism is driving us towards disaster. This is because decisions are being motivated by the maximisation of profit rather than the goal of saving the future for human society and the environment. The mania for growth of capitalist economists is risking the stability of our planet.

 

 The wants of all must be the first guiding consideration of any revolutionary movement which has a socialist character. To leave nobody without food, shelter and healthcare, is the foremost goal of the workers’ movement inspired by socialist ideas. The only rule to guide us must be the wants of each family, each of them being equally entitled to enjoy the produce of the labour of generations past and present. If overthrowing the present rulers and proclaiming some great industrial undertakings, like railways and mines, the property of a State democratised a bit--everything beyond that remaining as it is--then, of course, there is no use in speaking about social revolution at all. It is no use to describe the aspirations of taking all great branches of industry under the management of the State as such a result would be utterly shabby in comparison with the great movement of ideas stirred up by socialism; and that it stands in very strange contradiction with the hopes that socialists seek to awaken. We do not argue about whether bankers are greedy or not, if masters are good or bad, if the State is paternal or despotic, if laws are just or unjust, if courts are fair or unfair, if the police are merciful or brutal. When we talk about banks, State, masters, government, laws, courts and police, we say only we don’t want any of them. These hopes are hopes of getting rid of capitalist oppression, of abolishing the rule of man by man, of Equality, of Freedom, of Socialism.

 

Private property - not the claim to use, but to a right to prevent others from using - enables individuals who have appropriated the means of production, to hold in subjection all those who possess nothing but their labour. and who must work that they may live? No work is possible without land, materials, and tools or machinery; thus the masters of these things are the masters also of the destitute workers and can live in idleness upon their labour, paying them in wages only enough of the produce to keep them alive, only employing so many of them as they find profitable and leaving the rest to their fate. Such a wrong is not innate in human nature. Socialism holds forth the principle that in the name of the common claim of all to a common share in the results of the common labour of all, each with an equal claim to satisfy as seems good to oneself, his or her natural needs from the stock of social wealth.  The means of production ought to be under the power of the workers, then they need have no fear of new technology. That we may soon witness the real emancipation of labour is the sincere wish of the wage slave.

 

The ruling classes understand what they must do and it is to maintain by every possible means their possession of power and the instruments of production. Therefore, they will try first to hinder the spread of socialist views. If unable to do this, they will try to take hold of the movement, and to give it a direction that is less threatening to their privileges. But if nevertheless, the movement still takes a socialist turn, if it continues to grow in political power, if it seriously endangers their ownership, then they will offer a few concessions more illusory than real, and by these concessions, they will try to divide the working people. And if the workers are not aware of the danger of accepting these illusory concessions, if they let themselves be divided into two camps, then the well-to-do, without distinction of opinions, will unite so as to re-establish, their power and privileges on a basis as solid as before.

 

Do our fellow workers share in a similar unity of purpose to act in their own interest?  Sadly, no.  Many workers have little hope in the possibility of even approaching such a socialist solution for many generations to come, and thus do not care at all about it. A few welfare reforms, some laws to protect women and children, some laws to reduce the hours of labour - their demands go no further. They have no consciousness of their own strength, no belief in the possibility of abolishing privileges sanctioned by centuries of misrule. They trust in the coming generations to reach a more equitable mode of organisation but have no faith in their own. Instead, they believe some fine day the people will reject the rulers who oppose the wishes of the people and nominate new ones in their place. But what will these new rulers do? Will they all be nominated for the purpose of expropriating the present proprietors? Will they all be inspired with the very same wishes as the masses reduced to misery under the grindstone of capital? Will they have the magic power of improving the position of the worker, if the workers themselves do not know what to do for the improvement of their own position? If the workmen themselves have not formulated their wants and concluded that nothing short of putting an end to the evils of our present economical organization, ff the workers themselves, do not find and point out the ways and means by which the restitution of capital to the producers can be accomplished so as to benefit all classes of the community, how can they rely upon new rulers who hold the very same old belief as of that in a Savior who will come someday and settle everything for the benefit of humanity?

Winning the class war

 

The ruling class pursue their own interests that are detrimental to the public well-being. They get away with this by falsely convincing working people that they share common interests with their employers. Working people are told ad nauseam that they are under constant threat from all manner of enemies and need to be protected. It’s a protection racket.

The reality of capitalism is that social problems are endemic to the system. They flow directly from its basis and in one form or another they will endure for as long as capitalism lasts. The reformist case is that capitalism need not be abolished (although some reformists profess this to be their eventual, distant, objective) just yet because it can be modified so as to be acceptable to people. All the evidence destroys this myth and points to the conclusion that socialism cannot be delayed. It points to the conclusion that reformism is not only futile but reactionary, since it aims to postpone socialism when this in fact means the abandonment of the aim of social revolution and therefore the continuation of capitalism with all the problems which so concern the reformists.We know that organisations that promises to run capitalism  in the interests of the working class while they reformed it out of existence, are attempting the impossible.  Many working people who  put their faith in such delusions are disillusioned.  Capitalism is still around in its repressive, destructive way. The problems of capitalism persist and prevail, indeed in many cases they can be said to worsen. We face devastating destruction of the environment with climate change. This is also the nuclear age, when war promises to be an instant, all-obliterating matter from which settled human life may not be able to recover. World-wide, hunger inflicts misery and suffering  tens of millions of people. In many countries there are refugees and migrants, homeless through the conflicts of capitalism and the system’s artificial, inhuman national barriers. Poverty in its simplest form, in which workers struggle day in and day out to make ends meet and to gain access to the most unremarkable of life’s needs, persists.

War, they say, can be eliminated by the capitalist powers agreeing not to behave like capitalist powers. The same can be said about nuclear weapons; the mighty states which have made them should simply agree that it has all been a waste of time and throw them away. Famine can be solved through charity, poverty by an adjustment of state benefits. And so on. A myth which needs to be dispelled is that the state—the government, the law, the judges, the police —is neutral. No government can make capitalism serve the interest of the wage and salary earning majority. The state must be the political defender of the ruling class. In any struggle between robbers and robbed the Socialist Party is unequivocally on the side of the robbed. In the class war no worker and no political party can be neutral. But in expressing solidarity with workers in struggle, we point out that our sympathy and their temporary gains will be meaningless unless victory involves winning the war and not just one battle. To win the class war workers must organise as a class for the conquest of the earth and all its resources. No lesser victory is worth settling for.

Economics under capitalism are concerned first and foremost with price and profit. Production is regarded as “uneconomic” when investment of capital shows little or no prospect of leading to profit for the investor. Being “uneconomic” is not at all the same as being “useless”. For example, dairy farming is currently “uneconomic” because more milk is produced than can be sold profitably. However, milk is desperately needed by the  children enduring malnutrition-caused diseases every single day.

In our present-day society—capitalism—the working class, the overwhelming majority, have no other way to scratch a living than to sell their physical and mental energies (labour power). Capital and labour thus face each other as buyers and sellers, those interests a priori must be antagonistic. Another angle on this conflict is to see it as a struggle over the division of the product of labour. The higher the share taken by the non-producing capitalists, the less is the portion left for the producers of the whole wealth of society, the working class.

We can concede that a capitalist investor is occasionally sometimes taking a calculated risk, with heavy losses on occasions taking the place of spectacular profits. But what have the capitalists as a class contributed to the actual productive process? In both cases, nothing. As for the stresses and strains of entrepreneurship, where they represent a real contribution they are now almost exclusively performed by salaried employees, members of the working class. All things being equal, the smaller the share of the total wealth accruing to the workers the greater the profits of the capitalist class. In some cases, by paying somewhat higher wages an employer may attract better workmen or women and so increase profits. Also, although it is difficult to express this in figures, a happier workforce on pay somewhat above the going rate may perform better and again produce more profits. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be “a desire to maximise profits”, but this is pretty well the same as minimising wages relative to profits.

The Socialist Party stands for socialism and for that alone and to insist that the revolution is an immediate possibility; the working class can and must understand socialism and opt for it. That is the continuing task of socialists everywhere and will carry on with it until socialism becomes reality.

When that happens, the role of the Socialist Party is at an end. A class-free, united society will have no need for any expression of class-divided society; there will be no privileges, no coercive machinery, no medium through which ownership on the one hand, and denial of access on the other, are expressed. Neither will there be political parties, which exist as proponents of class interests. The socialist parties alone represent the interests of the working class; when that class is abolished with the establishment of socialism the socialist parties, along with all others, will cease to exist.

The Importance of Democracy

 

The Socialist Party is the only party that is or can be truly representative of the interests of the working class, the only class essential to society and the class that is destined ultimately to succeed to political power, “not for the purpose of governing men,” in the words of Engels, but “to administer things.”

 

The owning class is necessarily the ruling class. It dictates legislation and in case of doubt or controversy has it construed to its own interest. The present forms of government are based solely upon private property of the means of production and are wholly coercive. The only vital function of the present government is to keep the exploited class in subjection by their exploiters. Parliaments and legislatures, as a rule, act wholly in the interest of the ruling capitalist class. Courts of justice, so-called, decided cases of importance not upon their merit, but in the interest of the ruling class. Marx was right in declaring that the economic basis of society determines the character of all social institutions and the institutions noted therein are modified in proportion only as this basis changes.

The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party as its basic demand is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industries in the interest of all the people. This will mean an economic democracy and upon this vital principle, the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party.

Between private ownership and common ownership, there can be no compromise. Oil and water don’t mix. One produces for profit, the other for use. Socialism secures for every man and woman their full product of his or her toil, abolish class rule, wipe out all class distinction, and makes this earth for the first time a habitable place.

The Socialist Party seeks to organise the workers of the world, irrespective of nationality, into one unified PARTY OF LABOUR. Our aim is socialism. Our method is the political organisation at the ballot box to secure the election of representatives of socialist principles to all the elective governing public bodies. The Socialist Party pledges itself to pursue, unfalteringly and undeviating, its great object – common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. In other words, a world socialist cooperative commonwealth.

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 means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit spring the problems of misery, war, and poverty. The capitalist system is a modern Frankenstein’s monster that is destroying its own creators.

Socialists assert that production should be for use and not for sale or profit, thus doing away with exploitation along with a vast amount of unproductive labour and an immense number of useless and harmful occupations. The cooperative commonwealth is their goal. No person has the privilege to become a Socialist Party member without understanding the subject. Equally, no one has the right to criticise socialism without first studying it. The Socialist Party demands that the world’s wealth be repossessed from the control of private interests and turned over to the people to be administered for the benefit of all.

The supreme task of socialists of all the world is to dedicate ourselves to the imperishable principles of international socialism; to strengthen the bonds of working-class solidarity; to deepen the traits of conscious internationalism. The Socialist Party extend to the socialists of all the world our greetings and hail them all our brothers, sisters and our comrades. A new page of human history is to be written, the message social democracy, internationalism, peace and prosperity. The Socialist Party will continue the class-conscious political battle of labour. We are working with all effort for the cooperative commonwealth. We are all cosmopolitans, endorsing in the fullest sense international revolutionary socialism,  engaged in the overthrow of capitalism. 

In its struggle for a new society, the Socialist Party seeks to attain its objectives by peaceful means. So long as the ballot box, the right of assembly, free media and civil liberties are maintained, appeals to force and violence will not attract working people. Coercion is not the weapon of socialism but of the short-sighted representatives of the ruling classes who stupidly believe that social movements and ideals can be destroyed by repression. The Socialist Party depends upon the education and the organisation of the working class. If capitalism can be superseded by a majority vote, the Socialist Party will rejoice. If the capitalist system should collapse in general chaos and confusion, which cannot permit orderly procedure, the Socialist Party, will not shrink from the responsibility of organising and maintaining true democracy as a worthy means to progress.