What we want is socialism

 

It is in the interest of all workers whatever their colour, nationality, or sex to recognise the root of their problems lies in capitalism itself. The problems cannot be cured without their abolition. All workers must unite to bring to an end a system that sentences them to a lifetime of poverty, insecurity, conflict and hardship. Then, worldwide, all will work together, co-operating in producing everything that the human race requires to satisfy its needs. 

Good intentions on the part of the working class are of no value without an understanding of how capitalism produces their problems and why only socialism can solve them. That is why the Socialist Party of Great Britain must stand apart. We cannot demonstrate in solidarity with the Labour Party, the left-wing and all the other protest groups who mouth hollow promises of social reform. 

Our message to the working class is that those who do not own the means of production are nothing but the slaves of those who do. The forces of production long ago reached the point where they could produce the abundance necessary for the change from private ownership into social ownership. The interdependence of society has outgrown local and national bounds and is worldwide. The working class of the world must organise politically to dispossess the capitalist class of the means of production and distribution and establish common ownership.

The problems of society lie in its structure. While ownership of the means of life remains in the hands of one class it means the consequent enslavement of the non-owning class. There is a continual conflict of interests between those who produce wealth and those who possess that wealth. The solution to that conflict can only come by converting the means of production and distribution to the common ownership and democratic control of the whole of society. The understanding required to abolish capitalism and institute socialism is within the capability of all workers; and the working class who run society from the top to bottom for the capitalist class now, are more than capable of running socialism for themselves. The quickest way is the only way to socialism, and that is by a majority of the working class understanding and wanting that change in society, organising politically for the capture of the powers of government, and using that instrument for its own emancipation.

Turn your backs on despair and disillusionment. In 1904 a group of working men and women were convinced that only by dispossessing the capitalist class of the means of production and distribution and bringing them into the democratic control and common ownership of the whole community could a fundamental change in society be made. Rejecting any concept of leadership they saw that it required working class majority understanding and democratic decision before socialism could be achieved. They formed the Socialist Party.  From the beginning, the Socialist Party repudiated any programme of immediate demands, on the grounds that such programmes do not serve as a means of organising for socialism but thrust the socialist objective into the background, and attract non-socialist elements. While it is true that workers have to struggle over wages and conditions this must be confined to the industrial, trade union field, separate from the political. Some reforms may be of sectional or temporary benefit but this in no way equals the effort required to achieve them. The capitalist class often offer concessions both to improve the productive capacity of workers and to quiet social unrest. But a growing socialist movement will bring more concessions to the working class than any amount of pleading or agitation for reform. Workers who are concerned about capitalism’s problems should not waste their time and energy demonstrating against cuts and working for reforms, but instead organise consciously and politically for the overthrow of capitalism

The Socialist Party sends greetings to our fellow working men and women of all nations and urges them to join the World Socialist Movement in order to free society from the tyranny of class rule. Our common task is the establishment of socialism.  Sweep capitalism from the face of the planet.

Our Insane Society

 What is the basis of present-day society?  This is called a "property-owning democracy" where 10% own 90% of the wealth. There is a constant conflict of interests between this minority and the vast majority whom they employ to produce profit for them. The minority accumulate all wealth produced over and above the wages on which workers survive. Capitalism is based on a fundamental class division between owners and producers.

 An employer who spends £100 on materials and machinery in a week, and £100 on a wage to a worker, then accumulates all the surplus value that is produced. By mid-week, the worker has created £200 worth of saleable commodities, thus covering the employer’s costs. But the worker must continue, and all that is created during the rest of the week is surplus value, which serves to increase the capital of the capitalist class. This is the legalised robbery on which present-day society is based. The talk of democratic rights means little more than that we delicately forge for ourselves the very chains that bind us. 

What, then, is the sanity praised by defenders of the global profit system? Adam Smith’s magical “invisible hand” of market forces is now somewhat different from what it was in the eighteenth century. Markets today are no longer small, local, or self-contained but international. The buying and selling system has come to dominate the entire world over the past two hundred years. However it is reformed or modified, from the Kremlin to the White House, the market cannot be made to serve real human interests, the needs of humanity as a whole. The only demand that the profit system can ever recognise is that which is backed up by cash. The capitalist slogan is profit before the needs of the majority. 

What does the Socialist Party want? 

We want the working class to put the wealth of society, and the machinery for producing that wealth, in the hands of society as a whole. This is the practical alternative to the market system which currently exists throughout the world. Where people are in need of housing, socialist society will re-organise resources to build houses — not for sale and profit but for use. “Insane!" scream the conservatives who defend the capital of the minority. But look at the present “sanity”: human needs are no less now than they were in the past, and yet there has been a massive reduction in the production levels of most major industries, in response to the dictates of profit and the market.

There is only one alternative to the fatal destructiveness of competition, and that is the creativeness of co-operation. The establishment of a system of production solely to satisfy human needs across the globe, rather than for profitable sales in the world market, is more urgently needed than ever. Democratic control of society will be the culmination of a long history of class conflict and will be able to resolve all the contradictions which arise out of the class division in society. It is in the interests of workers everywhere to dismiss the complacent. flippant cries of panic coming from those who are either rich enough or, more likely, sick enough, to want to conserve a “civilisation” founded on poverty, violence and war. The profit system can only offer us prolonged frustration, interrupted by the occasional hysteria of mass slaughter when wars are fought over the spoils of international capital.

Common ownership of the world’s resources will represent the most compelling and exciting step humanity has taken. To hold back that step is to invite the trade cycle to dominate our lives, imposing its alien forces and needs on the daily lives of the entire population. When you next hear somebody trying to defend the profit system, remember it is all about a new form of insanity. Because when you hear the political rhetoric which praises the magic of market forces, with all references to the starvation and destruction which are produced by those forces neatly edited out, you might just feel tempted to contract the disease of democracy and to stand for the sane alternative.

Building Socialist Homes

 Capitalism ignores human needs. In the name of efficiency, it wastes energies and stops or restricts production; in the name of market freedom it erects a barrier to free consumption; in the name of economic rationality, it produces the most irrational contradictions. 

Sick, inhumane, and historically outdated, the capitalist system goes on creating its disgusting social contradictions—and will continue to do so until workers decide to reorganise society on the basis of production for use instead of profit.

The skill and technology to provide every human being with decent accommodation has existed for decades; no person need to live in the street or in a slum or, indeed, in the modern slums, designed by architects who have been instructed to design homes consistent with the poverty of their future inhabitants. Every man, woman and child could live in decent accommodation, but the facts of capitalism are far from allowing that to happen. Never before has the construction industry been able to use such advanced techniques as are available 

 “Home-owners” (mortgage-payers, in fact) struggle to pay off the mortgage at the expense of the upkeep of their homes, thus paying for the privilege of living in a pleasantly situated slum. None of this need be: unfit dwellings. unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, vagrancy, choosing between pleasant shelter or a holiday, repossession of homes. These are all features of a system which does not build houses to live in (that would be too simple for the wise minds of the economists), but to sell on the market with a view to profit. It is only because shelter is a commodity rather than an entitlement that the housing problem exists. Indeed, there is no housing problem in our society—there is a social problem arising from the capitalist system, which is not to do with bricks, cement and labour, but with rent, interest and profit.

Ask building workers and they will tell you that, technically, it has never been easier to build decent structures. New materials, improved tools and computer design methods make it possible to provide really pleasant dwellings in the time it used to take to produce only shoddy products. In short, the productive forces present no problem to the construction industry. So, are we producing more homes than ever? No. Is what is being produced better than ever? In the vast majority of cases, no. 

Those making decisions in the construction industry are not employed to consider the needs of the consumer or the producer, but those of the investor. Those who invest money in the construction industry are not looking for moral dividends, but material gain in the form of profit. So, if it is more profitable to build offices than homes—or squalid dwellings rather than attractive ones—or to cease production altogether rather than satisfy existing needs, those are the decisions which are taken. It is the capitalist system, with its concern for a profit before human need, which forces those in control of production to behave in ways which create ludicrous social contradictions.

Before the First World War Robert Tressell wrote what is still the finest account in English of working-class life in the building industry: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. All these years later it is still a favourite among construction workers—and the tragedy is that after decades of what the lying capitalists call “progress" the conditions are still very similar. One condition which is strikingly the same as ever is the constant concern of capitalists to produce shoddy (and therefore cheap) buildings where they can get away with it. Capitalism is a system which sticks art (pictures of old Dukes wearing blond wigs and tights) in the galleries and claims to revere creativity, but when it comes to useful production shows contempt for craftsmanship and enterprise. 

The majority of workers can only afford to rent or buy relatively dull and badly designed accommodation. Under this system, you get what you pay for. That's why those who build the palaces spend their wages on the rent of second-rate homes while the parasites who own the construction companies live in mansions,

What will a socialist society do to the construction industry? 

Firstly, the purpose of the new social order will be to produce for need and not for profit. So, there will be no concern in the minds of those involved in construction work other than to build what people need. No person need ever again be homeless; no person needs to live in a dwelling which is unsanitary. 

Secondly, socialism will end wage slavery, where the labour-power of the producers is a commodity to be bought by the highest bidder: builders will produce according to their ability, without receiving wages, in the confident knowledge that they, like all men and women, will have free access to all of the goods and services which humanity can create. 

Thirdly, there will be no need to produce inferior buildings for "inferior" people to live in. Socialism, which will be a class-free society of common ownership and democratic control, will produce the best for everyone. As a matter of fact, it often involves more effort to produce inferior buildings than it would to produce decent ones: one of the perverse features of capitalism is that hours and days are wasted by “experts" working out ways to create rubbish when it is easier (but costlier) to create a decent product.

 Fourthly, socialism will not allow men and women to endure intolerable hazards for the sake of productivity. That is not to say that there will not be accidents, in a society of production for use. but—and this is the opportunity which socialism offers—there need never be another builder killed because construction is organised on a purposely unsafe basis. 

Finally, socialism will offer the builder the respect that he or she deserves as an artist. In a capitalist society, the artist is respected for the useless products of one's creation— the more ornamental and useless the more “artistic” the creation must be.

 In socialism, we can start taking pride in useful creations: homes, offices, factories, ships, and hospitals. Even today you will often meet workers who take pride in saying that they helped to build that housing estate—but they had no control over its design, they were forced to make it a second-rate product. So, instead of a society of palaces for parasites, why not let us build a society of the best for all? Why not, in other words, join the biggest construction industry ever seen: the movement to build world socialism?

This is the Time for Change

 

The workers are beginning to understand the economic system of capitalism and that they are victims of a vicious circle. The cutting down of wages of the workers in all occupations, and in many cases the adding to the working hours, has resulted in lowering the standard of life to such a degree that it has become positively untenable. They will learn that capitalism can no longer grapple with the situation and only a socialist revolution will save them and the world at large.  The idea of socialism is transforming minds, spreading wider and deeper with more precise meaning among workers all the world over,  taking us ever closer to the great goal — the emancipation of mankind from the present economic and political oppression.

The power to produce the requisites of life is far greater now than, ever before. Science and technology are making it possible to produce every essential need with ever-increasing efficiency. Despite contrary claims, natural resources exists in abundance, human energy and skill is in abundance and there is a genuine desire for useful articles of all kinds existing in every home yet under capitalist control of industry it is impossible to bring these together. Never in human history have there been such utter incompetence now existing. The curse of capitalist control for profit hangs ever over us, and such is the capitalists’ utter incapacity or unwillingness habitually fails to meet people’s needs.  So long as the workers continue every hour of every day to render every useful service to the capitalist class, furnishing them with every luxury and obeying their every wish and whim, the plutocrats and  oligarchs will continue to ignore and heap insult upon the workers, condemning them to subsistence-conditions. The Socialist Party can foretell  the fall of wages under the pressure of international labour competition, fostered and intensified by corporate globalisation.  The Socialist Party is asking no favours of capitalism and granting none; it is pandering to no organisation and no man or set of men to curry favours; it stands squarely on the class struggle, defiantly challenging the capitalist class, relying only upon the awakening working class to rally to its standard and carry it to victory. The paramount issue is working class victory. All other things are secondary. Any organisation that attempts to obscure this truth damns itself. The Socialist Party is working to get the whole movement along the lines of class conscious radical activity to achieve the final purpose of the movement, the social revolution.

 It is the workplace that gathers workers together in large groups with like aims and needs. It is the workplace that produces class consciousness and class solidarity. Working people have little  to lose and will arise in their might and fight for a better life. They will see and use the tools that will bring the abolition of the wages system. The Socialist Party reaffirms its allegiance to the principle of internationalism and working-class solidarity the world over, and proclaims its unfaltering opposition to the capitalist class. Capitalism breeds unreason and hatred. It obscures the struggles of the workers for life, liberty, and justice. It strives to sever the vital bonds of solidarity between fellow workers in other countries, to destroy their organisations and to curtail their political rights and liberties. In support of capitalism, we will not willingly sacrifice a single life; in support of the struggle of the workers for freedom we pledge our all. 

In every country, workers are oppressed and exploited. They produced enormous wealth but the bulk of it was withheld from them by the owners of the industries.  Workers are deprived of the wealth that they themselves had created.

The forces of capitalism have led to the war in Ukraine. The acute competition between the capitalist Great Powers, their jealousies and distrusts of one another have brought once again a ghastly war to Europe. It was not caused by an accidental event, nor by the policy of a single person such as Putin or by a single  institutions such as NATO. It was the logical outcome of the competitive capitalist system. The misery and sufferings of Ukrainians, have not been sacrifices exacted in a struggle for principles or ideals, but wanton offerings upon the altar of private profit. The Ukrainian war was instigated by predatory capitalists to acquire spheres of influence. The war cannot be justified even on the plea that it is a war in defence. It is not a war to advance the cause of democracy. It is not a war against the militarist regime of Russia. It was the opportunity of certain groups of capitalists to coin cold profits out of the blood and sufferings of our fellow workers.

The end of wars will come with the establishment of socialism and industrial democracy the world over. The Socialist Party calls upon all the workers to join it in its struggle to reach this goal, and thus bring into the world a new society in which peace, fraternity, and human brotherhood will be the dominant ideals.

SOCIALISM - A BEACON FOR HUMANITY

 The Socialist Party wants to bring about a society in which men and women will consider each other as brothers and sisters and by mutual support,  through a fraternal, egalitarian and libertarian association, will achieve the greatest well-being and freedom as well physical and intellectual development for all. Your exploitation is ours and our case is yours. 

The strongest person is the one who is the least isolated; the most independent is the one who has most contacts and friendships. In spite of the bloody wars; in spite of the sufferings and humiliations inflicted one another; in spite of exploitation and tyranny,  human society still represents vital and progressive characteristics, feelings of sympathy, a sense of a shared compassion which in normal times cannot be flouted without rousing disgust and disapproval. In their daily lives humanity, one finds that as well as the struggle to  gain better working conditions, the lust for domination is viewed as an unhealthy passion which set people against people, while  mutual aid, unceasing and voluntary exchange of services, affection, love, friendship and all that which draws people closer together are seen as valuable virtues. Indeed, the very existence of any community would not be possible if the social feelings were not more present than the bad. The sympathy among mankind, and the experience and awareness of the individual and social advantages which stem from the development of these sentiments, have created and go on to produce concepts such as “justice” “human and civil rights” and “morality” that express the general interest and the common achievement of all mankind.  Working people are well suited for socialism because they’ve practiced it, at least in part, for many centuries. 

The Socialist Party says a free society can exist only through voluntary association, and that its ultimate success will depend upon the intellectual development of the workers who will supplant the wage system with a new social arrangement, based on solidarity and economic well-being for all. That is socialism, plain and simple, in theory, and practice. Mutual aid and solidarity are necessities of life. The masters of the world seek to seize back whatever gains the workers have achieved through class struggle.

The working-class movement is being weakened and undermined by the terrible economic conditions on the one hand and the capitalist offensive on the other. It is imperative that something is done to enable it to overcome its difficulties and deal with the present situation. All are agreed as to that. But what? Our policy is to promote the development of a class struggle and to oppose class collaboration. 

The Socialist Party scorns to hide its aims. It exists to fight against the exploitation of those who toil by hand and brain and to strengthen the working-class organisation and political understanding of the need of ending capitalism and establishing socialism. 

The Socialist Party represents the future and presents its conception of socialism of the future. We hold that the principles for which we stand should end impoverishment and win the Earth for the working peoples. We seek a world in which the exploitation of man by man shall cease when the evolution of human society to new and higher forms shall become possible to all mankind when socialism and peace shall be enjoyed by all.  The future is ours.

It is the capitalist system which produces disasters. It is clear that their solution requires the concerted and sustained effort of the entire world, the co-operation of all peoples on a universal scale and plan. All must be thrown into the common pool, and the whole of humanity must be set to the task as one huge association pursuing one, and only one object: to save itself from environmental destruction. Can this be realised under, the capitalist system? Obviously it cannot. It is evident that the capitalist system cannot remedy the present-day social ills, and that, consequently, if it remains in power, the world will suffer. Only with socialism is such worldwide cooperation and such concerted intensive effort possible. Gradually people are learning this truth, at least the most far-seeing among them.  Others are busy endeavouring to undo some of the problems, still, apparently, believing that the world can be restored, even though capitalism continues to be the system of the world. But they will recognise that they are mistaken and that the foundations on which, they propose to carry out the immense work are nothing but shifting sand. The gaps in the economic system of the world are so large and numerous that no amount of patching up here and patching up there will avail. The time for reforms is gone: now is the time for a radical change in the basis itself, that is, for the Revolution.

Clear Thinking.

 

What is a capitalist? A capitalist is one who owns enough property in the means of living such as land, factories, railways, steamships, raw materials, etc., to be able to live without needing to work. The income derived from this private ownership frees the capitalist from the necessity of working for his livelihood.

It may be asked, what, then, is a worker?

A worker is one who, not owning any or sufficient property, is forced to sell his or her labour-power to the capitalist class, in order that he may live. Workers are separated from their means of life and dependant upon their masters for work. 

There are those who credit our present rulers with special regard for the interests of the workers. Labour and Conservative Governments have succeeded one another in the task of administering the affairs of the capitalist class; with the result that working-men and women still go needlessly to their doom in order that their good, kind masters may enjoy lives of culture and benevolence on the profits realised from the workers’ toil. The wage-slaves of to-day pile up wealth in hitherto unheard-of quantities; yet it is too much to expect that they should be enabled to do so in security. It is cheaper to let them be burnt or buried alive than to pay for the necessary supervision to prevent such events.

 Socialism does not mean anything so negative as the entire absence of private property, nor is the State to own and control everything. The latter is a distorted description of State Capitalism which may justly be attributed to one section of the Labour Party. It is not socialism, and has never received the support of the Socialist Party as our “Object” states, socialism is “a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.” Far from abolishing all private property,  socialism will place it in the power of all of the population to share in the varied kinds of wealth that society can produce—something which at present is denied in large measure to most of them.

We ask our blog visitors to remember that buying and selling, and the use of money as the basis of the economic activities of human society are relatively recent acquirements. They have served their useful purpose, and the means now exist (as a result of the development of capitalism), for society to arrange the production and distribution of wealth without the intervention of money.

 Socialism is not going to be introduced by a political party which has been placed in power for some other purpose by electors who are not socialist.  The important point is that Socialist Party candidates will only be elected to the House of Commons on a socialist manifesto (not on a programme of capitalist reforms), by a socialist electorate (not by electors who want a living wage, or family endowment, etc.) and for the single purpose of establishing socialism. The only way of retaining the confidence of a socialist electorate will be to work for socialism. If Socialist Party M.P.s fail to do the work for which they are elected, the voters will get rid of them at the first opportunity.

Critics of the Socialist Party accuse it of being inciting popular unrest and state that for years past we have been saying that the rich are growing richer and the poor becoming poorer. Also, we have said this so often and so persistently that many are inclined to believe there must be some truth in the indictment. In fact, there is none. So says apologists for capitalism.

 As capitalism develops, the major portion of the wealth produced concentrates still further into fewer and fewer hands. It is, therefore^ obvious that the poverty of the mass must increase relative to the wealth of the propertied class. And as bad as the lot of the workers may be at the moment, it will tend to become worse with the further development of capitalism.

The only solution to the poverty problem of the working class is not for individual workers to buy a house, a home or a few shares, but to organise to do away with capitalism, the cause of their poverty, and to bring into existence socialism, the social system which will free them from poverty.