Comprehending Capitalism

 Under capitalism, the workers always get the thick end of the stick. In some circumstances, the workers can use the weapon of strike action to defend their standards of living and even raise them. The only way the workers can bring about a lasting and worthwhile improvement in their conditions is to abolish capitalism and create, in its place, a socialist society.

 

A larger part of their own surplus-product, always increasing and continually transformed into additional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, so that they can extend the circle of their enjoyments, can make some addition to their consumption fund of clothes, furniture, etc., and can lay by small reserve funds of money.

 

But just as little as better-clothing, food, and treatment and a larger pecullium (Pecullium: pocket-money given to slave by master), do away with the exploitation of the slaves, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker.

 

“A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it.” (Karl Marx,“ Capital,” Vol. 1)

 

 Production is not carried on for the purpose of meeting people’s needs. The aim of production is to so arrange it that a profit is made in order that shareholders and bondholders may draw their dividends without needing to work. Hence the haves and the have-nots—the workers and the capitalists—those who must sell their physical and mental energies in order to get the wherewithal to meet their needs and those who can meet their needs without having to sell their energies.

 

Production today is for the market, and conditions in the market determine how, when, where and if a portion or all of the product will be sold. Conditions in the market can bring prosperity, financial difficulty, or even ruin to many producing concerns as crises of the past have borne witness. If one type of goods is produced too much in excess of what the market can absorb the competition to find buyers leaves some losers in the struggle, which appears to be what is happening in some industries to-day, like the motor industry. If the unsold surplus is large, or if there is an anticipation that this is going to happen, then there is a cut in production and workers are discharged. The strange part of it is that there can be a large unsold surplus of the very things that the mass of people are sorely in need of but cannot buy because of their limited resources. With only their wages to depend upon the workers are always on the side that loses when these troubles come.

 

Inflation is not the cause of poverty, though governments precipitate trouble by debasing the currency and issuing insufficiently backed current notes in the vain hope of getting out of financial difficulty—or just through plain ignorance.

 

Money is the medium of market dealings and products must be turned into money before profit, the object of market dealings, can be realised. Thus there is no way out of the crazy dilemma whilst buying and selling continues to be the means of transferring the product to the consumer. Whilst the means of production are privately owned by an individual, a company, or a State concern buying and selling will still go on. The answer, then, is to abolish this private ownership and substitute for it the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. When this is done human needs and not profit will be the aim of production and money, and all the evils associated with it, will disappear.

 

Political action is an absolute necessity to achieve socialism. This requires that socialists shall send their delegates to parliament and the local councils for the purpose of achieving socialism. It does not mean that parliament can impose socialism on a non-socialist electorate, or induce a non-socialist electorate to accept the socialism that they do not want or understand. The Socialist Party has no members in parliament only because there are too few socialists to send them there. 

 

The Socialist Party does not support leadership. The essence of leadership is the implication that the workers can safely entrust their affairs, including their position under capitalism and the achievement of socialism, to elected or self-appointed individuals who will in their wisdom decide what to do and how to do it. The assumed justification for leadership is that the rank and file do not properly understand what are the problems and how they should be tackled. This is indeed true and will remain so until the workers become socialists and understand that their urgent need is socialism. Then they will know exactly what to do and will instruct their delegates accordingly. In the meantime the mass of the workers do not understand; but what of the labour leaders? What do they know of capitalism or socialism? And what difference would it make if they did have knowledge, since their continuance as leaders would depend upon suiting the lack of knowledge of their own followers?

 

The workers have so far always trusted in leaders. It has brought them lots of wars and other evils but no socialism; only the continuance of capitalism.

 

 We don’t think a socialist party should seek passive support from people on the basis of what it would do for them if they voted for it. In fact you would seem to be more committed to the so-called “parliamentary road to socialism”—a majority of socialist MPs voting in socialism for a passive majority outside—than we would be. This is not how we see socialism coming about. Socialism is something people must do for themselves, organising themselves consciously and politically to establish it and actively participating in the movement. They alone can establish socialism using parliament with the socialist party merely an instrument to this end.

 

This is why we limit ourselves today to carrying out general agitation against capitalism and for socialism. We fully accept, however, that when the “critical mass” of socialists has been reached, people will be discussing all the issues you raise and working out detailed plans about how to tackle them once capitalism has been ended. But even then it won’t be a question of the socialist party presenting them with a programme for them to vote for, but of them democratically deciding for themselves, via the socialist party and other bodies such as trade unions, professional associations and neighbourhood committees, what the practicalities of establishing and running socialism in its first days should be.

 

Of course the relatively few of us who are socialists today do have our ideas on how education, transport, health services, etc might, and even should be, organised in a socialist society, but this is all they can be at the moment: ideas and suggestions. This is because the exact details will have to be decided by the people around at the time, most of whom are not yet socialists and who might, and probably will, have different ideas from us on the details of some of these issues.

 

We have, in fact, produced a pamphlet called Socialism As A Practical Alternative which does spell out some of the possibilities of socialism, particularly as regards possible institutions of democratic control and ways of organising the production and distribution (we prefer this word to “exchange” which has connotations of buying selling) of goods is a moneyless context. You should read it. We’ll be pleased to send you a copy for 80p (post paid).

 

As to leaflets, we’re sending you a selection. Please let us know which, and how many, you’d like. We’re also sending some stickers for your car.

 

The Socialist Standard is not written by professional journalists but by ordinary people who have a day job too. If we don’t publish our photos this is because the Socialist Party does indeed not believe in leaders or the cult of personality, but also because they are not just expressing personal views but are writing on behalf of the membership as a whole. 

Our Aim and Goal

 

It is not for the Socialist Party to describe in detail the social system that will arise following the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, for we cannot foretell what conditions will prevail at the time. All we can do is state the broad changes that we know must arise.

The most obvious is that the wages system would be abolished since nobody would be in a position to exploit labour power. With the instruments of production socially owned, no one would wish to sell their ability to work for another’s profit, even if a buyer could be found. The very conditions of wage labour — the divorce of the majority from the means of life — will have ceased to exist, and all forms of exchange would disappear.

Necessity alone will dictate industrial activity. If goods are produced in excess of demand, production will be curtailed; should needs be unsatisfied, production will increase. Individuals will determine their own needs, and society will devise means by which people can make their requirements known (not a difficulty, given computer technology). All who were capable would work to the best of their abilities and take freely from the social wealth. We do not accept that having opted for a non-coercive society, people will act against their own interests and refuse to co-operate in productive work.

The view that people are innately selfish is a fallacious one, fostered by the society in which we live. The concept of greed can only have meaning where access to wealth is restricted and scarcity is commonplace. Under capitalism, the ruthless pursuit of self-interest is encouraged; in socialism, it would be an absurdity. And even the pig will turn away from the trough when it can eat no more.

There is only one course, and that is to understand that the gigantic means of production, which the workers operate to turn out wealth in abundance, must become the common property of society, to be used in the interest of the whole of society instead of in the interest of the capitalist class as at present.

Many critics of the Socialist Party assume that revolution implies violence and that since we do not advocate violence, therefore we are not revolutionary. This is an assumption which will not bear examination. The Socialist Party aims at changing the foundation of society, replacing the private ownership of the means of production with common ownership. It is therefore a revolutionary party. Conversely, the use of violent methods to secure minor reforms does not turn a reformist party into a revolutionary one. 

The Socialist Party lays it down that socialism pre-supposes the conquest of the powers of government and the conversion of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, from “an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” We lay it down, further, that the vote is the only means open to the workers in developed capitalist countries to conquer the powers of government. 

Organising for Revolution

 

The propertied class will, under pressure, do various small things to meet working-class discontent, but they will never get off the workers’ backs until a majority determines to have socialism. Our future world will be very much like the dystopian world that we live under now unless the working-class chooses otherwise.

During humanity's early history, when society was in the stage of primitive communism, there were no classes and no class struggles. Then—and the period must have lasted for thousands of years—private property was unknown, all members of the tribe joining in the ownership of the hunting grounds and fishing waters. The proceeds of the chase were for the enjoyment of every member of the tribe. Thanks to this ownership in common there was no monopolising of resources and wealth by one section of the community to the detriment of another. No person could live by the exploitation of others. Agriculture and the domestication of animals brought to an end this first stage of mankind’s history. Now tribes conquered others with the express purpose of converting the vanquished into slaves. They were brought home and set to work on the fields The conquerors owned the animals and the land; the conquered were propertyless. Thus did private property arise and with it came classes and man’s exploitation by man. Since that time the history of all society is the history of class struggles, a conflict between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” With the advent of private property and farming, came more permanent dwelling places, and exchange of products, the domination of tribe by tribe, and the growth of privileged and ruling classes. Whereas formerly man’s struggle for existence represented a unified battle against the elements, the fight for survival now took the form of man against man, class against class, state against state. No longer did men and women live a harmonious and cooperative life. The road to prosperity was now littered with the weaker and less fortunate over whom the successful had to step.

In wartime and during economic crises appeals are made to the exploited, the working class, to abandon the class struggle. Isn't it strange how the workers are always held responsible for the class struggle. Yet class division owes its origin to private property, the corner-stone of capitalist society. The class struggle exists because of the clash of interests between the workers and their masters. That the interests of these two classes are opposed is quite clear if we take one aspect of it. The worker sells his energies, his labour-power, to the capitalist. Over the price of this and over the length of time it shall belong to the capitalist, there is bound to be disagreement. The worker, living on the starvation line, wants the best price (wage) he or she can get; the capitalist, seeking to produce his wares cheaply so that he can sell them in the world market, wants to reduce production costs. He, therefore, tries to keep wages down. Strikes and lockouts, both as old as capitalism, are evidence of the class struggle.

We can say with confidence, therefore, that such appeals are in vain. The workers are compelled by the very nature of capitalism to wage the class struggle in order to maintain their standard of life. This they are forced to do, even if they do not understand the economics of capitalism, even if they are not politically minded.  There can be no check the outbreak of the class struggle, either by words, government decrees or brute force. Nothing less than the abolition of that which gives rise to classes will accomplish that—the abolition of private property.

 A class-free society, devoid of strife, can only be assured by socialism alone. The means of production can to-day pour our abundance. The truth of this is evident when one remembers that though so many millions are under arms and so many more millions engaged m turning out weapons of destruction, the world still carries on. The Socialist Party urges that the way to end the class struggle is to make the productive forces the property of all society. This would immediately remove the cause of classes and conflict. This remedy, the only one, is, of course, opposed by the capitalist class. Their interests and privileges are at stake. The task, then, of effecting this economic transformation rests with the working class, and sooner or later the workers of all nations will be obliged to undertake it.

Beginning in the economic field over such particular questions as hours of work and wages, the struggle becomes a political struggle. The workers must win political power in order to carry through their revolution. As time goes on the working class will realise more and more that this is their historical mission. The workers will become ever more critical of capitalist society. Every sphere of present-day society will be carefully scrutinised by them as their class consciousness grows. When the majority of the workers become aware that class struggles need no longer be, that is, when they have become socialists, they will use political power to abolish private property. Capitalism will be replaced by a harmonious social system—Socialism.

When we have common ownership of the means of life, the individuals' interest will coincide. Then, at last, strife and turmoil, so characteristic of capitalism, will no longer impede humanity’s progress. With a society united and each giving according to his ability, who can say what will be the limits of society’s progress?

The working class will carry the class struggle to its logical conclusion.

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.