Socialism is our Goal

 

Socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the goodwill and compassion of the capitalist exploiters. Socialism can be achieved only as the outcome of the class struggle of working people. The class struggle is the engine of history. Politics has no serious meaning except as the expression of conflicting class interests.  There is an irreconcilable conflict of class interests between the workers and their capitalist exploiters. The principles of a socialist party must be determined accordingly. All the political actions and judgments of a workers' party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. Only with the victory of the working class and the abolition of capitalism can the socialist society be accomplished. There is no other way. Every other attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliation and compromise with them, by collaborating with them has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers. The Socialist Party offers no support whatever to the government of the capitalists in war or in peace.

The capitalist mode of production shall be replaced by the socialist mode. In socialism, the means of production, land, mines, raw materials, tools, machines, and transport, will be transferred to the common ownership of society. They shall no longer serve individuals as a means of living off the labour of others, and no longer be the means of the economic enslavement of the propertyless. Thus the commodity production of independent private producers is changed into a planned social production by the people and for the people. And through it will be engendered the greatest possible wealth for the enjoyment of life and the cultural development of all members of society. Socialism is the description of a social order which is founded upon the common ownership of the means of production.

The rich exploiters fight bitterly to discredit socialism. They say that socialism may be a nice idea but that it can't work. They preach that the division of society between rich and poor, exploiters and exploited has been determined by human nature. In a capitalist society, despite all the changes which may have occurred, the state remains the centre of decisions serving the capitalists. The savage rule of a handful of billionaires lies in their great wealth and their subsequent power and control over the state apparatus of armies, police, prisons, courts and the enormous bureaucracy. The capitalist state means democracy only for the rich ruling class, while it is a means of violence for the brutal suppression of the working class and oppressed masses.

Do you really believe that war is in the interests of the working class? What have you got to defend? The capitalists may wish to grab mines and ore deposits but for you, there is nothing to be gained. Money-men may hope to make millions in armaments speculation but you receive nought. So don't let yourselves be caught. Yet there is still one war which you should fight. That is a battlefield in which you should join. And that war is not against a foreign enemy. It is against the enemy of the people's happiness, progress and human civilisation and that is capitalism, private ownership of all means of production, factories and machines, mines and land. Do away with capitalism in the final war.

Throughout the world, the yoke of capitalist exploitation and oppression is becoming an ever more unbearable burden on the shoulders of the working people. The capitalists are doing everything they can to disorient and weaken the mounting opposition of the working people. They want to keep the workers' struggle within the narrow perspective of reformism. In particular, the capitalists are striving to reduce the movement to an impotent pressure group.

There is a way out of this capitalist hell of perpetual crisis, unemployment, poverty, police-state despotism, racism,  war, environmental devastation, and all the other scourges of the capitalist system. The working class can act as the standard-bearer of the social revolution to overthrow capitalism, put an end to exploitation and oppression, and build a new socialist society.

What Motivates Us (video)

 

Towards Socialist Clarity and Revolution

 We of the Socialist  Party call on all socialists to fight the political fight on the straight platform of revolutionary socialism. Reformism can be nothing but a capitalist programme. The socialist movement is the outline, of a definite and positive alternative to capitalism. It is clear to every socialist that socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to engage in the struggle for socialism and that means they have to understand what it is. If the people who vote for a Socialist Party candidate do not do so because he holds socialist principles but because of his or her advocacy of reforms, what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend upon the consciousness of the working people and not upon their lack of knowledge. The idea that we should first be elected to office and then teach socialism is absurd and it should not even be discussed. It can be stated with the greatest of assurance that a socialist candidate who refrains from teaching socialism during the campaign will only forget all about socialism in office.  

The ruling class is never going to solve its problems through the capitalist system. Therefore, the objective conditions for revolution are going to rise up over and again. We don’t create these conditions. We have to understand our problems so that we can solve them. It’s no small job working to replace the powerful and entrenched capitalist system with our system of society, WORLD SOCIALISM. To do it, we must know how capitalism operates in all its complexities.

The capitalists have at their disposal the schools and universities, the media and many other means through which they justify their social system. We haven’t the resources they have or the facilities. But we have something far more powerful that they don’t possess. We have the unassailable principles of socialism with which to confute and confound them. We stand for an end to the anarchy of capitalism with its recessions, wars and famines. We stand for socialism that alone can guarantee enduring peace and plenty. It replaces the profit system. End the rule of the parasitical cliques of capitalists who run industry for greedy self-interest.

The Socialist Party is an organisation of convinced socialists who hold that socialism can come only through the conscious and determined action of the working-class movement in this and other countries. The working class in society holds a special position. It has no property. It is a propertyless class—dependent upon the class which owns property—the land, the factories, mines, communications, transport. But the land cannot give forth its fullness unless workers plough and sow and reap. The planet cannot deliver its mineral wealth unless workers dig it. Factories cannot work unless workers are employed to make them serve their purpose in the transformation of nature’s wealth into social wealth. It is this fact which compels the owners of the means of producing wealth to hire labour.  

Socialism is that form of society in which there is no such thing as a propertyless class, but in which the whole community collectively owns the means of production—the land, factories, and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. The basic principles of a socialist society are diametrically opposite to those of the capitalist society in which we live. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class.

We can easily understand, therefore, why the great majority of landlords, employers of labour, financiers and the like are opposed to socialism. Their very existence as the receivers of rent, interest and profit is at stake. They do not merely reject the theory of socialism, but actively and bitterly fight every movement which is in any way associated with the struggle for socialism.

TO ESTABLISH INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY – that is the aim of socialism. 

TO ESTABLISH SOCIAL DEMOCRACY - that is our aim.

Punishment Park (movie)

 

The answer is easy—end capitalism

 

Under capitalism human beings are expendable—profits and property is given priority. Working people are beginning to understand that the whole world is in turmoil and descending into barbarism. The power of the capitalist class depends upon how effective they are in convincing the working class that we have no power.  Without our consent capitalism cannot continue. They own the media that indoctrinates us with lies and myths. The capitalists will do anything and everything to camouflage the connection between capitalism and the enforced poverty of the masses through austerity measures. They convince us that we are powerless against them—not only to end their power over us—but to even aspire to build another world beyond capitalist exploitation.  Another type of society that ends poverty and injustice is attainable. The only way to stop the descent into chaos is for us to organise to end capitalism and build a socialist world. The only force that can take the employers’ despotic power from them and change the world for the better is a unified working class.

 

 This society can neither guarantee them a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. This society places a premium on wealth. People work out their lives for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. Under capitalism, a small minority rules in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs are secondary considerations.

 

Reforms are measures to alleviate the conditions of the masses but without eliminating the source of oppression, the capitalist system. Capitalism must continue on its profit-driven path. It cannot fulfil the needs of the majority of humanity—it never has. The vast majority of the Earth’s human population under capitalism has been impoverished for centuries. It is an economic system based upon the exploitation and oppression of working people. Capitalism has no other source of power other than the enslavement of the working class and the exploitation of our labour, which is how they maintain their power. It is the working class that has the power to change the world for the better because it is the working class that does all the work, building things we all need to live a fruitful and happy life with equality and justice for all. The Socialist Party seeks a world free of poverty, want and war. The capitalists are an obstacle to what is needed to build a healthy and prosperous future for all of us. Their sole concern is to increase their profits. That’s why the capitalist class as a whole can never be an ally of the working class. Individuals, of course, can come over to our side—and they do from time to time. But to be on our side, they must oppose capitalism and embrace socialism as the only way to rid the world of this vicious system.

 

Workers have much more in common with one another than our differences. We all want to live a decent life. We want to see a bright future for our children. We want good food, housing, education, and a clean environment that flourishes with life to safeguard the planet for all the species that share it with us.  This can only be done through revolution by the working class and the building of a new, socialist society. We must put aside our differences and embrace our commonality as our way out of the mess of capitalism has inflicted upon us.

Empathy (video)