Our Planet

 

The members of the Socialist Party are disbelievers in the private property and profit system. We advocate for a community for the common good, where nobody is the master, and all have an equal claim to the stock of social wealth they have collectively produced. 

If workers are drawn to ideas of common ownership they would do well to realise that there is a party which has stood uncompromisingly and unwaveringly for real common ownership and, more, real democratic control of the earth's natural and industrial resources – the Socialist Party. 

 They will find no aspiring leaders within the Socialist Party, slugging it out and making rash promises to the membership, only a membership of equals in which Party affairs are decided democratically by the membership.

It does not promote reforming capitalism or prostituting our principles on the high altar of opportunism as the Labour Party and the Left have been doing. We seek the abolition of capitalism and all it represents, replacing it with a system of society in which money has been abolished, class antagonism eradicated and in which each person has free access to the necessaries of life.

Any socialist will tell you of the insanity of modern production, of the great barrier to commonsensical productive methods and the use of natural resources in the service of humanity - namely profit - and of planned obsolescence and waste. One thing the establishment of world socialism will usher in is environmentally sustainable resources and eco-friendly productive processes and within a system in which the artificial barriers to production have been removed.

The root cause of the problems lies in the way society is organised – profits before people. Reformers always   talk about money – spend more, spend less, tax it, borrow it, lend it, find it – but they never talk about where it comes from. They never talk about the basic rules by which it is used.

They just assume that money is being made, and that they can adapt their policies to the rules of the money-making game. That is, they assume CAPITALISM.

And once you assume capitalism you end up defending it. You end up having to defend a society in which the majority of the population must sell their capacity to work to the tiny handful who own most of the wealth. You have to defend a society in which things can only happen if there is a profit to be made. In short, you are compelled to subscribe to the law of NO PROFIT, NO PRODUCTION.

And once you start defending capitalism you end up defending the capitalist class of your country against the capitalist class of others and their right to wage wars and use the workers as cannon fodder in the perennial conflict for profits.

And you end up defending the capitalist state and its coercive machinery, ready to rationalise the use of force and extra law and order measures to keep the workers in line.

In short, you are sucked into the sordid world of class treachery and that is exactly what it is; for Labour, Nationalist, and Conservative candidates all subscribe to the view that there can be no alternative system to capitalism and that we should just get on with accepting it and making the most of it and that if only they are elected they can make this outmoded, anarchic and exploitative system work better than their counterparts.

But they also know that local councils have budgets that must be adhered to, that contracts need to go out to compulsory competitive tendering where the cheapest work contract must be sought, and that if the council is feeling its finances under pressure workers must be made redundant, that community centres, school and old persons’ homes will be shut. In short, they all are aware of the golden rule of the system they aim to manage and which they want us to support via a vote for them – profit before people. The rule applies locally, nationally and internationally. It’s accompanied by another golden rule – can’t pay can’t have even if the corollary is homelessness, prison, starvation or even suicide.

In a world of potential abundance, a world in which we are so scientifically and technologically advanced as to be able to supply every human on the planet with a decent standard of living, the mainstream councillors ask us to vote for their system of rationing, artificial scarcity and uncertainty.

They ask us to vote for a system of class and privilege balanced in favour of those who have the most and control access to life's necessities. When you think about it, they’re asking quite a lot of us.

As socialists, we make no promises or suggest how local authority budgets are best juggled. Socialists are against the concept of leadership and we rather feel that there is nothing we can do for the exploited majority that they are not already more than capable of doing for themselves. And rather than managing budgets and attempting to make capitalism “work”, we’re into abolishing the money-profit-wages system. We’re after a world without buying and selling and exchange, in which production is not balanced beforehand against how much profit is likely to be made. We’re campaigning for a system of society in which we have free access to the benefits of civilisation. We give freely of our abilities and take freely from the stockpile of communal wealth according to our needs. We’re into establishing a system of society in which we each have a free and democratic say in all the decisions that affect us.

However, voting for socialism is a step in the right direction and at last, puts the ‘real issue’ on the political agenda. So, at the end of the day it is up to you, the elector, as a member of the waged and salaried class, the exploited class. It is up to you to decide whether you favour the present system or the rationally organised system we describe as socialism. It’s up to you to decide whether you wish to join with others in seizing control of your own destiny and to help fashion a world in your own interests, or forever delegate control of your life to the careerists in the mainstream parties who themselves will always be controlled by a higher force, the profit system. Only don’t take too long to think about it – in a world in which we face environmental catastrophe and global war that threatens every creature on the planet, the odds are increasingly stacked against the defenders of capitalism sorting out the myriad problems that threaten our existence.

In an age when we have the scientific and technological know-how to enable us to solve almost all our problems, it is indeed an indictment of capitalism that so many humans, living on a planet, seven-eighths of which is covered in water, have so little access to it. A sane, money-free society, in which the artificial constraints of profit have been removed from production, in which the satisfying of human needs is paramount, and in which people have free access to the benefits of civilisation. Needless to say, there is little criticism of capitalism or its insane production motives, nor a call for an end to a system that prioritises profit over human need. If you’re hungry in this world, it is because you lack the purchasing power to buy food. The golden law of capitalism as ever comes into play – “can’t pay, can’t have”. Poor people simply do not constitute a market; no profit can be had for them. It is far simpler and far more lucrative, to create an artificial shortage which maintains prices at a profitable level.  The acceptance of capitalism’s profit-orientated morality leads workers to the most extraordinary acts of self-damage. The establishment of socialism will see a new morality in the world, based on the assurance that wealth is to be produced for free human access and full human benefit. Socialism will be a society in which human interests take first place; only in an unavoidable extremity will anything be considered, let alone carried out, which would go against those interests. We can have that society now. 

The General (music)

 

Socialism - questions and answers

 

What is The Socialist Party?

It is a political party separate from all others. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a global system of society in which there will be common ownership and democratic control of the world's natural and industrial resources. We advocate a world social system in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation and an equal say in how their society is run; a world in which production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all.

What is Socialism?

To elaborate slightly on the above - Socialism is yet to exist. When it is established it must be on a global basis, as a real alternative to the present system. In a socialist society, there will be common ownership of the earth by its inhabitants and no minority will dictate to us that production must give priority to profit. There will be no owners. The people of the world will share the world. Production will be for use, not sale. The only questions we will need to ask about production are what do people need and can these needs be met. Science and technology will at last be used to their fullest potential and in the service of humanity. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their needs. There will be no buying or selling, as money will have been abolished and will not be necessary in a world of free access. Socialism will mean a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments, force or coercion.

How does this differ from Capitalism?

Capitalism is the social system that now exists in all the countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution are monopolised by a small, wealthy elite. All wealth is produced by us, the working class who sell our physical and mental abilities for a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold profitably. Not only do capitalists live off the profits they obtain by exploiting us, but they also reinvest their profits with a view to accumulating more wealth. Because of the logic of their system, if goods cannot be sold at a profit, they are either destroyed or not produced at all. Because of capitalist competition, wars break our fairly regularly, being fought over trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets and mineral resources - all sources of profit for capitalists.

So how will Socialism solve the problems of society?

Capitalism, with its endless drive to make profits, throws up an endless stream of problems. Many workers feel insecure about their future and work-related stress is on the increase. Crime, homelessness, poverty - these are all ongoing problems. A society based on production for use will end these problems because the priority of a socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. Abolishing the money system will mean food will not have to be destroyed it can't be sold. Wars will no longer be fought if there are no more borders or frontiers and the source of their cause has been removed. At present it is not 'economically viable' to solve many of the problems that plague us - it eats into profits. Socialism will mean nothing but the best for every human being.

Surely it is easier just to reform the present system?

No. As long as capitalism exists, profits will always take priority over our real needs. Some workers welcome reforms; some reforms have improved working-class conditions, but no reform can abolish that basic contradiction between profits and need. No matter how well-meaning the politicians, nor how colourful their promises are, they are bound to fail because they do not control the system - it controls them. The governments of the world may well introduce 1000 reforms, but we would still continue to live in a world ravaged by starvation, war, homelessness, unemployment, poverty and every other social ill. We would still live in a two class society, with our real needs subordinated to the wishes of a minority. Why campaign for crumbs when the whole bakery is there to be taken?

Is Nationalisation an alternative to capitalism?

No. Although the old Labour Party used to think so, and many leftists still do, there is nothing progressive in nationalisation. It simply means the workers are exploited by the state in the interests of capitalists. There were once many nationalised industries in Britain. This did not stop the government from closing them down and making hundreds of thousands of workers redundant when they ceased being profitable - and these nationalised industries supposedly 'belonged' to us.

What about kibbutzim?

Is this not akin to Socialism? Socialism can only exist, as capitalism does, on a global scale. It cannot be established in one country, let alone one farm. The kibbutzim do show that humans can live without money and work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so young people tend to leave them. In practice, they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and some have themselves become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

Have there ever been Socialist countries?

What about the former Soviet Union? No. Those countries which claimed they were socialist were in reality state capitalists. Power was monopolised by a privileged elite who became the new ruling and controlling class. Countries like Russia and China and Yugoslavia still had money and buying and selling. They still had wage slavery, exploitation and commodity production. They still traded with capitalist states and according to the dictates of international capital and were ever ready to go to war to defend their economic interests.

US Overseas Military Bases (video)

 

The Left-Wing

 

 If socialism means anything then it is the antithesis of capitalism. If capitalism means commodity production, production for profit, and wage slavery, then socialism as a competing political ideology must stand for something else. And it does. It is everything capitalism is not and everything every mainstream political party does not stand for. The Labour Party certainly has nothing to do with socialism. 

Socialism to us means a global system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources. It means a world in which each person has a free and equal say in how their society is run. It means a world without borders or frontiers, social class or leaders, states or governments, force or coercion. It means abolishing the money system, releasing production from the artificial constraints of profit and establishing a world of free access to the benefits of civilisation. It means a world in which people give freely to society whatever skills or abilities they have, for the betterment of society, and take in return whatever they need, according to their own self-defined needs, from the stockpile of communal wealth. And we keep referring to “a world” because socialism can only exist on a global scale, just as capitalism, does. It can’t exist in one country, in isolation.

Dozens of organisations claim the socialist title and spread all manner of reformist gobbledygook. They spread nothing but confusion and make the job of genuine socialists all that more difficult when it comes to untangling the mess of ideas they have created in people’s minds. And it’s at this stage you get to realise just what a Sisyphean task being a socialist really is.

The idea is that:

1) you urge the workers to support Labour;

2) The workers support Labour as asked;

3)  Labour gets into power, fucks up and can make no improvements to capitalism;

4) The workers then get disillusioned and turn away from support of Labour’s brand of capitalism and turn to the SWP

5)  Who also supports capitalism, albeit state capitalism in which the revolutionary hierarchy will manage the exploitation of the workers instead of private capitalists, shooting anyone who will not comply for being a counter-revolutionary.

And you wonder why we are over the use of the word ‘socialism’?

“Why don’t you socialists all get together and form one big Socialist Party?”

So we explain that there are not just little differences that separate, say, ourselves from the SWP, or the SPEW or the CPB or the RCP or the AWL and which stop us from joining forces, but an unbridgeable ocean. They defend capitalism and we support socialism. They all want to reform the system, to ameliorate the harsher effects of capitalism. We are alone in wanting to abolish it. It’s like asking why we don’t get together with the Conservative Party – we, after all, all breathe oxygen. And the poor woman will walk away totally bewildered; under her arm half a dozen newspapers from the various stalls she has visited and which you know she is just not going to read. This may lay us open to the charge of sectarianism. But the SPGB are the oldest existing socialist organisation in Britain. Most of the leftist groups out there are the result of a split from a split from a split, Johnny-come-lately. We have not compromised our position. Our standpoint is as it was in 1904 - the abolition of the wages system - whereas many leftist groups change their policies more times than they change their socks, as if the generals of capitalism are forever changing their battle plan prompting them to retreat, regroup and attack again in a different formation. In truth, capitalism has not changed – it is still the same social system it always was and to which the time-honoured Marxian critique still applies.

Being a socialist means you become a myth shatterer – because you spend the greatest portion of your activity shattering myths, dispelling illusions, and setting the record straight.

The Lorax (video)

 

Leaders? Not Here

 

Many workers think we cannot function without leaders. This is a fallacy and one perpetuated by the master class to help them maintain their rule over our lives. Indeed, so prevalent is this philosophy, that from the cradle to the grave we are taught to mistrust our own intelligence and to look up to our ‘betters and superiors’ (schools, church, politicians, parents etc) and to accept without question the plans they draw up for our future.

It is assumed leaders run the world. Well, we think it is we, the workers who run the world. Politicians might make government policy, which becomes law, but it is we who build and man the hospitals and schools. It is we who build the bridges, roads and railways, ports and airports, and all the products that humans need to survive. It is we who produce everything from a pin to an oil rig and provide humanity with all the services it needs – we the working class. We don’t depend on leaders for these skills or for their guidance. They have no monopoly on our knowledge and intelligence and the inventions we dream up but benefit from them the most. If all the world's leaders died tomorrow, few would really miss them and society would function as before. If all the bosses decided not to turn up at their factories, their businesses would still function because it is we who see to it that they function. Do you need a boss standing over you all day in the office or workplace, showing you how to work? Are you constantly in search of the guidance of a superior individual to tell you how to run your life?

The concept of leadership has emerged as a result of class society and will end when we abolish class society and abolish the capitalist mode of production and all that goes with it. The master class have been allowed to lead because of their control over the means of living, because of their control of the education system and their monopoly of the media and other information processes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The greatest weapons we possess are our class unity, our intelligence, and our ability to question the status quo and to imagine a world fashioned in our own interests. The master class perceives all of this to be a threat and so will do anything to keep us in a state of oblivion, dejection and dependency. Our apathy is the victory they celebrate each day. Our unwillingness to unite as a globally exploited majority and to confront them on the battlefield of ideas is the subject of their champagne toasts.

Only sheep need leaders, and if workers want to be sheep then they can expect to get fleeced. The truth is, we have been led for so long by idiots that we have forgotten our own collective strength and lost sight of just what we, as a species, working together, are capable of.

The WSM has never had leaders in its entire existence. If someone can lead you into socialism, there will always be someone who can lead you out again. Socialism must be the free and conscious decision of the majority, otherwise, it will never work. Our position is now as it was at our inception – there is nothing that we can do for the working class that it is not already capable of doing for itself. For Socialism to be a success, it must be established without leaders and followers. It must be established by ordinary people all over the world uniting and working together to establish a new system peacefully and democratically – a world in which the exploited at last regain control of their own destiny.

The Story of Harriet Tubman (movie)

 

Learning about the WSM

 

Many of you will know little about The World Socialist Movement (WSM) or our ideas. Certainly, many people have heard the word “socialist” and may mistakingly imagine it has something to do with the nationalised industries or with countries like China and the former Soviet Union. It is understandable that many people regard socialism as just another political cliché, once used by Labour politicians to win votes, but having very little meaning.

The WSM stands solely for socialism because we do not think that the present social system – capitalism – can ever be made to work in the interests of the majority of the people. This is not the fault of government policies, but the present social system in which they are operating. Capitalism always puts the needs of a minority who own and control the factories, farms, offices, mines, media, and the means of wealth production and distribution before the needs of ourselves, the working class.

It is a hard but undeniable fact that no political party – including ourselves – can legislate to humanise capitalism or make it run in the interest of the working class. That is why it is important that the working class stops giving its support to politicians who support the profit system. None of them can solve unemployment or crime or any of the other social problems we face today, despite their proclaimed recipes for success. None of them will prevent tens of millions from starving to death each year. None of them will provide decent housing for everyone. None of them will end the threat of human annihilation as a result of war, because militarism is inevitable within a system based upon the ferocious competition for resources, markets and trade. Why waste your time voting for parties that cannot make any of these urgently needed changes? Why go on in the hope that some miracle will happen and end the insanity of the profit system?

So what’s the alternative? We say that the resources of society must be taken into the hands of the whole community – and by that we do not mean the state, but all of us, organised together, consciously and democratically.

In a socialist society, we will produce for use, not profit. This means having food to feed the world’s population, not to dump in the sea if it cannot be sold profitably. Producing for use means ending the colossal waste of resources on armies, armaments, trade, banking and insurance and all the other social features which are only necessary within capitalism. By running society on the basis of common ownership, democratic control and production for use we can all have free access to all goods and services.

Two points should be clear to you by now. Firstly, this is no ordinary political argument. We have made you no false promises; we have not patronised you and neither do we beg for your support. Indeed we do not ask for your support unless you are convinced that the case for socialism is a rational one and in your interest. Socialism, if it is to be the democratic and sane society that we envisage it will be, can only be established when a majority of the people understand it and want it, so there is no point in seeking support on any other basis.

Secondly, you will have noticed that what we are advocating is different – it has never existed. The Tory have-beens have nothing new to offer. The local Labour Party, if re-elected, will continue its futile exercise of trying to manage a system based upon exploitation in the interest of the exploited. The Nationalists, if given half the chance, will pursue the vicious policy of dancing to the tune of profitability. At the same time, human needs are ignored, with just as much gusto as the other confusions.  Do you agree with the following statements:

· Capitalism puts profits for the few before the needs of the many.

· Labour governments, “Communist” states and proposals to reform the present system cannot establish socialism.

· Socialism is yet to exist.

· Socialism means a society of common ownership and democratic control, where production is solely for use.

· Socialism means a world without buying or selling, where people give freely of their abilities and take according to their needs.

· When a majority understand and wants socialism, the new system will be established.

American Imperialism (video)