It's My Union (music)

 As the government prepares legislation to curtail the power of trade unions to take industrial action, this song reminds us where our loyalties should lie. 

The Problem is Capitalism

 

The current industrial disputes will eventually come to an end . . . but the class struggle will go on. The Socialist Party believes in the urgent need for workers to join together, not simply for the defensive right of union recognition, but for the purpose of organising for social revolution—NOW. The need for class unity for socialism is the pressing task of the age. That, above all else, is our message to fellow workers. To abandon it would be to abandon our claim to be socialists. 

Under capitalism, everything is loaded against those who are forced to sell their labour-power. Marx argued the case for a future society without buying and selling, wage-labour or capital. That alone is the goal of the Socialist Party. We urge all fellow workers to involve themselves in the struggle for a world in which trade unions will be unnecessary because the buying and selling of useful things, including human energy, will be a thing of the past.

The problem is not the gig economy and zero-hours contracts ... it's wage slavery. Unions should fight for the best deal they can get. But let's not fool ourselves that the system of employment can ever be geared to our needs.

The problem is not austerity cuts... that’s just a turn of the screw. We have always been rationed by the size of our pay cheque and the poor have always been poor. It used to be Soup Kitchens; now it's Food Banks. Meanwhile the rich go on getting richer. We can't hope to end poverty and inequality until we get rid of the production of wealth for the exclusive profit of a few.

Capitalism is based on production being controlled by profit-seeking enterprises which, supported by governments, compete on the market to buy resources and sell products. This competitive pursuit of profits is the essence of capitalism. It’s what capitalism is all about and what prevents any effective action to deal with climate change.

Nobody can deny that global warming is taking place. Nor that, if it continues unchecked, it would have disastrous consequences – such as rising sea-levels and increased desertification – through its effects on the climates of the different parts of the world. There can only be an argument over what is causing it. Most scientists in the field take the view that it has mainly been caused by the increase in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere largely as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas.

If this is the case, then one part of any solution has to be to cut back on burning these fuels. But this is not happening. In fact, on a world scale, their use is increasing. This is because this is currently the cheapest way of generating the energy to drive industry – and the logic of capitalism compels the profit-seeking enterprises that control production to use the cheapest methods. If they don’t, their competitors will.

What is the solution? 

First, the competitive struggle for profits as the basis for production must be ended. This requires that the Earth’s natural and industrial resources become the common heritage of all humanity. On this basis, and on this basis alone, can an effective programme to deal with the problem be drawn up and implemented, because production would then be geared to serving human interests and no longer to make a profit for competing enterprises.

There will be those who say that we haven’t the time to wait for the coming into being of this, in their view, unlikely or long-distant solution, and that we must therefore do something now. In this age of apathy and cynicism when any large-scale change is dismissed, this may seem a plausible argument but it begs the question. It assumes that a solution can be implemented within capitalism. But if it can’t (as socialists maintain), then concentrating on something now rather than on changing the basis of society and production will be a waste of valuable time while the situation gets worse.

The Socialist Party want to abolish capitalism and replace private ownership by common ownership.

The Socialist Party want a world in which the privilege of a few to monopolise wealth can be replaced by the production of goods and services solely to satisfy human needs.

The Socialist Party wants a world in which “Community,” “Co-operation” and ”Peace” can become realities not hollow slogans.

Opposition to war demands opposition to capitalism.

Opposition to capitalism demands working for the re-organisation of human society—for socialism.

 We can make a democratic revolution – but only based on a real understanding of how capitalism works against our interests, and how reforms of capitalism will always be offered in order to distract us. You just cannot challenge capitalism and reform it at the same time.

Protest rallies may make us feel like we are 'doing something', but it’s an illusion. The real battle is over ideas: the ideas in the heads of those who do all the work but get little reward. That's why the rich and powerful spend so much time trying to suppress and ridicule any idea of an alternative

The world is rich enough. We can have a world where free access to wealth replaces the market where useful work is to be enjoyed rather than endured, and where no individual can monopolise access to wealth. Armed with knowledge, humanity can finally start to demand the possible.

A New Human Horizon

 

The market works. But just not for us. It works for the handful of people who own industry or land. Most of them are doing well and getting richer. For them, the present system works, through our hard work.

For us, the workers, it doesn’t. The real value of wages has shrunk. Housing is becoming more unaffordable for many, rents are rising and benefits are being cut. Unemployment is at staggering proportions, especially among young people.

The truth is being revealed across the world: that the system is run in the interests of those who own it. For governments, repaying debts to those who got wealthy from our work is more important than us receiving education or health care.

For us, the future won’t work so long as we depend on an economy based on the market with private or state ownership of the means of living.

In our workplaces we co-operate. We don’t charge our colleagues for our time: we work together. It’s just that we work together for our employers. If we owned the land and all the places of work ourselves, we could work together to make all the things we need, without buying and selling and without an employing class.

The alternative is voting for parties that support the market system: parties that inevitably have to accept the existence of poverty and unemployment.

While we build a movement to bring about a better future, it’s important that we use trade unions to defend ourselves and get the best deal we possibly can under the present system. We must ensure democratic control of trade unions, and not follow charlatans and adventurers to glorious defeat. We should rely on ourselves, not leaders.

If we want to transcend the defensive position forced upon us by the pressures of the profit system then a vision beyond capitalism has to be on the agenda.

That future we call socialism, a future where we would have common and democratic ownership of the resources of the world. A future that will work if the majority of us want it and are prepared to work for it using democratic struggle to create a world of common wealth.

The monster of war has raised its ugly head again, and once more the workers have been called upon to take up arms and risk their lives in their masters’ quarrels. The usual flimsy pretexts are broadcast.  The Western Powers claim to be concerned to defeat the pernicious intrigues of Russia.  It is an old oft-repeated story; littered with indecision, broken promises, duplicity and intrigues. So it will continue until those who do the work of the world realise that only when privilege in all forms, and class ownership of the means of living, have been abolished will it be possible for the people of the world to give in harmony.

The hypocritical blustering of the warmongers is matched by the feeble and contradictory protests of the alleged anti-war and peace committees. The rival slogans of “national sovereignty,” “international rights,” “restoring peace,” etc., only thinly disguised the sordid motives of the different ruling class groups. War is caused by commercial rivalries that are necessarily engendered by world capitalism. Each country builds up armed forces to maintain its position in the capitalist world, and no group which believes it has a vital interest at stake will be deterred from using its armed forces by United Nations resolutions. Capitalism is an exploiting system under which the workers—the mass of the population—produce the goods that are sold to provide the profit out of which the owners of the means of production and distribution accumulate their riches. Profit, the surplus left over after the expenses of production and distribution have been met, is the mainspring of the system. In order to obtain this profit goods have to be sold at home and abroad. This necessitates markets, trade routes and sources of supply. It is over these that capitalists quarrel and finally plunge into war. So it is today. All this points to the necessity of international working-class action to abolish the cause of war. Unfortunately, the workers are still at loggerheads internationally and are prey to all sorts of emotional upsurges that do not bring them any fundamental relief. They will only unite when they understand the cause of and remedy for war as well as for the other evils they suffer. Only when the workers do understand and unite against capitalism in all the countries of the world for the purpose of achieving socialism, the ownership in common of all that is in and on the earth will war vanish from the human horizon.

Let’s Face the Future

 “When once the thin end of the opportunist wedge has forced itself into the policy of the party, the thick end soon follow” -Wilhelm Liebknecht (No Compromise)

The working class have trodden many false paths and taken up many unsound ideas in the course of its history. When sections of organised workers engage in sound action by striking for improved wages or conditions, they receive almost unanimous condemnation from the media. This should indicate to them that such action is in their interest. Industrial action on its own is however very limited and has its best chance of success in a boom time when employers need us most. At best, a strike can win the day on a wage issue, but the capitalists still remain in their privileged position as owners of the means of production.

History has proved when organising for socialism, the offering of reforms on the party programme spells ruin. Thousands may flock to the party, but they are most interested in the reform of capitalism, not in its abolition, and these members swamp the socialist element. Socialists inside a reformist organisation cannot convert it and bring it onto the socialist path. The only logical thing they can do is to break with the reformists and organise the clear-cut programme of socialism. 

The working-class cannot hope for Socialism from trade unions, co-operatives or from reform movements.

Trade unions, Rosa Luxemburg, shows, are a part of capitalism itself. They are the workers’ weapons of defence against the capitalist class which aims at increasing its profits. They are useful in that they enable the workers to sell their labour-power under more favourable conditions than would otherwise be the case. However, they are not able to take the offensive against capitalism, to overthrow it, because they are badly handicapped.

Co-operatives are no more able than trade unions to end capitalism. As Rosa Luxemburg points out they can survive within the present system only if they become pure capitalist enterprises. They have to compete with capitalist firms, and to do so successfully they must adopt capitalist methods of production.

Any social reforms that are passed, therefore, will not be harmful to capitalism. Since the struggle for reforms cannot alter the slave position of the working class, it ends by bringing indifference and disillusionment to the workers who look to reforms for emancipation. 

The workers must aim at capturing political power. And they must make use of democracy to that end. The Socialist Party will not barter its support for any promise of reform. For, no matter whether these promises are made sincerely or not, we know that the immediate need of our class is emancipation, which can only be achieved through the establishment of socialism. Our interests are opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class without distinction; whether bankers or industrialists, landlords or commercial magnates, all participate in the fruits of our enslavement. All will unite, in the last resort, in defence of the system by which they live. For the party of the working class, one course alone is open, and that involves unceasing hostility to all parties, no matter what their plea, who lend their aid to the administration of the existing social order and thus contribute, consciously or otherwise, to its maintenance. Our object is its overthrow, and to us, political power is useless for any other purpose. 

The wage system takes away from the workers what they produce, and creates a situation in which money becomes the sole end of human endeavour. The worker is reduced to a creature who seeks a wage packet. Governments running a system concerned above all else to ensure that rent, interest and profit are secured for the capitalist minority are bound to anger and frustrate workers. After all, workers have no real material interest in capitalist prosperity; indeed, the capitalists' privilege is obtained at the expense of our relative poverty. There is a class division arising out of diametrically opposed material interests. Faced with a multitude of problems arising out of the system where production is for profit rather than need, workers become frustrated, angry and determined to do something to change things. Socialists depend on this active desire to change society: every worker who decides to do something to protest against the way things are — however misguided that action might be — is, at least, proof of the fact that workers are discontented and not brainwashed. After all, if workers were wholly contented and totally indoctrinated, there would not be any socialists.  However, wrong solutions to real frustration arising out of real problems will not change society. Socialist understanding starts off with the recognition of the problems and all the anger about them that reformists show. 

The Socialist Party stands in uncompromising opposition to reformism. We reject all attempts to make capitalism run efficiently from the working class's point of view. That does not mean that we have nothing in common with reformist workers — in fact, we have much to agree about. They want change and so do we; they envisage the possibility of eradicating unpleasant features of society which conservatives say are inevitable, and so do we; they are anxious to alert their fellow workers to particular problems and so are we. Where is the big difference, then? Socialists are aware that the changes which reformists want are futile for three reasons: firstly, they are usually directed to just one problem of capitalism, leaving all the others intact and, even in relation to these "single issues”, the reformists are often willing to compromise (abolish nuclear bombs but keep conventional ones, for example); secondly, the reformist is unaware of the fact that capitalism produces social problems as a matter of course, and that therefore it is as idealistic to seek to eradicate mass starvation without ending production for profit as it would be to abolish the spots without curing measles; thirdly, socialists want more than to make capitalism tolerable for the working class — we want to end capitalism and, in so doing, to abolish wage slavery as a permanent social condition for the vast majority of people.

We Want to Be Free in a Free World

 “They who would be free must themselves first strike the blow.” Frederick Douglas

We are not treated as human beings. We want to live. But not as slaves. We refuse to be slaves any longer.  The people themselves should have and should take the right to decide what they want to do. Our country is the planet. It is a vast, fertile, beautiful land abounding in natural resources. There is everything here to supply the wants of the people, to produce abundance and happiness for the people. We want to be equal to everybody else. Nothing more and nothing less. We want political equality, social equality and economic equality. The socialist fight is for a better world. We shall see the workers give up everything so that their families and children can be free. 

All politics is class politics. There is an unceasing war between labour and capital. The exploiters of labour are conscious of their class interests. They are united in the fight against the workers. And they have governmental power on their side.  This is well understood by the rich, and they determine their politics accordingly. It is not fully understood by the great mass of working people. Yet this conflict of capital and labour has been greatly intensified. It is in the interests of the ruling capitalists and their various agents and dupes to conceal this elementary fact of the realities of political life. It is the contrary purpose of the Socialist Party to strip the veil from politics and reveal its true class nature. We show the workers the true face of politics. The capitalists believe in class politics. They are only against class politics for the workers.  Capitalists aren’t against class parties at all. On the contrary, they have, as they have always had, their class parties, which they have consciously developed and maintained to serve their vested interests. Don’t depend on the lying promises of today’s capitalist politicians. The employing class, aided and abetted at every turn by the government at Washington, has been conducting a furious offensive against the workers. Their object is to beat down living standards, and- make the workers pay for the covid and Ukraine. They aim to break up the trade unions.

Today, the madmen who rule are preparing to use their power to plunge humanity into barbarism of endless wars in their insane drive to enslave the world.

Capitalism has kept the people on a merry-go-round of depression, war, inflation and again war. The workers are learning from their own experiences that the capitalist profit system  must be scrapped. But they are disoriented by the lying propaganda of the capitalists that the only alternative to capitalism is nationalisation. In order to keep the people from taking the true road to socialism, the falsehood is spread that it is socialism.

Join the Socialist Party to rid the planet of the plague of capitalism with its wars and recessions. For a socialist society of peace, freedom and plenty support the Socialist Party. We say directly that capitalism, which is the rule of a few people who own everything, is the source of all our fundamental problems. We fight against capitalism and for socialism 365 days a year – year in and year out. 

The Socialist  Party is unalterably opposed to nationalism. All of you who want peace, join with us. There is only one path to peace and that is to replace the capitalist system of war, poverty, and hunger with a socialist society of peace, plenty and freedom. Join with us to speed the day when peace and not the sword will rule the earth. We ask you to join with us in the struggle for a socialist society, in which at long last you will really find complete freedom from want and true freedom from fear. The peoples of all lands will join with us, to build the world on new foundations. A world in which the age-long dreams of poets and prophets will become a living reality.

The Socialist Catalyst

 We know that socialism is necessary to the emancipation of working people. Capitalism has reduced the workers to a condition of wage slavery. The capitalists get the profit, grow rich, live in mansions and penthouses, own yachts and private planes, choose judges, buy up the media and bribe polititians. To speak of democracy is a mockery. In every land capitalism rules. Freedom in socialism is the only thing worth striving for. To work for wages, no matter how high, or how short the work-day, is to acknowledge a master. Without socialist freedom civilisation will crumble and die. Socialists will work together to build a new world out of the rubble of the old. Poverty is civilisation’s greatest crime. And this crime cannot be atoned for by charity or philanthopy. It is not “charity” we want. It is justice

The capitalists claim to riches is fraud, hypocrisy, and false pretenses.  The capitalist’s income is simply pure robbery. Not a penny of it does he produce. It is all taken from those in whose sweat and suffer in the fields and factories. There is a cause for poverty, and that cause can be removed. As long as the few own the sources of wealth, the many will be condemned to work for them and the the few will accumulate up millions and billions more. Capitalism dooms the world to more inequality.  Religion and race, national independence and patriotism, are now, from the worker’s point of view, just so many ruling-class devices useful for the purpose, among others, of stirring up hatred when and where they may want it.   Socialism alone is worth struggling for. That is the message of the Socialist to all the working-class dupes of the closely-allied superstitions of religious, racial and patriotic rivalries.

Socialist ideas are developing and in due time the cooperative commonwealth will arise. Working people are mustering their mighty forces for political and economic change. Liberation from the chains of wage slavery is our aim. Organisation is the demand of the day. Working men and women, this is the day for you to realize that your interests are the same, that divided you are helpless.

United political action will place the working class in control of the State, and the abolition of capitalism will inevitably follow. In the socialist future workers will be their own masters and enjoy all the fruit of their toil. Resolve this day to  abolish the wage system. The Socialist Party is the party of the working class, the party that stands for economic equality and industrial freedom, the party of progress and civiliSation. This is the day to hold aloft its banner and proclaim its principles. The future is for socialism and humanity. when the exploitation of man by man ceases and society is organized upon enlightened mutual interests of all, democracy will dawn, war will cease, poverty will be in the past, and the dawn of a new civilisation will light the world.

Work is necessary, but it need not be a burden on our backs. We can organise it so that it it transformed into free cooperation. Automation can reshape workplaces and play a key role in ending the degradation of wage slavery and returning the dignity of work. Robots can replace drudgery. Technology can usher in a post-scarcity age of abundance.

We point out first that the working class are poor and a subject class because the capitalist class have political power and own and control the machinery of production and distribution. The cause of working class poverty is not the existence of certain defects in the political machinery by which capitalism is administered. Therefore, no political reform (proportional representation, for example),no social reform, and no accumulation of such reforms will remedy the problem. If the whole of the reforms advocated by all the reform parties, from Conservative to Communist, were put on the statute book, the working class would still be a subject class and still poor. Therefore, the Socialist Party advocates socialism, and seeks to organise the working class on a socialist basis.

We point out that the only method of achieving socialism is for a socialist working class to gain political control. Anyone who urges the working class to put political power into the hands of persons and parties seeking election on a non-socialist programme, and therefore unable, even if willing, to use their power for any other purpose than the administration of capitalism, is acting directly contrary to the interests of the working class. All the reform parties have in this way acted contrary to working class interests.

The development of capitalist industry constantly produces new social problems for the workers and aggravates old ones, and in the interests of the capitalists themselves these evils, which are merely the effects of capitalism, have to be palliated by various reform measures. The capitalists have to pass these reforms for two main reasons: loss of efficiency and loss of political support. If allowed to work unchecked, capitalism would produce such worsening in the conditions of the workers that they would, on the one hand, lose efficiency as profit-producers, and would perhaps, so the capitalist thinks, on the other hand, show their discontent with intolerable conditions by interesting themselves in socialism or by riot and revolt which, though suicidal for the workers, would be troublesome and costly for the employing class. Incidentally, common sense suggests that the development of a strong socialist movement would cause the capitalist to fall over each other in their anxiety to make concessions in order to persuade the workers that socialism is unnecessary and capitalism not so bad after all.

In short, the Socialist Party opposes the parties which preach reform because there is no way of achieving socialism except through the making of socialists and their organisation into a political party which will gain political power for the purpose ot introducing socialism.

Trade unions are chiefly concerned with the defence of the workers in their direct relations with the employers. They can, when market conditions are favourable, bring a certain organised pressure to bear on the employers to resist a decrease or secure an increase in wages. This is a definite, if limited, gain to the workers concerned.

Therefore, we support workers in their efforts in this direction, at the same time drawing their attention to the limits which capitalism imposes on all such activities.

 

 We point out in particular that every increase in wages or reduction in hours or curtailment of output gives the employers an added inducement to introduce more labour-saving machinery, thus in creasing the number of unemployed and the consequent competition for jobs.

We point out also that the workers should always keep the control of policy in their own hands and not give power to their leaders to negotiate in secret and settle on their own terms. But emphasising once more that no action of this kind, however well organised, can solve the real working class problem of abolishing capitalism, and, further, that the employing class always have it in their power to starve striking or locked-out workers into submission if they deem it worth while to do so..