ENOUGH! OUR PATIENCE HAS ENDED

 

‘Without struggle there is no progress; And those who profess to favour freedom, yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without digging up the ground. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.’ - Frederick Douglas

We need to talk more about socialism. True, the Socialist Party makes it very clear that socialism is what we’re fighting for but we don’t have a lot to say about what socialism will be like - how people will live and work. The current crisis is forcing people to question capitalism and consider alternatives, alternatives they used to dismiss when it seemed like capitalism seemed capable of putting food on their tables and a roof over their heads. People understandably worry that the cure might be as bad as the disease. In particular, many workers fear that socialism will end up being the same old same old: capitalism under new management, except with a red flag. Virtually no one in the world doubts that today’s times are desperate because of the current world economic crisis with its devastating effects on hundreds of millions of workers. The Socialist Party’s first task is to educate the working class concerning its relation to the profit system as a whole, to understand the real nature of things. Poverty and hunger in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production

Socialism means abolishing nations and nationalism. Nationalism is always a dead end for the working class. One working class, one world. Socialism means working collectively to build a society where sharing is based on need. Where we will abolish work for wages, money, and profit. Everyone will share society’s benefits and burdens. The Socialist Party wants a society where everybody can take part in the decisions that affect all of us, a society where the needs of all are met by all, and the development of each depends upon the development of all. Socialism is a society where people don’t rely on other people to make their decisions for them, but actually collectively participate in all of the important decisions that society needs to make.

Workers are being thrown on to the scrap-heap. More and more low-paid workers and their families are being forced into poverty and misery. Capitalism devours the people through unemployment, low wages, poverty, starvation and exceedingly low standard of living. Millions die a slow death in peacetime as a result of this system while millions die more quickly in wars by more direct means. Science is chained to the war machine, with the result that the most devastating Weapons of Mass Destruction are devised to slaughter human beings. The good that science can do to elevate the living standards of a whole world is subjected to the control of the profit-greedy capitalist classes of the great powers. Weapons of Mass Destruction are they are part of the arsenal of all countries. Such is the legacy of the profit system, and it will continue until it is ended by socialist revolution. One can see that there is no real hope for future prosperity and peace except through the abolition of capitalism. The sole hope for humanity, the hope of civilisation lies in the establishment of a socialist society of production for use, of genuine freedom and equality. Socialism alone can prevent the global slaughter. The task for our fellow-workers is to create something new. We have every reason for optimism that they will succeed. The ruling class genuinely fear a revolutionary upsurge will bring about real social and political change that would end the system of exploitation, poverty, and war for all time. Capitalism prevents us from obtaining food, water, shelter, clothing, and other needs unless we work for the capitalists and produce more than we are paid – with the excess taking the form of surplus value or profit. Capitalism turns the world’s working class into profit-producing commodities as appendages to capitalist machines. 

By withholding our access to the necessities of life, the capitalists force us to do their bidding. The world’s working class today is just as enslaved by capitalism’s withholding these necessities as if we were forced to live and work in collars and chains. Under chattel slavery, workers’ bodies and minds were consumed in back-breaking toil with death coming early. Under wage slavery, dehumanising exploitation grinds down our bodies. Will you give up now to continue to be slaves, or will you fight on to prevent it?

Why join the Socialist Party?

No worker should join the Socialist Party without carefully considering and understanding our case for socialism. When we say our party is “revolutionary” we mean, on the one hand, that its aim is revolutionary and on the other hand that we believe in the revolutionary method. We do not believe that the masses can be delivered from poverty, unemployment, degradation, war, by any reform of the capitalist system under which we live. That system must be abolished, wage slavery must be done away with altogether. The workers must own and control the machinery of production. We do not believe that the workers can cure their ills by reforming capitalism. Under capitalism the general trend is toward greater misery for the workers. Doubt and discredit are being thrown upon the entire socialist movement, confusing the workers with disillusionment and cynicism. Nobody outside an insane asylum any longer believes that the Left is going to put an end to the capitalist system and usher in the cooperative commonwealth. Nor can their platforms of “soak-the-rich” be considered radical. The fact of the matter is that the policies of taxing big incomes, big corporations and inheritance does not “soak” the rich at all and have long since had to accept as a price for keeping the capitalist system on its feet. The Left immediate demands are fake solution of capitalism’s problems. It is not necessary to dwell upon the conservatism which has now come to characterise the Left.

We, in the Socialist Party, however, defend the assertions of our Declaration of Principles as the basis of the liberation of our fellow-workers. We are nowhere infallible and we make no claim to finality but we do declare to be in possession of the clearest, straightest Marxian thinking. We of the Socialist Party thus claim to have some of the answers to the question of political and economic freedom in the modern world. We offer a sign-post on the road to genuine social democracy, a direction for our fellow-workers to take. In presenting this course we are championing the interests of humanity. Only the workers themselves, united and organised, will be able really to solve the problems which the present age creates and to free themselves from poverty and insecurity and the frustration of spirit to which they are subjected to.

Capitalists make their profits by paying the worker in wages a smaller value than he or she creates by labouring. The capitalist thus gets what Marx calls surplus value. It is the only way profit can be created. Under modern conditions, expensive plants and equipment are increased, but the work is done with fewer workers. Thus they must be exploited ever more fiercely in order that surplus value – profit – may be squeezed out of their labour, the only possible source of profit. The working class, however, has demonstrated a remarkable tenacity in clinging to their trade unions. Whatever may happen to this or that union or any number of unions, the workers do not wish to abandon the union movement but to broaden it, increase its militancy, etc. So long as capitalism endures, organisation of some kind on the job to deal with the boss is indispensable. Instinctively the masses fight to defend the unions, the right to strike, etc. Nevertheless, the trade union organization as such, while drawn into battles with their employers and government, are not the medium of revolutionary action. The unions are after all primarily economic rather than political.

Reformism and gradualism mean ruin for the workers’ movement. The idea of running a capitalist and a socialist, a profit and non-profit, system side-by-side is crazy. It is like trying to ride  two horses going in opposite directions. Why? Because capitalism must drive the standard of living lower all the time. If any trade union no matter how weak or meek they will offer resistance. The workers cannot save themselves or their movement by being humble and cautious. We cannot use the capitalist state to bring improvements. We can only begin to build a new society on new foundations. Workers cannot obtain plenty and security, deliverance from misery and war, by trying to reform the capitalist economic system. We have to abolish it. And we cannot abolish it except by a social revolution. Abundance and security can be had but first workers must become convinced that capitalism cannot be reformed and should be abolished.

The material and technological resources for such a society, unquestionably exist that everybody could have a comfortable and attractive home, abundant food, decent clothing, opportunity for recreation and education, security against accident, sickness, and old age; and the sense of independence and self-respect that goes with these things. What we actually have, however, is widespread poverty and mass unemployment. This appalling contrast between what might be and what is does not arise from the nature of the economic system – capitalism – under which we operate. It is impossible for this antiquated system of private ownership and profit to supply the needs of the population today. The system acts, obviously as a brake upon production so that, as the phrase goes, you have “want in the midst of plenty.” The removal of the brake of private ownership which shuts down factories, ploughs under crops and stultifies the scientist and technician, and putting in its place the social, that is, scientific, use of natural resources and the productive plant, will mean an immediate and substantial improvement in the standard of living of all. The spectre of insecurity will be removed. The despotic domination of the few over the many will be at an end. No one can predict the advances which may follow this release of the human spirit when liberty, equality, and fraternity are truly realised under the modern conditions.

Profits can be made only by fiercer exploitation, cutting down the living standards and taking away even such concessions as were previously made. Since capitalism must keep pushing the standard lower and lower, it must seek to destroy every means of resistance. To maintain their system, the capitalists will resort to patriotism and nationalism. The idea that it is “our” country – i.e. everybody’s alike, that there is such a thing as nation or community to which we all belong and which protects us, is cultivated by the ruling class for the purpose of hiding the fact of class cleavage and of exploitation for the purpose of making the worker think that he is working for “his” country rather than for the capitalists. We call upon the workers throughout the world to determine where their allegiance belongs, country or class.

This is your choice – capitalism and chaos or a world for the workers which means a higher civilization. There exists no more appropriate way to carry forward the revolution than mustering under the banner of the Socialist Party. Only if capitalism is destroyed can the creative energies of mankind be expressed. 

We need socialists

The working class must make its stand against the capitalist system – whose lust for profits and interest, for investments, markets and expanded capital, for raw materials and cheap exploitable labour, can mean only exploitation and abject wage-slavery. With socialism, there will be no wages at all. There will be no prices or market values. In socialism, men and women will receive a share of what has been produced by the common social labour. Goods are produced for the use and NOT for the profits which they bring to bosses. Labour power is no longer regarded as a commodity to be bought and sold. It is not purchased at all, let alone purchased at the lowest possible price to keep it alive and able to produce more value. Men and women, in socialism, will work and produce useful goods. But they will produce these for their mutual needs and for their mutual development. The sufficiency of goods which workers and machines can create will be given to everyone to develop their bodies so that their minds can grow rich in the wealth of human knowledge, aesthetic appreciation, and artistic creation.

Under capitalism, the worker, at the end of the week (or month), receives wages which simply go to refurbish him or her for another Monday. Saturday and Sunday are the days of rest (if you’re lucky and don’t have to work those days, too), when you try to feel as strong and able to work as you did the Monday before. And so it goes on for the worker under capitalism – a continuous cycle, a downward spiral (broken only by unemployment), with the worker never quite recovering strength from the week before, but always forced to go to work on Monday, anyway. Under capitalist economics, the workers are reduced to a “resource” and a “cost item” to be kept to the absolute minimum through speed-ups, wage-cuts and lay-offs. Under capitalism, workers have no control over what is produced and how. All that is decided by how much profit some capitalist will gain. As long as profit for the few is the basis of the capitalist economic system will continue to go from crisis to deeper crisis, with more misery for the masses of people. If any one thing stands out above all else, it is the fundamental anarchy of the capitalist system. It is just impossible to make the profit system work for the benefit of all. The purpose of production remains the same – how much is there in it for the owners of industry. The profit system has one unshakable purpose: PRIVATE GAIN.

Socialism will change all this. Socialism enables the people to decide how to organize itself and the resources of society to meet the needs of the people. Mankind, no longer fettered by the necessity of working not only for their own material maintenance but for the bosses’ even more material profits, will be freed to live more fully. The time that each must work will be small, yet the goods produced for all to enjoy will be plentiful. Freed from the capitalist system means being freed from wage labour, price, and profit. That is why, instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” workers must inscribe on their banner the REVOLUTIONARY watchword: “Abolition of the wage system!” Socialism is the ONLY answer. Capitalism has outlived its day and the world is ready for a new economic system. Capitalism brings nothing but enslavement for the overwhelming majority of the people. It brings wealth and power only to the employing class. What is required is the building of a movement of all the working people to fight for a new and better life against capitalism which guarantees only new wars, world poverty, mass unemployment and intense misery to billions of people.

Society can be changed, but only if working people abandon reforms and commit themselves to real change from below. The Socialist Party is the embryo of a mass movement which can transform society. We need you to join. 

We Choose Socialism

Capitalism might be defined as the institutionalisation of the profit-motive. Anti-capitalist radicals too often focus almost exclusively on the struggle between capital and labor, to the neglect of the very serious struggles among capitalists themselves. These latter struggles account for a lot of what happens under capitalism. If a capitalist enterprise doesn't make a profit, it disappears, vanishes, goes out of existence. It either goes bankrupt or else is gobbled up by a larger, more profitable company. From the point of view of the corporation, the need to turn a profit, and as big a profit as possible, is absolute. It is the first requirement for survival. Turning a profit means expanding, finding new markets, making new products. This is necessary because of the pressures of other corporations, all of which are trying to do the same thing. We are living through one of the most intense periods of the concentration of capital (mergers or the big fish gobbling up the little fish) in the history of capitalism. These mergers have been triggered by pressures on the rate of profit throughout the world. This tendency to merge is inherent to the system, stemming from the competition among firms to stay profitable (and therefore to stay in existence), and, needless to say, from pressures from below, from the working class, which also puts a squeeze on profits. So corporations get bigger and bigger. The idea that we can go backward, to a capitalism made up of millions of small-scale proprietors, is completely unrealistic. Yet this assumption underlies much of populist protest and agitation. These populists do not direct their anger against capitalism itself, but only against giant corporations. The idea that any of these firms could, if they were only so inclined (that is, if only they were run by nicer people), start behaving in more generous and responsible ways, is a total illusion. Those advocating for 'socially responsible corporations' are acting rather naively, even irresponsibly. The one hundred or so giant corporations that produce the bulk of the world's coal, oil, and natural gas, the burning of which is warming the earth, are not just thieves and murderers but are rapidly becoming guilty of genocide, ecocide, and possibly even planetcide. It is not just that these companies have been producing these products in response to demand. It is that they have conspired to create the demand in the first place, and then conspired further to keep the world dependent on fossil fuels. These are enormously rich and powerful corporations, which spend millions in propaganda and in lobbying legislators the world over, to defeat efforts to deal with the problem of global warming.

Capitalism is a system of theft, Marx proving that profit came from unpaid wages (surplus-value) rather than from the sale of the product. Under capitalism there is no such thing as a fair day's pay; it is structurally impossible; the system is inherently unfair, being based on the siphoning off, through force, of part of the wealth created by the direct producers. Since capitalism is inherently a system of theft, and since capitalists, as a class, do regularly and systematically resort to lying, brutality, torture, oppression, murder, and war to defend their scam, capitalists are not merely greedy, they are outright criminals. Many progressives seek reforms and legislation to make corporations socially responsible. It is assumed that corporations could, if only they weren't so greedy, be more generous and responsible. This assumption, however, misjudges the nature of the beast. Corporations, by their very nature, are inherently irresponsible. They could not survive, for example, if they had to absorb all the external costs of their operations. They could not possibly make a profit. Being able to externalize many of the costs of production is almost a definition of capitalism, as a system of competing, profit-based, corporations, supported by nation-states. Nor could they survive very long if they raised wages very much, or spent money on safety because other corporations wouldn't and would, therefore, drive them out of business. We need to keep this struggle among capitalists in mind when looking at sweatshops, unsafe mines, and toxic workplaces, and not limit our criticisms to the cruelty and greed of capitalists, but direct it to the system itself. Even when we do see the occasional business that 'does right by its employees', as they like to claim, with 'decent' wages, pension plans, profit-sharing, sick leave, good vacations, maternity leave, grievance procedures, eight hour days, and so forth, we have to remember that this is still based on wage-slavery, on the expropriation of wealth from the direct producers, and is thus an unjust set up. Furthermore, such beneficial policies came into being originally in the context of a strong labor movement, which raised the standards for all workers, even those in nonunion workplaces. Now that unions are practically gone, benefits like these have been disappearing rapidly. In short, the campaign for 'socially responsible corporations' is ridiculous, totally reformist, and completely unable to solve the social and ecological crises that are overwhelming humanity.

If we look at world history over the course of the past several centuries, it is hard to miss the fact that democracy has been advancing. The notion that people have the right to rule themselves is a near universal idea at present, and it shows no signs of weakening. Democracy has not only extended itself geographically, but it has deepened internally. This extension of democracy to the economic realm is far from complete. Democratic rights in the work-place have rarely been granted without a fight. Economic Democracy is essentially off-limits under capitalism. Yet, economic democracy is far better positioned than capitalism to avoid ecological crises. We can aim for healthy, equitable, sustainable development, not the mindless consumption that fails to make people happy. Economic democracy can be a “no-growth economy,” whereas capitalism cannot be. Actually, “no-growth” is a misnomer. Productivity increases under economic democracy can be translated into ending poverty for once and for all, after which growth will be mostly in free time, not consumption without having to worry about provoking a over-production recession. We shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite differently than the way the rich use it today and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs. What work there still remains to be done will be as widely shared as possible – three hour shifts, or a fifteen-hour week.

Most human communities throughout history have had to be in order to survive. They have had to provide a certain quantity of essential material things for themselves in order to live -- food, shelter, clothing, tools, and transportation. Needs are socially defined. An item which is considered unnecessary in one culture may be considered quite essential by the average person in another culture. Beyond bare necessities of nourishment and shelter from cold, human needs are almost completely culturally defined, and vary considerably, historically and across cultures. And why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't different peoples have different tastes and different ways of satisfying their needs? And why shouldn't our needs expand as we become richer? Why shouldn't we try to enrich our lives as much as we can?

However, we suffer 'culture of consumerism' a product of capitalism itself. Under the incessant drive to sell, sell, sell, corporations strive mightily to create needs and bring into being a demand for their products and services. Advertising is an enormous industry, incessantly pressuring us to buy. Many other social pressures also get us to buy commodities, such as status through conspicuous consumption. The average person is a victim of this consumerism run amok, not its cause. This might be called a false materialism, or a materialism that has run amok. We call it call 'commodification' or 'commercialism', or. We shop until we drop and they profit. It is capitalism which has promoted a whole set of irrational priorities. Some capitalists value profit more than life itself such as the tobacco industry. It's the profit-making system of capitalism functioning at its normal best. The normal way is profit-making, by exploiting wage-slaves and defending all the institutions needed to perpetuate this exploitation, through murder and war if need be. It is this system of exploitation that has to be undone.

Many of these needs we have might not be considered necessary in another society, but are essential in this one. We are locked into them. We have to have a car, for example, to commute to work and drive to a supermarket miles away (in the absence of work closer to home, public transportation, or corner grocery stores). We need our own home, in the absence of communal or cooperative housing. We need a refrigerator since much of the available food needs to be kept cold. We need machines to wash our clothes. We need to cook our food on. And so forth. Capitalism has rebuilt in a very haphazard and irrational way almost the entire human material world, and in the process has locked us into a multitude of needs which cannot be abolished just by wishing. We will have to change practically the entire social fabric and then re-define and rebuild what it means to live really well and enjoy a high-quality life. We have umpteen urgent material needs that are not being met -- the simple need for food, clothing, and shelter (for billions of people), the need for nutritious food (for most of us in the developed countries), the need for clean air and water, the need for an unpolluted environment, the need for meaningful work, the need for neighbors, the need for safe and nontoxic workplaces, the need for time to play the need for parks and green spaces. The list of our unmet material needs is long.

Capitalists have not only erected the social institutions they need, but have brought into being an entire cultural apparatus to support their practices, and even worse, have shaped our very personalities and character structures to fit the prerequisites of a profit driven system. The disappearance of all other values, leaving just commercial ones, is thus a result, not a cause. The privilege of the profit-makers is inherent to the system and deeply embedded.  Private ownership of the means of production and distribution has to be abolished, as well as classes, and the state itself, and all of these replaced with cooperative, democratic social forms.

Adapted from here

A Better Tomorrow

 We all aspire to freedom. Deep down in the source of our being, we all want to live free in a society where we can thrive, where we can work passionately at something to improve the human condition, and at the same time be able to take care of our children, give them a solid education, have quality medical care and keep a roof over their head in a healthy environment. That’s what we want from life. And with modern technology that is now something we can all truly achieve. Sustainable prosperity for all is within reach. Social evolution is a process of the transformation of humankind toward a just, and future, and is happening. It is time to move to a post-growth society, where working life, the natural environment, our communities, and families, are no longer sacrificed for the sake of capital accumulation and market growth.  Socialists envision a more decentralised human-scale economy and a more egalitarian organisation of society taking shape upon the removal of exploitation and cancerous capitalism.

It’s easy to play on people’s fears and prejudices and to point fingers at certain groups. In the past, it has been ‘the Jews’, ‘the Irish’, ‘the blacks’, ‘the Poles’ or some other easily identifiable target that was blamed for society’s ills. Capitalism, though, thrives on poverty. It’s integral to the system. The increasing concentration of power, ownership and wealth and the mounting impoverishment of the masses is one of capitalism’s greatest contradictions. It’s not some kind of conspiracy to keep the masses in poverty or in fear of falling into it.  It’s built into capitalism. In capitalism, the compulsion to compete, dominate and pursue profit casts long shadows over virtually every social and cultural institution. It can be easy for conspiracy theories to overlook the pervasive unintended consequences of political and social action and assume that all consequences must have been intended. Unpredictability abounds within the capitalist structures. A nefarious power, inimical to human well-being, manipulates the course of human events from behind the scenes, seeking the total control of every human being. Rather than an evil Illuminati, could that power be the profit motive? Our current system of power and domination is built on manipulation and deceit.

A socialist society would eliminate work deemed difficult, dangerous, or tedious through automation or simply through the sacrifice of unnecessary goods (of which there are plenty in capitalism). In addition, work would not be coerced and the jobs which were only necessary to maintain capitalist functionality would be eliminated (banking, investment, accounting, etc.; not to mention the standing army). The amount of work necessary to keep society functioning would be reduced drastically due to the resultant expansion of the labor force and the abandonment of the profit motive. After the dissolution of capitalist production for profit rational production for human need would be instituted and environmentally destructive technologies, that continue to exist merely because they are profitable and heavily invested in, would be abandoned in favor of safer, sustainable technologies. Liberty can only be achieved when all people are free to realize the life they want to live, free from coercion and privation; a society in which one is forced to sell themselves as a commodity, as is the case under capitalism, is a society which is antithetical to the concept of liberty. It is a society where we’re in control of our lives. The system depends on willing acquiescence and obedience by the majority of its subjects. That there are winners and losers in society isn’t primarily a matter of luck or skill. It’s a consequence of market exchange a reflection of how the ruling class captures the state machine, using it to gain more power and more wealth. Opposing this class thus means opposing the state. Socialists say that decision-making should be decentralised and people should be able to participate to the maximum feasible degree in shaping decisions that affect their lives. Top-down, forcible decision-making is likely to be marred by the fallibility of decision-makers. Hierarchical workplaces are disempowering and stultifying and limit the ability of workers to use their knowledge and skills to respond flexibly and efficiently to production and distribution challenges and to meet consumer needs. Socialists are committed to a model of social life rooted in voluntary cooperation and associations of all kinds structured in all ways.

World Socialist Revolution

In order to maintain their rule, the capitalist class must exploit national, ethnic and racial divisions. The ruling class continues to impoverish the world’s masses, engage in constant war and re-division of the world markets in order to prop up profits. A victory for the socialist movement on a world scale would place unimagined material abundance at the service of human needs, lay the basis for the elimination of classes and the eradication of social inequality based on sex and the very abolition of the social significance of race, nation, and ethnicity. For the first time, mankind will grasp the reins of history and control its own creation, society, resulting in an undreamed-of emancipation of human potential, and a monumental forward surge of civilisation. Only then will it be possible to realise the free development of each individual as the condition for the free development of all. The success or failure of the working class to achieve victory depends upon the education and awareness of working people. Through its acquisition of political consciousness, the working class ceases to be merely a class in itself and becomes a class for itself, conscious of its historic task to capture the state machine and reorganise society.

The two basic classes in our society, the workers, and the capitalists are locked in a bitter conflict. The working class has always fought against the capitalists. A handful of capitalists control our planet and make fabulous profits off the sweat and toil of working people. All the major means of production - the factories, the mines,communications and transportation – are concentrated in the hands of a few thousand capitalists who employ millions of workers. For the workers, the exploitation and oppression gets worse every year. All this misery is created so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can continue to fill their pockets. Every bit of capitalists’ vast possessions was stolen from the people. It’s the capitalists that get rich by appropriating the fruits of our labour. At the end of a work-week, the worker collects his pay. The capitalists claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, a worker gets paid for only a small part of the value he produced. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the boss’s pocket. The bosses get rich, not because they have “taken risks” or “worked harder,” as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and reduce the number of employees with speed-ups, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. And if the boss thinks he can make more profit somewhere else, he just closes his factory and throws the workers out on the street. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. Capitalism is a system based on exploitation. A handful of parasites live off the backs of the workers. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight to end it!

The World is rich in natural resources. It is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. How is it possible to have scarcity so abundant in resources, manpower and technology? Yet poverty and hunger are an integral part of capitalism. They are rooted in the capitalist class’s insatiable thirst for profits. There can never be class peace between exploiter and exploited, between boss and worker. The working class cannot eliminate exploitation and poverty unless it overthrows the capitalist system. It must wipe away the nightmare of capitalism. After we have overthrown the capitalists we will establish socialism. Socialism will mean the rule of the working class. It will put an end to the exploitation of man by man. It will bring freedom to all those oppressed by capital and open up a new period of history for working people. With socialism, the workers will administer the vast riches of our planet, its lands, forests, mineral resources, lakes and rivers as well as the means of production, for the common benefit of all. There will be an end to all exploitation. The wealth will be the property of the people and not of individual capitalists or even the state. Planning will guarantee the well-being of all the people and guide the process of socialist economic construction. Through planning, we shall build up and modernize the factories and other productive facilities and eliminate backward and backbreaking labor. We will construct new houses and medical, cultural and sports facilities for the working people. The quality of everyday life will improve vastly. Gone will be the anarchy of capitalist production. Gone, too, its resultant economic crises which today bring so much misery to workers. The workers will distribute the resources of society according to the needs of the people, not to satisfy a few capitalists’ hunger for profits as is the case today. The enormous waste of capitalism will be abolished. We will eliminate the terrible waste of human resources as is the case today with millions of unemployed. It will be impossible for idle parasites to live off the backs of the workers as the capitalists do today. Working people will participate in all aspects of society.

Socialism is the future of humanity, a radically new society where classes and the state will have been completely eliminated. Humanity has not always been divided into classes. In the primitive communal societies, all the members cooperated together to assure their survival. The state is simply an instrument by which one class dominates another. It became a necessity when society split into classes. Just as the ancient slave state served the slave owners to suppress the countless slave rebellions, so too the modern capitalist state is a tool of the bourgeoisie to maintain its dictatorship over the working class. Throughout history, there have been many revolutions where the oppressed classes have broken the fetters that bound them and overthrown the reactionary decadent ruling classes. However, in previous revolutions, the new ruling class which rode to power on the backs of the masses eventually substituted itself for the old exploiters, and in turn had to be overthrown. In this way the bourgeoisie who fought along with the workers and peasants to overthrow feudalism set up its own exploitative system – capitalism. But now the development of society has created a class more revolutionary than any yet known in history – the modern working class. It has provided us with the opportunity for a revolution that will not just replace one exploiting class with another but will open the way to the final abolition of all classes and an end to all oppression and exploitation.

Free our minds. Now is our time.

We must learn to think in new ways. We must dream in new ways and hope in new ways. We must envision a new way of living our lives. Every day more and more people are becoming more and more aware of the forces that limit human potential. Becoming a socialist is a consciousness-expanding process. We all aspire to freedom. We all want to live free in a society where we can thrive, where we can work at something to improve the human condition and be able to take care of our children, give them an education, have quality medical care and keep a roof over their head in a healthy environment. That’s what we want from life. And with modern technology that is now something we can all truly achieve. Sustainable prosperity for all is within our reach. We are a political party with determination, and consciousness to fight for true freedom and justice for all, regardless of one’s gender or nationality. Our struggle is not local, regional, or even national. It is universal. Because exploitations are universal.

Our ecological systems are ravaged for the profits of an elite who’ll do anything to keep their profits rising. The rich continue to loot the natural riches of the entire world, everything that gives us life like water, land, forests, mountains, rivers, air; and everything that is below the ground: gold, oil, uranium and other minerals. They don’t consider the land as a source of life, but as a business where they can turn everything into a commodity, and commodities they turn into money, and in doing this they will destroy us completely. It doesn’t matter what colour they paint it, what ideological garb they clothe it in, what name they give it, what religion they dress it up as, what flag they raise; it is the capitalist system. It is the exploitation of humanity and the world we inhabit. It is the system that persecutes, steals and murders.

Corporations consciously produce stuff be deliberately outdated, to break, or to go out of fashion just bringing new products to the market for fast profits. They advertise and sell consumerism. The question of what gain will we get from this? What is clear is that a small minority are willing to lie, cheat, manipulate all others for power and riches. Changing leaders change little, others take their place and nothing really changes. Basically, it is the same old same with more empty words. In government offices and corporation board rooms are people who are self-serving psychopaths who deny that the system is broken or they admit the system is broken, but claim it has nothing to do with them. We live in radical times and our answer must be to move together. We must aim to reclaim the world in its entirety. In all of the corners of the planet, there are people who suffer and people who resist. That is why we understood that it was necessary to build our life ourselves. Where others hope that those above will solve the problems of those below, socialists build our freedom from below.

We do not sit and wait for the understanding of those who don’t even understand that they don’t understand. We do not sit and wait for the ruling class to repudiate their plundering and looting and become repentant. We do not sit and wait for a useless list of pledges and promises that will be discarded and forgotten after they are made. The offer us recipes, as one more commodity, to resolve problems, but they aren’t. Saviours vow to deliver to our liberation. But it is our own path that we ourselves make which is our teacher. We will do what we must do ourselves. Too many of us believe that democracy is an easy thing, not requiring too much effort. It is just raising one’s hand, marking an X on a ballot, filling out a membership form of a political party, shouting its slogans and cheering its leader, simply voting one party out and another in. We have learned that there is only one possible way of organising for real change and it is with a collective voice doing own thinking and action, directing our own destiny. Absolutely no one else is going to come and save us, help us, resolve our problems, relieve our pain, or bring us the justice that we need and deserve.

 We have to organise ourselves, prepare ourselves to struggle to change this life, to create another way of living, another way to democratically conduct ourselves as people. If we don’t get organised, we will always be enslaved. There is no hope in capitalism. We have lived with this system for hundreds of years, and we have suffered dispossession, exploitation and repression. No-body is safe from the capitalist hydra that will destroy our lives. As workers, we struggle to survive the hardships of daily life, caught in the clutches of the bosses.

 It is now time we all have trust in each other, in ourselves. And we know how to create a new society, a new system of politics and economics to give us the life that we want. There is no salvation within capitalism. No one will lead us; we must all be leaders, thinking together about how we will resolve each situation. We have already seen how our “betters” lead under the capitalist system; it didn’t work for us, the poor, at all. It worked for them, the employing owning class, not us. They told everyone to “vote for me and I will put an end to exploitation,” but as soon as they take office they automatically forget everything they said and begin to create more exploitation. That is why we must organise ourselves better. We have no other possible path but to unite ourselves and organise ourselves to struggle and defend ourselves from the effects and threats of the capitalist system. Capitalism threatens all of humanity. Our weapons of struggle and resistance are our words, which no border can block. The socialist message will reach the ears and hearts of brothers and sisters all over the world. Every day more people around the world will come to understand our cause and our struggle against the capitalist system. We must not forget that we are the heirs of years and decades of class struggle and workers’ resistance. Their blood runs through our veins. But it is not enough to just remember. We must continue the work that they left us and create the change that we want.

Achieve our potential

The Power of the Workers

Most people who agree with the likes of Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders believe it is possible for both capitalists and the working class to coexist in a system where capitalists can still make lots of money, but where workers are afforded security and a decent standard of living. Socialists who are Marxists espouse a theory that poverty, unemployment, and class oppression are not side effects of capitalism but a vital part of it. Socialists hold that the idea that capitalists and workers can work together for the common good is simply not possible for their interests are irreconcilable. Often dismissed as a dirty word, the influence of socialism and socialists ebbs and flows. Capitalism has cloaked itself in a libertarian guise by proclaiming that the freedom of the market and the individual as the only realistic ways to achieve liberty. But this cloak is very quickly shed for most people as their labour power is reduced to a commodity to be bought and sold, and subject to the profit-seeking whims of a boss. From its early days, capitalism’s claim to represent the only realistic human freedom has been challenged by socialists. To suggest that power is not concentrated in one class is to completely misunderstand the nature of capitalism. Today, wealth and power is concentrated in even fewer hands – the owners of the major banks and corporations –more than when Marx was writing. To say that social relations in modern society are capitalist relations is not to take an ‘economic determinist’ view of society: arguing that every aspect of the ‘superstructure’ of society – the state, politics, culture, social attitudes and so on – are rigidly determined by the character of the economy.

Nonetheless, it is clear that as long as we live in a capitalist society, where wealth and power rest with the tiny elite who own and control industry, science, and technology, then the superstructure of that society will also ultimately reflect and act in the interests of that ruling elite. No amount of demands for checks on their privilege will eliminate the social power of the capitalist class. A determined struggle can force capitalism to adapt to a certain extent but any permanent and deep-rooted change, particularly where it threatens the functioning of capitalism, will only be achieved by the socialist transformation of society. Pointing out the need for fundamental change in society does not in any way downgrade the importance of a combative workers’ movement while we live in this society. But it is utopian to try and create cooperatives and so on when we all live within the constraints of the capitalist system and are all affected by it. Turning inwards rather than turning out to build a movement capable of winning real change is doomed to frustration and failure.

Capitalism shapes the outlook of all of us from the time we are born, with all of the distortions of the human personality that creates. It is not possible to prescribe exactly how human relations would flower in the future when freed from the rigid straitjackets imposed by capitalism. The crucial issue for anyone determined to end oppression, therefore, is how to end capitalism and begin to build a world that is free of oppression for all. The working class is not ‘disappearing’. In fact, it is potentially stronger today as countries where workers were a tiny minority of society a century ago now have large and powerful working classes. In the economically advanced countries many are driven into low paid, temporary work, often in the service sector, while at the same time, large sections of the population –the so-called professionals – who would have previously considered themselves middle class have been forced into the ranks of the working class in their living conditions and social outlook.

Socialism is the struggle for the fullest achievement of freedom in all spheres, the end of the state, of capitalism, of classes, and of all other oppressions. People sit around and complain about the fat cat corporations, but fear acknowledging that we must end the entire capitalist edifice. 

The Wages System

Every once in a while you may hear the demand for a fair wage for a fair day’s work. Can a worker receive the full equivalent of the work he performs in a capitalist society? The answer is no; it is entirely impossible as it would leave no surplus value and thus no profits for the capitalist class, and thus render their existence impossible. It would become obvious that they are superfluous parasites, feeding off of the blood and sweat of the working people and living on the unpaid labor of others. The wealth of a selected minority is based on the exploitation of the majority’s hard work. To expect fair wages under this system is like expecting the abolition of slavery in a slaveholder society. In capitalism, workers must ultimately face exploitation if this system of profit and the reaping of surplus value is to be maintained.

People who praise the great “free market” would say that wages and working conditions are fixed by competition between the buyers, the capitalists. Supposedly, capitalists are all competing for workers, so that competition inevitably leads to fair wages and working conditions. After all, the seller—the worker—theoretically has several options of employers to choose from. If a buyer doesn’t offer a price that a worker thinks is fair for her labor, then she can look for another job that pays better. By agreeing to the prevailing wage, so goes this line of argument, workers have essentially made the statement: “We think this is fair.”

One problem with this “logic” is that workers and bosses do not start on equal terms when they are buying and selling. For most of us, if we don’t have a job, we can’t pay our bills, feed ourselves and our families, or heat our homes. Having employment is a life or death issue. It may not be life or death in the short term, but eventually if you can’t find a job or someone with a job who will help you out financially, you will not be able to buy the things you need to live, let alone the things you need in order to be happy and fulfilled. It’s a very different story for the owners of the companies we work for. They have money in the bank, and if they don’t get employees tomorrow or even this month, they might be severely inconvenienced. Although their companies might take a hit in profits, they won’t risk anything like the consequences workers do. Their worst case scenario is far better than ours, so the free market lover’s idea of an “even playing field” is, in reality, a sick joke.

Today, there is a massive pool of unemployed workers and the capitalists, as a class, use unemployed working-class people against the rest of the class. If business is good and jobs appear, then unemployed people are immediately ready to take those jobs. Until every single one of those unemployed workers has found a job, capitalists will use desperate job seekers to keep wages down. The mere existence of this pool of unemployed workers strengthens the power of the bosses in their struggle with workers. Anyone who has ever heard a boss say, “If you don’t like it here, there are 10 other people I could hire to do your job,” will know how this plays out in terms of respect on the job. In the foot race against the capitalist class, the working class has to drag an anvil chained to its ankle—but that is “fair” according to a free market economist.

Now let’s take a look at how bosses pay their workers. Where does a capitalist get the money to pay our very “fair” wages? He pays them from his capital, his stored up funds from all the business he’s done, from all the goods or services his company has sold. Where did those goods and services come from in the first place? They came from the workers. The employees are the ones who worked to create those products or services that were then sold to consumers. The boss doesn’t do any work—he might oversee some of the workings of the company, but for the most part he sits on his ass watching as the work takes place. So we can say clearly the workers created the value that built the fund that they get paid from—a worker’s wage is paid from the product of her own work. Now, according to common fairness, you should get out what you put in, your wage should be equal to the value that you have created for the company through your work—but that would not be fair according to the values of a capitalist economy. On the contrary, the wealth you have created goes to the boss, and you get out of it no more than the bare necessities of life—a wage as low as the boss can get away with paying. So the end result of this supposedly “fair” race is that the product of the working class’s labor gets accumulated in the hands of those that do not work, and in their hands, it becomes the most powerful means to enslave the very people who produced it.

This isn’t the worst part of it. Bosses lay off workers when they develop new technology to replace employees and they lay people off when their profits plunge, as is the case in the current recession. As a result, workers lose their jobs way faster than they can be absorbed into other jobs. Today, there is a massive pool of unemployed workers and the capitalists, as a class, use unemployed working-class people against the rest of the class. If business is bad and there are few jobs for those of us who find ourselves out of work, some of us can collect a meager amount of unemployment money, while some turn to stealing and some lose their homes and are forced to beg for money on the street. If business is good and jobs appear, then unemployed people are immediately ready to take those jobs. Until every single one of those unemployed workers has found a job, capitalists will use desperate job seekers to keep wages down. The mere existence of this pool of unemployed workers strengthens the power of the bosses in their struggle with workers. Anyone who has ever heard a boss say, “If you don’t like it here, there are 10 other people I could hire to do your job,” will know how this plays out in terms of respect on the job. In the foot race against the capitalist class, the working class has to drag an anvil chained to its ankle—but that is “fair” according to a free market economist.

Now let’s take a look at how bosses pay their workers. Where does a capitalist get the money to pay our very “fair” wages? He pays them from his capital, his stored up funds from all the business he’s done, from all the goods or services his company has sold. Where did those goods and services come from in the first place? They came from the workers. The employees are the ones who worked to create those products or services that were then sold to consumers. The boss doesn’t do any work—he might oversee some of the workings of the company, but for the most part, he sits on his ass watching as the work takes place. So we can say clearly the workers created the value that built the fund that they get paid from—a worker’s wage is paid from the product of her own work. Now, according to common fairness, you should get out what you put in, your wage should be equal to the value that you have created for the company through your work—but that would not be fair according to the values of a capitalist economy. On the contrary, the wealth you have created goes to the boss, and you get out of it no more than the bare necessities of life—a wage as low as the boss can get away with paying. So the end result of this supposedly “fair” race is that the product of the working class’s labour gets accumulated in the hands of those that do not work, and in their hands, it becomes the most powerful means to enslave the very people who produced it.

“A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work”. The “fairness” of the market is all on one side—the side of the capitalist class. So let‘s bury that old motto forever and replace it with a better one: “Abolish the wage system!”

Nevertheless, without rebirth, without a stronger labour movement, there will be little hope for socialism.

Adapted from here, an IWW article

Beyond Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that, inherently, benefits a select few while everyone else struggles to make ends meet or survive. Capitalism rewards capital … not effort (work). Capitalism not only survives, but thrives on the exploitation of human labor and talent, and the limited natural resources of Earth. The primary objectives under capitalism are the never-ending growth of profit and increasing the accumulation of capital assets … money and otherwise. Basically, there are two ways a capitalist can increase profits: sell more, make more or reduce costs (expenses). The problem with selling more and making more is that both require additional spending, an expense. Reducing costs (expenses) has a better short-term chance of improving bottom-line performance. Every dollar spent on an expense is a dollar that isn't available in profit. Historically, reducing the expense item that results in the most and immediate profit is suppressing/reducing worker (employee) wages. In other words, the ruling class capitalist believes that every dollar paid to workers (employees) that is over and above what is absolutely necessary or required is a dollar lost. Under capitalism, there is absolutely no reason for an employer to pay a single penny more than what is needed to keep the worker (employee) coming back to work day after day. Capital doesn't produce any products or provide any services … the working class does. Yet, it is the capitalist class that reaps the profits generated by the working class. There is no economic justice or equality under capitalism … only tyranny and wage slavery. Capitalism is inefficient and will most certainly destroy the planet left to its own cancerous devices.

Anything that can be used to generate "surplus value" (also known as profit), income or wealth is considered private property. Private property is what anarchists want to eliminate because it is used for exploitation and control over others. Personal property (possessions) includes the house you own and are living in, your cars and all of your personal belongings.   These items are considered your possessions and are not subject to common/collective ownership. Land and, buildings, machinery or any capital asset that is currently used to generate profit or an income will be commonly owned by the people.  "The Commons" such as utilities, communications, roads, bridges, parks and other similar items available for use by all people will also be commonly owned. The workers and/or the community will collectively own and manage the workplaces as well as the distribution of their products and/or services.  Production (the combined effort and labor of goods produced and services provided) will be for the use and benefit of all people and will be readily available based on the needs of the individual or family.

We see the state as the means (tool) by which the ruling class rules. We believe that we have the ability to live collectively, productively, cooperatively and peaceably based on our common interests that are inherent to mankind. We don't need to be ruled or dominated. Collectively, we have enough intelligence and common sense (based on our experiences) to determine what is right and what is wrong in our relationships with others. The main function of the state is to guarantee the existing social relationships and their sources within a given society through centralised power and a monopoly of violence. The state, therefore, is the political expression of the economic structure of society and, therefore, the representative of the people who own or control the wealth of the community. The state ensures the exploitative privileges of its ruling elite by protecting certain economic monopolies from which its members derive their wealth. The nature of these economic privileges varies over time. Under the current system, this means defending capitalist property rights. This service is referred to as “protecting private property” and is said to be one of the two main functions of the state, the other being to ensure that individuals are “secure in their persons.” However, although this second aim is professed, in reality, most state laws and institutions are concerned with the protection of property.

Socialists desire a society, based on free association.

Adapted from here, Beyond Socialism website.

We only win, when everyone wins.

We cannot begin the work of building new economic systems until we take off the mental shackles of the old ones. Anthropologists tell us that for most of human history we lived in small egalitarian societies that rewarded co-operation and sharing and punished selfishness and accumulation. No one is saying we should return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but it’s an indicator of what’s possible for human nature – in fact, we have over 90,000 years of inspiration of what is possible. All we lack is the confidence to see beyond the constraints of the education and indoctrination we have received. There are new ideas arising all around the world that point to a better way. Ideas abound. The decision is ours to reclaim our past and our future. Will we continue with the status quo, regardless of the inevitable destruction it will guarantee? Or will we create the better world we know is possible? If we are to fight back, we must bring together diverse movements working for social change and set ourselves upon an agreed goal. Connecting issues and social movements and organizations to each other has the potential to build a powerful movement of movements that is stronger than any of its individual parts. This means educating ourselves and in our groups about these issues and their causes and their interconnection. We don’t need calls for repairing the system; instead, we need a new system

Wealth inequality has reached truly epic proportions. In 2011, 110 of the 175 largest global economic entities on earth were corporations, with the corporate sector representing a clear majority (over 60 percent) over countries. The revenues of Royal Dutch Shell, for instance, were on par with the GDP of Norway and dwarfed the GDP of Thailand, Denmark or Venezuela. In other words, more economic power is in private hands than public. Most corporations started the globalization process by exploiting human labor where it was cheapest and the rules were the slackest. The rich are rich because they grab land and natural resources, and exploit the human labor of the poor.  We will only be able to eliminate poverty once we stop this plunder. We are told that as the rich get richer the rest of us will get richer too.  But we know now that this is a lie. Average wages are lower today than they were in the 1960s, and household incomes are stagnating while the 1% are growing richer than ever before.

We believe that governments run the world and that those governments are democratic.  But the most powerful entities on earth are corporations, not governments, run for private profit, not for public good.  And these corporations exercise undue influence over government policies.  It is a system where money buys votes. The hopes and desires of the majority are rarely considered. Capitalism driven by the relentless search for profits is destroying the environment. The truth is that our current system allows pretty much every corporation to externalise both environmental and social costs. Capitalism turns natural resources into commodities in order to attract more capital. That’s its sole purpose. The hallmark of capitalism is poverty in the midst of plenty. Capitalism has generated massive increases in productivity and extravagant wealth for some, yet many people still struggle to make ends meet. The idea that capitalism can be rendered a benign social order in which ordinary people can live flourishing, meaningful lives is ultimately an illusion because, at its core, capitalism cannot be reformed. The idea of taming capitalism does not eliminate the tendency for capitalism to generate harm; it simply ameliorates their effects. This is like a palliative medicine which deals with symptoms rather than with the underlying causes of a health problem. The idea of eroding capitalism supposes that cooperatives and worker-owned businesses have the potential, in the long run, of expanding to the point where capitalism is out-competed and supplanted from its dominance. It is far-fetched and implausible that within an economy dominated by capitalism an alternative could ever really displace capitalism, given the immense power and wealth of large capitalist corporations. If so-called non-capitalist emancipatory forms of economic activities and relations ever grew to the point of threatening the dominance of capitalism, they would simply be crushed on the very uneven playing field of commerce and by the State. The only hope is to sweep capitalism away and then build an emancipatory alternative.

Imagine an economy without bosses. It’s not a utopian vision. The Socialist Party are people who do not resign ourselves to the fate we are so often told is inevitable. We are people who refuse to continue as slaves. We are people who are remembering how to be human beings. We are people who are ready to reclaim our own lives. We are people who have realised that unless it is stopped, capitalism will kill everything on the planet. We are ready to fight back. And we are going to win. The greatest problem we have is that we can’t imagine any alternative to capitalism. And that is our challenge, to make a post-capitalist society tangible. The Socialist Party aim to build a peaceful, people-powered revolution. Our objective is to help shift public perception towards true progress, creating the framework for a society that benefits the many and not the few. It will take a collective effort of shared resources and ideas to restructure our world.

A Solidarity Society and a Livable Future

When you begin to realise that something’s wrong with the world, the first step is educating yourself about it. Mankind has constructed an economic system we can’t control. We are its slaves and victims. We have created a society in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. We are so caught up in our own immediate problems that we cannot afford to be aware of what is going on with the rest of the humanity family or the planet. There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Divided, global issues are overwhelming. United, our collective strength is unstoppable. If we put our future into the hands of some new messiah, what will happen when those leaders betray us or imprisoned or who are discredited or otherwise disempowered? Do we put our future on hold? It is we, the people, who are making the future. We have to fight without any guarantee that we are going to win. We have waited too long to get started and have a long way to catch up.

Capitalism is a coercive economic system that creates economic deprivation. Capitalism is a ruthless economic system that rates everything in terms of its monetary value and sees everything as nothing more than a source of financial profit. If capitalism makes workers’ lives miserable, those who can’t work are treated even worse. Our civilisation is dominated by a profound fear. We have grown accustomed to horror.

With a growing awareness of mounting ecological, economic and social problems people are realizing that humans are social animals, encompassing identity that connects us with the whole humanity of the world - not just our friends and family, not just our city, our country, but every living being on Earth. It is a new understanding that sees everyone on this planet as one family - that everything is interconnected. There is no "us" and "them." For millions of people on the planet, the problem and suffering of the world are our problems. We stand at a critical moment in history, a time when humanity must choose its future. To move forward we must recognize that we are one human family and one community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on economic justice. We urgently need to share a vision of a world community and embrace a spirit of human solidarity and kinship.

Let us keep our eyes on the real goal. The great issue is not raising taxes on the rich or achieving a better regulation of banks. It’s economic democracy. If the debate isn’t about economic power, it’s irrelevant. The problem isn’t just a few “bad apples.” The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment bankers; it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cut-throat competition at every level of society. Capitalism consumes everything, transforming the world into profit. The answer is not to advocate another version of capitalism or even reverting to some earlier stage of capitalism such as returning the gold standard. Tinkering with the corporate state will not work. If we do not wrest power from the corporations' hands we will be plunged into neo-feudalism and environmental catastrophe.

Virtually all of humanity lived by hunting and gathering before about 12,000 years ago. We realise more and more that the cultural beliefs surrounding capitalism do not reflect any universal "human nature." Assumptions about human behavior that humans are naturally competitive and acquisitive, and that social stratification is natural, do not apply to many hunter-gatherer peoples. The very existence of societies living adequately, even happily, with no industry, no agriculture, and few material possessions offers a challenge to the concept of human nature held by most economists. Many cultures have very different ways of organizing production and distribution. Among the Hadza, for example, there are elaborate rules to ensure that all meat is equally shared. Hoarding, or even having a greater share than others, is socially unacceptable. Apart from personal items, such as tools, weapons, or smoking pipes, there are sanctions against accumulating possessions. Accounts by early European explorers and anthropologists indicate that sharing and a lack of concern with ownership of personal possessions are common characteristics of hunter-gatherers. Sharing is the central rule of social interaction among hunters and gatherers. There are strong injunctions on the importance of reciprocity. Generalised reciprocity, the giving of something without an immediate expectation of return is the dominant form in face-to-face groups. Its presence in hunting and gathering societies is almost universal.

No radical action without radical thought

The Socialist Party has thought long and hard about the state and its repressive forces. Many assume that bringing capitalism to an end will require violence. But workers can paralyze the capitalist class without armed insurrection or riots in the street. The Socialist Party embraces a vision of a non-violent society. In our literature, we have laid bare the roots of violence in our capitalist society. Socialists are not worshippers of violence. Above all do they try to guard against the sporadic, meaningless and inevitably self-defeating violence that suffering and resentment are so likely to prompt.

Civil resistance does not succeed because it melts the hearts of dictators and secret police.  It succeeds because it is more likely than armed struggle to attract a large and more diverse base of participants and impose unsustainable costs on a regime. Nonviolence allows a movement to mobilize a greater number of participants and supporters. In other words, there are fewer barriers to participation than in an armed conflict, so a wider stratum of society is more likely to take part. And, needless to say, the larger the movement, the more difficult it is for a government to forcibly suppress it. when large numbers of people engage in acts of collective nonviolent resistance, a regime’s repressive apparatus becomes overstretched.  Nonviolent movements can initiate a wider variety of tactics than is possible in an armed movement; not only demonstrations and strikes but other forms of non-cooperation that make it clear that the legitimacy of the rulers has dissolved. What was necessary to defeat a police-state is not greater violence, as some seem to think, but the mass power of workers to effectively disarm that apparatus of violence: overwhelming it with numbers, dissolving its legitimacy, and winning over fellow-workers, particularly those from the “establishment” such as security forces.

 Even the most repressive regime relies upon a degree of cooperation and consent from the population. When that legitimacy among the citizenry has dissipated, the state’s use of violence becomes increasingly difficult or even counterproductive. When large sectors of society withdraw their cooperation from the opponent government, it's extremely difficult for that government to maintain its hold on control. When the majority of the working class withdraws its cooperation from the capitalist class, it would be extremely difficult for that class to maintain its hold on power and its pillars of support will begin to crumble. The capitalist class in such a situation hardly lacks firepower as they always outgun the workers. But unleashing that coercive armed force against a rebellious working class could backfire, adding fuel to the fire. The police and soldiers (workers themselves and with family and friends on the other side) might refuse to carry out the orders or even turn their guns against the rulers.

Non-violence can play an important role in moving forward from limited political democracy we possess now to the full social democracy. Not as a substitute for electoral and constitutional action, but as an additional guarantee that the socialist majority will achieve its goal under any conceivable circumstances. Socialists are convinced that the success of a revolution depends on a majority of the working class coming to have an understanding of and desire for socialism. This is the key issue; much more important than the specific tactics socialists employ to surmount this or that obstacle along the way. Our own our strategy for achieving our own goal of a new class-free, border-free, money-free society of common ownership society is for more and more of our fellow workers to understand and consciously aim for this new form of society, until the point of critical mass is reached where replacing capitalism with socialism is a real, concrete task for the working class. At that point, the question becomes how best to take that final step. And we believe that, once socialism has majority backing, a nonviolent, democratic transformation is possible and preferable. Violence is an effective means for a minority to hold on to power, or for another minority group to topple them and become the new rulers. When the majority of workers are moving steadfastly toward socialism, the violence of the minority ruling class would be unable to stem the tide, at least not for long. The Socialist Party does not advocate violence because it is inconsistent with the end in view—a classless society of free labour and production for use. The end itself determines the means. The Socialist Party does not seek to impose its object on unwilling participants but aims rather at facilitating our fellow-workers to freely arrive at ideas.

Socialist society cannot begin until the vast majority of the dispossessed realise that capitalist property relations and the division of labour which arises from it are the real barriers which hamper and frustrate the development of the individual in the widest sense, out of the energising of their knowledge and experience they will act accordingly. In a fundamental sense, the abolition of capitalist property relations is merely the necessary condition which makes possible the releasing of men and women's energies, capacities and will to re-integrate themselves in the new society. But there will be no enlightened few, politically and economically directing the uninitiated many, because the many will have gained the social experience to direct society along the path it wishes to go. There may be in the building of socialist society much to learn, and some things to unlearn. One thing history will have taught, however, is that love, goodwill, the rights of the individual, can only have real meaning in an equalitarian and humanist society. It is only through peaceful means that we can develop better understanding between people.

The Socialist Party is not specifically a pacifist organisation. We consider that a socialist majority that has won control of political power democratically should reserve the right to use armed force, if necessary, to deal with any armed resistance to the establishment of socialism by some recalcitrant pro-capitalist minority should this occur. After the majority have democratically declared their intention to abolish capitalism, it is just conceivable that a minority might take up arms to prevent the introduction of the new social relations in some small localities. In such circumstances, the majority may democratically decide to use force. The Socialist Party is not pacifist.

We are all related

The world is changing quickly and there is a great need for people everywhere to visualize why and how it is happening. If we can see our place in the process, we can consciously and intentionally help it happen faster. Capitalism is characterized not just by inequality that’s always been a feature of class society. In 2015, the richest 1 percent of the world’s population owned as much as the remaining 99 percent combined and just 62 individuals owned more than the poorest three and a half billion people on earth. Capitalism uses a legal framework of private ownership to extract value from the labour of others. The end game is a system that hoards wealth, stifles innovation, and ultimately destroys the value created by cooperation among those who seek to do things that cannot be done alone. The Socialist Party is devoted to building a new political and economic system that is equitable and democratic. It is a challenge that brings the different peoples of the world together, to build something better together for the benefit of all people. We cannot afford not to try, nor to fail. If we can all connect the dots to see capitalism as the root cause of the problems we all face, it could give rise to a global movement powerful enough to halt the profit-driven juggernaut.

The campaigns to improve our lot under capitalism are endless. Once one form of oppression is dealt with, there’s always another left to tackle, but while engaging in that new fight, the former is bound to return because no progress is ever permanent under capitalism. Rights are won, and the next day they’re under attack. We put much of our energy into defence instead of offence. The fight against oppression is never-ending, but does that serve to focus our attention away from the larger fight; from the fight to overturn capitalism and the oppressive structures it perpetuates? We seek to reverse inequality, reduce poverty, achieve equal rights; but why must we fight so hard for basic human decency? The culture of over-work and over-competition is driving us crazy and turning us against each other. Our minds are stuck in a frame of capitalist realism where instead of challenging the very core structures that create the problems against which we fight, we target their products individually; but until the structures that create this oppression are dealt with, the fight will never be over. Racism, sexism, and the class system will always return unless the structures responsible for them are destroyed. We cannot fix the unfixable, or engage in an endless struggle for social justice in a system where justice isn’t on offer. Nor is the opposite of capitalism to be centralised state-ownership and control.

 All the while, those in control of the system get to do what they please. They make us believe we live in free societies when only they have true freedom. They set up sham democracies to make us think elected representatives will represent the will of the masses. They propagandize about the importance of a “free” media when they own the outlets through which the masses are informed, and use them to frame the discussion by distorting facts to fit their narrative and excluding stories they don’t want people to hear. They claim property ownership to be the ultimate freedom, allowing themselves to buy up vast tracts of land, while the masses have to spend a lifetime in debt just to buy a home, requiring them to submit to the wage system for the entirety of their lives in order to pay it back. Instead of placing the focus on the battles for rights and regulations that will eventually be overturned, the fight needs to be brought to the system as a whole. Instead of accepting the usual prescriptions of capitalism, let’s look beyond the horizon to formulate alternative modes of social and economic organization. These new ideas aren’t simply an update of the ideologies of old, but something new that takes inspiration from modern developments and the mass desire for a better world. Much needs to be done to open the minds of the masses to new possibilities beyond capitalism, and to redirect the energies of mass movements from remedial campaigns to political revolution, but after a long period where the pathway to such a goal was narrow, it has expanded in the post-recession era and must be seized if the oppressive structures of capitalism are to be finally overthrown. So if you want to live in a world where people come together cooperation capitalism must end.

Now imagine what kind of future most people do want. We would like to be healthy and happy, have time to pursue our passions, become skilled at doing things we love, and bestow a legacy to be remembered with admiration by our children and their children when we are long dead and gone. People enjoy leisure and developing human contact and friendships. It is in our nature to be social, to make music and art, to make love and seek pleasure. Nowhere in our DNA are we wired to indulge in the destruction of the world and our fellow human beings. Anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists all conclude that we don’t seek to dominate and oppress or to take more than our fair share. Which begs the question: Why is it that wealth and power inequality are the norm today? We have been told a great lie about capitalism — that everyone who works hard in life will be successful, make a lot of money, and have a good life. So why is it that most of us wake up in the morning and go off to jobs that make money for someone else?  Billionaires’ money get comes from the hard work of other people. They just sit back and let their stock portfolios “do the work” for them.

Imagine how the world would look if we revived the fight for beauty. We would care more for the world around us. We’d build our cities, towns, and infrastructure beautifully. We’d protect nature and the countryside, while still producing enough food. We’d care for our cultural inheritance and focus on improving our quality of life rather than striving for unsustainable levels of growth. John Muir, the environmetalist, said the fight for beauty is “not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress”. The Socialist Party is are focused on reclaiming our “common wealth” in both the economic and political sense and end the unsustainable market behavior. In the struggle for a more just society, we will be aided, not hurt, by our shared nature.