Food Emergency in Edinburgh

People in deprived parts of Edinburgh are facing the threat of food shortages as supplies at food banks across the city run “critically low”, the Edinburgh Food Project, a charity which operates seven food bank centres across the capital,has warned.

The charity, part of the Trussell Trust Food Bank network, said it only had enough food for this week, and may not be be able to supply people with complete food parcels beyond that point.

Operations manager Bethany Biggar told The Independent donations of food were not sufficient to meet rising demand.

She said: “Until we have a benefits systems that’s caring, compassionate and supportive, a minimum wage covering the essentials, and a workforce that is reliable and secure, we will continue to support those who need us. We will not allow people in Edinburgh to starve.” She added the charity had no choice but to depend on the “generous support of the public” and without this, it “simply would not be able to help people living in poverty”. Ms Biggar said if the charity does not succeed in increasing stock levels now, its food parcels will be unable to meet that standard, which is why it is running an urgent appeal for public donations.

The charity had so far helped 11,402 people over the last 12 months, a 19 per cent rise on the year before. It had also been 4,530 food parcel requests between January and April this year – 47 per cent up on the same period last year.  Food parcels are made up of three daily meals and cover three days of supplies. Recipients of food parcels are entitled to collect food from the charity up to three times in six months.

The charity had received £4,800 in grant funding from the Scottish government to purchase fresh food, which was “just enough” to cover two of its food banks in Pilton and Craigmillar.

25 per cent of people (3237) helped by the charity experienced changes to benefits and delays to benefit payments, and this was one of the most common reasons for their dependence on food banks. But at almost 53 per cent (6002 people), low income was the most common reason, while others included homelessness, debt, sickness and domestic violence.

Socialist Party Solidarity

This is a crucial time for the working-class movement where workers express their solidarity with the struggles of their fellow-workers all over the world, when they re-pledge themselves to the fight for their rights and freedoms and to step up the struggle for the end of the exploitation of man by man. They say that the working-class movement has been defeated, that socialism has failed. But the question which they do not raise is: does the capitalist system which they are promoting, and which they say the people are accepting, does it solve any of the problems of the working people, either in any part of the world? The decisive question is whether or not a system solves the problems which face the people.

Do you want to perpetuate your own class slavery? Do you want to maintain and strengthen the capitalist government which has shown by its every act that it is nothing but the tool of the capitalist class and acts against the working class every time? Then cast your vote and your lives for the profit of the master class. The Socialist Party is for the abolition of capitalism and the emancipation of the workers from wage-slavery. The working class is still the decisive force in every country. We never abandon the socialist ideals, we are Marxists and we propagate our full views.

Labour is the source of all wealth. In the present society the tools of labour are the monopoly of the capitalists. That the working class is kept dependent on these is the ultimate cause of misery and all forms of oppression. The goal of the Socialist Party is therefore to abolish the existing mode of production (the wage system) and to allow the means of labour the present private capital, to be converted into the common property of society, at the disposition of all members of society, which is the only way of guaranteeing the worker full compensation for his or her work. The fight for the liberation of the working class from its present position, which is beneath a free people, is not a fight for new class privileges and prerogatives but for equal rights and equal obligations for all and for the abolition of class rule. A society based on exploitation is one in which one class, through its ownership of the means of production, is able to live as a parasite class, not producing, but living on the labour of—that is, exploiting—the other class. Socialism aims at giving a meaning to people's life and work; at enabling then freedom, their creativity, and the most positive aspects of their personality to flourish; reconciling people with themselves and with nature.

The capitalist class works overtime to convince workers that socialism has nothing to offer but a gray, bureaucratic world of robotic people. The reality is quite different. We as socialists want to replace the rule of a handful of exploiters, the capitalists, with the rule of the working class, the producers of the wealth of society. We seek to replace the anarchy of capitalist production, with its depressions and unemployment, with a planned socialist economy, based on the needs of working people. We fight for world socialism in which full equality for all will be a reality and not a hypocritical slogan. We stand for the fullest democracy for working people over the few, the handful of parasitic robber barons who rule today. We seek to subvert the domination of the employers over the workers. We are for the overthrow of capital, and the transition to a class-free socialist society. Working people have shown that their revolutionary spirit of rebellion cannot be crushed. The capitalist class, nor its lackeys among the working class, have succeeded in quelling the revolutionary spirit of the working people.

Many on the reformist left claim that higher wages will solve all problems, when the problem is the wages system itself which condemns workers to be wage slaves for capitalism and to continually struggle for a living wage. The principal lesson from these struggles is that, by themselves, they will never solve the problem. Another year from now, and workers will be forced to fight precisely the same struggle again, just to keep close to their present standard of living. It is necessary to take the struggle forwards, to fight not – only for a living wage, but to fight for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system of exploitation, and for the establishment of the working class as the ruling class. There are no solutions within the capitalist system. 

The EU election and the Socialist Party response

The Scottish EU election results are in and makes difficult reading for those on the Left. The Labour Party was fifth with just 9.3% of the votes - down from 26% in 2014 and it means Labour will lose both of its MEPs in Scotland. The SNP has 37.9% of the votes - up from 29% in the last EU election. Brexit Party is currently on 14.7% of the votes in Scotland, with the Liberal Democrats on 13.9% and the Conservatives on 11.7%. (The Western Isles are still to declare but it is unlikely to affect the overall result.)

The Labour Party has always claimed to represent the interest of the worse-off but now finds itself deeply unpopular to the point of facing a crisis. The plain fact of the situation is that the Labour Party is in a fix. It is composed of individuals with a hotch- potch of ideas. Since capitalism came onto the scene political parties have lied and swindled their way into and out of power. The people who have been tricked have always forgotten the lies and the broken promises and have continued to vote for capitalism. So when the Labour Party candidate didn't get in, another fraud did.

The Socialist Party is rich in members who are politically mature and who have worked long and hard to establish and to nurture the socialist movement. Their reward is the satisfaction of working for a world of plenty, freedom and dignity. People work for socialism because it is right. Fellow-workers, we apologise to no one for our existence as a party. We have watched for years the baffled efforts and disappointed hopes of many in our class, acting in ignorance of the cause their problems and misery. It is our mission to make those factors clear, and we invite you to study our literature, come to our meetings, and ask us your questions. 

If you are a non-socialist you should think carefully about why that is. If – as will be the case with very many workers – you have never really thought about why you are not a socialist, never regarded yourself as a supporter of the capitalist system which enslaves you, then now is the time to consider your position. If you are an anti-socialist, then you have some obligation to tell us socialists why we are wrong. If you agree with what we are saying, then now is the time to do something about it: visit your local branch, place a regular order for the Socialist Standard. And if you agree with the Socialist Party, why not join?

Revolution is the Only Way

Today the struggle of all the people of the world is reaching new heights. Nothing is more fundamental to the politics of the Socialist Party than the working class, because only the working class can get rid of capitalist society and bring about socialism. There are reformists who deny that workers can act as a class to bring it about. A working class revolution differs from all previous revolutions. The workers revolution is the first revolution aimed at a consciously planned overthrow of existing society. Like other revolutions, the working class revolution grows out of class antagonisms, overthrowing all existing human relationships. Unlike previous revolutions that have taken place within national frameworks, the proletarian revolution can only conclude with the construction of a worldwide class-free society. Marx remarked that the dominant ideology in any society was the ideology of its ruling class, this is not static. Ideological control by the ruling class is not simply exercised by education, television and the press but continually flows from the daily reality of working class life, as everything is produced and judged for its profitability. Class consciousness can and does develop out of the class struggle in spite of, and against, the ideology of the ruling class.

For many years debate has raged in the workers movement as to which road the revolution should take. Capitalism is beset with an immense political and economic crises. The capitalists have more and more begun to shift the brunt of their problems onto the backs of workers. Fighting for partial solutions or a few piecemeal reforms never has and never will end these conditions. Only a total overthrow of the existing system–a revolution– can solve this, not a vague culture of reformism.

The Socialist Party makes it crystal clear where we’re coming from. If we were not for the goal of revolution this Party would have no reason to exist. We believe that events every day show the rottenness of this system and the need for revolution. We lay bare the ugly truth of capitalism behind them all and point the need to hasten along to its grave. We are talking about a social revolution by the class of people who are the enslaved class under this system, forced to sell their ability to work in order to live and who really and truly have nothing to lose but their chains by overthrowing this system. There is only the working class, that can go on and build socialist society. This is the type of organization that really serves the interests of our class, helping to accomplish the historic task of the working class–making socialist revolution, freeing all of mankind and to put an end to the present system of capitalism, where the first and last issue is profit. Profit and more profit. Today profit rules, not the needs of the people, which are put in first place under socialism, the rule of the working class.

Capitalism is a system where those who have ownership of the factories, the mines, the mills, the land they sit on, the machines, and so forth have everything. It’s a system where those who have no other way to make ends meet except to sell their ability to work to the bosses, must labor to enrich the capitalist, and can work only so long as they do so. When the capitalist finds no further use for a worker, when he finds it unprofitable to continue paying his workers, the wage slaves are thrown out into the streets as a statistic on the unemployment figures. Under their system, democracy is for the rich, justice is for the rich, a good education is for the rich, and healthcare is based on your pocket book. This is exactly why people formed the Socialist Party to build an organization which would help get rid of this system, and build socialism where the people’s needs will be in the first place. The Socialist Party is an organization which firmly stated it was Marxist and stood with the working class, and that the only road out of this hell hole was revolution, socialism(class-free society). The only solution to this most basic problem is to overthrow the existing system–a revolution. This is exactly why the main glue that holds the Socialist Party together, an organization to turn the system right-side up, not to fight particular problems of capitalism. It recognizes that to wipe out this mad house system requires not piecemeal solutions but one major thorough-going solution.

The Socialist Party says we should try to educate people about socialism boldly at every step and refute that we would scare people away and turn them off. When all was said and done, it is like telling a person dying of thirst that he or she is not ready for a drink of water–not quite yet anyway. People are being messed about in a thousand and one ways by the capitalist system. Are we to fight the capitalists individually? Are we to fight them sectionally and not united as a class? Are people are only interested in those issues which affect them personally, that people will only support a struggle if it can be proved that they will gain some immediate return? People can see a bigger picture. This fight against the whole capitalist class must be supported by all the people. People do support the broad struggles being waged against the capitalists by all different kinds of people. If is the task of socialists to take this even further and point to the broadest and biggest fight of all: that against the capitalist class for control of this society. The most important thing for people to understand is that the only way to do away with the misery and oppression which capitalism breeds is to build a united and organized movement against the capitalists and for revolution, targeting the capitalist system as the problem, and pointing to the solution, socialism, where the working class completely changes society in their interests, removing capitalism as we would a cancerous tumour.

ON TO SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party is the workers' party. It is our Party. It is the Party which is our hope. We fight for its welfare. We fight to preserve it for revolutionary socialism. It is our organisation. People strive to achieve a purpose through organisation of like-minded persons. We in the Socialist Party share the same ideas. Therefore, being together in our party, we act together through our party.

What aims does the Socialist Party urge the working class to adopt? What actions does it urge them to take. The Socialist Party's aim is to inspire the working class towards the conscious, effective struggle to overturn the outlived, rotten system of, capitalism in order to replace it with the democratic rule of the workers which will reorganise society on a socialist basis, free of class exploitation, oppression and inequality. These ideas representing the yearnings of the oppressed and exploited everywhere. The Socialist Party is an organisation of revolutionary socialism, of socialist internationalism.

Capitalism has reduced mankind to a state of chronic misery, poverty, insecurity, fear, periodic carnage, insane luxury for the few, hunger and degradation for the many — a state that simply cannot continue if mankind is to progress, to save humanity, this putrid wound on its body must be removed. When you fight capitalism you are doing what is right and just from the point of view of your class interests and of the future of humanity. You are fighting to forever abolish exploitation. The rule to be soon established is let each person work according to his ability; let each person receive from the common stock of goods according to his needs. This is socialism. Mankind changes under such conditions. Soon the State is no more needed. In a class-free society there is nobody to suppress or keep in check. Men and women do not need the big stick of the State. They manage their affairs without the State force. Compulsion of any kind is repugnant to socialists. No-one may make a wage-slave of another; no-one may hoard up goods for oneself that one does not require and cannot use; but the only way to prevent such practices is not by making them punishable; it is by creating a society in which no-one needs to become a wage slave, and no-one cares to be cumbered with a private hoard of goods when all that one needs is readily supplied as one needs it from the common storehouse. Mankind is free when all things that nature and mankind produce are free in abundance.

Capitalism is highly organised and will defeat the workers’ revolution again and again, unless the workers are organised efficiently.

The battle for the future.

The struggle against the capitalist class is a struggle against all who live by the labour of others, and against all exploitation. It can only end in the capture of political power by the working class, and the transfer of all land, instruments, factories, machines and mines to the whole of society for the organisation of social production under which all that is produced by the workers and all improvements in production must benefit the working people themselves. From the oppressed and exploited workers there is developing a struggle against the capitalists and against the state. The emancipation of the working class is the revolutionary act of self-emancipation. The working class is the only thoroughly revolutionary class in modern society, the only class with the capacity to end the insanity of capitalist rule internationally. The Socialist Party declares that its aim is to develop the class consciousness of the workers.

Capitalism cannot feed the people, it cannot house them. It can destroy people, it can destroy homes with magnificent efficiency during war. The Socialist Party say: this is inevitable so long as capitalism exists and these social evils are not bred in the heart of mankind; they are bred by capitalism, and by nothing else. Capitalism is based on private property. We do not mean that socialism proposes to take your personal possessions from you, that socialism proposes to take your belongings from you, that socialism will take away your house or your car, in any sense whatsoever, which are not used for the purpose of exploiting others. We do assert the the Socialist Party will end the ownership of social wealth a mill or a mine, the ownership of which makes it possible for him to exploit people. That’s what we mean by private property, that and nothing else. The capitalist class is defined in no other way – and maintained in no other way – except by the ownership of the means of production and distribution. This ownership is what gives the capitalist class power of life or death over the working class and over society as a whole. To live, you, working people, must not only work for the owners of the means of production and exchange – you must guarantee them a profit. Working for them is not enough; a profit is absolutely required for you to get your job; and that profit can be obtained in no other wise except by exploiting that which is your only real possession – namely your physical or mental capacity to work. That is all a worker has. Ownership on the one hand, non-ownership of the means of production on the other hand, determine and fix the limits of existence of the two hostile classes.

Why are they hostile? There is no other result possible from its theory that social problems can best be solved by cooperation between classes. We are opposed to the cooperation between the capitalist class and the working class, we are for such a struggle against the capitalist class that we end all classes, that there are no class divisions in society. Cooperation between these two hostile classes, whose basic interests are irreconcilable, means – implies – necessitates – the perpetuation of class divisions. We say: Do not collaborate with the capitalist class, because the only basis upon which you can compromise is to your disadvantage. Fight the capitalist class for the essential necessary rights of labour! On what basis can you cooperate with the capitalist class?

To live economically, the capitalist must accumulate; not that he wants to or doesn’t – he must accumulate in order to live. To accumulate, he must be assured profit. To profit, he must exploit labour. There is no other way. No one, no genius, not the greatest, has discovered another way. Capital always seeks to intensify exploitation; labour always and necessarily seeks to resist exploitation. Capitalism seeks what is rightfully its own, from its point of view: the maximum that it can get out of the worker. Labour seeks what is rightfully its own: that’s why it forms class organisations, labour unions. Wealth is produced in no other way than by the labour of working men and women, then the wealth belongs rightfully to all the working people. By taking over the wealth which it has created, and which it alone has created that is common ownership of the means of production and distribution. That’s what the Socialist Party mean by revolution. 

 Slavery died; Serfdom died; Wage slavery too shall die. Socialism is a living movement of the workers everywhere for freedom, peace, abundance and progress.

The Party of the Revolutionary Cause

Reformists are those who say they are fighting for the workers, but whose aim is limited to reforming the system in order to preserve it. The principal promoters of reformism are paid handsomely for carrying out the dirty work of the class they claim to oppose. Many working people in every corner of the world know that they can solve the fundamental problems of their class only by making proletarian revolution and winning the fight for socialism. The capitalist class live in great splendour by exploiting the working class through the daily robbery of the enormous wealth the workers produce. In contrast to this, intense exploitation, oppression, poverty and misery characterise the lives of the working class. 

What are the fundamental criteria for the existence of capitalist production? How do we recognise it? Capitalism is a system of commodity production, production for the market mediated by a system of monetary exchange, and it is a system in which the actual producers do not own the means of production necessary to turn out a usable product. These means of production are owned by a class of capitalists who buy the labour-power of the producers, paying them only a certain portion of the total value they produce. The most developed and typical form in which producers are paid is by a money wage. The capitalist class, is a small class composed of those who own and control the financial institutions and means of production–the land, raw materials, machines, mines, mills, factories, farms. The working class, is made up of those who are deprived of the ownership of the means of production and therefore are forced to sell their labour power as a commodity to the capitalist class. The working class participates directly in production, transportation, communication, service, agriculture, and commerce. It is the class which creates the wealth of society and from which the capitalists extract surplus value. The working class also encompass the reserve army of unemployed, including old and disabled workers and semi-permanently and permanently unemployed workers forced to live on public assistance.

 Because of its organised and concentrated character at the centres of production, workers are the only class able to mobilise and wage the class struggle against the ruling class. It is the only thoroughly revolutionary class, ideologically, politically, and organisationally. The working class is the most progressive and most revolutionary class ever known in history and stands in the centre of our epoch of the world proletarian revolution. It has the power in its hands to forge a new socialist society out of the ruins of the old capitalist one, and it alone is capable of running society in the interests of the great majority. Working people are the “only consistently revolutionary class because, whether or not they realises it, their social problems cannot be solved short of socialism. They also play a key revolutionary role because of the organisational skills acquired as a result of its collective experience in factories and with mass production. The world's working class has “nothing to lose but its chains and a world to win.” Through its own emancipation, it will break the chains of capital which bind the exploited people of the whole world. 

We know that the day is not far away when workers will find their way to the politics that will sweep from the earth the system which has caused them so much suffering. They will find this task not in the “politics” of the boss parties, but in the party of working class revolution – the Socialist Party.

Socialists understand that the ills of the capitalist economic system will not be eliminated short of the destruction of capitalism. Only the removal of the material basis of man’s exploitation by man, can actually permit us to wage a winning struggle.

What the working class lacks more than anything else is a sense of itself as a class, and of the inherent contradiction between its needs and the needs of the capitalist class. It is precisely this class consciousness which socialists must strive, above all else, to instill in the working class, this consciousness of itself as a class is what can lay the actual basis for a firm and relentless struggle against capitalism. It is abundantly clear that the class struggle has been relegated to one of several movements of mass resistance the women’s movement, the anti-racist campaigns, the environmentalist movement. We will continue to engage with these struggles, help them by linking them up with our fight for socialism.

Scotland and its falling population

Scotland’s population growth has slowed and net migration decreased over the past two years, according to the latest official estimates.

The number of non-British nationals residing north of the Border remains stable but years of continuous growth, caused largely by the expansion of the EU in the mid-2000s, is now coming to an end, a report from the National Records of Scotland noted.

The Scottish Government, external affairs secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “This slowing of migration growth in is extremely concerning. All of Scotland’s population growth over the next 25 years – including our working age population - is projected to come from migration, yet these latest population statistics illustrate the significant demographic challenges that we are facing. We want Scotland to continue to be a welcoming, internationalist, progressive, diverse country. People from all over the world who choose to settle in Scotland make valuable contributions to our economy, public services and communities. They are vital to the growth of Scotland’s working age population and in turn, our future prosperity. Instead, the UK Government is pursuing policies which are projected to reduce net migration to Scotland by between 30-50% over the next two decades, completely disregarding our distinct needs."

Yet despite this we have many who declare that we face a population problem. 

Many factors affect population growth and the magnitude of the Earth’s carrying capacity over time, among them is a positive feedback loop between demographic growth and technological development. Human knowledge (e.g., science) and technological development (e.g., machines, drugs) improve over time and boost human survival, which helps accelerate population growth. Talented individuals, who can devise intellectual and technological improvements, are statistically more likely to arise from and survive to maturity in larger populations living at more advanced levels of development. The intellectual and technological innovations of inventive individuals make it possible to amplify the Earth’s carrying capacity as the population grows, for example by tamping down the incidence and virulence of diseases, and by increasing agricultural yields. However, there is no guarantee that such a positive feedback can cycle forever, and current trends would seem to indicate that this feedback loop is losing its momentum.

We homo sapiens could as a species choose to cooperate globally to simultaneously raise the living standards of the most impoverished — and majority — of Earth’s people, and reformulate our civilization’s manner of energy generation and economic operation, from its highly inequitable feudal capitalism to a highly equalised world eco-socialism: to halt the poisoning of our global environment with waste heat and carbon dioxide from combustion; waste methane from industrialised meat consumption and a melting degradation of the biosphere; and waste chemicals and plastics from industrialised farming and the detritus of industrialised consumerism. In other words, we could unite to share out the Earth equitably while also maximising the efficiency of the global use of natural resources by quickly reforming our civilisation — our methods of finding, extracting and using energy, and the forms and purposes of our economics — so as to be in sustainable balance with natural processes and cycles, all for the purpose of allowing Lifeboat Earth to row or drift for as long as possible with a minimal sacrifice of human decency and human life.

Capitalism is the ideology of parasites. The people of such an idealised world, eco-socialist society, would be committed individuals who would take it as a given that if human extinction were imminent and unavoidable, they would all share the same fate in solidarity: honour till the end, whenever that would be whether sooner or later.

Human history up to the present suggests that this “all in till the end” type of world socialism is a very unlikely future for us globally, though small isolated pockets of it might develop within the much larger drama of human civilisation.

We might even live to see American and European navies shelling refugee ships at sea, and troops of their militarised police summarily executing undocumented aliens breaching their borders, to thwart the arrival of waves of destitute and desperate migrants. Such atrocities would be manifestations of extreme “them or us” end-times panic by the power-clinging wicked.

Adapted

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/15/too-many-people-or-too-much-greed/

Study Socialism

Abundant evidence in various forms presses itself upon us in the media to prove our contention, that, as the capitalist system develops, the gulf between the working’ class and the capitalist class must ever become wider and deeper. At one end of the social scale we have opulent luxury, at the other sordid and sickening misery.

Perhaps you think that the Socialist Party is a group of selfish people who are envious of the wealth of others. You and I, and others like us, go to work. Some are employed in one way, some in another. Between us we produce and distribute the things we eat, the things we wear, the buildings we live in, and those we work in; the planes, ships and train that carry the things we make are made and worked by people like us, even the most luxurious, are made by people like us. If you and I and people like us were to die to-morrow, all production and distribution of goods would cease. We are those who go to work. But why do we go to work when there are others who do not go to work? We go to work to get wages to buy the things we need; our bosses do not go to work for wages because they have the means to get the things they need without having to wait for wages. From whom do we obtain the wages that are so necessary for our present existence? From capitalists. But where do they get the means to pay us our wages? The capitalists employ us, pay us wages, for producing all these necessary goods. With the wages we receive we buy back a portion of the goods we have produced. We buy back some of the goods we produce. The rest of the goods we produce is either taken by our employers for their personal use, or is used, like new machinery and new factories, to enlarge the capacity for future production, to carry on wars, and for other similar purposes. It is because we work, but do not consume all we produce, that oligarchs can live without working. They are able to take what we produce because they own all the means for producing and distributing wealth. The employers are in one special class and we are in another. They belong to the class of property-owners, we belong to the class of propertyless. They look at things in a different way from what we do. When we apply for work we endeavour to obtain as high a wage as we can; they endeavour to pay as low a wage as we will take. The lower the wages they pay us, the greater, as a rule, will be the wealth going to them. You will see that this arises from the nature of the system in which we live.

Subjugated and subjected people are slaves; those people who dominate slaves are their masters. Wage slaves are people who have been robbed of their means of living; therefore, they possess no property: neither do their masters feed, clothe nor house them. In order to live, these slaves must sell their labour power to their masters, the capitalists, who, in return give them a wage on the average only sufficient to buy the means of subsistence whilst working. Thus it will be seen, if the wage slaves cannot find work they will get no money; without money they cannot get the means of subsistence, therefore, they must slowly starve to death. Yet, the wage slaves can free themselves from slavery! This power can be obtained through the vote; chattel and feudal slaves were not allowed to vote, but the wage slaves are. The different sections of the capitalist class beg for the votes of the workers in order to get into power. It is a strange thing, that the working class have the means at hand to gain their freedom and yet they use those means to put their masters into Parliament. By such action the wage slaves of to-day tighten the bonds of their slavery. Of course, it is obvious, the working class would not return their masters to power if they understood their slave position. How then can the workers overcome their political ignorance? By studying socialism. Through studying the history of humanity socialists understand the cause of the unhappy lot of their class and know that the only remedy for the ills of their class is socialism. 

You are sometimes told that we are poor because of unjust taxation or because we do not work hard enough. Do not accept such a view. We are poor because, as I mentioned above, we are robbed of the greater part of the goods we produce. We are robbed when we receive our wages because we are given back as wages only a fraction of the wealth we have produced. Our wages, as you must know so well, represent little more than will keep us and our families alive. We have nothing to spare which can be robbed from us afterwards. They who rob us are the people who own the means of wealth production and distribution. To-day with the assistance of nature you produce what is necessary for society’s existence, but this wealth is owned by your masters, as they own the means by which wealth is produced. They own these things first of all because they stole them from you, and secondly because you give them the power to retain this ownership by voting them into Parliament. Police, Army, Navy, Air Force, Courts of Justice, and so forth, are all controlled through Parliament, and they are all used to help your master to keep his hold of the means of wealth production.

What then, you may ask, is the remedy for such an evil state of affairs. In one word, socialism. To-morrow, if you wish, you can obtain control of the means of production, and arrange the affairs of society so that all those who are able shall take an equal part in producing wealth and all who live shall have an equal right to receive the best that society can give. This is socialism. if the majority of working men make up their minds that it shall be, then socialism will be here as soon as you have appointed delegates and sent them to Parliament with instructions to take the necessary steps to bring in socialism.

The purpose of the Socialist Party is not to arouse a sentimental sympathy, useless by itself, but to urge the non-socialists to study our position in order that he or she may join with us to help achieve our object, a system, in which the enjoyment of life will not be based upon the misery of others. They are not free who mock their chains even if those chains be the invisible ones of wage slavery.