Wage-Slaves Versus Capitalist Masters

Sustainability. That’s a popular word these days. Within the capitalist system sustainability means not only those practices that are good for managing soil, water, and land, it also means a few things practical to the commercial side such as managing to stay profitable and in business, or managing the land in a way that brings opportunities to future generations. At its basic level, sustainability can only mean profitability. Whatever the specific definition of ‘sustainable’ one thing is for certain: economics drive solutions within capitalism.

Any conception of socialism must include the empowerment of the working class to be the master of its own destiny. Whilst we can debate and sketch visions of what a future society might look like, all these discussions will prove meaningless unless we can find away to acquire the power required to make them concrete. Given the seeming powerlessness of the working class at present what means can the working class be elevated to power? In a sense the working class already has a massive latent power over society just waiting to be realised, the task then is unlocking this power. The workers’ movement is lacking political clarity. The problem is the lack of consciousness. Why don’t workers put an end to capitalism – given its destructiveness to humans and the environment. If you don’t know where you want to go, then no road will take you there. As long as people look upon the requirements of capital as “self-evident natural laws”, those struggles occur within the bounds of the capitalist relation. Sooner or later the worker will accept his or her subordination to capital and the system keeps going. People commonly think that there is no alternative to the status quo. To go beyond capitalism, we need a vision that can appear to workers as an alternative common sense, as their common sense.

Being a socialist means first and foremost to be on the side of the working class. The Socialist Party is not against reforms but opposes reformism as a political practice. The Socialist Party supports any reform that will help the cause of working people. Workers can win concessions but only for a certain period before the ruling class tries to take these reforms and concessions back. In a class society, the struggle between wage-slaves and the capitalist masters is of a permanent nature. The intensity of this class conflict and struggle can vary and there can be lulls at times. Both classes have different interests and clash with each other to protect and further their interests. The ruling class wants to exploit the working class to the maximum. On the other hand, the working class has no other option but to fight back for their survival.

The root of exploitation under capitalism is not insufficient wages per se, or the depredations of finance. The process of exploitation under capitalism necessarily implies that for accumulation to take place on one end, the worker must be paid less than the value of their labour-time on the other. The more capitalist production expands, the less time the workers has for themselves. The struggle over exploitation is fundamentally the question of whether the worker has the time to fully develop her intellectual, social, and creative powers, or must devote this time instead to the reproduction of a hostile, alien, and benumbing society, with no time to call their own. This is a ‘bread and butter’ question in its own right. Socialism is to create a world where labour-time for all workers can be reduced to a minimum to leave the  maximum time for leisure pursuits, socialising, sports, art, music, writing, debating, and all those things that have been considered the good things in life. There is no known process of capitalism that can achieve this aim.

The establishment of socialism involves workers taking power themselves and exercising collective and democratic control over workplaces, and resource allocation through democratic planning, the complete democratisation of society. Socialism is "a movement of the immense majority, acting in the interests of the majority".

Understanding what socialism is

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually seeking to create. Too often we are offered definitions given new meanings from their original usage. There are “socialists” who wish the term to be associated with various nationalisation schemes despite them often being promoted by certain capitalists interests who have come to realise that private enterprise is failing to provide proper investment and that state aid is required. To call such policies ‘socialist’ is highly misleading. 

State ownership and control is not socialism. The same despotic rule remains. Those who work the most and hardest still get the least remuneration, and the work-force are still deprived of all voice in the administration of their industry, just the same as in all private enterprises. Schemes of state and municipal ownership are but schemes for the improvement of the mechanism of government policies to make the capitalist regime respectable and more efficient to serve the purposes of the capitalist. They also represent the class-conscious unity of the business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist, yet all may unite to prey upon the workers. Opportunist politicians and reformists have been agitating for various nationalisations for decades, while never daring to pose the real issue of private property as an institution and as the basis of the social order. Nationalisation and municipalisation are palliatives and meagre ones too. Those who talk about this as “socialism” in any sense at best confuse workers on what really constitutes socialism – namely, the common ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by the community and the ending of the profit system. 

Under state ownership, profits continue for private investors; that is, the bankers, capitalists, etc., who purchase, bonds and receive their profits in the form of interest and dividends. In a limited and small sense, they can benefit the masses avoiding being gouged by the predatory profiteers.

Capitalism does not consist merely in the private ownership of the necessaries for production. If such ownership were the determining feature of capitalism, then capitalism reigned in the days of serfdom. The serf owned his tools, the feudal lord owned the land, two necessaries for production. Yet that was not capitalism. Capitalism is that social system under which the tool of production (capital) has grown to such mammoth size that the class that owns it rules like a despot. 

And there are competing sectors of capitalism, always striving for supremacy:

1. Commercial capitalism, dominated by merchant traders, buying cheap, selling dear.

2. Industrial capitalism, dominated by manufacturers

3. Finance capitalism, dominated by bankers seeking interest on their lent-out money.

4. Land-owning capitalism, those real property magnates living off rent. Like financiers they are parasites upon the industrialists, who in turn leech off their workers

So socialism does not consist merely in the overthrow of private ownership in any or all of the necessaries of life. If such overthrow of private ownership were socialism, then the overthrow of the one-time private ownership of military forces, and the present State-ownership of the same, would be socialism. Obviously, that is not socialism. A limb of a human being is not a human being. Socialism is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled, and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at end. That is socialism, nothing short of that.

The conscious support of our fellow-workers is what we want. We are fighting for their hearts and minds. The Socialist Party exposes the real nature of capitalism and reveals the futility of reform.

THE ONE WAY OUT

Where politics are concerned a lot of Americans just no longer believe anymore in what politicians say or do. That's quite understandable after all the times they've been betrayed by phony campaign promises and let down by these “sure-fire” cures for their steadily worsening problems. However, many have not turned their backs on politics yet. They're watching the present Democratic Party presidential nomination race campaign and still believe that hearing what the various candidates propose can enable them to elect men or women who will get problems solved. There are two opposite views: The majority "believers" still hope to find the "right person" to put America in order. The minority "non-believers" have come to doubt that such a person exists.

There is, nevertheless, a third view on the subject -- a position which, besides agreeing that no "right person" are available, goes even further by denying that our country's desperate problems have been caused by "wrong men" chosen to run its government in the past. Instead of blaming political officeholders, this view claims that the real cause of our social problems lies partly in the form of government we have and mainly in the capitalist system on which the government rests. It therefore also claims that the ballot should be used to fundamentally change both. We have fully created the material conditions for socialism - a highly developed industrial society capable of producing an abundance and a superbly trained working class that, alone, is capable of running it. Moreover, we have an organisation embodying the only program that makes possible the change from capitalism to socialism – the Socialist Party. The crying need of our time is determined, resolute action to awaken the working class to the imperative need for a socialist reconstruction of society. At this late hour on the social clock it is the only way to strike a decisive blow for peace and freedom for the workers of all lands.

Capitalism ensures worsening conditions. A revolution means a complete change, and it need not be accompanied by violence. For a successful revolution there most be a constructive phase when new institutions are established to replace those that are dismantled. In an age of great technological and economic complexity such as the present one, when prolonged economic paralysis can have devastating consequences to great masses of people, especially to the masses crowded into the great urban centres, this constructive phase of the revolution must be carefully planned and prepared for. In socialist society we shall be able to enjoy the material well-being our productive capability makes possible. We shall be secure, healthy and happy human beings living in peace, harmony and freedom, in marked contrast to the capitalist jungle of strife, misery and insecurity in which we live today. Fellow-workers must face the fact that the task confronting them is to organise their political and economic power -- not to demand merely the amelioration of the horrible conditions of ghetto life, but to demand the abolition of the capitalist system of wage slavery, and to effect an orderly socialist reconstruction of society. 

Socialism for Survival

The problems that make living so difficult today -- problems of poverty, slums, unemployment, crime, either droughts or floods, CO2 emissions, air and water pollution and many more -- have been with us for a long time, a very long time. These problems exist in varying degrees in every nation. Every politician who has run for office has promised to do something to alleviate or eliminate these evils. Despite these promises, and despite the reform efforts these problems have defied solution. We all know this is so. Whatever the problem is, it is worse now than it was. And if we keep electing politicians to office on the basis of their promises, it will get even worse in the years still to come. Surely, at one time or another, you have asked yourself why are things rapidly going from bad to worse, in spite of all the so-called expert counsel.

The reason is simply that the politicians at all levels of government persist in dealing with effects and ignoring the cause. The cause must be something that exists everywhere. After all, the politicians who hold office in our government do not administer the affairs of the other nation. Yet they share the same problems we have. The basic cause of our problems is the capitalist system under which we live. Capitalism today is an outmoded decadent social system. It has been so for a long time, and history fully justifies this conclusion. Consequently, the solution to our problems is not to be found in men, but in a whole new concept of society - a society for which the material basis exists right now. Technological development clearly dictates the course that must be taken. Modern industry is thoroughly socialised in its organisation and operation. It has outgrown private ownership of industry and production for sale and the profit of the owning few. We are now at a point where we can produce an abundance for everyone. By establishing a new society we can prevent worsening crises and ultimate catastrophe toward which our present society is taking us. What we are saying is that we can and must establish a socialist society.

When private and State ownership have been eliminated, there will be no way for social parasites, capitalistic or bureaucratic, to exist. In the nature of things, it will be impossible for any individual or group to acquire economic power and use it to exploit or suppress another human being. Nor will those elected to the socialist administrative bodies possess, or be able to acquire, economic power. There will be no material basis on which a bureaucracy could establish and perpetuate itself. No one will be able to hand out offices or appoint lackeys. All who will serve in the administration, in whatever capacity, will be elected by the rank and file and subject at all times to re-call and popular control. In short, we, the workers, shall be in complete control of the source of all power, the economic resources of the land. We have all the material requirements for producing an abundance. It is common knowledge that we have developed the most productive machine in the world's history. In Socialist society there can be no poverty or involuntary unemployment. The more producers, the better for all.

Technological improvements (automation, for example) will be a further blessing. The greater the number of workers, the better the tools, the more modern the methods, the greater and more varied will be the wealth we can produce; and the shorter the hours each of us will have to work. So great is our capacity to produce abundance that we can easily insure that our youth will be educated, the aged provided for, and the sick and disable given the finest care possible. All this will be done without depriving anyone of a more than adequate share. It will not be charity but the rightful share of every human being in the affluent socialist society. In the socialist climate of abundance and cooperation, we shall achieve the highest standards of mental health and physical well-being. We shall enjoy great material well-being individually and collectively, but it will not be at any one else's expense. We shall be secure, healthy, happy human beings living in peace, harmony and freedom, in marked contrast to the capitalist jungle of strife, misery and insecurity in which we live today.

Mankind's survival is being threatened from a number of directions. There is the dread of a pending possibility of the climate crisis, a potential nuclear show-down and a sharpening conflict of commercial interests in a trade war. There is the peril of a Doomsday.

Unite politically to vote down capitalist ownership of industry. Unite industrially to take social possession of economy. In socialist society, the citizens will have a voice and vote where they work and will thereby retain constant control over those they choose to plan and manage the nation's economic activities. Workers of the world, use your vote to abolish capitalism and establish socialism.

Socialists Seek Everything

The Labour Party is in deep trouble. Numerous workers today bemoan their feeling of utter helplessness and impotence. In several constituencies moves are afoot to remove local MPs. Members have become dissatisfied and frustrated, organising "left-wing” moves to replace the sitting members. The members of the Labour Party cannot control it because it has no clearly defined objective. Certainly the Labour Party has never had, nor ever will have, the slightest intention to introduce — or even explain — socialism. Capitalism is a brutal society, which sets worker against worker and cynically manipulates and exploits the emotional responses which inevitably follow. The real struggle is to replace this society with one based on communal interests. That struggle cannot be carried on with either lies or bombs for it is about workers' ideas and they are the authentic key to human progress.

There is a vital need for principles: a concise expression of the party’s aim and methods which states what the party is FOR. The precondition for socialism is a strong political party. However deeply ingrained the illusion that leaders can help them, but bitter experience will convince workers of the necessity for joining a genuine socialist party.
The answer is to join and actively work in a socialist political party. This is the first essential step. It means turning off that television, and going to a party branch meeting.There is no greater personal satisfaction than that gained from working together for the noblest cause of our days — the emancipation of humanity from capitalist chaos. Now is the time to come to the aid of the Socialist Party, and work for it.

For years our political rivals would ridicule The Socialist Party and tell us that our "pure and simple” case for socialism was destined for the dustbin of history. Our case has stood the test of time while it looks much more likely that those parties which wasted workers' hopes predicting the imminent collapse of capitalism will itself soon collapse.

The desire for socialism as a just social system, where people really control their work-places and communities runs deep among workers. That desire may be latent, but it is always present. Socialism is a strongly hope among the people. But it is a vague hope. As socialists we are distinguished from our fellow-workers only by this: At all times we point out to the aim of the class struggle – socialist revolution. It is what we stand for and why we are a political organisation. Everywhere people are waking up and resisting the exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed each and every day. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of capitalists while the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. Wages stay the same, but profits continue to rise. The situation in health care, housing and government services is rapidly deteriorating. The government is showing the masters it really serves. The source of all these injustices in the man-eating system of capitalism. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the industries, banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our labour and do no work themselves. The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, and the establishment of a socialist system. Once it is no longer possible to make a profit from racism, from bad housing and from the general misery of people, these problems can be quickly resolved. Only one class is capable of a successful socialist revolution. In order to accomplish its historic task of socialist revolution, our class must have a political party.

In the meantime, this epoch is the mean time.

Humanity or Capitalism?

Capitalism has deteriorated to the point where it threatens the existence of civilisation and perhaps even mankind. The system faces problems it cannot possibly solve. Most serious of these are the intensification of the effects of climate change and the growing unemployment as a result of automation and the ever present threat of nuclear war. Other problems that defy capitalist solution are: wide displacement and impoverishment of refugees and migrants, mounting racism, and rising levels of mental illnesses. All these are symptomatic of a social system that is taking us toward social catastrophe.

Capitalism is an economic system in which goods are produced to be sold at a profit. The goods are produced by the working class in industries owned by a small class of capitalist parasites. The capitalist owners of industry become the owners of the products. The workers get for their creative efforts a wage , an amount just barely sufficient to maintain themselves and their families. It is the relation of this amount to the value of the workers' output that is at the bottom of capitalism's recessions and conflicts. Don't be misled by delusions. While the capitalists probably do fear the danger that their class rule and privilege might result in a climate cataclysm, there is still no guarantee that their class interests will not drive them to gamble with the planet. As for the nonsense that government intervention and the Green New Deal is able to restore stability and prosperity remember that all of the original New Deal's "pump priming" failed. It took a world war to end the economic slump.

The Socialist Party says this: Global warming, recessions and wars are inevitable effects of capitalism, therefore they can never be eliminated as long as the system survives. Only when our economic life has been entirely rebuilt on a new foundation can lasting sustainability, peace and economic well-being for all be achieved. Production for private profit must be replaced by production for the common good. Instead of letting a tiny useless class appropriate the largest share of our collective product, the workers who create it must retain its full social value. Likewise, the existing despotic capitalist control of the economy must yield to a democratic management of the industries by the workers who run them. And, of course, to permit the foregoing fundamental changes, the industries and natural resources of the Earth must become the social property of all of its peoples. We must establish a new society -- a Socialist society. We mean genuine Marxian socialism and emphatically not those monstrous counterfeits which workers in the past have been deceived by in the past.

Working people have the potential political power to dispossess the capitalist class in order to place the economy under common ownership. It is of crucial importance that the workers vote for socialism. There can be no peace or economic security without socialism! Nor can we solve our other tragic problems until we get rid of their capitalist cause. Put your full weight behind the only movement that can transform our world into a model of peace, abundance, freedom and social sanity.

Are we going to keep the system of private ownership? Shall we attempt to preserve a social system that has proved its incapacity to solve the problem of poverty in the midst of plenty? Do you favour prolonging the life of a society in which a few own all the means of wealth-production, in which labour-saving machinery, instead of lightening labour's toil, throws workers out of their jobs onto the industrial scrapheap? Must mankind pass through still another vicious cycle of recessions and continue to suffer war and climate crises? Or shall we do the common-sense thing, make the means of production our collective property, abolish exploitation of the many by the few, and use our productive genius to create leisure and abundance for all?

If you agree with us that society must be reconstructed, then there are certain things we must understand. The first is that we can expect no help whatsoever from the beneficiaries of capitalism. Here and there a capitalist may see the handwriting on the wall and join with the workers, but as a class the capitalists, like the slave-owning and feudal classes before them, will strive to prolong their poverty-ridden, war-breeding system. The workers of hand and brain must build this new world and emancipate themselves through their own class conscious efforts. The second thing we must understand is this: Though the workers are in the overwhelming majority, and have tremendous potential power, they can apply their collective strength to the task at hand only through political and economic organisation. This means that by organising as a political party the working class and avails itself of the ballot. This is the peaceful method. It permits the forces of progress to proclaim their purpose openly, and mobilise themselves for political victory and the conquest of the capitalist political State. 

The people run the industries today, under capitalism, and will run them tomorrow, in socialism. The difference will be (1) that tomorrow, with socialism, production will be carried on to satisfy human needs-instead of for sale and profit - and (2) the despotic management of capitalism will be replaced by the workers' own democratically elected and democratically controlled administrators and delegates, the most complete democracy ever achieved since the breakdown of the tribal councils of primitive communist societies. There can be no bureaucrats or technocrats. This will be a living, vibrant democracy in which all power is in the only safe, place for power to be- with the people integrally organised in every community and workplace across the land.

Will you take an active role in the revolutionary process that is already unfolding? Will you put in the energy and effort?

We need socialism

The Socialist Party is the political party of the working class. Not because we presently possess their support and votes. This is so because the Socialist Party is the sole promoter of the principles which the working class must adopt if it is ever to achieve its complete emancipation from wage-slavery and, at the same time, save society from catastrophe. 

The Socialist Party is the sole organisation demanding the abolition of capitalism and advocating the socialist reconstruction of society. It has been doing so for well over 100 years. It is, in short, the organisation through which the workers can establish their majority right to reorganise society.

 However, our fellow-workers can begin to build socialism only when they realise that the continued existence of capitalism is not only completely contrary to workers' interests, but a menace to the welfare of all society. And they can only gain the knowledge needed to build such a movement by investigating the socialist case of the Socialist Party. The capitalist political state must be dismantled somehow. In keeping with socialist principles, the Socialist Party proposes that workers attempt to do so peacefully, using the existing democratic process, and to use force only if that effort is met with force. How to achieve it is the problem. The problem is one of tactics, and tactics depend on the social conditions and atmosphere that exist in the whatever circumstance a country may be faced with. 

We believe that the Socialist Party's electoral strategy offers the best -- indeed the only realistic -- chance to achieve socialism in the majority of countries that have democratic constitutions by nonviolent and peaceful means. We believe it is the only way in which the working class can organise itself for socialism while simultaneously nullifying the ruling class's capacity to resist by means of armed force. It is inconceivable that socialism would win at the ballot box by a number so small that the outcome would be in doubt. Indeed, even if the formality of vote counting was dispensed with completely at such a juncture, the social atmosphere would be charged with the electricity of impending change. It could not be concealed. Where the ballot is silenced, the bullet must speak.

Capitalist exploitation of workers did not stop when some workers formed unions. The struggle over the division of labour's product continues to this day. The unions only made it possible for workers to resist in groups. At first, the capitalist owners of the means of production -- the factories, the farms, mills, mines, transport, and the tools and machines needed to run them -- tried to destroy the unions. Compelled by the profit motive and competition from their capitalist rivals, they tried to keep wages low and to get ever more production out of the workers. The workers, on the other hand, driven both by sheer necessity and by normal ambition to rise above a state of constant want, resisted and sought to force wages up. It was like dividing an apple in two parts. If one part was larger the other had to be smaller -- and this was the case whether the capitalist "pie" was big, as in boom times, or small, as in periods of depression. Accordingly, the struggle over labour's product is not simply a struggle between individual workers and their employers. It is a struggle between the working class and the capitalist class -- a CLASS STRUGGLE that is inherent in and inseparable from the capital-labour relationship. 

TOWARDS A NEW ECONOMY

In “Capital”, Marx explained the capitalist system. He showed that capitalism is based on exploitation, the extraction of surplus value from the working class. He also demonstrated that the exploitation will not end as the result of the trade union struggle, the struggle of the workers against the individual bosses, but from a class struggle in which the working class overthrows the capitalists. The struggle would not be one of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage” but rather had to be a struggle for the “abolition of the wage system”. Obviously, Marx did not oppose the struggle for the improvement of better wages and working conditions under capitalism but instead was pointing out the necessity of going beyond the boundaries of capitalism to put an end to the workers’ exploitation.

If the working class is to be successful in its struggles against capitalism, it must be united and organised. Whereas the bosses are welded together by their economic power and financial interdependence, the workers must be welded together by a common political outlook and goals. Only by all the workers acting together as if they were one person can working people equal the power of capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic system which is based on the exploitation of the broad masses of the working people by a handful of the extremely wealthy. The exploitation of the workers by capitalism causes their oppression. As long as this basic system continues to exist, so will the misery of the working class. Recognising this, the Marxist movement seeks to organise the entire working class into a powerful movement to overthrow the power of the employing class. The idea of socialism is powerless without a social force powerful enough to see to its implementation. There is but one such force in modern society – the working class. On the other hand, the working class cannot escape its exploitation by capitalism without socialism. Without socialism the working class is reduced to a constant struggle against the effects of capitalism because without socialism the system of capitalism remains intact. Socialism is powerless without the working class and the working class cannot advance without socialism.

Capitalism implies a division of society into classes, with warring interests. It entails great inequality, economically and socially. It is based on the exploitation of the property-less masses by those who own the means of wealth production. Thus the subjugation and the slavery of vast multitudes to a small minority who own and control the means of life, is an accomplished fact of the present. It will continue so for as long as the working-class are content to endure it. For the fact remains that the masses have the potential power to-day: they have the preponderance of voting power and can use that power—had they the knowledge and desire—to capture, constitutionally, the machinery of government. They can think, and they can vote. Equipped with socialist principles, and a knowledge and hatred of the present system, their class-conscious action could, and would, prove irresistible.

Socialists are out to abolish this system and substitute in its place “The Socialist Commonwealth.” Today is the day of the privileged plunderers of the workers. The present system provides a paradise for the parasitic. Under a capitalist regime wealth is provided for the private profit of the owners of the means of life. It enables them and their retinue to live in idleness and luxury. Their wealth, enjoyment, and ease is the corollary of the poverty, misery, and toil of the drudging masses. Their refinements and ostentatious display, their advantages and privileges, accrue to them as the result of the robbery of the working class.

The basic principle of the wages system is the buying and using of people’s labour- power to provide a surplus value for the capitalist to appropriate. In other words, the wage-worker is simply used to provide a far greater value than the value represented by the "wages” paid.

Those "wages” are, on the average, barely sufficient to maintain a worker and family in a state of efficiency for continued wealth-production and reproduce the species as future "wage-slaves.” For the future of capitalism depends on a plenteous reserve of workers to exploit.

All the commodities produced belong to the capitalists, the surplus value produced in the factory is realised for the owners by its sale in the markets.

With the means of wealth production being so great, and the organisation of industry so complete, wealth is nowadays produced with ease. Fresh devices for extracting the utmost surplus value are constantly introduced. The exploiters thus grow increasingly rich. The exploited masses thus, relatively, are impoverished. Poverty and precariousness of livelihood go hand-in-hand. Unemployment is more frequently recurring, and want and misery of the workers is a chronic symptom of the system.

Thus the working class—did they but realise it—have no interest in the continuance of capitalism. Their only hope is in its abolition. Socialism is the only system by which those who produce the world’s wealth would own and control the means of wealth production and enjoy the whole fruits of their labours.

The sole object of our rulers is to maintain and consolidate their privileges. They oppose anything that threatens to menace or curtail them. Thus it is preposterous to imagine that any effort would be made to make a "working-people's paradise”: for only the continued enslavement and the continued exploitation of the masses ensures capitalist supremacy. To keep the workers diligent, docile, and contented, whilst systematically robbing them through the wages system, is the masters’ great purpose. To them, inequality is necessary: for through it they get the lion’s share of the social wealth.

Fellow-workers! Think it over. Of all questions this is paramount! Study socialism and get to fully understand our principles. Organise, class-consciously, for the capture of governmental powers—and use them for the overthrow of the system that robs and impoverishes your class.

Organise for The Socialist Commonwealth. 

Power to the People

Under capitalism, a class divided society resting upon the exploitation of wage-labour, social justice is a contradiction in terms, a vague platitude, a mere piece of political phrase-mongering. So-called justice and injustice co-exist within the framework of the private-property relationship of capitalism and are conditioned by the class interest of the people involved. Justice from the standpoint of the capitalist class must equate to the legal recognition and enforcement of their minority monopoly of the means of production. Since this leaves the working dais without means of production, a socially inferior class compelled to sell their physical and mental energies in order to live, the whole edifice of capitalism rests upon built-in privilege and inequality. The Socialist Party has always maintained that even if all the promises and reform proposals of the reformist parties were carried out, the poverty and insecurity of workers would remain. In fact it is the continuing poverty and insecurity of the working class despite all past reforms and legislation that repeatedly prompts further reform demands to try to keep the worst excesses of the situation under control. The working class still have to sell their physical and mental energies to the capitalist class in order to live, and profit remains the motive force behind production. The only meaningful use of the term ‘social revolution’ is in the context of abolishing this set-up. It is vital, in order to learn the futility of reformism. Reforms beget reforms. All this tinkering with effects leads nowhere.

Socialism can be practiced only when a majority of the world’s population want it and are determined to make it work; in other words, when they are prepared to take equal shares of the responsibilities involved in running it. And working-class responsibility is something the capitalist class, consciously or not, does its very best to discourage. One form of discouragement is the myth of the 'politician'—a specialist in rhetoric, wit, parliamentary procedure, and vote-catching, who is obliged to play ‘a dirty game’, who has no choice but to sacrifice his principles now and then to his party’s interests or to pragmatism, and whose ‘political career' is capable of being ‘ruined’ when his Cabinet colleagues or an ungrateful electorate stab him in the back. “I leave that to the politicians’ is a common phrase. No, in running society each one of us has an equal liability. It is a pity that the political disillusionment so often talked about at present is in most cases an excuse for cynical inaction or incoherent protest rather than a spur to seeking a lasting cure.

Another way of ensuring that the working class lacks responsibility is to deny it opportunities for participation in controlling the means of living. Of course, ‘participation’ is another of those well-worn words but it consists merely of offering suggestions, giving specialist advice, lobbying on behalf of particular groups, or voting for one of a few alternatives — those alternatives which conflict with ruling-class interests having been carefully sifted out beforehand. True participation means being given all the facts to consider taking into account proportionately the interests of all the people who will be affected by the decision, and helping to work out and vote on all the alternatives. When people are denied these opportunities it isn’t surprising that they become apathetic, irresponsible, and selfish and that there is political disillusion.

Responsibility is inseparable from control, and control is in turn inseparable from ownership.

Edinburgh Branch Meeting (4/7)

Thursday, July 4, 7:00 pm 

The Quaker Hall, 

  Victoria Terrace (above Victoria Street),

   Edinburgh EH1 2JL

The Socialist Party often explains that the majority of the working class are capable of understanding socialism. This being so, our critics will ask, “Why then, are there not many more socialists?” At present the vast number of workers mistakenly view the solution to their problems in reforming capitalism in one way or another. Capitalism itself is not questioned, it is only the patching up of its effects that is attempted.

In our view, the problem is communication. Today information is mainly passed on by the mass media, to which we are virtually denied access. Consequently with our limited resources our activities in spreading our case for socialism, are restricted to what we are able to do in the way of our literature and discussion that we can upload to the internet. There was a time when political meetings took place in the open on street corners where one could go and listen to speakers almost any day of the week, where political journals were circulated. Without access to the media we have found it increasingly difficult to make our voice heard.

What is seen and heard in the mainstream media is the misuse of the word socialism, and distortions of Marxist ideas. This means that we are obliged to spend much of our efforts and energy in explaining what socialism is not. The Socialist Party had been the one organisation in this country’ which had consistently opposed the view that Russia had had anything to do with socialism; capitalism had never been abolished in Russia but had been developed there under the Bolshevik dictators Lenin and Stalin in the form of a state-run capitalism; this state capitalism was now giving way to a more market-directed type of capitalism, and now everyone could see that Russia was capitalist; our position had been completely vindicated.

The one thing that most clearly marks off the Socialist Party from the other organisations which claim an interest in socialism, is our view that the only possible basis for a party for socialism is an understanding of socialist principles. Other organisations have seen the disastrous results of bringing together people without socialist knowledge who were attracted merely by one or other of a long list of political and social reforms. We present our Declaration of Principles as the minimum condition of’ membership. 

The Socialist Party very clearly sets out in its Declaration of Principles that the emancipation of tbs working class must be the work of the working class itself. Special stress is laid on this because one of the greatest obstacles with which the workers are confronted is the idea, fostered by unscrupulous individuals and parties claiming to champion the cause of the working class, that leaders are necessary. So deep-rooted is this demoralising notion that we are called upon at our public meetings, when stating our claim to be the only Socialist party, to name some of our leaders. Our reply that we have no leaders is met with the incredulous retort: “But you must have leaders!” The word “leaders” implies not only those who lead but those, who are led. Now only those require, or suffer themselves to be, led who cannot see the way for themselves, and naturally, those who cannot see the way for themselves will not be able to see whether they are being led in the right direction or the wrong. Labour leaders, therefore, are able to render to the capitalists the very valuable service of misleading the workers. This is why the ruling class bestow praises and titles upon labour leaders, and entreat the workers to follow their wise (?) counsel. The work of the Socialist Party, therefore, is to spread abroad among the workers that political knowledge which alone can put them beyond the lure and treachery of leaders by showing them clearly the object they have to attain and the road they have to travel to attain it.

To many of our fellow-workers, the Socialist Party member appears as a type of person full of discontent— ceaselessly complaining, always grumbling. This impression is but one of the many illusions which cloud certain working-class minds. Members of the Socialist Party are dissatisfied because we do know the cause of all the evils which afflict the working class, and that knowledge represents our frustrating vexation. The Socialist Party claims that socialism is the only hope of the workers, and that all else is illusion.

Those who seek to apply for membership in the Socialist Party are required to understand and accept the Party's Object and Principles. If the Party are not satisfied that the applicant sufficiently understands our position, the application is deferred until the person's knowledge of the Socialist Party's position is sufficient for membership. This done, the new member gets a more complete understanding of the nature of the activities of the branch and of the organisation as a whole—and this understanding can obviously only come about as the result of regular attendance at branch meetings. Subsequently a desire generally begins to manifest itself on the part of the new member to participate more directly in the work of the branch and of the party as a whole. It is a question for the member to decide in what particular direction the individual's abilities would be most useful and decides upon a choice of work entirely voluntarily .

To those, therefore, who agree with our Object and Principles, we extend an earnest invitation to come forward and assist in the efforts we are making to build up a vigorous and healthy socialist organisation, bound together by a common understanding and class-conscious solidarity, who are determined to wage uncompromising war on all who bar our way toward the goal to establish the socialist co-operative commonwealth, where poverty will give place to plenty and wage-slavery to economic freedom.