The time has come for a new beginning

The most fundamental of all human activities is material production. If we did not produce, we could not live - politics, law, religion, philosophy, literature, recreation would all be impossible if we didn't have food to eat and shelter over our heads. For this reason the method of organising production has long been the most contentious of all problems faced by society.

 Society is characterised by the division of people into classes according to their role in the production and distribution of social wealth. The capitalist class and the working class are the two basis classes. The capitalist class owns the means of production and holds state power. They are the our main enemy in the fight for socialism. Through their ownership and control of the means of production they control the economic life and live off the profits they squeeze from the working class. Through the Conservative and Labour parties the capitalist class uses the government for its own ends. The working class is composed of all wage-earners - mental and manual, urban and rural - whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. Through well-organised struggle and education workers will realise that their interests lie in the overthrow of capitalist private property and the establishment of socialism. 

To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, the working class must have a clear strategic plan. Against the capitalist minority stands the vast majority of the rest of the population. The conditions of life for 98% of the people cannot fundamentally improve without the overthrow of the ruling class of capitalists. The working class is daily thrown into conflict with the capitalist class. Because of its social position, it is the revolutionary class. In building up its strength, in welding an alliance of all working people and in taking power, the fundamental method of struggle that the working class must use is mass political organisation.Whatever the tactics adopted at any particular time, whether it be strike action, demonstrations, delegations, petitions or the election of members of parliament, the working class must rely on its vast numbers and its ability to organise. Although the capitalists rule, they do not do so through open violence and terror. Working people in the UK enjoy a wide range of democratic rights - we can vote in regular elections, we can organise in trade unions and political parties, we can set up pressure groups, publish newspapers and leaflets, go on strike, hold meetings and demonstrations, and travel freely around the country. If we get arrested for anything, we are not held in detention without trial and we have the right to legal defence. These rights are vital for the working class to defence and promote its interests. Without the rights to form trade unions and to strike we would be at the absolute mercy of every whim of the employers. But these rights have not always existed. Nor were they generously granted by the employing class. They have been fought for with great effort and sacrifice by many generations of working people in a struggle that goes back to Peterloo and Chartism.

 Despite the importance of the democratic rights that we have won over the years, the working class can never achieve complete political freedom under capitalism. In this society only the capitalists have the money, time, knowledge and influence to use capitalist democracy to the full. We can publish newspapers, but the best technology is controlled by the capitalists and funded by business advertising. We can say what we like, but the rich can buy time on TV and radio, and the journalists listen to them because they are powerful. We can form unions, but the government can legislate against them at any time. We can buy all the property we want, except that capitalist have far more wealth than us. We can vote for a change of government, except that all the major political parties support capitalism. In all these ways, the formal equality that exists for all citizens is undermined and restricted by the power of capital. 

Until the working class gains control of the means of production, democracy can never be more than a partial achievement. From media to the education system, the state spreads an ideology of respect for private property, individualism and the law, that the rich are entitled to their wealth and that the government should be left to govern.

No matter which party is in power, the state apparatus - parliament, government departments, the courts, prisons, police and armed forces - protects capitalist private property and administers the capitalist economy. The government serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. The state dampens down class struggle by diverting it.

The Socialist Party are internationalists. We are carrying out socialist agitation to make our contribution to the struggle of the world workers.

Gandhi Comes to Scotland

Scotland's first statue of Indian civil rights campaigner Mahatma Gandhi has been unveiled at Ayr Town Hall to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Gandhi's birth. It was gifted to South Ayrshire by the Indian government's council for cultural relations.

South Ayrshire Provost Helen Moonie said: "We are proud of many similarities between South Ayrshire and India and a special link between Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Burns. Both fought against social injustice and used their unique gifts to carve out their place in world history."

Winston Churchill said of Gandhi Churchill on Gandhi

“Ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back. Gandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be grappled with and crushed.”

During the 1943 Bengal famine when the Secretary of State for India’s telegram requesting food stock to relieve the famine, Churchill replied:

“If food is scarce, why isn’t Gandhi dead yet?” Up to 3 million people starved to death.

Gandhi was not a socialist, preferring to believe that he could use moral force to achieve a more equitable society where capitalists would become trustees over the labourer and a levelling of incomes. 

However, a few pertinent quotations that are worth posting.

"According to me, the economic constitution of India and for that matter of that of th world, should be such that no-one under it should suffer from want of food and clothing. In otherwords everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet. And this ideal can be universally realised only if the means of production of the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses. These should be freely available to all as God's air and water are or ought to be; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others. Their monopolisation by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of the destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but in other parts of the world too." 

Elsewhere, Gandhi says:-

"The real implication of equal distribution is thateach man shall have the wherewithal to supply all his natural wants and no more. For example , if a man has a weak digestion and requires only a quarter of a pound of flour for his bread and another needs a pound, both should be in a position to satisfytyheir wants. To bring this ideal into being the entire social order has got to be re-constructed."

And again he said:-

" The elephant needs a thousand times more food than the ant , but that is no indication of inequality. So the real meaning of economic equality was: "To each according to his need" .

That was the definition of Marx.

Also he is said:-

“There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”

“All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family.

Capitalism destroys life

A handful of capitalists control our world and make vast profits on the labour of the working people and the natural resources of the land. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farms, fisheries and mines are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists. The people at the centre of the corporations possess huge personal fortunes accumulated from the backs of the working class. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites live off the backs of the workers and could not care less about their situation. Every bit of the capitalists' vast wealth was stolen from the working people The capitalists get rich from the fruit of our labour. At the end of the week a worker collects their pay. 

The capitalists and their apologetic flunkeys claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, workers get paid for only a small part of what they produce. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the hands of the capitalists and their flunkeys. 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 get fewer workers to do more work, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. If the bosses think they can make more profit somewhere else, they just close their factories and throw the workers out on the street.

 Capitalism is a system of economic anarchy and ecological crisis. This anarchic system squanders a great deal of social wealth. Capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust and irrational. For working people the future is less and less certain. People live in misery so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can live in luxury. This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction and social decay. The drive for profits holds thousands hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air that we breath and water that we drink; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and social devastation. 

Working people make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. But in every country they are the oppressed majority, labouring to support the luxury of a handful of exploiters. More than 800 million people are on the verge of starvation, while the gap between rich and poor is widening. 

Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today the whole system of production is socially interdependent, but it is controlled by private hands. In place of private control of social production there must be common ownership if society's problems are to be addressed. The problems of capitalism - exploitation, anarchy of production, speculation and crisis and the whole system of injustice - arise from the self interest of the tiny group of capitalists. 

Socialism will be won through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism - the seizure of political power by the working class. Having overthrown the capitalist class, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests in society. Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of common peoples' lives. Because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a liberating and transforming force.

 Socialism will not mean government control. Under capitalism the State serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. When the government intervene in the present economy, it does so to help, not hurt, capitalism. The economy will be planned to serve human needs rather than simply profit. . A great expansion in useful production and the wealth of society will arise. Rational planning will replace anarchy. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people and steadily advance. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and experiments. There could be a combination of centralised planning and local coordination. 

A socialist economy upholds the basic principles of social ownership, production for the people's needs, and the elimination of exploitation. Factories and other productive facilities will be modernised to eliminate backbreaking labour and ecological damage. Regional disparities will be addressed. Productivity gains will be used to shorten the working day and improve living standards, rather than create unemployment. Construction of housing, schools, medical, cultural and sporting facilities for working people will be a priority. With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. 

Every person will get the opportunity to contribute to society as much as they are able. Transforming the main productive enterprises from private to social ownership will allow workers to manage democratically their own work places through workers' councils and elected administrators, in place of the myriad of supervisors and overseers today. In this way workers will be able to make their work places safe and efficient places that can serve their own interests as well as society's. Working people will be form cooperatives and work together to raise their standard of living and improve efficiency. 

Socialist democracy would be far broader than what is possible today because the voices of the people would be heard, not simply those of the rich.

A Livable Future for All

A primary task for the Socialist Party is that it should explain its aim clearly, so that they can be understood by every one. We must do away with many misunderstandings created by our class enemy and some created by those who are mistaken for socialists. The main idea of socialism is simple. Society is divided into two classes by the present form of private property. One of these classes, the wage-earning, possess nothing except their ability to work. They can only live by their work, and since, in order to work, they need an expensive equipment, which they have not got, and raw materials and capital, which they have not got, they are forced to put themselves in the hands of another class that owns the means of production, the land, the factories, the machines, the raw material, and accumulated capital in the form of money. The other class, the owning and employing class, the capitalists, exists and lives off the labour of the workers. All this misery, all injustice and disorder, results from the fact that one class has ownership and control of the means of production and of life, and imposes its will on another class and on society as a whole. 

Socialism is where the differences of class is abolished by ending the power of exploitation and oppression in the hands of a single class. The rule of the minority will be substituted by the co-operation of citizens associated in the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. That is the essential aim of socialism, to transform capitalist property into social property. The socialist revolution, does not rest content after it has abolished capitalism; it must go on to create the new type under which production is to be carried on in a rational cooperative manner. If society was not able to ensure the proper working of a new social system, it would fall into disorder and chaos, and the achievement of the revolution would be lost.

We do not define our conception of the ‘working-class’ too narrowly. As we have explained , we include in the working-class all those who live exclusively or principally by means of their own labour, and who do not grow rich from the work of others. Thus, besides the wage-earners, we should include in the working-class, the lower and even middle management, the small farmers and small shop-keepers, the self-employed and the unemployed, in other words, all those who suffer from our present system of production.

Great social changes that are called revolutions cannot be accomplished by a minority. A revolutionary minority, no matter how well-intentioned or well-organised, is not enough, to bring about a social revolution. The co-operation and adherence of a majority, and an immense majority, are needed. Our socialist revolution will not be accomplished by the action of a bold minority, but by the coordinated will of the immense majority. Whoever depends on a fortuitous turn of events or physical force to bring about the revolution, gives up the chances of winning over the immense majority to our ideas, and at the same time give up any possibility of transforming the social order. A new social system cannot be created and inspired by a minority. It can only function with the acceptance and assistance of the majority. And it is this majority who add and multiply with their own little undertakings from which the new society will arise. It is this majority that will transform the capitalist world into the various types of social communal and co-operative, communal associations. In this task of social construction, the people must voluntary combine and collaborate. The common good will be their object and for the first time in history, a revolution will have for its aim, not the substitution of one class for another, but the destruction of classes, the inauguration of a universal harmony. In the socialism order, the organisation and co-ordination of effort and resources will not be imposed by the authority of one class over another, but will come as the result of the free will of associated producers, a system based on the free participation of all. Such a way of organising daily life can only succeed by the general will and desire of the community, if destined for the benefit of all.

Life Under Capitalism.

One of the most dehumanizing aspects of life under capitalism is sex trafficking.

Stats-Canada recently issued a report on it. Its findings were that in Canada most victims are women and girls younger than 25. Most people charged with human-trafficking crimes are males aged 18 to 35. In 2014, Toronto police laid 365 charges related to human trafficking, with 33 victims. In 2018 it had increased to 2,140 charges and there were 250 victims. The status of women statistics showed that more than 90 per cent of trafficking cases in the city involved domestic cases, and less than 10 per cent involved people being brought into Canada. Carly Kalish, Director of Victim Services of Durham Region Ontario, where human-trafficking is a crisis, said that there are two kinds of victims: individual and systematic.

Individuals may be living at home, but have low self esteem, issues with parents or school, and may have been abused. The systematic cases are those who live in poverty, in proximity to high crime areas, or are victims of racial discrimination. Girls in gangs or the homeless are particularly vulnerable.

Just another, thoroughly ''delightful'' aspect of life under capitalism which no amount of reforms can cure. But when do reforms solve any deep long-term problems for workers under capitalism?

Yours for Socialism, 

SPC contributing members 

No return into barbarism!

The Socialist Party has always criticised the capitalist system because it gives rise not only to poverty, but to recurring economic crises, ever more devastating wars and environmental destruction. The defects of this method can easily be demonstrated; it has, in fact, been done time and time again. What is wanted now is to show that we can carry on the distribution without feeding the hungry maw of these, more or less, useless parasites, who are waiting at every turn to squeeze a profit out of us. People must organise their economic life themselves. The transformation of capitalism to socialism means political power should pass from the hands of the capitalist class into the hands of the working people. That the means of production and distribution, the land, the factories, the mines, the means of communication, should pass into the possession of the working people. That production should be developed not by the competition of the various capitalist enterprises for profit, but with the aim to raise the material and cultural level of the people.

One class—the capitalist class—owns and controls the social necessaries, to wit: the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all institutions to its own interests. The capitalists are denying that it is necessary for society to take over production and distribution in order to plan for the welfare of the people (some say that all that is really required is the nationalisation plus some State control) and they are denying that capitalism in its struggle for markets and sources of raw materials, in its struggle to obtain maximum profits, is really the cause of climate change crisis and the underlying reason for wars.

The Socialist Party is clear that democratic thinking and action are positive. For many years the Socialist Party endeavours to persuade fellow-workers to organise and take control of the entire means of production and distribution with scanty results. The onus is on the Socialist Party of demonstrating that the theories it has so long expounded can be translated into a practical method of producing and distributing the wealth of the planet in such a way as to end for ever the exploitation of the many by the privileged few. It is not a question of us condemning capitalism; capitalism condemned itself. Working people are the only hope of the World. Can we do this? Yes, let us capture Parliament. We will then carry through a revolution that will take us out of capitalism into the new world of socialism. We can do it, all we have to do is to capture and organise the industries. We hold a clear conception of the new method of production and distribution, in contrast to the present inefficient method employed by capitalism. We can carry on the distribution without feeding the greed of the useless parasite class, who are waiting at every turn to squeeze a profit out of us. The working class will eventually change the whole system of ownership of the means of production and overthrow of the existing economic system. Social systems are not ready-made products and derive from the achievements and accomplishments of every preceding epoch. In its onward course to a further advanced system, mankind is going to utilise all that present day society has evolved and constructed. Workers will be able to construct and form their own structure of the new society, accordingly. By learning the social relations they can prepare to change society. The change in the ownership of the essentials of life will bring the change in the intercourse and the associations between the human beings upon the globe. Working people alone are interested in the end of inequality, and that can only be accomplished by a revolution. The workers must take over and operate all the essential industrial institutions, the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all. The life of human beings will not consist only of common drudgery when all the good things created by the workers are available to them.

Socialism is the science of human association reduced to a practical programme. The Socialist Party recognises that life in society as well as in the organic world, is constantly passing through a process of evolution. It declares that labour is the sole creator of value. It teaches that the only way to attain the just distribution of wealth to those who produce it is through the common ownership, control, and operation of the means of production and distribution, such as land, mines, factories, transport, communications. It asserts that this production should be for use and not for sale or profit, thus doing away with all private or State ownership of the means of subsistence. The cooperative commonwealth is its goal.

Cannabis Legal? No Thanks.

Making the buying of Cannabis legal hasn't stopped users going to their previous suppliers. Experts say the price, quality, variety and familiarity are the reasons users don't want to change where they buy it. 

The average cost of a gram of Cannabis from the illicit market continues to drop as legal prices rise, with authorized retailers charging as much as 80 per cent more, according to an analysis by Stats-Canada.

 Furthermore some users objected to a wait of 2 hours at legal store. The main complaint was that the quality of the government’s merchandise was much inferior than what they could get on the street. 

Once again the upholders of capitalism pass a law they cannot enforce.

Yours for Socialism, 

SPC contributing members 

It's Much Later Than You Think.

A Federal government geoscientist, Gavin Manson, has developed maps of Canada's coastlines showing where flooding and erosion caused by climate change will inflict maximum damage this century. Manson has taken into account factors like the disappearance of sea ice, rising waves, and the makeup of the shoreline. 

The fear of rising sea levels has already been documented in the Changing Climate Report Ottawa released in April for large areas of Atlantic Canada, where the ocean is predicted to rise up to as high as a meter before the end of the century. 

Another factor included in the maps is how the melting of ice in the ground below the permafrost leaves coasts open to more erosion. 

Many scientists have also pointed out that climate change caused by global warming is happening at a faster rate than previously expected. 

As the poet Robert Service said, ''It is later than you think, much later than you think.''

Yours for Socialism, 

SPC contributing members 

The Future Belongs to Us

The principles of the Socialist Party are clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is created by the workers. It claims that the workers must own and control all the processes of wealth production and operate these in the interests of the community. The Socialist Party is a revolutionary organisation and believes in revolutionary political action. It urges the workers to use their ballots to capture political power—not to play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to uproot the State and to hand to the working class the constructive task of building socialism. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is to believe in parliamentarianism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary party. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of sweeping away all antiquated institutions which stand in the way of society owning and controlling the means of production.

Socialism is the next stage of social evolution. The builders of the socialist society of the future will be the socialist generations themselves. When discussing the socialist future, it is always essential to bear this in mind. The task for the Socialist Party is to expose the ruling class and all its divisive ideologies which stands in the way of the emancipation of working people. Universal peace and fraternity cannot become real and secure until there are no rich and no poor.

The fight for socialism is a hard fight. The revolutionary overthrow of capitalism is a vital urgent necessity. It is not true is that anti-capitalist struggle automatically equals socialist struggle. Socialism considers our views dependent upon our material needs, and our political standpoint dependent upon the economic position of the class we belong to. Socialism is distinguished by its principle that the people can only be free when they free themselves from poverty.

 The Socialist Party visualised socialism as a stage of human society where all the accumulated knowledge, all the treasures of technology created by the genius of mankind, all that science and art acquired by humanity over generations is to be used, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole, striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good, transforming society into a community of free and equal producers. This socialist commonwealth liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression to provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

The Socialist Party is not a reform party, but a revolutionary party. It does not propose to modify the competitive profit system, but abolish it. An examination of its case shows that it stands unequivocally for the common ownership and democratic control of all the means of weal production and distribution — in a word, socialism. We are not a party like other parties. The Socialist Party has no interest in any of the so-called issues over which capitalist politicians fight sham battles. We retain an unshakable confidence in the socialist future of humanity. We hold an undimmed vision of the future. To fight for the socialist future, to hasten its realisation, is the greatest privilege for a man or woman in the world today. Our party is built on correct ideas and therefore is indestructible. Organisation means getting together with a common understanding and a common end in view, and working systematically for the attainment of that end. For the workers to organise effectively, they must have a correct understanding of their position in society and of the conditions under which they live and work. If they fail to understand these things, they will either not organise at all or will organise in an ineffective manner. The effectiveness of their organisation depends on the correctness of their understanding. The better they understand conditions the more effectively they will organise. The workers have a power infinitely greater than that of the capitalists. That is their power to produce wealth - to run industry-to carry on production. They can do this without capitalists, while without workers, capitalists are helpless. But the power of the workers is unorganised and therefore ineffective.

The coming fight, the coming revolution, is a social revolution, the revolution for socialism. The Socialist Party stands first, last, and always for the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution, and will press forward unceasingly until it is secured, thereby liberating the human race. Complete workers' control means possession of the source of all wealth and social power. When the workers control industry, they will own the earth. In no other way can they improve their conditions or gain economic freedom. So let us study economic conditions that we may understand them and agree on a common end, and all work systematically by the intelligent use of our economic power for the attainment of that end, which can be none other than to take over the means of production and distribution and operate them for use instead of profit.

Climate Strikers banned from Princes St.

School-students have been banned from marching down Princes Street during a planned climate change protest. The council said marchers would not be allowed to set foot on Princes Street on 20 September.

School student strikers, an expected 10,000, had planned to assemble at Middle Meadow Walk at 11am on Friday the 20th September to march down Forrest Road, George IV Bridge, the Mound, Princes Street, North Bridge, High Street, Canongate, Horse Wynd and on to the Scottish Parliament. Police had raised no official objection to the event.

So much for the council declaring a climate emergency and its education committee granting pupils one day to take action without any punishment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-49662070

The COP Comes to Glasgow

Thousands of people are starting to get politically active at the moment and they bring with them all sorts of ideas. We need to give the socialist vision high visibility and explain the socialist strategy. We hold a distinct alternative conception of society to offer. Many have the belief that socialists are productivists, an ideology that sees productivity in itself as the highest good. Socialists are second to none in denouncing the capitalist logic of production for the sake of production, the accumulation of capital, wealth and commodities as ends in themselves. Socialism is the production of use values, of goods necessary to satisfy human needs. The goal of technical progress for socialists is not the endless production of goods to have, but to transform labour into leisure and integrate work with nature. 

The problems of the environment, air, soil and water pollution, the accumulation of wastes, the destruction of forests, the greenhouse effect, all are setting up a catastrophic scenario where the very survival of humanity is at stake. The Socialist Party is well aware of the blind irrationality of the capitalist market, with its shortsighted profit and loss accounting. The Socialist Party is crafting a non-commodified future that is based upon based on non-monetary economy.

Many voices in the ecology movement inform us that we are responsible for climate change and that it is our fault that the planet's environment is fouled up. They tell us that we each individually contribute to carbon emission because our “excessive” consumption causes manufacturers to increase their production. The size of the carbon footprint of individual people is very small and practically irrelevant. The main culprit to global warming are the business interests which control the corporations which run the industries which produce almost all the emissions. Corporations cannot afford to be overly concerned with stopping pollution. The existence of every corporation is based on its ability to make more profits than the next corporation. Carbon capturing technology means that companies would have to cut deeply into their profits to take any real steps toward stop it. Business is not about to cut its profits for anybody. Business has not cut its profits to end poverty or to stop wars. There’s no reason to expect them to do such a thing in order to halt global warming. Of course, the main question is the survival of civilisation.

A planned socialist society which has control of the means of production, distribution will assure adequate comfort for the population. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realised only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising, politically and industrially, for socialism. The aim of socialist production is not profits but the prosperity of the country and the people’s happiness. The capitalist practice of only seeking profit while ignoring the harm done to the people is alien to socialism. The pollution of water, food and air is caused by the greed for profit. This could be abolished if the resources of the countries of the entire planet could be organised rationally to produce a healthy environment. Climate change is the direct result of the crazy, profit-motivated system we live in. And so long as that system is allowed to continue, global warming will continue and increase.

It is not a technical problem. It is a class and political problem. While capitalism remains, the wealth produced by the labour of the workers will be squandered. All the resources for a world of abundance, without pollution, disease and squalor, exist at the present time in skill, technique and science. They are the same resources used to produce the destruction of the environment.

“We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, affliction or infamy.We kill when, because it is easier, we countenance, or pretend to approve of atrophied social, political, educational, and religious institutions, instead of resolutely combating them.”- Herman Hesse

Join the Socialist Party's fight to get rid of capitalism worldwide, as the only way to end the horrors of hunger, disease and war.

The age of scarcity has passed.

The Socialist Party works for the co-operative commonwealth of socialism. Under capitalism, with its wage slavery, working people are nominally free; but, as we have seen, the land, the technology and all the products of labour belong to the employing class. The workers are at liberty to change their individual masters, if they can, that is all. There is a continuous class war between wage slaves and the capitalist class, with its parasites. So long as wages are paid by one class to another class, so long will men and women remain slaves to the employing class. Workers sell their labour power, which is the only commodity they possess, to the capitalists who own or control all the means of producing wealth, including the tools, raw material, land and money. Under capitalist production the workers are controlled by their machine, instead of being in control of them. Under the capitalist system producers themselves have no control over their own products. Commodities, social goods, are produced, not directly for social purposes, but indirectly, in order to create a profit for the capitalists. If capitalists are unable for any reason to produce goods profitably, the wage-earners cease to be employed, though there may be a vast quantity of useful goods glutting the warehouses on the one hand, and millions of people who are anxious to have them on the other.

Rent, profit and interest are all provided by the workers. They are, all three, the component parts of the labour value embodied in saleable commodities by the labour power of the workers, over and above the actual wages paid to the toiler, and the cost of raw materials, incidental materials, etc., needed by the capitalist for the conduct of his business.

The wages paid by the employers to their hands represent the customary standard of life of the special grade of skilled or unskilled workers employed These wages are, on the average, returned in saleable values to the capitalist in a portion of the working day, or week, for which the worker has sold his labour power to the capitalist. The goods produced during the rest of the time the wage-earner works for the capitalist are the result of this extra and unpaid labour, furnished by the toiler to the capitalist. It is the modern industrial expression of the corvée, enforced, not by the whip, but by pecuniary necessity and individual hunger. This is the surplus value, out of which all the classes who do not directly produce are paid their share: the majority as parasites, the minority as professional persons. Workers have advanced their labour power to the capitalist before they are paid their wages for its use. Capitalists, as a class, run no risks whatever; the unfortunate in the competitive struggle for gain are simply wiped out by their competitors, who benefit by their downfall. Shareholders in capitalist companies rarely or never render any service to the company, or the community, as shareholders. In the vast majority of cases they have never visited the enterprises from which they draw their dividends. The market for commodities, the whole population of the globe is drawn into the whirl of capitalist production for profit.

Production for profit and exchange by wage labour assumes the existence, from historic causes, of large numbers of people who are divorced from the land and possess no property of their own. The only way to solve the growing antagonism between the two great classes of modern society is, by substituting co­operation for competition, in all branches of production and distribution. This involves a social revolution, peacefully if possible or forcible, if necessary.

The power of mankind in every branch of human industry, including agriculture, that if all the technology, productive forces and general knowledge at the disposal of mankind in the civilisation of to-day were applied co-operatively to the supply of useful goods and social luxuries, “wealth might easily be made as plentiful as water” to use Robert Owen’s phrase. Enjoyable labour by all members of the community would thus produce plenty for all, and wages and prices would disappear.

The only real deterrent to the attack on the working class by capitalism is socialism. The time has arrived when every man and woman of our class will have to make a great decision. We shall have to choose whether capitalism with all its attendant miseries and horrors is to remain enthroned or whether we intend to be free. We shall have to choose whether we prefer to remain the slaves of profit. The Socialist Party explains to our fellow workers the nature of the struggle in which they are participating. To tell them of the principles for which our party works and fights for. To reveal what we are confident of the way out for our class from the horrid nightmare of the competitive struggle which sets nation against nation, class against class, and individual against individual. 

The struggle between individual capitalists to realise profits sets employer against employer. The conflict between national groups of financiers sets nation against nation, and produces war. But despite their individual and national conflicts the whole capitalist class stands united in their common desire to exploit workers. Hence under capitalism the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers, and are but mere commodities. 

The principles of the Socialist Party are not based upon passing and ephemeral conditions, but upon principles which penetrate to the very foundations of society. Principles that are permanent and imperishable, applicable to all lands as well as our own. These are the common ownership of the means of life, government of the people by the people for the people. Such are the principles of the Socialist Party. Support and work for the building of the world anew. For the sweeping away of ignorance, for the full physical and mental development of men and women free from class exploitation, and the degradations of poverty. Refuse, and by your neglect you stand for misery, exploitation, greed and war. The hour is great. The eyes of the world are upon you. The choice is yours.