All power to the workers!

Working people are rightly discontented with things as they were and things as they are and things as they appear likely to be. But they must reject the lure of the populist and reactionary demagogues on both the Left and Right. Our fellow-workers will also reject the socialist alternative if socialists fall to their knees, to beg and whine for reform. The people will not support a socialist movement if it confines itself to some relatively minor demands for this trifling improvement or that, for this trifling right or that. The people will not support the socialist movement merely because it is composed of honourable men and women who are well-meaning and good intentioned yet go to the masters cap in hand to plead for concessions and palliatives.

A juicy carrot is dangled just in front of the donkey but always just out of reach, in order to keep it going with the heavy load on his back. Any politician readily makes promises of the good things of life for the future. Whoever tells the workers that they must accept their burden today because of the economic crisis, will tell them to accept a heavier one tomorrow because of the another economic crisis.

We are living under a system which is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity and the planet. The destructive threat of capitalism is so acute that humanity cannot afford the luxury of a lengthy process of gradual reforms and half-measure palliatives. The present system of capitalism is directly the cause of the many evils which now prey upon society

Capitalism has vast productive potential but only means poverty for the masses. It brings deprivation to the working people. Capitalism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s the quest for profit, which takes precedence over everything. The only solution is to destroy it and build a new social system. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Mankind has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit the labouring people.

The Socialist Party reaffirms its adherence to the principles of international socialism. We believe that the only manner in which the workers may permanently better their condition is through a working class party organised and controlled by the workers. The Socialist Party proposes the organisation of the workers as a class, the overthrow of capitalist rule, and the conquest of political power by the workers. 

We declare the Socialist Party to be the party of the working class with intentions of socialising the means of production. The workers shall own and control land, factories, mills, mines, transportation systems, and financial institutions. The workers to be economically independent and able to provide for themselves must collectively own and operate the means of production under a democratic administration of industry. The substitution of cooperation and democratic methods of production and distribution would remove these evils by lifting the workers to a higher plane both physically and mentally. 

Our vision is of a party which does not claim a monopoly of correct ideas but which brings together all the correct initiatives which exist in society and builds them into a coherent whole. Our task is to abolish capitalism and bring about a socialist society. Let us stand as the representatives of the clearest-cut opposition to capitalism the world has ever seen; let us stand in the forefront of the revolutionary movement. Worldwide, an upsurge of socialism is bound to come. It is more and more apparent that profit is an absurd principle by which to organise the world’s resources.

 The socialist society of the future will draw its strength from the new organisational forms thrown up by the mass movement that arise to establish it. Democracy is not something invented by the capitalists, its roots go back to the earliest struggles of working people against structures of class, racial and gender oppression. The new society of the future will carry this to fruition.

Red Dawn

The impressive demonstrations for climate justice continue and we of the Socialist Party are proud of its impact. Not because we invented the environmentalist movement, not because we lead this movement – but because its triumph is our triumph, as it is that of all people who cherish freedom, democracy, and human equality. Every achievement in this fight is, as we see it, a milestone on the road to that complete socialist democracy which is our political goal. Maybe we are not so badly off as it seems.

Our pride is that today and tomorrow, as from the beginning, we have been supporters, firm and without reservation, of a sustainable ecologically balanced and benign society. Without any partisan motives, the Socialist Party never sought to issue “instructions and “directives” to the environment movement. We shun such a leadership role, in the first place. And in the second place, we have little criticism to make of a movement that has achieved the success in mobilising literally millions, in protests all over the world. Millions shared our greatest of all dreams, the dream of a brotherhood of all men and women marching for a planet without hunger, without ignorance, without war. Our hearts are lifted by the thought of so many participating in a fight for this goal. But we have to ask: What next?

We socialists are obliged to be true to ourselves. We are a political organisation. It is our justification for existence. Political action is our means, not direct action. Socialists are seeking a better world founded on common ownership, equality and democracy. Egalitarian ideals have animated the great fighters for human progress throughout the ages, that led men and women to lay down their lives to resist repression and oppression. We continue to hold such ideals and they motivate the members of our party. We are engaged in a struggle for the final abolition of all forms of human slavery. We invite our fellow-workers to participate in that struggle. Socialism, real socialism, is the only alternative to capitalism; and it is worth fighting for.

There is an enormous confusion in the use of the term “socialism.” It is highly suspect yet so respectable that even those ruling parties claim to be “socialist” which do not ever intend to transform corporate property. The former Eastern Europe was labeled “socialist” although the means of production are there nationalised and turned into state property rather than really socialised. Workers remain wage-labourers. They have no say about the organisation and planning; they do not decide about the distribution of the results of their work. 

Their social emancipation requires, therefore, the abolition of both private and state ownership of the means of work; these must be socialised. The socialisation of the means of production is the transformation of private property into common social property. To be common social property means to belong to the society as a whole without anybody’s right to sell it. The fact is there is not much discussion by the Left about "withering away” of the state. Lenin had neither the time nor the inclination to put his ideas from State and Revolution into practice.

Opponents of socialism frequently say as an objection that there are different kinds of socialists and different kinds of socialism. Let them use the following statement as ammunition if they can. There are as many different kinds of "socialists" as there are different socialists. There are also varying expressions of the details of socialism, but they all rest on one fundamental principle, the common ownership and democratic administration of the social tools of production and distribution of wealth. State ownership for instance, is therefore not considered as collectively owned and certainly not democratically administered. 

The co-operative commonwealth - the reorganisation of society

The socialist revolution that will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Since human communities have become class-divided communities through the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of people who constitute themselves as the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished. Capitalism to-day must answer to the charge of blocking the wheels of progress.

The Materialist Conception of History is one of the fundamental principles of socialism. It is the view of history which ascribes the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all events in the history to the economic development of society, to the changes in production, distribution and exchange, to the resulting division of society into classes and to the struggles between these classes. This generalisation was first formulated by Karl Marx. Also Lewis Morgan, an independent inquirer, arrived at the same conclusion. Marx’s interpretation does not imply that only economic motives and no others have any weight. There can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the people while a minority holds economic power in the natural resources and in the right to exploit the majority for individual advantages. 

The Socialist Party insist that the basis of exploitation — the use of men and women for personal profits and power — lie in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action while he holds economic power the people. The Socialist Party does not want any bloody revolution. Revolution means change. There have been social revolutions in art, industry and social relations which have not caused bloodshed. There can be no real democracy while wealth weighs the scales against the interests of the people.

We often speak of the individual employer as a “robber.” No single employer can lessen exploitation and continue to exist. It is the system as a whole that must be judged. Private property for the labourer is but a farce, since the class that preaches most of the virtues of private property is the one that takes from the producing class all that it produces except a scanty subsistence. The socialist sees that he can further his or her own interest only by working for that of his or her class. While a social organisation depends on the existence of two classes, one following its self-interest, the other a code of morals serving to maintain it in subservience, there can be no reconciliation of the interests of all the individuals composing society with the interests of the social whole. This is conceivable only in a society of individuals to whom equal economic opportunity is assured. The ruling class has followed as a motive its self-interest, restrained only by the fear of rebellion on the part of the class of slaves, serfs or wage-earners. The subservient class, on the other hand, has been lulled into acquiescence in its enslavement through the persistent inculcation of the “virtues” of self-sacrifice, humility, reverence, docility, frugality and patriotism. The blindness of class antagonisms, will be solved by the abolition of these antagonisms in the co-operative commonwealth, the reorganisation of society on the basis of ownership by the working people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfill their needs. 

The Socialist Party believes that the fundamental basis of a true socialist society must be change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of ownership, administration and control of the affairs of a nation by the men and women who produce its wealth.

It's up to us.

Socialism will not come as a “gift,” from humanitarian saviours nor “automatically” from the bitter class struggles. The ideas and outlook of the capitalists have become deeply entrenched and is promote the so-called “theory of human nature,” which says that people are basically selfish and greedy and aggressive and those traits are inborn and will never change, so socialism is bound to fail and is a hopeless Utopia. This “theory” is garbage. There is no such thing as “human nature.” People ask, can there be such a thing as a secure and happy future for all, or must the rat race continue? Is it inevitable that a small number of rich people should cream off most of the benefits of modern industry and technology, while the rest spend their days at heavy and often boring work, whether in mines, factory, offices or in the home? Are things arranged like this for always because of faults of “human nature”, “man’s natural greed”, and the like? It is not “human nature” that is the cause of the problems people face today. It is the way society is organised, with a minority of people owning and controlling the wealth, the industry of our country, and excluding the vast majority of the people from any real say in the running of society. This is what lies at the root of the problems that working people face. It is this system of capitalism,

In the slave system, it was considered “natural” for one group of people, the slaveowners, to own other people, the slaves. In capitalist society, this idea is regarded as absurd, because there is no longer the need for slaves as private property. But today's system has every need for wage-slaves. So it presents as “natural” the kind of society where a small group, the capitalists, own the means of production and on that basis force the great majority of society to toil to enrich them. The slaveowners and the capitalists have one fundamental thing in common–they are both exploiters, and they both regard it as the correct and perfect order of things for a small group of parasites to live off the majority of labouring people. They differ only in the form in which they exploit and therefore in their view of how society should be organised to ensure this exploitation. When humanity has achieved socialism, society as a whole will consciously reject the idea that any one group should privately own the means of production. Then wage-slavery, based on the ownership of capital as private property, will be seen as just absurd as chattel slavery, based on the ownership of other people as private property. The working class, has no interest in promoting private gain at the expense of others and every interest in promoting cooperation. For only in this way can it emancipate itself and all humanity.

Many people know that life can be improved to make it better for all. The Socialist Party believes that within the way our society is ordered today, there are already forces growing that can change it for a better one. This conviction comes from our study of life as it really is, and from the lessons learnt from the experience of fighting for a better future. It comes from the study of what life was like in the past, how it has changed and what made it change.

Starting from the understanding that socialism is not won by propaganda speeches, some have come to elevate the day-to-day struggles to the exclusion of the fight to win the battle of ideas for the minds of our fellow-workers. Certainly, socialism will not come by converting people to by educational lectures and party-paper propaganda. But we do suggest that it is urgent that we break with the outlook which sees these struggles as ends in themselves. It is necessary to resist in every way the suffering brought upon the workers by the introduction of automation: but it is also necessary to explain the new perspectives opened to a socialist society by automation.

The Socialist Party hope to participate in achieving socialism, that is, the ownership of the means of production by the working people, the extension of the socialised process of production into socialised ownership. Capitalism suppresses new means of production to protect vested interests or where profits are threatened. Working people who have produced all the wealth around us must come into ownership and control of what is their own by right, so that they can then build the society and produce the things they want. The vast majority of the people gain nothing from capitalism and would lose nothing with its passing. Even today, although they do not own or control the industry, they in fact are turning the wheels that keep all industry going.

 The Socialist Party is concerned more with people and change than with anything else. Our daily experience still confirms the truth of our way of looking at human society. Everything created and valued by men and women, all wealth, has been produced as a result of human labour being applied to the materials supplied by nature. Under capitalism, a minority still controls the wealth of the nation (the raw materials, the factories and the land) and the majority work with machines in the factories that they do not own. As in previous societies that are divided into classes, under capitalism, the interests of the opposing classes cannot be reconciled. There is class struggle between the employers on the one hand, and the workers on the other. Class struggle, or “strife”, as some would call it, is built into capitalist society, because it is not possible to satisfy the capitalists’ aspirations and those of the workers at the same time. 

The workers fight for better wages and conditions, and the capitalist lives to make the maximum profit out of the labour of the workers. Profits can only come from the value created by the workers. Hence the conflict. The capitalist is interested in organising the production of those goods alone which will make him a profit, while the worker is interested not in profit, but in being able to buy what he wants and needs. The higher the wages paid to the worker, the greater the threat to the capitalist’s profits. Socialism will enable us to overcome the brakes on progress of capitalism. It will release the creative energies of the people. Different conflicting classes will cease to exist, as all people make their contribution to the productive life of society. The oppressive functions of the state as we know them will become redundant, and will wither away as they fall out of use. What will remain will be only a democratic administration of production in the hands of the people.

Mankind will be able to develop its talents to the full. With the harnessing of science and technology to industry, boring and repetitive work will be eliminated. Work for all will become as it is today for only a very small minority—interesting and satisfying. The essential difference between town and country will be ended, as housing, travel and cultural facilities become available to all people. The boundaries between mental and physical labour will be removed as all people receive the freedom and means by which to exercise their potential, their talents and abilities. 

But things do not stop there. There will never be a time when mankind has solved all problems and then sits down to live like a cabbage. What happens is that the problems change. They become more worthy of our time and attention. Life for all will be plentiful, secure, happy and interesting.

The building of this new society is the aim of the Socialist Party.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE

The Socialist Party demands social ownership of the tools and machinery of labour only; it does not concern itself with the part of property that is devoted to personal and private uses. The introduction of socialist production not require the expropriation of non-productive wealth. Co-operative production requires also common ownership in the means of production. Private property in the means of production is irreconcilable with co-operative work. The aim of socialism is to place the worker in possession of the necessary means of production. It is the capitalists who expropriate the producing class. Socialist society puts an end to this expropriation. Socialism will not put an end to development. On the contrary, it is the only means to ensure progress. Capitalist society is based on the robbery of the working class. The capitalists themselves are the greatest criminals and murderers of all time. Socialist society will eliminate the criminal capitalist class.

Socialist communities will have inherited from capitalism its “division of labour”–division between mental and manual workers, between workers in industry and working people in agriculture, between the city and the countryside, and between workers in different branches of the economy. They will break down these divisions and step by step eliminate all aspects of commodity production (production for exchange controlled by private individuals, or groups of individuals, rather than production for use controlled by society as a whole), which contains within it the core of the separation of society into classes, based on private ownership of means of production. The working class must also overcome the inequalities that capitalism fosters between men and women, between black and white, between young and old. When all of society has been transformed, the ulcers left over from capitalism have been eliminated, and the community of workers has been established, then a completely class-free society will have been achieved, and humanity will enter a whole new stage of history. There will no longer be the need for the state, since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of society. Socialism eliminates the anarchy of capitalism and its crises, by common ownership of the means of production and democratic planning of the economy. This removes the tremendous barriers to production that capitalist relations have erected. 

Unemployment will be ended, because socialism will be able to make full use of the labour of everyone in society, while at the same time developing and introducing new technology and scientific methods to increase output. As machines replace workers, workers will not be thrown into the streets, but transferred to other jobs, reducing working hours for all workers. The nature of work itself will change completely, because the labour of the workers will no longer go to enrich capital to further enslave the working class, but to improve life today, while providing for the future, according to the conscious plan of the working class itself. The pride that workers have in their work will be unhindered by any sense that they are working themselves, or someone else, out of a job, or that they are being driven to produce for the private benefit of some moneybags, under the orders of his foremen and the constant threat of being fired. Automation and robotics will no longer be weapons in the hands of the capitalists to grind down the working class, and workers will no longer be a mere extension of the machine, as they are under capitalism. Instead machinery will become weapons in the hands of the working class in its own struggle to revolutionise society and overcome scarcity. 

All this will release the stored-up knowledge of the working class, based on its direct experience in production, and inspire workers to make new breakthroughs in improving production. Work itself will become a joy and enrichment of the worker’s life, instead of a miserable means to sustain existence, as it is under capitalism. Socialism will make possible the building of well-constructed housing for the masses of people. Under capitalism, it is more profitable to speculate in land, maintain slum housing and put capital into buildings for big business than to build decent housing. The slums, shanty towns, and ghettoes will be ripped down, and in their place new homes a will be built. More than that, housing construction will be part of an overall plan, in a rational way, so that homes are built near work-places, with easy access to schools, medical clinics, parks and other social services. Health care under capitalism is a nightmare for the people and big business for the drug companies, hospital corporations and others who make billions from the butchery of the people. Under socialism health care and hospitals will no longer be a means to make profit, but a means for the working class to prevent disease and to preserve the health of the people.

Education in class society reflects and promotes the interests of the ruling class and instills in the youth the values and outlook of this class. Under capitalism this means that education is geared to maintain the division of society into classes, the conditions of capitalist exploitation and the rule of the capitalists over the working class and masses of people. Capitalist education prepares the great majority of youth only for existence as wage-slaves and as a key part of perpetuating the capitalist system of wage-slavery distorts history to make it revolve around the “brilliant ideas” and individual heroism of great “geniuses,” Kings, Emperors, Presidents, bankers, industrialists and other representatives of the exploiting classes throughout history. Children are taught to compete against each other and that competition is what “makes this country great.” Reality is stood on its head, so that it seems that capital, not labour, is the source of all progress and that the workers live by the grace of the capitalists.

Education in socialism will serve the interests of society.

In capitalist society many workers and other oppressed people are drawn to religion because it represents their hopes and aspirations for a better life–projected, however, into the future and into another realm completely beyond man’s ability to understand. Since life is miserable on this Earth, the answer is to hope for a paradise in the hereafter. Religion serves capitalism by telling people that they are basically helpless before the forces of nature-and the rulers of society –and they should put their faith not in the ability of the masses of people to change the world, but in a supreme, supernatural being, or beings. And if that isn’t enough, religion can call up the image of fire and brimstone to threaten people. More, those who control major organised religions make huge fortunes from collecting large sums from their members, investing much of these sums and exploiting labour. While telling the people to wait for “pie in the sky,” these hypocritical leeches live like kings, right here and now, from the sweat and blood, hopes and fears, of the people. At the same time, in every community, hustlers of all kinds–calling themselves “men of god, prophets,” etc.– prey on workers and other poor people, promising them all kinds of miracles to ease their misery – for a nice fee (donation), of course.

The reorganisation of society is the Socialist Party case. Every political party defends the interest of one class or another in society. On all questions, in every battle, the Socialist Party defends the interests of the working class, and works to prepare its victory over the capitalists. It is made up those men and women who are most conscious of the need to fight, the most determined to fight for the liberation of their whole class and of all the oppressed people. The Party’s role is to educate, organise and mobilise the working class. The Party is the organisation that can orient the struggle of the entire class. It can bring an overall perspective to each branch of the workers’ movement and unite all the isolated battles into one powerful revolutionary storm. The Socialist Party can raise the discontent of the workers to the level of conscious political struggle to put an end to this criminal system of capitalism. We have fought the good fight, and will fight it again and again until at last the co-operative commonwealth shall be established and the red flag shall fly over all lands

Peace between the peoples - War against the exploiters

The Red Flag Will Rise Again

Socialism, as a system of ideas, has either been ignored, or dismissed contemptuously, as an outworn, superseded ideology. All socialists are rebels against enslavement and exploitation. Working people will not be emancipated through the efforts of humanitarians and nothing can be expected from the politicians. Socialists rejects the policy of state ownership. We reject the idea that state capitalism is an introductory phase of socialism. State capitalism is not the abandonment of capitalism. When the Socialist Party conquers the state it will not nationalise industry. Rather its first act is to abolish the state, its parliamentary regime and forms of activity. Socialism, it must be emphasised, abolishes the state. Industry is not transformed into the state, but state and industry, as now constituted, are transformed into socialism, functioning industrially and socially through new administrative norms of the organised producers, and not through the state. State capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism, precisely because it is a state proposition. The lure that is offered to the workers is the promise to “democratise” state capitalism and the belief that it will growing into socialism, placing the government, in the hands of “the people.” This policy dispenses with the necessity of overthrowing the state as an indispensable phase of the social revolution and tactically strengthens the state and weakens the workers. The reformists are deceiving workers when they declare that nationalisation, and the state sector of a capitalist country are "socialist".

A change is absolutely imperative. Is it possible to modify and reform the present system by eliminating its bad features? That is what many liberals and reformists have been trying to do for many years without the slightest success. The social ills afflicting the working people can all be traced to one fundamental cause, to the fact that the means of production belong to a small group of private owners who are interested in producing things only if they can make a profit out of such production. Knowing the basic cause of society's illnesses, we are in the position of a doctor who knows the cause of the sickness of a human being. We can prescribe the cure. The cure is socialism,

Socialism is the working class in power. Working class power is the essential condition for far-reaching social change. Socialism can be built only when the working class has taken state power from the capitalist class: that is, when there has been a revolution. Socialism is built upon workers’ common ownership of the means of production. Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. It is the next step in the evolution of society. Socialism will be won through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the capture of political power by the working class who will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Socialism will not mean government control. Transforming the main productive resources of society into common property will enable working people to assume administration of production and distribution. Workers will be able to manage democratically their own work places through workers’ councils and elected administrators. In this way workers will be able to make their work places safe and efficient places that can well serve their own interests as well as society’s. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible. Socialism will open the way for great changes in society. The people will establish a social democracy, a genuine democracy. Everything would be for the best in the very best of all possible worlds. In a socialist society the means of production will be free to provide for the needs of the people. The capitalist profit-makers will pass into history. Whether capitalism or socialism will be the order of society depends on what the working class does. Its struggle for socialism cannot be postponed. There is a working class and a capitalist class. There is a class war. Socialism is the expropriation of that capitalist class. The Labour Party and the Left do not recognise this task. They do not realise the futility of their insignificant reforms. To help forward the real struggle for socialism it is not sufficient simply to profess belief in socialism or to pronounce oneself a Marxist. It is necessary to apply Marxism and founding a policy upon it. There must be continuous Marxist explanation and education. All illusions about easy short cuts to socialism must be exposed.

The basic idea of socialism is that all the means of production and distribution be owned in common by all of the people, and that every person, who is not too young, or too old, or too sick, cooperate in producing those things which every member of society needs and uses. Instead of having individuals or corporations own all the factories and hire workers to produce goods only when a profit can be made from their sale, society as a whole will own the factories, and the workers will produce the things required to feed, house and clothe all of the people, and to satisfy all of their cultural needs, elected or appointed administrators will calculate approximately how much of each article will be necessary to satisfy the needs of society and the factories will be set into motion to produce more than enough of each item. Instead of the anarchy and competition that prevail at the present, production and distribution will be thoroughly planned by capable administrators with the help and participation of the workers. The plans will be constantly subjected to analysis and revision. It is impossible, of course, to furnish a complete blueprint indicating every detail of the functioning of society under socialism. Of one thing we can be certain. A change in the system of property from private ownership, producing for profit, to common ownership, producing for use, will solve the major problems facing people today. 

The Socialist Party contend that industry has developed to a point where a sufficient quantity of goods can be produced to assure every one a very high standard of living. Since things will be produced for use and not for profit, planning will be possible and feasible. A change from capitalism to socialism, by eliminating the waste inherent in capitalism, would easily raise the standard of living of all people across all lands. If it should happen that because of some mistake too much will be produced, it will merely signify more leisure for the workers. With profits eliminated and production increased, there will be no difficulty for society to take care of those unable to work.

You can readily see that the solution offered by the Socialist Party for the problems of all of humanity is a very radical solution, one that goes to the root of the whole matter. In our opinion it is the only solution possible. It is incumbent upon socialists to show how that solution can actually be realised. It is necessary to convince many more people, than are at present convinced, of the desirability and necessity for socialism. Mighty forces stand in the path of the working class. The state consisting of the police, the army, the courts, the jails, the government; the institutions that exist for the purpose of subduing and deceiving the minds of the masses, such as the church, the press, the schools, etc.; the divisions in the ranks of the workers themselves, divisions that are fostered by the ruling class. Can these mighty forces ever be defeated? Will the workers ever unite and join in the struggle for true freedom and true equality? There are many who throw up their hands in despair, proclaiming the hopelessness of the struggle.

The overwhelming majority of the population would benefit by a change from the present system to socialism. If the working people should be aroused and determined to abolish capitalism, the police and the army would be helpless, even if we assume that all of those would be loyal to the capitalist class. Even their police and their armies would not be reliable because the police and the army are composed of people who come from the working class and who permit themselves to be used against their class brothers simply because they do not know better. If the capitalists were to depend upon force alone to guarantee their privileged position, their situation would be precarious indeed. After all they represent only a small minority of the people. What the capitalist class must depend upon, more than on force, is deceit. All the force in the world would not avail the capitalists if they could not deceive and confuse people. It is the deception of our fellow-workers, more than anything else, that assures the existence of a social order which brings so much misery and suffering to the vast majority of the people. Influenced by the false ideas propagated by the capitalist class, the workers not only fail to struggle against their real enemies but actually permit themselves to be arrayed against one another. They allow themselves to be divided on racial and national grounds. Prejudices are fostered amongst the workers and thereby the struggle against the common enemy is weakened. 

When the problems confronting a people cannot be solved by the ruling class, when the people are compelled to suffer without getting relief, when they behold an arrogant minority wallowing in luxury, indifferent to the fate of others, then they are in a mood to listen to those who propose a radical solution. The ideas which the ruling class pounded into the minds of the masses lose their hold and new ideas are accepted. The cover which blinded the workers is lifted from their eyes and they realise that they must take their fate into their own hands. No force on earth can stop them. When a system of society outlives its usefulness, when in the womb of the old society there has been prepared the possibility of a new social order, when the masses suffer needlessly, and when the ruling class is unable to solve the problems facing society—under such circumstances—the ideas representing the new social order are accepted by the masses, and instruments of force and deceit at the disposal of the ruling class are helpless to preserve the old order. A revolution occurs and a new social system comes into being. And once the workers rally around the ideas of socialism, nothing in the world can stop their progress. Neither state repression, nor the lies of the media, will save the present system.

To achieve socialism workers must first gain political power. The capitalist class under feudalism had economic power; it required political power to consolidate and guarantee its economic power; it obtained political supremacy by a revolutionary overthrow of the feudal nobility. The workers under capitalism have no economic power (except in the sense that they can bring industry to a halt by withdrawing their labour power) and neither have they political power. Before they can take over the industries and proceed to construct a socialist society, they will have to take over the power of government. We need not look very closely at the working class to see that it has very serious divisions. There are divisions between skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers; there are differences in political development; there are divisions based upon race, creed and nationality. The workers, furthermore, are not born socialists. The conditions under which they labour make them amenable to socialist ideas but there must be some organisation that assumes the responsibility of teaching the workers those ideas, of convincing them of the necessity to struggle for socialism, of representing their historic interests. What is absolutely necessary is an organisation of workers who, regardless of their skill or lack of skill, regardless of any secondary differences, agree upon the necessity of solving the problems of the working class through the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of socialism.

The Red Flag will be hoisted again because it is the flag of the oppressed, the flag of those deprived of their liberty, their labour, who are forced into wage slavery. 

This is the truth

The Socialist Party does not judge men and women merely by their avowals of faith and good will. Neither do we judge political parties by the descriptions of their aims contained in their written constitutions. We evaluate people and we measure parties by their actions.

Our aim in the Socialist Party is to convince the majority of our fellow-workers that our case for socialism can put an end to capitalism and its economic convulsions. Capitalism can offer no prospect but misery for billions and the destruction of civilisation. Only socialism can save humanity from the abyss. In this darkest of times, the Socialist Party clearly see the socialist future and prepares the way for it. The Labour Party has nothing to do with socialism. It's policy is to safeguard capitalism. The reformists and leftists are muddled about the nature of socialism, of capitalism, the nature of the state and the class character of political parties. Thus they equate nationalisation with socialism and they mistake the Labour Party as a working class party. State-ownership remains a form of capitalism in which capitalist property relationships is still intact. Surplus-value is still appropriated and production is still governed through the market by the operation of the law of value and commodity exchange. These laws operate whether private companies or the state control production. The essence of capitalism is property relationships; ownership is merely a formal question, which can take various forms. To portray nationalisation as a means of making inroads into the capitalist system is to ignore the central role of the state. There is no advantage in calling for the nationalisation of industry. It is irrelevant to the real interests of the working people whether profits are in private or state hands.

We believe that capitalism threatens any hope for social justice, peace, and human dignity. We face poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction which threatens the survival of all life on this planet. Nothing short of revolution and socialism can answer this threat. Capitalism is a system centred on capital accumulation and profit and is inherently a system of inequality and injustice. We want a social system where social wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but is commonly owned and democratically controlled by the people. Human needs replaces profit as the driving force of society. Capitalists either destroy the competition, or are destroyed themselves. This drive sends the giant corporations around the world, seeking cheaper raw materials and corrupt governments that will ensure a friendly investment climate. Capitalism continuously seeks cheaper labour costs. Capitalism is a system of exploitation and oppression. Poverty is built into its operation. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power.

Capitalism is Public Enemy No.1. In order to fight the enemy and win, we have to understand the enemy. Under capitalism, a handful that own the factories, the mines, the land, and the banks control the wealth that the majority produces. Capitalism organises globally and competes bitterly to expand and accrue profits. We oppose this system. There is no possibility of ending exploitation and oppression except by the overthrow of the capitalist class. In a world of abundance, we suffer from serious chronic misery.

To combat exploitation, the working class needs to struggle for its own interests. We organise in the trade unions to fight for workers’rights, higher wages, and better working conditions. We believe in the organisation of all workers and working class unity. The struggle for a livable planet is a life and death issue for many of our more vulnerable fellow-workers. We face a future that is bleak indeed unless the system of exploitation is abolished and replaced with a new socialist system.

Join with the party of the future. Our organisation is not large. While we have had substantial successes in our work, there is no reason to be arrogant or boastful. We have always opposed narrow sectarianism, and will continue to do so. We are mindful, at all times, to keep the forefront of all our activity: the need to to raise the socialist consciousness of fellow-workers and convince them of the necessity for socialist revolution. The handful of billionaires who dominate the political and economic life of the world has no right to rule. They have built their empires on the foundations of exploitation, oppression, and inequality. The Socialist Party will continue to make our best contributions to the struggle to break their power. The exploited do not need another reformist organisation. They need a Marxist one. We need a political party which will use its position to challenge the fundamental social, economic and political basis of capitalist society and expose the condition of hunger, misery and war that are bred by it – a party that will advance the fight for socialism.

 Our goal is socialism – everything we do is in the direction of that objective. We are a party of which the elected delegates will remain the servants – not become the masters.

People want change

WORLD SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party holds a vision of a new world, a world worth fighting for, a world to win.We say that there could be a better world for us all. It can be brought about. The seeds of the new world are sown in this old obsolete one. The Socialist Party strives to bring the new world to fruition. We want to make that cooperative commonwealth in which men and women will at last be able to know, to speak and to argue freely.

Nationalism is the enemy of any movement which seeks to establish the socialist society. Nationalists are the enemy of the free society of world socialism. We want peace, instead of bloodshed and destruction. We want security and jobs, instead of insecurity and joblessness. We want decent homes for our families and good and plentiful schools for our children. We want comfort and prosperity, instead of slums, child labour, low wages, unemployment and starvation. We want democracy and freedom instead of totalitarianism, bureaucracy and racial conflict. But in our present modern world, with its huge manufacturing centres and industries, elaborate complex technology machines and abundant natural resources, capitalism is unable to provide us with these elementary wants. It is unable to avoid wars. It dooms us to serfdom and poverty.

The World stands at a crossroads today. Immigration, climate change or the growing gap between rich and poor reveal conflicts that increasingly polarises society. Apportioning blame is far too easy. The reasons for the renewed and increasing divisions of society are rooted much deeper. The tensions that are pulling apart society today likely stem from the combination of the effects of capitalism

Class war is the reality today. The employers and their government have launched a savage assault on the unions. Capitalists have mobilised all the class forces at their command to beat the workers' movement into submission. This class war is no temporary aberration or an act of folly.

Under capitalism a handful of men control the wealth and power of the world. They own industry, banking, mining, transportation. They own our jobs. They own Parliaments and Presidents because they finance the big political parties which put politicians into office. They have the power of life and death over all of us. The insanity of capitalism is that it creates inequality, poverty and unemployment and all the crises of society. It produces not for human needs, but for the market. While the capitalists are united against the workers and their political and economic organisations, they are in competition against each other and against their capitalist counterparts abroad. They all try to out-produce and out-sell each other on the market because the mainspring of capitalist production is profit, not use. This fact alone indicts capitalism as the great obstacle to human progress.

There is only one hope for the future: Socialism! 

Socialism alone guarantees the absence of exploitation, unemployment, hunger, poverty and war. Socialism alone guarantees true economic and political democracy. Socialism alone guarantees the freedom of the peoples of the whole world. Socialism is the only thing worth fighting for because it is the society of true and lasting peace and freedom for all mankind. Socialism should be the common element that brings us all together. 

The task of the Socialist Party is to assist and hasten the political development of the working class which will put them on road toward the socialist emancipation of humanity from capitalist unemployment, misery, wars and insecurity. It is upon the political development of the working class as an independent, anti-capitalist force that depends the future. Only a socialist revolution can prevent the outbreak of a third world war and the relapse of humanity into barbarity. The task of world socialist revolution is the order of the day. This is final struggle to finally overwhelm the global capitalist system. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and while the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Unite for the emancipation of the people and to save civilisation from a catastrophe.

A Socialist World or No World

Once again we are deluged with the hypocritical cant and humbug that governments and corporations can change and create a sustainable world. Politicians and CEOs mouth the meaningless platitudes. What are the prospects of a happy future for people? What room is there in capitalism for peace and well-being when the prosperity of one depends upon the ruin for another? What have the people to look forward to, we ask again? Can nothing be done to stem the waste of human live and destruction of nature? The very first step is to clear the befogged and befooled minds of the people of every capitalist notion. Expose the capitalist as the liar, the sociopath and bully he truly is. The only hope is to abolish wage slavery, root, branch and twig, and to take control of the things that are necessary for the lives, comfort, well-being, and happiness of those who we hold dear. Robbed of everything, we stand at the door to the future. We have a world to win.

Capitalists 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. The buying and selling of human labour power as a commodity and the production of commodities for profit are among the fundamental features of capitalism. 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 ranks of 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 welfare.

Marx in Wages, Price and Profit, says: “To clamour for equal or even equitable retribution on the basis of the wages system is the same as to clamour for freedom on the basis of the slavery system. What you think just or equitable is out of the question.”

We socialists are engaged in a movement which regards both the poor and most crime as the products of an iniquitous system of robbery of which both aristocrats and the bourgeoisie stand guilty. All wars now waged, under whatever pretences, are really wars for the great prizes in the world-market. For as long as anyone can remember, the ruling class have paraded one political representative after another before the people promising a life of peace and prosperity while they subject hundreds of millions around the world to pillage and plunder from one end of the globe to another. Their whole system is one of legalised robbery and murder. The history of humanity shows that there is a path to travel–the path which the exploited and oppressed in every society sooner or later takes, the way forward, the path of resistance against and the revolutionary overthrow of their oppressors. Revolution is the only means to prevent war and hunger.