“I got no flag. I got no country.”

 

Many people think that no matter what the geographic and social conditions, “human nature” is always greedy and aggressive. The Socialist Party, however, concludes that a basic aspect of “human nature” is the drive, and the never-ending struggle to be free and to live in solidarity and harmony with one another, in other words, to be happy.

Many will argue that greed and selfishness are essential parts of “human nature” that any socialist sharing of the wealth is impossible. Obviously being greedy and selfish  runs rampant within present-day society, but it has not always been that way. Greed (like human nature) has a history. For generations we lived in a “primitive communist” sharing society. In many societies private ownership of land was unknown. Later when we were existing in a class-divided society, people were continually and constantly trying to throw off the yoke of exploitation and oppression. Greed emerges with the onset of class divided society, with enough economic surplus that one person can produce enough to support others (slavery). With the development of exchange value mediated by money, accumulating money became an end in itself.

Capitalism, which has become the epitome of greed and aggression, has created the conditions for potential economic surplus which is so extensive that a true sharing of the wealth (never before seen in history) is possible. Today unheard-of productivity, via automation can potentially free us all from the drudgery of wage-slavery. But. of course. capitalism is only after more and more profits, so liberating mankind from sweat and toil is the furthest away of its aim. In capitalist society a worker is not, in fact, a person at all; but is simply apiece merchandise to be bought in the open market the same a any other form of item merchandise.

Nevertheless, humanity has the ability to to imagine something better, to develop once again a vision of happiness, a sense of fairness and connectedness, loving and living out of enlightened self-interest, enjoying a better world. We need social control over our tremendous means of production and destruction to turn our swords and spears into ploughshares so that we shall experience war no more.

 Nothing is eternal and unchangeable. Human nature is in flux and is variable, and it is socialists who explain the differing forms and varying directions of its change. By showing that the struggle of the classes is at the base of history, Marxism unveils the historical mechanism and shows that every given social form is entirely relative, entirely conditional. Mankind by definition is a social animal who unlike other animals in that he doesn’t merely use nature, but tries to master and control it. Such activity is necessarily social. Not only does labour change man, not only is it a necessary condition of human existence, but labour created man himself. It is literally impossible to think of a human being outside of some labor relationship, apart from some social context, how we lives, loves, dreams, thinks, “projects,” and idealises – is determined basically by the kind of society in which we live in. Classes and social systems succeed each other and differ from each other. 

Humanity has the capacity for love, solidarity, compassion AND the capacity for great aggression and cruelty. Which capacity dominates depends on certain geographic and social conditions. In “primitive” pre-literate clans where there is virtually no economic surplus, there is always sharing of land, resources, products, labor. By necessity (for the clan could not survive with a dog-eat-dog outlook and practice) the capacity for love and solidarity is dominant within the clan – a family of extended families.

This proves the human capacity for love and sharing; the capacity for aggression and cruelty shows up when there is some economic surplus, but not enough for the whole tribe or nation to share the wealth. Here we find tribal wars over limited hunting grounds, cannibalism, and slavery. This is class society, the beginning of so-called civilization.

This class-divided aggressive society has been with us for many centuries, perhaps seven thousand years (roughly 210 generations). But what we see during this long period of class domination and severe cruelty and greed is a constant periodic struggle of those who are the oppressed and exploited—a struggle for freedom and justice. We can conclude that a basic aspect of human nature is the drive, the never-ending struggle to be free and to live in solidarity and harmony with one another.

In other words, humans have a drive to live AND a drive to be happy, to live in peace, love and freedom. Is the drive for happiness doomed to be forever frustrated, leaving us stuck indefinitely in the situation of dominant cruelty and aggression? Many people think it is so basic that no matter what the geographic and social conditions, “human nature” is always greedy and aggressive. Many  Christians believe that human nature is “fallen” and cannot extricate itself from “Original Sin.” Thus any historical progress is dependent on divine intervention. 

 Marxists shows not only that socialist society is possible, but also that it is necessary. Collective organisation of labour is possible because it exists. It circles the world. Individual ownership and exploitation is in flagrant contradiction with this collective organisation. From this come crises – catastrophes which demonstrate more and more that the capitalist system is becoming impossible. 

Soon it will be no longer for us to show the possibility of socialism. It will be the task of the partisans of the present tottering capitalist system to prove the possibility of its continuation by any normal and progressive development. Socialists will only expropriate the expropriators. They will restore to society the property which has been stolen from society. We struggle against capitalist property, against the oligarchy of property – the monopoly of the means of production.

WE FIGHT FOR A SOCIETY WITHOUT A BOSS CLASS.

 

WHERE there’s a will, there’s a way. When there is a general will to establish socialism a way will be found. 

Bosses make their profit by taking it out of the labour and sweat of their workers. Classes exist because some men  own the factories and mines and machines, and most of us have to go to work for them. The boss tries to squeeze as much profit out of the worker as he can. The workers tries to gain as close to a living wage out of the boss as we can. And if the workers stopped struggling, they’d just be squeezed more. That’s why there’s a class struggle. There are kind bosses and tough bosses. There were kind slave-masters and cruel ones. The working class wants NO slave-masters and NO bosses. The workers wanted to take end the PROFIT SYSTEM. Wherever a wage worker confronts an employer conflict is born. It’s the old story: you can’t run with the hare and the hounds at the same time. You just can’t reconcile the interests of the workers and the interests of the bosses.

The Socialist Party faces the fact so that society is to be changed that wealth is produced not for money-sale but for the direct satisfaction of the ascertained needs of the whole co-operating community of owning-workers involves a complete change in every detail of social life. We socialists are not a party of deception. We will tell the workers the truth and organise for the destruction of this horrible system and the introduction of a socialist system of society. We say that the working people can make for themselves a better world – if they stop supporting capitalist candidates and capitalist parties.

The idle lives of a minority ruling class can only be maintained by a class-divided society where human labour-power is exploited. Capitalism represents an historical era in which human labor-power is commodified. In the case of the exploitation of slave labour things are exceedingly clear. Slaves, who exist as a sort of animal owned by another human being, have no freedom. Like a dog, a slave is unable to exercise any degree of physical or mental freedom. The products of a slave's labour belong in their entirety to the slave owner. All that is received in return is food.

A peasant, meanwhile, is a sort of half-person. Firmly tied to the land, a peasant cannot choose what to grow or which land to grow it on, nor is he free to choose a profession. To the extent that peasants cultivate the plot of land they are provided, they are able to obtain food, clothing and lodging. But the fruit of their labour on the lord's fields entirely belong to this master, some of the products from the land the peasants themselves cultivate must be paid as a tribute to this lord in-kind.

Under capitalism, however, things are different. Labour-power is commodified and thus sold according to its value. The means of production are also purchased and owned by the capitalist class. Capitalists come into possession of the means of production and labour-power through the process of circulation, as well as the resulting products that likewise flow back to them via the circulation process to meet their needs. Even if everything is bought and sold at its value, capitalists are able to obtain the surplus-labour that forms surplus-value. Granted, for their labour workers make use of raw materials, machinery, and factories owned by the capitalist. These could not be created without the use of the means of production, which were not created by the labour of a particular factory’s workers themselves. But still, workers in a factory somewhere produced them, using whatever machinery and raw materials were necessary. Apart from land, all of the means of production are things that are produced. And since land is not the product of labour, here we will set it aside as a factor. The means of production are also the product of labour. However, they do not represent newly expended labour. Only workers labour anew and expend labour. A company's products can thus be said to contain the labour from the machinery, factories, raw materials, etc. which used prior, and the labour newly expended by the workers.old labor and the new labour -- i.e. dead labour and living labour.

The notion that the country is “our” country – i.e. everybody’s alike, that there is such a thing as nation or community, a mystic something to which we belong and which protects us, is cultivated by the ruling class for the purpose of hiding the fact of class cleavage, of exploitation for the purpose of making the worker patriotic that he believes his interests are the same as for “his” country, instead of the capitalists. Revolutionary actions are directed against the system as a whole – for its overthrow. Revolution must involve a majority of the active population. 

The Socialist Party seeks to build socialism, not on the ruins of civilisation, but on the framework of science and technology placed at the service of all mankind.

The cries of distress and despair

 

The world sinks ever deeper into ever multiplying crises. The human civilisation, as we know it, is facing its worst catastrophe. Capitalism heaps misery upon misery upon backs of the toiling workers. For countless millions of human beings life today is a one of hunger, unbearable drudgery full of worries and anxiety. Everywhere fellow-workers look desperately for remedies. But they can find no cure.  Disease, and death has the daily lot of millions around the world and the difference between bare existence and non-existence is so slight for people who suffer terrible poverty, poor housing, poor food and pandemics of pestilence.

Nations are no longer isolated. Communications and travel have made us all neighbours.The sweat-shop factory system is one of torture and murder and is a disgrace to any one from anywhere.  There is no way out save in a complete overthrow of the capitalist system and the dawning of the new age of socialism. We are socialists because we believe that socialism will solve the misery of the world — give food and homes to the men and women who are hungry and without decent houses. We believe socialism is practical. Capitalism exacts a gloomy toll of death and destruction never before known in history.  Yet with  our own eyes we can see the great achievements modern civilisation could accomplish which could easily transfer millions out of  starvation, misery and insecurity throughout the world. We have unparalleled opportunities to achieve plenty for all. The purpose of the Socialist Party is the abolition of wage-slavery. Our goal is to achieve equality for men and women.  It exists to fight against the exploitation of those who toil by hand and brain, and to strengthen working-class organisation and political understanding of the need of ending capitalism and establishing socialism. We strive for worldwide working-class solidarity. We are engaged in a class war to end wage-slavery, to end capitalism with its evils of misery and degradation, a war to end war. And until we are victorious in this war it will not end and we do not want peace—because such peace will be the peace of the beggar and the slave.

The Socialist Party is the great foe of capitalism, with its degradation and destruction of humanity. The Socialist Party works to insure the workers own free development and their own liberation. It strives for the liberation of society. The capitalists are as a class, a useless, dangerous, parasitic minority that can be dispensed with. The only way out for the working class is to take power and bring the resources of the modern economy under a rational social plan. Having overthrown capitalism and established common ownership of the means of production and distribution, the working class will build towards a truly socialist society, in which at last the principle will be: “From each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need.”

The truth is that so long as the capitalists remain in power, so long as the destinies of every country are decided by the interests of those capitalists, monopolists and profiteers, the munitions makers and militarists there we will be without any prospect of peace or freedom for the people and the world will be soaked in blood; corpses heaped high; all remaining liberties will disappear. Nowhere do the ruling class offer the people a way out of the nightmare of suffering that has been imposed upon us. Capitalism threatens to plunge all humanity into barbarism. 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to overthrow world capitalism. A socialist society will abolish the class division of society, i.e., simultaneously with the anarchy in production, it will abolish all forces of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will represent a cooperative commonwealth. Socialism will end destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations. Socialist society will be State-free with private property in industry and land abolished (but, of course, not in articles of personal use), with exploitation of the toilers ended, and with the capitalist class finally defeated and all classes liquidated, there will then be no further need for the State.

 The guiding principle will be: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, clothing, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Socialist production, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. There will then be no need for pinch-penny measuring and weighing.