Our need is to make socialists

 

It is a new society that the Socialist Party is working to-wards, not cleaning up the present capitalist mess into a smoothly-working order. We aim for nothing less than the taking over by the workers of all the means of producing wealth, to be used for the benefit of the community, that is to say, for the benefit of each and all of those who compose it; in other words, the realisation of a new society with equality of condition for its basis. Anything less may change the  masters but it will still leave them under masters still, and leave them slaves. Before we can attain to this it is necessary that the mass of the workers should understand this much at least, that nothing short of this will deliver them from the ills they now suffer.

The real business of the Socialist Party is to make socialists, to cover the country with a network of associations composed of men and women who have no temptation to waste their time in the thousand follies of partisan party politics. When the working class understand that they are not appendages of capital a revolutionary change will embrace the whole of society. The educational process must form a rallying point for definite aims and be no mere debating club, or philosophical society. Our function is to educate the people by criticising all attempts at so-called reforms, whose aim is not the realization of equality of condition, but the hindering of it; and by encouraging the union of the working classes towards Revolution. We will produce no more for profit but for use, for everyone to enjoy a happy life. Is that but an empty dream. If so then there is nothing to be looked for at all on this earth; and the business of each one must be to stave off pain and grasp at whatever passing pleasures we can without regard to others.

Although the Socialist Party trusts in the certainty of the social change coming about, it would be foolish for it to attempt to prophesy as to the date of its realisation, since hope is apt to give birth to despair if it meets with disappointment. Although the oppression and robbery of the past and the present is preparing the future, history has shown us over and over again that revolutions have to wait till the force which is to destroy the old order and create the new is overwhelming. When our fellow-workers do become conscious of the need for the abolition of private property in the means of production, the inequality between the two combatants in the class war will be no longer against them, but against the masters, and the war will soon be over. Unless we in the Socialist Party are all wrong, there are seeds of social feeling, capable of great development; and surely when the time comes they will be made manifest. The revolution itself will raise those for whom the revolution must be made.

The Socialist Party believes that there are amongst men and women all varieties of disposition, and desires, and degrees of capacity. We concede that people are not made naturally equal. Yet there are certain things which we all need; in that respect we are equal: we all need food, clothes, and shelter, and clearly if we need these things we need sufficient of them and of good quality, or else we have not really got them. Since then these needs are common to all, it follows that if anyone is not able to satisfy his or her needs in these respects there is something wrong. As men and women we also have other needs as in leisure and amusement and education. Again if a person has not enough access to leisure, pleasure, and education there is once more something wrong somewhere.

 This is the equality which the Socialist Party claims, that everybody should have enough food, good healthcare, and comfortable housing, with ample free-time for pleasure and education; and that everybody should have these. If not, we are not all equal. If we are not equal then there is something wrong with the society we live under. This is one of the richest countries in the world where there are a great number of clever and capable hard-working people in it, nevertheless  there are persons who go without, who have not enough food  or good enough housing and who have no hope of obtaining these things. If therefore there are rich and poor in a rich country rich in resources there must be something wrong with the system under which such things happen.

There are some who say it is the fault of human nature it is also the fault of the poor people who are naturally incapable of earning their own livelihood, and looking after themselves. How mistaken is that view. Socialists think that it is the fault of the system of society, and who try in various ways to alter that system.

 Socialism is the condition of all factories throughout the country cease to be owned by private persons and are owned by the people in general. The means of production and the land should be owned by no private person but by the people at large.  The society which the Socialist Party seeks to see is where no person will have to find a master for employment, a master who will not hire unless he can take a portion of what is produced as his profit. There will be no political parties squabbling incessantly as to who shall govern the country and doing nothing else; for the country will govern itself, and the parish, village, municipal, and county councils will send delegates to meetings for dealing with matters common to all. The trades also will have workers councils which will organise  labour. People will meet when necessary in general assemblies either physically or virtually through the internet to discuss matters common to all. Every citizen will be brought up to learn and to understand this organisation. We shall learn to live bound together by ties of community and mutual aid. We will cease to fight with each other for livelihoods and to rob one another of all the ordinary necessities as these would be so abundant that they would be free for everybody to take as  needed. For an illustration: when a family that is comfortably-off sit down to a leg of mutton how do they act? do they bring in a pair of scales and weigh out to each a share  for his or her plate? No, in a family everybody has what he needs and no one begrudges it: Mary has one slice, Jack has two, and Bill has four: but Mary and Jack don't feel wronged, since they have had as much as they wanted: and the reason for this is that enough has been provided, and that the members of the family trust one another. 

It is for you to choose whether you wish humanity to be a family or not. The life of a free person is better than that of a wage-slave.

The World Socialist Movement in the words of George Julian Harney seek "an order of things in which all shall labour and all enjoy, and the happiness of each guarantee the welfare of the entire community."

 

Socialism and the Future

2020 has been a black year for humanity. It is true that the first symptoms of economic recession had begun to appear but then the pandemic happened and all countries economies went into decline. Social progress and cultural advances slowed or went into reverse. The weaknesses and failures of all governments was evident to everyone. The mission of upholding human culture and rebuilding society on a basis of social justice to-day rests with the socialist movement. The Socialist Party, will, by using the vote, wrest from the present possessing classes the instruments which are now used to govern the people in the interest of the possessing classes, and will use them for effecting the change in the basis of society, which would get rid of the last of the great oppressions of the world.

In a sustainable sciety the abilities of all men and women can be used for their mutual well-being. The Socialist Party can see no reason why “to each according to needs, from each according to ability” cannot be society’s guiding motto. We need not fear when we come face to face with the citadel of Capitalism, the privilege of rent, interest, and profit. Capitalists are not interested in production to benefit the peoples of the world or even their own people. They are interested only in profits.

 It is a matter of course that since everybody will share in full the good life won by the whole community, so everybody will share in the responsibility of operating and running the community. This administration must be take of necessity democratic and federative; that is to say there will be certain units of administration, ward, parish, commune, whatever they may be called, all these will be federated within an always enlarging, widening structure. Differences of opinion can be settled by the will of the majority. In every assembly there would be no clash of interests, but only divergent opinions as to the best way of doing what all agreed to do. A minority would give way without any feeling of injury or hurt feelings. 

Socialists contend that the workers can only be emancipated by the workers themselves. It is quite impossible to have a genuine co-operative commonwealth without informed socialists. All attempts to organise socialism in any one nation spreads naturally to other nations that are working in the same direction. Socialism, becomes more and more international every day. Nationalist rivalries, which has been the weapon of the capitalist, will be abandoned in favour of international co-operation. Nationalism does not mean a step forward towards socialism. It would a step backwards. Nationalism works on behalf of the capitalists. Independence and sovereignty means a new sharing of powers but just between groups of capitalists, keep it all in the family. Those who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class are the allies of the capitalists. Working class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted. The “left” nationalists would have us believe that the task is to transform bourgeois independence into a socialist independence. In reality, they find themselves in the camp of those promoting division of the working class. Supporting nationalism in the name of the light for socialism is a monumental hoax. It is up to the world socialist movement to show that our fellow-workers will not be duped by their nationalist nonsense and deceiving rhetoric. Only the unity of the workers, leading to a socialist world can produce that “One World” which can abolish poverty and oppression, hunger and war.

The Socialist Party asserts that our planetary resources should not be owned by individuals, but by the whole community for the benefit of the whole. The means of production, the wealth used for the production of further wealth should be communised.

What the waste inequality is:

 

Firstly: The production of shoddy make-shifts for the supply of poor folk who cannot afford the quality article.

Secondly: the production of luxuries for rich folk, the greater part they neither need nor desire but for the sake of conspicuous consumption and to raise their status and self-esteem want.

Thirdly: the wealth wasted by the whole exchange and sales processes of competitive commerce, to which the production of useful goods is but a secondary object, its first object being to make a profit for the manufacturer.

If the productive forces in the world were to be utilised for constructive purposes, the entire planet could be transformed and the standards of living and level of culture raised to undreamed of heights. This is not possible under capitalism. Plenty and abundance under this system can only produce crises such as over-production and unemployment, because of the basic necessity of the capitalist class to make profits. Despite the hunger and famine in dozens of countries it is not profitable to feed the starving people. This springs from the economic laws of the system, not the desires, good or bad, on the part of the capitalists.

The hope of the re-birth of society is certainly growing.

“Intelligence enough to conceive, courage enough to will, power enough to compel. If our ideas of a new Society are anything more than a dream, these three qualities must animate the due effective majority of the working people; and then, I say, the thing will be done.” William Morris

The Glasgow Agreement

 

"The Glasgow Agreement is a commitment by organizations of the climate justice movement to create an alternative tool for action and a space for strategy and coordination inside the climate justice movement, taking a step away from negotiations with governments and international institutions. It will create territorial inventories of disaggregated emissions and create social plans to stop climate chaos and usher climate justice in the next decade."

...Achieving a just and egalitarian world, which respects planetary limits, and therefore guarantees a safe climate system, implies addressing intrinsic elements such as colonialism, labour, imbalance of power, participation, or the search for benefits for a few at the cost of the majority, just to mention a few aspects. Patches and empty speeches will still not work; there will always be an economic or financial justification to legitimize the polluters who have caused the problem.

...To say that institutions have not delivered on the struggle against climate change may be the biggest understatement in human history...emissions from fossil fuels have only dropped in the years of 2008 and in 2020. Neither happened because of climate action or institutional agreements, but due to capitalist and health crises.

...This Glasgow Agreement action plan will provide the basis for a 'Climate Agenda' from below that articulates struggles already in the field, providing a plan to achieve climate justice in its many dimensions. Rather than plans dictated from the top, which have proven not only to be unfair and destructive, but not even reach the necessary emissions cuts, we will build a plan of our own, from the grassroots and social movements, organized in the territories and in the different regions all around the world, applying the logic of just transition for workers and societies.

 We will never stop fighting for a future of justice and solidarity... Let us turn social power from below into the positive wheel of history!"

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/11/16/glasgow-agreement-plan-our-own

The Socialist Party can sympathise with the sentiments of the Glasgow Agreement statement but we cannot be deluded into thinking that mere words is suffice. The only action that is possible to halt and then reverse global warming is putting an end to the real cause of this environmental emergency - and that is by abolishing the capitalist system in its full entirety. 

To Advance Towards Socialism

The position of the Socialist Party is one of hostility to the existing political order. That order is based upon private property in the means of production, and its function is to maintain and defend that property in the interests of the dominant class. Hence the existing political order is in antagonism to socialism. The aim of the Socialist Party is to obtain for the whole community complete ownership and control of the means of transport, the means of manufacture, the mines, and the land. We seek to put an end for ever to the wage-system, to sweep away all distinctions of class, and to establish world socialism. As to the means for the attainment of our end, we in the Socialist Party look for our success to the increasing and energetic promotion of our views among the whole people, and next to the capture and transformation of the state machinery so to give the people the power of controlling the whole political and social forces. Socialism as we understand it is the system of society in which production is for social use; that is, the production of all the means of existence — including all the necessaries and comforts of life — carried on by the organised community for its own use collectively and individually. This is not how society at the present time organised. Production to-day is carried out in the interest and for the profit of the class which owns the factories and the land and the transport. Socialism would substitute common ownership for class ownership, and this would also involve the abolition of classes altogether. 

Socialism does not mean mere government ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class. The democratic society contemplated by the Socialist Party is a very different thing from the class State of to-day. When society is organised for the control of its own business, and has acquired the possession of its the means of production production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few. What we mean by socialism is the establishment of a collective administration — in place of the present class State — which purpose will be the common ownership and control of the whole of the world’s mining and manufacturing. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied class to make a profit. Private property which now divides society into two classes will disappear and classes themselves will be swept away.

Socialism embraces all the relations of human life. The establishment of socialism means a complete change in society in all its aspects. Socialism is neither altruistic nor egotistic, neither selfish nor unselfish. Socialism is not brotherly love, in the Christian sense found e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount, although it may, superficially, seem to bear some resemblance to it. Socialism is not spiritual but materialistic, and presupposes a condition of things in which the good of all will mean the good of each; that the individual cannot serve oneself without serving society, and cannot injure society without injuring oneself. Socialism calls for enlightened self-interest. With socialism it can serve itself only by serving the common interest, and as such it will completely change the character of its citizens.

 To-day working people oppose socialism because, in the first place, their whole education and point of view, inherited and acquired, prevent them seeing that they would be happier with socialism. Further, the bulk of the working class are absolutely blinded by their class position to the fact that they would be happier in socialism. The great majority are not class-conscious. Our fellow-workers do not see the direction in which their real interests lie, or that these interests are in antagonism to those of the ruling class; still less do they understand that they exist under a society founded on classes altogether.

Socialism is internationalist. It recognises no distinction between the various nations. “My country, right or wrong,” the expression of patriotism, is the very antithesis of socialism. Socialism is utterly opposed to nationalism and racism. The Red Flag of Social-Democracy, which does not acknowledge national distinctions or the division of humanity into  races. 

Socialism is revolutionary, politically and economically.  It aims at the complete overthrow of existing economic and political conditions. We organise and  prepare for what might be described as a revolutionary moment. We endeavour to show, the economic changes which are taking place, which are bringing about a revolutionary transformation in human society. While working for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, the Socialists understands that our fellow workers have as their duty, as far as possible, to mitigate the evil effects of existing conditions to restrict the exploitation and limit impoverishment of working people. It is incumbent upon them to enter into the active political life of the day in order to press forward such measures for the general protection of themselves, their families and their communities. The Socialist Party accepts such reform measures not only palliate the worst evils of capitalism, but also to better fit them for the struggle for their emancipation. However, the Socialist Party itself does not engage in advocating reforms as experience invariably found that those who start out as socialists with the idea of  tinkering with the present system land themselves ultimately in some weak reform movement of an infinitely milder character. The Socialist Party is not hostile every movement for class and race equality, and for the improvement of the present condition of the working class. All which tend in the direction of socialism are viewed sympathetically by the Socialist Party. All which, no matter how reasonable or attractive they appear on the surface, are essentially antagonistic to socialism, the Socialist Party is bound to oppose as misleading and dangerous. Trade unions, for example, are supported by the Socialist Party, in that they are manifestations of the class struggle, and represent an organised effort of the working class to prevent or restrict their exploitation by the capitalist class. 

Co-operation is in its essence socialist. That is to say, that all co-operation implies co-operative effort and social union. But the general practice of co-operative movement is little more than co-operating with capitalism. Under existing conditions no business enterprise can succeed except on competitive lines, and so the co-operative enterprise of to-day can compete, with capitalist concerns, on capitalist conditions. They must successfully compete or go under. Thus, while conferring some slight advantage on their members, co-operative societies have little connection with the present working-class movement.

Socialism once having been attained, will never more be lost. When the fruits of the means of production and distribution become common property, free to all, and abundant for all, they will cease to have that importance they now possess. The sordid struggle for mere material things will disappear. With minds freed from the dreary need to survive now imposed by the perpetual struggle for daily bread, mankind will bend its thoughts on nobler things and greater aspirations will open up which are at present, inconceivable.