Socialism is the future of all humanity

 

In the course of human evolution when existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of mankind, when the system serves merely to enslave, rob, and oppress mankind, it is time to rebel against and overthrow these institutions. All human beings, irrespective of nationality, colour, or sex should share from the bountiful table of life. The history of capitalism is the history of repeated crimes, injustice, oppression, outrage, and abuse, all aiming at the exploitation of the people. Our planet is rich in resources, enough to supply everybody with all possible comforts, and insure well-being to all but is in the hands of a privileged few, while the nameless millions are at the mercy of ruthless employers and unscrupulous and corrupt politicians. They have engaged in continual war and slaughter, devastating the environment and destroying the best and finest qualities of humanity They have fostered  superstition and ignorance, sown the seeds of prejudice and strife, and turned the human family against itself.

Fellow workers, understand your importance in society and your historic mission as real men and women and then organise for socialism. Social ownership of the means of producing wealth for use and not profit. That will destroy the power of the few to dominate the lives of the majority.  Men and women are by nature gregarious; it is natural for them to join together in communities. In past societies the means of living, simple though they were, were held in common, this social solidarity and the human need for food and shelter were in conformity; but this condition long since ceased to be. The means of wealth production have become privately owned; and slave and slave owner, feudal lord and serf, and finally wage-worker and capitalist master have faced each other in conflict. It is now not the community, but the capitalist class which owns the machinery of wealth production. This class lives on the proceeds of the robbery of the workers who, by their property-less condition, are compelled to operate that machinery for its owners, in return for doing which they receive as wages only part of the product.

The aim of the Socialist Party is the cooperative commonwealth. The scramble for profit has wasted and despoiled our rich resources of soil, water, forest and minerals. The lack of social planning results in a waste of our human as well as our natural resources. Our human resources are wasted through social and economic conditions which stunt human growth, through unemployment and through our failure to provide adequate education. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of enriching the standard of life. Industry can and should be so operated as to enable our people to use fully their talents and skills. Such an economy will yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. Technological change can cease the widespread distress, despair and misery. The Socialist Party reaffirms its confidence that our society will build a new relationship among peoples - a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality of opportunity. In such a society everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop his or her abilities to the full. The hungry, oppressed and underprivileged of the world must know democracy not as a smug slogan but as a way of life which sees the world as one whole. The Socialist Party strives for a world society free from the fear of aggression and domination. The Socialist Party will not rest content until every person in every land is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and an opportunity to live a rich and meaningful life as a citizen of a free and peaceful world. 

In socialism there will be no wages system, no profit, and consequently no capital. The means of production will be communally owned. Only the abolition of capitalist private ownership will solve the poverty problem of the workers, and that the use of the vote by the organised workers for the conquest of the political machinery, is the method. The Socialist Party holds that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself,” and to that end the Party devotes all its activities to the making of socialists, knowing full well that when a sufficient number of our class realise their class interest, they will organise and put socialism into operation. Leaders will not be required; all will know the way. All that is required is workers who will propagate the knowledge of socialism. No other party believes these things are necessary. 

Socialism is Humanity’s Last Hope

 

‘The poor have no country, in all lands, they suffer from the same evils, and they, therefore, realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be the more thoroughly to enslave the people must fall’ (International Working Men’s Association, 1866). 

 

‘In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and “rights”’ (Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question, 1909).

 

 ‘I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World’ (Eugene Debs, 1915). 

 

 ‘The old lie: It is sweet and right to die for one’s country’ (Wilfred Owen, 1918). 

 

 ’Imagine there’s no countries; It isn’t hard to do; Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion, too’ (Imagine, John Lennon, 1971).

 

Borders may be altered, even disappear, but such re-arrangements of frontiers can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. The solution to that problem will not be found by struggling for independence or a union, but by striving for the world socialist commonwealth.  It would be a true world community, with no countries nor borders, no passports nor visas. 

 

A typical geography school lesson consists of studying maps of the world divided by lines going up and down and across marking all of the different countries. Where are these boundaries when you look at a photograph of the earth from space? Countries are artificial areas and have had many different shapes in recent history according to the fortunes of the ruling class owners in territorial negotiation and war.

 

Some our critics  give themselves sleepless nights over an imaginary dilemma that we will have to wait until the whole world is  fully industrialised  to vote capitalism out of existence. Firstly the emergence of undeveloped and developing nations as industrial powers does not depend on their own unaided slow rate of growth, but is speeded up by making use of experience and materials and technology of more advanced countries. It can be extraordinarily rapid, as witness the emergence of Japan and of Korea in past decades while in more recent years it has been the progress of China. Secondly the socialist movement does not grow at the same rate as industrialisation, so that the supposed difficulty of large socialist movements in some countries held back by small socialist movements in others is a myth. And, of course, our critics know this very well. So the true position is not that the few tiny socialist parties in the advanced countries are waiting for the benighted masses in Asia, but that the few socialists in all countries are patiently working to win over the masses in all countries. What rightly concerns the companion parties in the World Socialist Movement is the political backwardness of the workers  in their own land. Poverty is by no means only a problem for “under-developed” countries — it is a worldwide working class phenomenon. Every single wage slave, whether he lives in the midst of advanced “free enterprise” or the relative backwardness of Bangladesh, is never free from the threat of being one of tomorrow’s hungry. The vast majority of the world's population, who do not own or control the means of producing and distributing. wealth, are only ever entitled to have access to what they can buy. It is a dangerously insecure existence and it is madness for the workers to look to the bankers to change it for them.

Thirdly, just as capitalist production methods exercise influence in all countries and enable the backward to advance rapidly, so also the experience already gained by socialists in the advanced countries enables the socialists in the developing countries to progress more rapidly than they would if in isolation.

 

Socialism, undiluted and unadulterated, is what the Socialist Party wants. As to why we want it, only look around you. Millions are in need of food, health care, housing, etc., and the means exist ready to hand whereby they can produce them. Generations of workers have put their faith in legislation and reforms, but we are as far away as ever from economic security. The social revolution offers the only way out. Muster, then, under our banner, with a view to its speedy accomplishment.

End Exploitation

 

Socialism has not failed. On the contrary, it has never been tried and the growth of a genuine movement to bring it about has been deliberately frustrated by Establishment lies and misrepresentation. It is because the case for socialism is so overwhelmingly logical that those who oppose it out of narrow self-interest use their wealth, their power and their privilege to distort its meaning and to deny valid arguments about its nature and its feasibility a place on the political agenda. These are interests that have successfully pretended to you that you have to put up with capitalism and its disgusting abuse of humanity because there is no alternative to that system. Because socialism and democracy are indivisible, the task of the Socialist Party is to build the political means of convincing a majority to opt for socialism. We do not pretend that it is an easy task but, confronted with capitalist reality, it is an urgent and essential one. The antidote to  a society based  on the private ownership of production, but one built on the planet’s resources being owned in common and democratically managed. Such a society would not need money, and would instead be based on free access to goods and services.

 

Why do so many members of the working class find it difficult to understand the socialist case? Certainly not because of its complications. The Socialist Party declares that the workers have it in their power to build a society wherein the wealth produced shall be freely available to everyone without the need to buy, sell or exchange everything that is required. To imagine themselves having access to the goods that they have worked to produce without having to ask “How much?” or "Can I afford it?” puzzles many workers. They have come to recognise everything as the property of some person or persons. They accept without question the fact that goods are only available to them when they can afford to buy. The proposal that there can be a condition of things where the institution of buying and selling does not exist, makes them look for a flaw.

 

The Socialist Party does not advocate such a system of society just because it would be nice to live that way. He recognises that the present system of producing things in order that they may be sold, and that someone may make a profit out of the process, is the cause of all working class problems. From this root cause arises the poverty of the workers with its attendant problems of housing, malnutrition, overwork and unemployment, economic insecurity, crime, etc. Also from the same source comes  great catastrophes, Destruction of the environment and destruction by war. To eliminate these evils it is necessary to remove the cause. So what must we do? If the cause is private ownership with its production for sale, what stands in the way of abolishing this condition? Private ownership. Only things that are owned by someone can be sold or exchanged. When goods are produced they are not made available to the producers. They remain in the hands of those who own the tools and machinery which are used to make them. By virtue of their ownership these people have the right to say what shall be produced, how much shall be produced and how the goods and services shall be distributed. The whole of the structure of present day society is directed towards maintaining this order of things. The majority of the workers accept this system, governments administer it, police, judges and jailers enforce it, soldiers, sailors and airmen fight for it, and the owners of the land, mines, factories, transport systems, workshops, etc., thrive on it. Only the socialist challenges it.

 

To those who boggle at the idea of having the needs, comforts and luxuries of life made available to them; to those who take fright at the idea of a society without goods for sale, we would say this: Our proposals are not the result of a dream. They are the product of the study of social development and a recognition that socialism is the next stage in that development, not merely because we wish it but because it is inevitable if society is to continue. There is nothing difficult or incomprehensible about socialism once you cease to regard it as too simple to be true or as an idea of men who seek to trick you. All that is necessary is for you to give up seeking arguments in favour of maintaining the system that keeps you in subjection. Give a little earnest thought to the socialist case in a sympathetic manner. We know what the result will be. Then bring your actions into line with your ideas and the job of establishing socialism is as good as done. 

Not NOW

 

'Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.'- Engels, November 29, 1847.

There is now the Now Scotland movement pushing for Scottish separatism. 

Nationalists talk about Scottish culture and the Scottish way of life. But in what way is the life of a Scottish wage slave basically different from that of an English, an American, or  a Russian wage slave? There is no basic difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because there will still be the wage labour and capital relationship. Independence for Scotland therefore is a myth which further confuses the Scottish section of the working class and blinds them from the real struggle – the class struggle. 

The Scottish nation, whether independent or united with England, is divided into classes, as is society elsewhere. It is this division which accounts for the existence of the evils from which the Scottish workers suffer. English rule did not account for the fact that the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands led to the congestion in its industrial slums. The clan chieftains themselves turned out their own kin-folk in order to make way, first for sheep and later for deer, in order to fill their own pockets. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the Scottish working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one.

The Socialist Party rejects allegiance to any State and regard themselves as citizens of the world. We accept the boundaries between States as they are (and as they may change) and work within them to win control of each State with a view to abolishing them all. Our aim is the establishment of a democratic world community, a cooperative commonwealth, without frontiers.  Our  aim is to abolish masters of every nationality and to organise the production of wealth for their common good.

The liberation for Scottish workers can only come about by overthrowing capitalism itself. If this is not done, no amount of separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders.

If they speak consciously and openly to the working class, then they summarise their philanthropy in the following words: It is better to be exploited by one’s fellow-countrymen than by foreigners.’ (Marx, 1848)