The future is ours to build or ours to ruin

 

A just society is one that makes available for all the means for the full development of the human person, a better, more dignified existence for the individual. Workers can toil away all their lives, but no matter how hard-working and they will never achieve a good outcome more than in the luckiest circumstances. Socialism is the unloading the heavy burden of wage-slavery, making production the common property of the whole society for a more just distribution of goods  to which we all have the same rights. Therefore, fellow-workers, join the World Socialist Movement. You have nothing to lose, but everything to win. Join together under the red flag of socialism.

The aim of the World Socialist Movement is the establishment  by democratic means of a cooperative commonwealth in which the supplying of human needs and enrichment of human life shall be the primary purpose of society. Socialism builds relationships based on mutual respect where everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop one’s capacities to the full. Capitalist social and economic conditions stunt human growth. In spite of great technological expansion, large sections of people do not benefit from the increased wealth produced. The wealth and economic power continue to be concentrated in the hands of the relatively few. Billions still live in want and insecurity condemned to a cheerless and joyless life, suffering ill-health and enduring a lack of dignity. This world is characterised by stark inequalities and by the domination of one group over another for the benefit of the few. The mad scramble for profit has wasted and despoiled our rich resources of soil, water, forest and minerals, devastating the planet. 

The climate crisis is accelerating much faster than most scientists anticipated. People tend to forget that the Paris Agreement target for limiting warming to 1.5–2.0C was supposed to be a starting point, not the end goal. Already significant climatic influences are already occurring now at about 1C warming. There is evidence that indicates 2050 to be an inadequate target for reaching net zero carbon emissions. Society risks large-scale, irreversible changes to the planet’s environment and our lives as part of it depends upon the choices and decisions we make, for the sake of all people in the future.

Industry and manufacturing can and should be run as to enable working people to use fully their talents and skills, to yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us the potential for enriching the standard of life yet unless there is rational planning is applied to their, the evils of the past will be multiplied in the future. The technological changes will produce even greater concentrations of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment.

 The challenge facing workers today is whether future development will continue to perpetuate the inequalities of history or whether it will be based on principles of social justice. A society motivated by the drive for private gain and special privilege is basically unjust. The WSM will not rest content until every person in all lands is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and a meaningful life as a global citizen of a free and peaceful world. This is the cooperative commonwealth which the WSM invites people to build.  

Humanity is sleep-walking into calamity and socialists offer a wake-up call for our fellow-workers to stir from their slumber.

 

“Vive l’Internationale.”

 

To the World Socialist Movement (WSM), Europeans, Americans Africans, Asians or any other foreigner, are fellow-workers. We greet all with “Vive l’Internationale.” 

 

The World Socialist Movement has its declaration of principles as its platform which clearly sets out the aims and objects of the movement and the means whereby these are to be accomplished. The Socialist Party admits to its membership on terms of equality men and women of all races and nationalities. There can be no misunderstanding for what it stands for. It is the only real democratic party in which the organisation’s office-holders take their orders from the membership and not the other way around. The Socialist Party is composed of men and women who speak and act for themselves and not a flock of sheep to be herded and fleeced by party-leaders.

 

Socialists are not opposed to “private property” other than in the means of life. We hold no agenda to take away your personal belongings. Socialism, which means industrial democracy, proposes that the producers of wealth shall collectively share in the social wealth, instead of idle parasites who presently benefit from owing the stocks and shares in factories and mines. Socialists are socialists because they observe the poverty and misery of the aged and infirm, despairing fathers and the weeping mothers of hungry babies and conclude that these frightful crimes and cruelties should cease forever. We in the WSM stand for social revolution; for the overthrow of capitalist despotism and the rearing in its place of an industrial democracy, in which the people shall own and control the means of life, and in which there shall be work for all, abundance for all.

 

It is to this the World Socialist Movement is irrevocably committed, nor will it cease its agitation until we triumph. Socialists are not hero worshippers because the very essence of socialism is the idea that the emancipation of the working class can only be the job of the working people themselves. As long as workers sit back, passively trusting in some leader or saviour or a party to fix things  for them, they will never progress an inch nearer to the goal of freedom.

 

The modern wage-slave is nominally free and possesses certain illusory political rights which the chattel slave or feudal serf did not enjoy. But this freedom and these rights have not yet sufficed to emancipate the wage-slave class from economic servitude. The worker is no longer at the command of a single master; but instead completely dominated by the employing class. Wage-slaves have no claims whatever upon their masters. If times are bad and there is no profit to be made there is no need for their  labour-power, so they are laid off and put out to the street.

 

The fact that some workers receive good wages, in comparison with others who are paid less, makes no difference to the system. In Greece and Rome highly-educated slaves received considerable rewards from their owners, and some even became rich, but this did not affect the lot of the mass of over-worked and ill-fed slaves of the same owners toiling in their mines or on their fields.

 

 Whether they like it or not, the capitalists are what they are and capitalists are what they are because, so long as their business is to make profits, they cannot avoid doing what they do. The capitalists must buy the workers’ sole commodity labour-power. Out of that, the capitalists make their profit, because the wages paid are of much less value than the total value of the product. The workers must sell his or her labour power for the wages of the day, calculated on the average by the cost of subsistence, or else they must go on state benefits, modern-day alms. This is the never-ending class war  between the owners of the property to produce wealth  and the owners of the labour-power, their brains and brawn. Even with government ownership and control, the wages system is maintained  and will remain so until the wage-workers themselves are prepared to undertake administration and distribution, on communal lines, for the benefit of the entire population.

 

All this was clearly  pointed out to the working class long before Karl Marx by the Chartists in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Chartists taught that so long as the payment of wages by one class to another class continued, and production for profit under a competitive system consequently remained the dominant form of employment, it was quite impossible for the propertyless majority to emancipate themselves from the control of the rich. Ernest Jones, for example, dismissed the demand for "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work", which was to ask for:

"...a golden slavery instead of an iron one. But that golden chain would soon be turned to iron again, for if you still allow the system of wages slavery to exist, labour must be still subject to capital, and if so, capital being its master, will possess the power and never lack the will to reduce the slave from his fat diet down to fast-day fare!"

The better paid wage-earners in some privileged  trades might  gain strength, reach certain agreements with the employers for improved benefits and advantages. But the less secure labourers were in no case able to make even this little headway against the economic forces above them. We see this repeated in modern times with the precariat, uber-workers in the gig-economy.

 

The only possible remedy for this state of affairs is to establish the co-operative commonwealth where the entire community collectively own and control all the means of making and distributing wealth. Socialists are all at one upon co-operation instead of competition, production for use instead of production for profit. Humanity will never be secure until the wage-system has been abolished and the money fetish has been swept away. Socialism is attainable.

World Socialists

 

To the World Socialist Movement, Europeans, Americans Africans, Asians or any other "foreigner", are fellow-workers. We greet all with “Vive l’Internationale.” 

The World Socialist Movement has its declaration of principles as its platform which clearly sets out the aims and objects of the movement and the means whereby these are to be accomplished. The Socialist Party admits to its membership on terms of equality men and women of all races and nationalities. There can be no misunderstanding for what it stands for. It is the only real democratic party in which the organisation’s office-holders take their orders from the membership and not the other way around. The Socialist Party is composed of men and women who speak and act for themselves and not a flock of sheep to be herded and fleeced by party-leaders.

Socialists are not opposed to “private property” other than in the means of life. We hold no agenda to take away your personal belongings. Socialism, which means industrial democracy, proposes that the producers of wealth shall collectively share in the social wealth, instead of idle parasites who presently benefit from owing the stocks and shares in factories and mines. Socialists are socialists because they observe the poverty and misery of the aged and infirm, despairing fathers and the weeping mothers of hungry babies and conclude that these frightful crimes and cruelties should cease forever.

 We in the WSM stand for social revolution; for the overthrow of capitalist despotism and the rearing in its place of an industrial democracy, in which the people shall own and control the means of life, and in which there shall be work for all, abundance for all.

It is to this the World Socialist Movement is irrevocably committed, nor will it cease its agitation until we triumph. Socialists are not hero worshippers because the very essence of socialism is the idea that the emancipation of the working class can only be the job of the working people themselves. As long as workers sit back, passively trusting in some leader or saviour or a party to fix things  for them, they will never progress an inch nearer to the goal of freedom.

The modern wage-slave is nominally free and possesses certain illusory political rights which the chattel slave or feudal serf did not enjoy. But this freedom and these rights have not yet sufficed to emancipate the wage-slave class from economic servitude. The worker is no longer at the command of a single master; but instead completely dominated by the employing class. Wage-slaves have no claims whatever upon their masters. If times are bad and there is no profit to be made there is no need for their  labour-power, so they are laid off and put out to the street.

The fact that some workers receive good wages, in comparison with others who are paid less, makes no difference to the system. In Greece and Rome highly-educated slaves received considerable rewards from their owners, and some even became rich, but this did not affect the lot of the mass of over-worked and ill-fed slaves of the same owners toiling in their mines or on their fields.

 Whether they like it or not, the capitalists are what they are and capitalists are what they are because, so long as their business is to make profits, they cannot avoid doing what they do. The capitalists must buy the workers’ sole commodity labour-power. Out of that, the capitalists make their profit, because the wages paid are of much less value than the total value of the product. The workers must sell his or her labour power for the wages of the day, calculated on the average by the cost of subsistence, or else they must go on state benefits, modern-day alms. This is the never-ending class war  between the owners of the property to produce wealth  and the owners of the labour-power, their brains and brawn. Even with government ownership and control, the wages system is maintained  and will remain so until the wage-workers themselves are prepared to undertake administration and distribution, on communal lines, for the benefit of the entire population.

All this was clearly  pointed out to the working class long before Karl Marx by the Chartists in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Chartists taught that so long as the payment of wages by one class to another class continued, and production for profit under a competitive system consequently remained the dominant form of employment, it was quite impossible for the propertyless majority to emancipate themselves from the control of the rich. Ernest Jones, for example, dismissed the demand for "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work", which was to ask for:

"...a golden slavery instead of an iron one. But that golden chain would soon be turned to iron again, for if you still allow the system of wages slavery to exist, labour must be still subject to capital, and if so, capital being its master, will possess the power and never lack the will to reduce the slave from his fat diet down to fast-day fare!"

The better paid wage-earners in some privileged  trades might  gain strength, reach certain agreements with the employers for improved benefits and advantages. But the less secure labourers were in no case able to make even this little headway against the economic forces above them. We see this repeated in modern times with the precariat, uber-workers in the gig-economy.

The only possible remedy for this state of affairs is to establish the co-operative commonwealth where the entire community collectively own and control all the means of making and distributing wealth. Socialists are all at one upon co-operation instead of competition, production for use instead of production for profit. Humanity will never be secure until the wage-system has been abolished and the money fetish has been swept away. Socialism is attainable.

Sochy-lizm iza a-Comin

Political action demands as much elaboration of probable consequences as we can reasonably accomplish under the given circumstances. A detailed blueprint is possible only where we have comprehensive knowledge of all relevant facts but as we cannot predict future events other than make some educated guesses, the most we can do or need to do, therefore, is to lay out a general rough sketch. We learn more about the details through cumulative experience, modifying, shifting, adapting, filling in the outlines provided by the rough sketch as we go along. If we are reasonably sure of the main outlines, we go ahead and find out what happens, adjusting ourselves flexibly to experience.

Now is the time to imagine a better world. The Socialist Party platform is the transformation of capitalist property into the collective property of society - The CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.

The transformation of modern civilisation into the co-operative commonwealth, involving the greatest change known at least to history, must necessarily result in a corresponding change in the content of mankind’s behaviour.  We must do more than show our destination but we have to indicate the path to take towards it.  We are political party dedicated to fighting for the cooperative commonwealth. Our doctrine demands the abolition of individual ownership of the natural wealth of the world—the soil, the mines, the inventions and creations of industry which are the means of production, as well as of the machinery of the world. This wealth, furnished by nature or created by the genius of humanity, is to be made collective property of society for the equal advantage of the whole body of the people. Socialism is the emancipation of Labour, its emancipation from ignorance, vice, servitude, insecurity, poverty.

Socialists must end capitalism,  erase state boundaries, transform the whole world into one cooperative commonwealth, and bring about real human brotherhood and freedom.

As long as capitalism pursues  its mission of exploitation, there will socialism, fed by misery, watered by tears, and vitalised by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.

We are pledged to the principles of world socialism. The interests of the world’s workers are separated by no national boundaries. The condition of the most exploited and oppressed workers, in the most remote places of the earth, inevitably tends to drag down all the workers of the world to the same level. The tendency of the competitive wage system is to make labour’s lowest condition the measure or rule of its universal condition. Industry and finance are no longer national but international in both organisation and results. The chief significance of national boundaries, and of the so-called patriotisms which the ruling class of each nation is seeking to revive, is the power which these give to capitalism to keep the workers of the world from uniting, and to throw them against each other in the struggles of contending capitalist interests for the control of the yet unexploited markets of the world, or the remaining sources of profit. The socialist movement, therefore, is a world movement. It knows of no conflicts of interests between the workers of one nation and the workers of another. It stands for the freedom of the workers of all nations; and, in so standing, it makes for the full freedom of all humanity. The Socialist Party comes with the only proposition for the common good of all.

Socialism means that all those things upon which the people in common depend shall by the people in common be owned and administered. It means that the tools of employment shall belong to their creators and users; that all production shall be for the direct use of the producers; that the making of goods for profit shall come to an end; that we shall all be workers together; and that all opportunities shall be open and equal to all people. The Co-operative Commonwealth will be inaugurated by the mass action of the workers. 

We all want the Cooperative Commonwealth. We all agree that capitalism is preparing the industrial running machinery thereof with marvellous rapidity and skill. We don’t need to trouble ourselves about that part of it. Our part is to get control of the political power in order to complete the transition to the socialism peacefully and systematically. In whatever way socialism comes, we must have a majority of the people in favour of it. We are not believers in the “small, well-disciplined minority” theory. It is our work to clarify and educate the vast amount of vague, undeveloped socialist sentiment existing in this country today, and crystallise and organise it into something palpable and definite.

Solidarity

 A heart-warming display of solidarity took place in Glasgow. 

Home Office Border Force tried to detain and remove two Indian men but hundreds of locals surrounded their vehicle and blocked the street, making it impossible for them to continue so they very reluctantly released the two men.

Police release men from immigration van blocking Glasgow street - BBC News