Humanity must be a unity

 

The “Green” movement has done important work in drawing attention to environmental issues. However, it often evades the question of just who is going to answer these dangers. Technology is not the enemy, but its perversion by the power of capital. Compare the technical powers now available to our species with those of only a few decades ago, and you will see how much things have changed, and how enormous has been the speed of change. In the last twenty years, the advance in productive capacity and speed of communication has affected almost every part of the globe.  Isn’t technology the means to liberate us from the burden of labour?  The plight of millions of people shows otherwise.

Environmental issues are often expressed as if these were a choice between an environmentally sound policy and higher living standards. Such arguments are always based on the assumption that the existing capitalist economic set-up. Many greens seem to blame the modest living standards of ordinary people in industrialised countries for most of the environmental dangers. The ‘Green’ rhetoric has a nasty authoritarian flavour.  Freed from the market, production could be directed to providing for the satisfaction of the needs of everybody avoiding ecological damage. Instead of the environmentalist movement trying to make people feel guilty that we are consuming too much, it becomes possible to show them what collective actions are needed to look after the well-being of us all. We do not want to see the State centrally deciding what would be made and how it would be allocated in the community. Nationalisation and the command economy has proved failures, as predicted by the Socialist Party.  Private ownership of the means of production and their exploitation for profit is at the root of all our troubles.  

 

The capitalist class longs for one thing aside from profit, the base upon which profit rests political and economic stability.  Social unrest and discontent show that the rulers are not in full control. Only a socialist planned world economy can rapidly overcome the many myriad crises people face. Without socialism, capitalism will continue to waste enormous resources and subject the majority of the earth's population to abject poverty,  social and racial inequality, dictatorial regimes. To complete this grim perspective of hunger, insecurity, inequality and oppressive rule, capitalism offers the permanent threat of environmental destruction. Socialism constitutes the only certain guarantee of enduring peace. The best way to fight against the threat of wars is to fight for socialism through class struggle. The World Socialist Movement is faced with a responsibility great and grave. Ideas can be shared. The evolution of ideas has reached breakneck speed with the internet. Changes in ideas are becoming more frequent every day.  The most recent development in the evolution of the idea is within the ecology movement. It starts from a simple premise that if an economic system and an eco-system are not in harmony,  then one will destroy the other. At its heart is the ability to maintain a symbiosis to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising future generations’ ability to meet theirs. And at the heart of sustainability is the notion of stewardship, the duty to act as custodians or trustees for future generations and for all other orders of creation – to behave like responsible tenants of the globe in its entirety.

In the third volume of Capital Marx explains:

“From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as the private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth, they are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations, as boni patres familias [good heads of household].”

 

The Hope Is Socialism

 

Freedom in its truest sense is yet unknown to mankind. The emancipation of labour is essential to the freedom of humanity. The working class is still on all fours, worked, ridden, whipped and stabled, to serve the convenience of its master. Economic freedom will elevate humanity to a higher level than it has ever known. Wealth and leisure for all. Socialism alone stresses the importance of the individual in a free society. 

Our system is based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production in our hands, in the hands of the workers. This will permit us to begin a planned socialist economy.

Look behind the mask of propaganda and lies that are told about wars and you will find, no matter what the country, that this is a gigantic struggle between the capitalist powers for land, raw material, markets, cheap labour, in a word, for PROFITS!  The aims of one nation’s capitalism are essentially the same as those of all other capitalist countries.

 Owners and capitalists do not sufficiently exploit the means of production they own and prevent others from exploiting them, partly for incompetence and indifference, and largely because of a system that often makes profits decrease with abundance and increase with the shortage. Because of the disorder inherent in the individualistic economy, there are unbalances between one place and the other, overproduction crises, etc., but all in all the general production is always on the verge of shortages.

The Socialist Party’s aim is to replace the capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty, it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity.

Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests, the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to the economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialised economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.

 Our aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed out by a system of regimentation. Nor shall we interfere with the cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. What we seek is a proper collective organisation of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every citizen. The idea of a cooperative commonwealth has to be supported by a majority of the people. We do not believe in change by violence.

The essence of the capitalist system is the ownership and control of the materials and tools of production and distribution by a small class whose legal title to the lands, forests, mines, transport, quarries, mills, factories, and other industrial and commercial utilities and plants gives them control over the lives of the working masses. The workers subsist in a new form of slavery, wherein labour-power is paid for by wages, and the bare chance to live depends upon employment by some capitalist master. There is but one solution for the ills of capitalist society, but one way for the workers to achieve freedom and human life — the way of the social revolution.

Under this system, each one is forever pitted against the other one. We want a system in which we can live side by side like brothers and sisters. With socialism, we would have real democracy. Socialism does not mean equal pay to all but about ending the wages system.

A Clarion Call for Socialism

 

What the Socialist Party begins with is an examination of the capitalist system as it exists. We try to understand and explain what is happening in society in order to play a role in changing it. We look to the working class as the major force with the power to transform the existing disorder and create a new social order on a planet-wide basis, to meet the needs of all humanity and to oppose the tiny number who profit from the exploitation and oppression of the vast majority. Our function as a political party is defending, maintaining, enriching and applying the principles of revolutionary socialism. Humanity is marching forward to socialism and freedom, not backward to barbarism and slavery. The Socialist Party faces the struggle for this future with full confidence and unshakable optimism. The gloomy prophets of the eclipse of civilisation and even the obliteration of human society, ignore the history and the evolution of mankind, which demonstrates above all else its unconquerable will and capacity to survive and go forward.

It is true that humanity, threatened with environmental destruction, is indeed confronted with a problem of survival on this planet. But the we will survive. Against the ideology of pessimism, despair  and "fate revolutionary optimism will overturn the whole world and in order to survive, people  will do away with the social system which threatens its survival. Socialism will win the world and change the world, and make it safe. It will not only a new economic system which has been born. A new culture will be born. A new science will be born. A new style of life will be born. 

Socialists hate capitalism with our heads and with our hearts. We believe that in order to advance to socialism it is necessary for the working class majority to take political power out of the hands of the capitalists. Socialism is a society where the means of production and distribution are socially owned in the hands of the working people. An absence of this understanding has been the Achilles’ heel and a long standing weakness.

 The task of the Socialist Party is to give our fellow-workers a socialist perspective, socialist consciousness, to help the working class  to understand the capitalist system under which they live; how to end it by winning political power, and to replace it by a system of socialism.A revolution means a change in political power, it does not mean a violent bloody insurrection. Revolutions can be  peaceful and legal if permitted to be so. The stronger the movement, the more certain becomes the possibility of a peaceful transition. We do not stand for violence, but if violence should be used by the old ruling class against the people, then the people themselves will find appropriate methods to deal with it.

The Communist Manifesto ends with this ringing call to action:

"Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

"Workingmen of all countries, unite!"

Such a mighty clarion call for revolutionary worldwide action has yet to be surpassed. The words are even more true today. Workers in alliance can lay the political and social foundations for worldwide solidarity based on planning and the common ownership of the means of production.

We workers cannot obtain plenty and security, deliverance from misery and war, by trying to reform the capitalist economic system. We have to abolish it. And we cannot abolish it except by the revolution. With socialism there will be  no aristocracies of birth or wealth. No individual or group was to be allowed to exploit and oppress others. Not for a favoured few, but for all  the population there will to be abundance, security, an equal voice in democratic decision-making. The material and technical resources for such a society, unquestionably exist today. Everybody can have a comfortable home, ample food, decent healthcare and security against accident, sickness, and old age; opportunity for recreation and education and the sense of independence and self-respect that goes with all these things.

Instead under capitalism we actually have widespread poverty and mass misery. This appalling contrast between what might be and what is does not,  arises from the nature of the economic system – capitalism – under which we operate.

A revolution in technology has occurred where goods and services  are produced and distributed not by individuals in individual enterprises, but through socialised enterprises. Ownership and control, however, of these enterprises, and with it the right to make profit from them, to exploit the labour of those engaged in them, is still on the same individual basis. It is  impossible for this antiquated system of private ownership and profit to function, to supply the needs of the population today. The system acts  as a brake upon production so that, as the phrase goes, we have “want in the midst of plenty:”  The socialist revolution will end immediately private ownership and control over natural resources and over the plant for production, distribution and communication which the toil and skill of working people have built. Ownership and control would be vested in society as a whole.

Scientists and technicians will work freely and with adequate resources in order to plan for still greater efficiencyand bring greater abundance of leisure as well as goods. Socialists envisage planning on the global scale. National boundaries are as artificial and restrictive and socialism is  a world economy. Every effort to establish “planned” production under capitalism breaks down, since the warfare between rival capitalists, within a nation and between capitalist groups in different nations disrupts such efforts. The removal of the brake of private ownership which shuts down factories, wastes raw materials and stultifies the scientist and technician, and putting in its place the social use of natural resources and the productive plant, will mean an immediate and substantial improvement in the standard of living of the masses. That improvement can be continuous. The spectre of insecurity will disappear. The undemocratic economic domination of the few over the many will be at an end.
 

This is the choice – capitalism which means  chaos or world socialism which means a higher level of civilisation and culture.

Canadian Workers are heavily in Debt

As the economy slips onto a higher gear, many Canadian workers are heavily in debt, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

 The consumer debt index poll of around 2,000 people, conducted by the accountancy, tax and business consulting company, MNP, revealed insolvency is at its greatest level since 2017.

 Around a third of Canadians polled said the pandemic made their debt worse or created more debt for them or their family. 

So once again capitalism creates a problem and the working class, who are the biggest debtors, pay for it - no pun intended.

S.P.C. Members.

Food Price Rises. Not a Problem for the Capitalist Class.

The pandemic has hit Canadian's hard at the supermarket. 

According to Stats-Canada, the average retail price of prime rib increased 12% between January and May 2021. Food price increases are outpacing general inflation and exceed the 5.5% increase forecast in the 2021 Canada Food Price Report, which had predicted food costs for a typical family would increase this year by $695, bringing total food bills to around $14,000. 

cost of producing food in Canada has increased more than 20% since 2012. 

Of one thing you can be sure, this will affect the working class in Canada a hell of a lot worse than it will the capitalist class.

S.P.C. Members.

We Demand the Earth for All

 

 What dizzying speed the world has changed and been transformed by new technology even to the most remote regions. Mankind has been threatened by war, and now we dread the consequences of climate change and its immense and uncontrollable forces. All the conditions to assure the world socialism are now at hand except one: the existence of a class conscious majority

We believe in democracy. We adhere to democratic principles. We are opposed to dictatorships, whether right or left-wing. The Socialist Party aims for a social system based on production for use, not for profit, a system of production and distribution owned in common and democratically controlled in the interests of the people. We believe in the attainment of our ends by peaceful means, through political action, education and campaigning. We appeal to your reason, not to your emotions.

We live under the capitalist system. It is founded upon the principle that profit is of more value than people. Any system under which workers are deprived of the fruit of their labour is unjust. Any system that deprives them of the right to work deprives them of the right to live. The present system divides society into two classes, the capitalists and the working people. The dollar counts for everything, men and women for nothing. Human life is not taken into account by capitalism. We do not attack individuals. We oppose the system. The competitive system of commerce ruins all, even eventually the capitalists themselves. Capitalism is industrial despotism. Socialism is industrial democracy.

We stand before you as socialists. We hold that socialism is the only salvation. The capitalist system teaches people to regard each other as threats, the socialist system teaches people to regard each other as brothers and sisters. Many oppose socialism, but it is generally because they know nothing about it. Socialism is industrial democracy. Socialism seeks economic as well as political equality. What good does it do a person to have political freedom but be a slave under the economic system? As long as one is born master and another servant, there can be no well-being for mankind. They say you must change human nature. We say change the conditions and you will change human behaviour. In his book ’The Sane Society’, Erich Fromm stresses the insanity of capitalism. Against this insanity of the capitalist system, the Socialist Party declares that the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new system, organised on the basis of common ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. It must be genuine socialism. 

Socialism will operate in its spirit of mutual aid and cooperation. The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system and for the rule of the people; the only party of the working class and its purpose is the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to own the industries, the working people will continue to endure the hell of poverty. The Socialist Party is absolutely the only party that faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly that it has a definite and constructive plan for dealing with these conditions. The Socialist Party as the party of the exploited of both sexes and all nationalities and colours, the working class in a word, constituting a great majority of the people, demands that the industries shall be taken over by the workers to be operated by them for the benefit of the whole people. Private ownership has had its day.

The Socialist Party stands for common ownership. All the other parties uphold the wage system; the Socialist Party demands its overthrow. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental and physical achievement. We demand total control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own needs

We demand the Earth for all the people.