Rebel Girl (music)

 

The Revolutionary Demand

 

Change is needed. Most people agree with that. The question is what kind of a change is it to be? Is it to be envisaged only the reform of present-day society, the type of change the capitalist class and their supporters would wish? Or will the workers act in their own interest in the revolutionary act of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism? The choice rests with working people. If they want mere modifications of capitalism which will still leave them fundamentally in the same position as they live under today, they can have them. On the other hand, should they decide to have done once and for all with capitalism, its private property, profits and privileges for the few and its wage-slavery and poverty for the vast majority, there is no-one who can prevent them. The working-class can decide the nature of society. The lesson is plain. The workers, the bulk of the population, can decide how society will change. Should the workers support plans for the reform of capitalism? Or should they take matters into their own hands, abolish the present system and build socialism?

The reformists assume that capitalism will remain forever. Any changes they advocate are to be brought about within the framework of capitalism. This is the essence of reformism. Capital and wage-labour, the two bases of capitalism, they leave fundamentally untouched. They do not seek to eradicate these roots of capitalism. They merely try to lessen the pains inflicted on society by the capitalist system.

 All reformist efforts to solve the fundamental problems of the workers are bound to fail.Capitalism cannot be so modified by reform measures that it becomes the best of possible worlds for the working-class. Capitalism, it must be understood, is a system of a society organised so as to provide profit to the owners of industry, the capitalist class. To do this, the wage-worker is set to work, and what he produces belongs to the employers, the capitalists. The wage-worker is given back, in the form of wages, only a portion of what he produces ; the rest, the surplus, the capitalist owner retains. Thus is the worker exploited and kept on the poverty line, for the portion he receives as wages is just about sufficient to keep him fit enough to perform his particular job and reproduce his kind—future wage-slaves for the service of the capitalist class. Hence the worker is born poor, he lives his life in poverty and dies still poor. The motive power of capitalism is the lust for profit, any wage increases won by the workers are, if possible, offset by the employing class, for wage increases mean an attack on profits. Hence wage increases are usually the signal for the introduction of more labour saving devices, of more machinery. Thus, very frequently, more production is squeezed out of fewer workers. The exploitation of the worker becomes more intense.

Whatever reforms are introduced, so long as the present system remains, the following evils will persist: —

1. The bulk of what the workers produce will be taken from them.

2. They will be kept on or near the poverty line, and thus forced to continue in a slave position, dependent on the capitalist class for a living. They will still stand in need of doles, old age pensions and all the other accessories of poverty.

3. It is an important point that reforms carried out to improve the lot of the worker should prove an inconvenience to the capitalist class in whose interests present-day society operates, they are, as soon as a favourable opportunity arises, either abandoned altogether or modified to the disadvantage of the workers. 

 

Because no solution is possible for the worker under capitalism, we in the Socialist Party are out to abolish it and replace it with socialism. We aim at nothing less because we know nothing less will satisfy the needs of the class to which we belong. It is also for this reason that we are opposed to all other parties, all of which, at the most, aim merely at modifications of present-day society.

 

Workers should study socialism. That is the first step towards their liberation. We are confident that a little education will convince them that only by going to the root of their problems can their position be permanently improved. They will realise the need for abandoning reform movements. They will realise the need for revolutionary action, for replacing capitalism by socialism, that is by a society wherein there will be no private property, no profit-making and no wages. Socialism is, in fact, a social system wherein the means of life belong to all society and wherein, consequently, production is carried on to satisfy the needs of society. Socialism, having no “ulterior motive,” will make unnecessary the present-day strivings for “a living wage” (which still leaves the workers robbed of the bulk of what they produce). 

Let the worker, then, change his motto. With Marx, we say, “Instead of the Conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work !’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wages system !’ ”

Who speaks for Earth (video)

 

Work for Socialism—Now

 

One of the chief causes of the disagreement between the Socialist Party and other political parties claiming to be socialists is that we tell the workers that there can be no solution except by the establishment of the socialist commonwealth; that the capitalist politicians, of whatever label, desire to maintain the capitalist state.  Under no circumstances will we beg or appeal to them—our class enemies—to do something which we know they will not do. Working people must accomplish their own emancipation, organised as a socialist party, independent of and hostile to all other parties. That emancipation will never be obtained otherwise. Capitalism is hell for the workers. There is only one way by which they can get out of it, and that is by organising for the revolution, by joining the party of the revolution, The Socialist Party.

Search long enough and you’ll find other political organisations which mouth off once a decade about free access or the abolition of the wages system, but you’ll search a lot longer before you find any which never align themselves with some attempt to rearrange capitalism.  Our opposition to reformism is well grounded because reforms are by their nature divisive and therefore work against the vital condition of working-class unity. The only interest guaranteed to be shared by all is an interest in ending their position as wage slaves.

The Socialist Party holds that parties which advocate reforms attract reformists, not Socialists; perpetuate the illusion that capitalism can be reformed satisfactorily; and end up being swamped by reformist elements.

We define a reform as a politically-implemented measure and so don’t include wage increases as a “reform”, or wages struggles as “reformist”, even if these are still changes within capitalism. We are all in favour of workers struggling to get the best deal they can for the sale of their labour power to employers. The Socialist Party in declining to put forward a programme of immediate demands does not take up the untenable position that the position of the workers under capitalism is such that they could not be worse off if they gave up the struggle to defend their wages and working conditions; nor do we maintain that reforms are valueless. What we do maintain is that reform programmes inevitably attract reformists, and produce reformist organisations incapable of working for socialism; that only by working directly for socialism will it be achieved; that parties lacking solid socialist support and depending on reformists cannot achieve socialism even if they obtain control of the political machinery; that reforms cannot end the subject-position of the working class although they may be of small temporary or sectional benefit; that the small value of the reforms obtainable by reformist political action is In no way commensurate with the years of work and the volume of effort required to achieve them and that incidentally, the capitalists will give concessions more readily in an endeavour to keep the workers away from a growing socialist movement than they will in response to the appeals of bodies based on programmes of reforms.

There are but two classes in society—the producers of wealth and the master class. If by a trade union or any other effort the working class succeed in securing a larger share of the product of their labour, it must necessarily be at the expense of the master class. Competition among the latter compels them to be always on the lookout for means whereby the cost of production may be reduced and profits increased. Under capitalism the working class are poor. Some get a “fair” wage and are poor; some get a sweated wage and are poor; others are unemployed and get no wage at all. They are all poor.

We assert that the working class has no concern with the advocacy of reforms. If it is claimed that reforms, temporary though they may be in their effect, are needed, then the surest and quickest way to secure them is to organise for socialism and for socialism alone. Then the master class will throw reforms to the working class as an “antidote.”

The work of the socialist is to build up a socialist party, clear in the knowledge of the irreconcilability of the interests of the wage worker and the master, ever warning the working-class of the pitfalls in the shape of “labour” parties strewing the path which leads to emancipation from wages, ever teaching the slaves of capitalism that only by the overthrow of the present system of society and the establishment of the socialist commonwealth can the various evils confronting the working-class be removed. In this country, The Socialist Party of Great Britain alone stands for the Revolution. The Socialist Party is the only Party which at its formation and ever since has declined to side-track the working class by advocating palliatives.

We will sing one song (music)

 

This is our planet. We want it back

 

We need to abolish the out-moded and old-fashioned division of the world into nation states. Instead we need to cooperate on a world basis to meet our material needs and energy requirements. Only in a socialist society will the community be able to make decisions about energy production which are based on what is safe and in the human interest instead of decisions based on, and limited by, economic considerations. Only in a socialist society, when human beings can relate to each other as one family and not as units of labour to be exploited or national enemies to be destroyed, will the threats of environmental or military destruction really be removed. Socialism needs mass understanding and support — and then the world will be changed.  We in the World Socialist Movement can envisage a socialist party growing in the future along with many other expressions of working class organisation including trade unions and workers’ councils. We have never stood aloof from the industrial scene and class struggle, as our critics keep repeating until such claims have become an urban legend for many on the Left. However, what we strictly adhere to is that decisions about industrial disputes and work-place agreements are to be made by those directly involved and not by outside-the-union political parties.

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests. Force is the foundation of capitalist domination, and that force is obtained through Parliament; capitalist control there means capitalist control everywhere. The workers therefore have nothing to gain by supporting any party which seeks to maintain that control. Concessions and reliefs may have been granted in the past by both parties, but none of these concessions, none of these vaunted reliefs have altered the general position of the workers in society. They are still slaves, and while Conservatism, or Labourism has their loyalty they will remain slaves. The workers alone can free themselves from the burden of their condition—this they can do when they wish by organising on a class basis. The SocialistParty preaches the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life. That is the only way of ending the war of classes.

‘The Socialist Party seeks to build an inclusive united working class movement as the next stage in the class struggle. Socialist Party members understand that a shorter work week and the creation of a new union organisation will not topple the capitalist system. But, as a first step, it would provide an example and a base of operations. The object is to continue the education of the worker, to secure badly-needed immediate improvements in working conditions, and, thus, through the organisation, to further the solidarity of the working class and to prevent premature violence. The workers’ revolt can commence on a regional basis, the socialist revolution must be national, continental, and, ultimately, world-wide. Let us determine that that demand for a new idea in the workers’ minds shall not be the sterile idea of nationalism but with the one fruitful conception for humanity, the idea of socialism, the aim will be to make the whole earth a common human possession.

The immediate task is to make socialists and the conditions for propaganda have never been more favourable. After the most devastating war in history, capitalism is still torn by dissension and struggle. It is as useful to write in dust as to work for peace on a capitalist basis. The way to prevent war is to establish socialism. Let us not bow our heads and complain of betrayal; let us organise together for the establishment of a worldwide society—Socialism. A socialist world is possible now, to-day. Make it a certainty by joining the Socialist Party to-day. Workers, for your own sakes and for humanity's sake study socialism. Then, when you understand it, you will organise to establish it and so emancipate yourselves from the shackles of wage-slavery. Clearer than ever before stands out the great fact that there is no hope for real peace in the world until these various sections of workers recognise the common fundamental character of their slavery and set to work to remove it, thus ending the enslavement of the human race by the establishment of socialism.

Chomsky on wage slavery (video)

 

The Workers Will Decide

 

We live in a society which is dominated by the principle of competition and divided into the capitalist class and working class. Just as there is struggle between workers and capitalists there is also struggle between capitalists of one country and capitalists of another. We therefore find antagonistic nation states all competing with each other to secure and expand their national economic interests and political ambitions. To do so. one state must gain at the other's expense. This leads to conflict and, when diplomatic methods have failed, to war. Humanity needs to scrap the artificial division of the world's people into social classes, national states, political units and economic blocs — to scrap the social system which is the cause of war in the modern world.

In socialism there will be no money, no buying and selling at all, nor any system of barter. Instead people will be free to go into the shopping malls and take whatever they want, without payment and without being rationed.

The world can be run in this way because we already have the technical know-how to produce more than enough of the things people want and need. But for the moment money still functions as a form of rationing. If you can't afford something, you go without. That is why people starve, why families are condemned to live in slums, and why men, women, and children throughout the world are deprived and have their lives ruined. Yet the stupid thing about it is that the money system is not the result of scarcity in the world today but it is the cause of that scarcity. All the evidence shows that food, for example, is not produced in sufficient quantities to adequately feed the world’s population not because man lacks the resources to do this but for the disgusting reason that no profits can be made out of hungry people.

Of course, socialism involves such a complete change in the way in which the world is organised that it can only be put into practice when all the factories, mines, transport systems, shops, and so on are owned by mankind and used for the benefit of the entire world population. That is why we say that in socialism unemployment will reach such massive proportions. The whole system of employment, of a class of bosses buying our energies with wages and then setting us to work for themselves, will be replaced by voluntary, co-operative effort by all members of society. At the same time one of the first priorities in a socialist world will be to get rid of the boring and repetitive tasks which today make so much work unpleasant and replace them with alternative methods.

Socialism must be a world community without frontiers. It can not be set up in one country or even in one part of the world. This means that, just as there will be no buying and selling between individuals in Socialism, so there will be no trade between different countries. Production in socialism will involve a worldwide effort to produce what is wanted and since every region will be working towards this end (and will participate in the democratic processes used to decide what is needed and in what quantities) naturally every group of people will have free access to what is produced.

Perhaps you think that mankind is 'too lazy’ or 'too greedy' to make socialism work, or you might imagine that everything we suggest conflicts with 'human nature’. But, of course, such views are just prejudices unless you have some evidence to show that humanity is unsuited to live in a socialist society. Socialists are always open to reasoned argument but all our investigations so far have led us to the conclusion that socialism is not just a good idea but also is urgently needed to solve many of the problems which now worry us.

People are social and our capacity for cooperation and adaptation allows us to envisage and build a world beyond the current economic and political system which many regard as unchangeable. Capitalism is beginning to become a dirty word again. People have begun to protest against the profit system and the effect it is having on the quality of life. An unorganised anti-capitalist rebellion can only end in disaster out of which, either the present elite reassert their control or a new ruling class would take advantage of the chaos to gain power. If we are going to get rid of capitalism, the people have to do it by a democratic structure. We need to organise ourselves collectively to create a state-free world society, one without passports and borders.

Should I ever be a soldier (music)

 

The Class War - The Greater War

 

The Socialist Party devised the slogan 'One World" as a concise description of the society we are striving for. Socialism means that the whole world will operate as a single productive system where goods and services will be produced so that people can use them freely without resorting to buying and selling. It also means that the people of the world will be united on the only solid basis for achieving this end—by the resources of the world (the means of producing wealth) being owned in common and democratically controlled by mankind as a whole. "One World”, then, represents an entirely different vision of the future to such schemes as the “United Nations" or "Internationalism” which, as their names imply, attempt to improvise a patchwork from the fragments that capitalism makes of the world.

The world socialist commonwealth will be a social relationship of equality between all people with regard to the use of the means of production. No longer will there be classes, governments and their state machinery, or national frontiers.  There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up. The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the co-operative labour of the millions employed to operate these means of production. What is needed now, to establish socialism, is a conscious political decision on the part of these millions across the world to run society in their own interests.

Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people there would be various levels of democratic administration. from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals.

Production for use will bring production into direct line with human needs. Without money, wages, buying and selling there will be a world of free access. Everyone will be able to contribute to society by working voluntarily, according to ability. Everyone will be able to take freely from whatever is readily available, according to self-defined needs. A democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced. such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.

Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. If it is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control, then the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must, therefore, be prepared to establish “socialism” in one country or even a group of countries like the European Community.

For a start, it is an unreasonable assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly. Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions: and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish “socialism” in one country would be bound to fail to owe to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Recent experience in Russia, China and elsewhere shows conclusively that even capitalist states cannot detach themselves from the requirements of an integrated system of production operated through the world market.

Working Folk Unite (music)

 

We Call It Socialism

 The alternative to the present capitalist system of profit-seeking and monetary accumulation involves:

· the absence of any property rights, private or state, over natural and industrial resources needed for production;

· the existence of a non-coercive democratic decision-making structure;

· the guaranteed access for all to what they need to satisfy their needs;

· the orientation of production towards the direct satisfaction of real needs in a flexible and self-regulating way without the intervention of money and buying and selling;

· the organisation of work as a voluntary service under the democratic control of those working in the various production units.

We call this system “socialism”, but it is the content, not the name, that is important. In any event, it obviously has nothing in common with the state capitalist regimes (as in the former USSR or China) or proposals for state control (as by the Labour left) which are often erroneously called “socialist”.

The means by which the new society can be achieved are determined by its nature as a society involving voluntary co-operation and democratic participation. It cannot be imposed from above by some self-appointed liberators nor by some well-meaning state bureaucracy but can only come into existence as a result of being the expressed wish of a majority—an overwhelming majority—of the population. In other words, the new society can only be established by democratic political action and the movement to establish it can only employ democratic forms of struggle.

Because the present system is, as a system must be, an inter-related whole and not a chance collection of good and bad elements, it cannot be abolished piecemeal. It can only be abolished in its entirety or not at all. This fact determines the choice as to what we must do: work towards a complete break with the present system as opposed to trying to gradually transform it.

Gradual reform cannot lead to a democratic, ecological society because capitalism is an economic system governed by blind, uncontrollable, economic laws which always triumph in the end over political intervention, however well-meaning or determined this might be. Any attempt on the part of a government to impose other priorities than profit-making risks either provoking an economic crisis or the government ending up administering the system in the only way it can be—as a profit-oriented system in which profit-making has to be given priority over meeting needs or respecting the balance of nature. This is not to say that measures to palliate the bad effects of the present economic system on nature should not be taken but these should be seen for what they are: mere palliatives and not steps towards an ecological society.

The only effective strategy for achieving a free democratic society in harmony with nature is to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as its sole aim. We recognise a huge mistake among those wanting to see changes for the better — not that positive changes are undesirable but simply that tinkering with a mechanism can't be the best way to fix the problem. Anyone drawn to the idea and principles of socialism will not be looking to 'fix' any problem caused by capitalism, whether technological, scientific, or whatever, but will be wanting and seeking because it's obviously necessary if the planet is to remain a viable planet for survival, the end of capitalism.  Socialism has no borders. It is essentially global. It cannot be otherwise. The abolition of nations will not mean that cultural variety will be destroyed. Indeed, it is nationalism which all too often suppresses minority cultures. In a socialist society the richness of cultural customs will make the world a better place, just as the absence of armies and bombs and passports — all features of a world divided — will make the world secure.

 A socialist world will not be one in which there will be no problems left to solve. But, free from the fetters of production for profit, the sole basis of creating goods and services will be the satisfaction of human needs. Without several nations competing to make the same product, without rival research institutes in different nations each trying to make a discovery without others knowing what they know, the world will be able to unite its energies for the first time ever. The waste, duplication and tension of a society cut up into nations will give way to one world, one people and one common aim of mutual survival and comfort.