The Future Belongs to Working People

 

Capitalism’s defenders convey the idea that capitalist class society and capitalist exploitation will continue to exist forever. In other words, that it is a system of society that is natural and eternal, and there is no use in anyone thinking of making fundamental changes to it or replacing it with any other social system. This is completely mistaken. A rationally organised socialist society could easily supply the needs and comforts of all. In the capitalist world hunger stalks a planet of plenty. We live in a world rife with misery.

A worldwide means of production has been created that, if operated at full capacity, could meet all the needs of humanity. It is this contradiction between a socialised means of production versus a privatised means of production that is the main cause of all social problems. That is to say, it is the restrictions imposed on the means of distribution by the profit needs of capitalists, who constitute about 10 percent of the population, that stands between the working class majority, who are about 90 percent of the population, and the socialisation of the means of production that could provide all of us a true utopia. The capitalist class cannot solve this problem because the solution interferes with their profits. A strong revolutionary workers’ movement for world socialism based on a rational organisation of production and distribution for the benefit of the people as a whole is the only alternative. An independent working-class movement, capable of mobilising the working people of the world to bring society out of this morass, must be built. Until the working class can fight for the socialist alternative to the profit system, we will face wars for capitalist global domination. Until it carries on a struggle for power—workers' power—we will continue to face terrorism and other hopelessly cruel responses to the horrors the capitalist system has created.

The principal function of the socialist movement is to participate in the class struggle in such a way that the workers are educated to understand that their power must back up a political or general class fight. It means to actually support any action of the working class against the capitalist class. Socialists are bound to use their better knowledge of society and the future to illustrate our theories and to give a clear purpose to the all-day fighting, in which they are to participate.

The Socialist Party’s position since its inception in 1904 is that there are no solutions to the inhuman conditions of capitalist social relations short of replacing them with socialism. The Socialist Party is dedicated to the aspirations of humanity for a world of peace and plenty.

What we need is socialism

The Socialist Party has stated ^{numerous times if we are to prevent the 21st century from becoming a more violent re-run of the 20th, which witnessed two world wars, the first use of nuclear weapons and many hundreds of smaller conflicts—all in the name of profit—it is essential we, the victims, the cannon fodder, the people that have the biggest price to pay to satisfy the whims of the mighty, begin to organise now; not tomorrow, nor when the sirens are screaming.  We have previously documented the murderous and hypocritical policies of the capitalist politicians with the resulting mass slaughter of the working class and we condemn it once again. We, as a class, have suffered too much and have too much to lose to leave decisions regarding the future of our planet in the hands of a group of arrogant, conceited and profit-crazed individuals. Let’s organise to take their power away before it is too late.}

We live in a world where the domination of the great powers, national rivalries, war and the threat of war characterise the relations between countries. Hunger, poverty, unemployment, racial and sexual discrimination, and many forms of repression, including the most barbaric, such as torture and genocide, are the lot of the majority of the earth’s inhabitants. Searching to guarantee new sources of profits, the capitalists come into contradiction with each other and inevitably end up resorting to war where the working people bear the burden.

The goal of the Socialist Party is not to replace the rule of one class with that of another, as has happened already in the feudal and bourgeois revolutions, but to liberate all of humanity from the chains of exploitation and oppression by the abolition of classes themselves. In this way, the divisions between the city and countryside, and between mental and manual labour will also be abolished, and a society without a State will be created since the State is nothing other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the others.  So long as capitalism exists, the government is endowed with the powers of the state as the executive committee of Big Business. To preserve capitalism today, to organise society in the form essential for the support of the conditions underlying the capitalist mode of production the state is forced to intervene more and more directly and on a greater and greater scale.

The emancipation of the workers will be accomplished by the workers themselves. They will achieve it through a socialist revolution, which will suppress the private ownership of the means of production in order to establish socialist and collective property, and replace capitalist commodity production with the socialist organisation of production designed to ensure the complete well-being and full development of each person. It is the struggle to capture political power.

Jobs are disappearing, wiped out by plant off-shoring and automation. unions have lost members and submitted to humiliating retreats. The social programmes which propped up living standards and gave some protection against unchecked capitalist exploitation are being gutted. No worker has escaped hard times.  The worst off have been hit hardest. This is nothing new. For generations,  workers have borne the brunt of every economic downturn.  Capitalist mouthpieces have been blaming migrant and refugee workers who are accused of “stealing” jobs and jumping the line for social services amid cries for new restrictive immigration laws. Wherever we look, we see the divide-and-conquer capitalists inciting the most chauvinist sentiments in the working class to sow the seeds of disunity. It’s difficult to imagine anything more at odds with what we need today. We’re up against a different class interest than our own. The basis for the increased profits of the capitalists is the increased exploitation of labour week by week, month by month and year by year. The capitalists will undertake reforms in order to strengthen the capitalist system. They do pick up reformist demands and put them into practice. There are many demands put forward by reformists which are good for the capitalist system, and it is for this reason that they pick them up. But the real demands of the working people will never be taken up by the capitalists. The capitalists will never agree with ending the selling and buying of labour power. As far as socialists are concerned, it does not matter how much actual capital any one capitalist has hoarded and how much these leeches must be paying taxes.

Reformists believe they can get better laws passed by petitioning governments and back-room lobbying. To divert workers away from class struggle and revolutionary politics, some union leaders say that unions should have nothing to do with politics at all. They pretend to be neutral and above party matters. In reality, the leaders who preach political neutrality are far from being neutral themselves. In practice, they support the various capitalist parties, either openly or covertly. Historically, union leaders have supported the Labour Party. They oppose revolutionary struggle and the overthrow of the capitalist system.

Aside from their immediate work of reacting to the pestering manoeuvres of capital, they must become the organising centres of the working class fighting towards that great goal, total emancipation. They must help any political and social movement in favour of this aim.

A vote for the Socialist Party is a vote for yourself.

 

Don’t vote for your master

Today the worker creates everything, does everything, produces everything, and yet has nothing. Labour produces all wealth and to labour, it should belong. The resources of the earth and the machinery of production are held as the property of the capitalist class. Its ownership is determined and defended by the power of the state, i.e., the government. By virtue of its ownership of the means of production, the capitalist class stands the absolute owner of the working class. It is in a position to at all times command the services of the workers in the production of wealth and it is also the absolute owner of the wealth brought forth by their labour. Under such circumstances, the means of production become the title deeds to the human chattels who are forced to depend upon their labour for their sustenance.

The working class is the only wealth-producing factor in human society. It, therefore, becomes from a profit-making standpoint, the only property worth owning. It is the only sort of property that can produce a profit. The wealth and power of a ruling class can only come from the toil of the slaves that it possesses.

 The capitalist system is based upon private (or state) ownership of the means of wealth production, therefore all the products of labour belong to the capitalists. The capitalist is the master; the worker is a slave.

So long as the capitalists remain in possession of the reins of government all the powers of the state will be used to protect and defend their property rights in the means of wealth production and their control of the product of labour. The capitalist system gives to the capitalist ever-growing profits, and to the worker an ever-increasing misery and degradation.

The interests of the working-class lie in the direction of setting itself free from capitalist exploitation by the abolition of the wage system. To accomplish this necessitates the transformation of capitalist property in the means of wealth production into collective property. Therefore, we call upon all wage-earners to organise under the banner of the Socialist Party with the object of conquering political power.

The control of the resources of the earth and the instruments of labour must be stripped from the hands of the Capitalist Class and these means of production dedicated to the service of the whole people under the administration and control of those who, by doing the world’s work, make any sort of civilisation possible. You, workers of the world, constitute the only useful part of human society. You have long fed, clothed and sheltered your masters in comfort and luxury while eking out a narrow, mean and slavish existence yourselves. The time has now come to stand erect and throw off your shackles. You can resolve not to stay slaves any longer, but to struggle unceasingly against the employing class.

The owning class has always been the ruling class, and the dispossessed class has always been the slave class. The owning class is the master class now. Our class is the slave class now. Capitalism consists of the POWER to make and keep others in slavery. Slavery is the condition of being forced by any means, to work for others. The Socialist Party is the nucleus of the revolt of the slaves against capitalism. Its policy is to educate the slaves to an understanding of their position and organise them for concerted political action, to the end that they may wrest the powers of State from the hands of capital, and use them to strip the master class of its property rights in the means of production and to make these the collective property of the producers. Your only hope lies in revolution—the sweeping away of this rotten system of exploitation. Capitalism is a system of waste and inefficiency. The Socialist Party seeks to change the economic laws governing society and human relations, by bringing order and plan and rational planning into production and distribution.

To you workers, we appeal to join the party of your class, the Socialist Party and help to make it a real party of struggle — a real mass power.  A revolution is coming that will place the working women and men in full control over the planet’s vast resources, that will become a worldwide commonwealth.

What Socialism Can Bring

 

We know that the cause of the oppression of the working class and of all the atrocities of capitalism such as war is that the world has been enslaved by a few capitalists who own all the wealth of the earth as their private property. The capitalist ownership of the means of production – this is the reason which explains the barbarity of the present order of things. 

Some reformers propose depriving the rich of their possessions and justly and equally dividing it all among everybody, and then all will be well. They say everyone would be equal, and free from inequality, oppression and exploitation, thanks to this equal share-out and everybody will look after themselves and the domination over another will vanish.

But this is not the point of view of the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party considers that such equal sharing would lead to nothing good, and to no other result than a return to the old order. Firstly, there are quite a number of things which are impossible to divide. How, for instance, would you divide ta rail network?

But for argument’s sake let us imagine that miraculously a more or less equal division was attained of everything taken from the rich; even that would not lead to any desired result in the end. What is the meaning of a division? It means that instead of a few large owners there would spring up a large number of small ones. It means not the abolition of private ownership, but its dispersion over a larger area. In the place of large ownership, there would arise ownership on a small scale. But such a period we have already had in the past. We know very well that capitalism and large capitalists have developed out of the competition between one small owner and another. We would get the following result: part of them (and quite a considerable part) would, on the very next day, get rid of their share on some market or other, and their property would thus fall into the hands of wealthier owners; between the remaining ones a struggle would ensue for the buyers, and in this struggle, too, the wealthier ones would soon get the upper hand of the less well-to-do. The latter would soon be ruined and turn into wage-labourers, and their lucky rivals would amass fortunes, employing others to work for them, and thus be gradually transformed into capitalists. And so we should, in a very short time, return to the same order which we have just tried to dismantle and find ourselves once again before the old problem of capitalist exploitation.

In socialism, all the wealth belongs not to individuals or classes, but to society as a whole, which become it were, one great association; no one a master over another. Individuals in socialism do not benefit at one another’s expense. There are no rich here, no bosses and no top dogs; society is not divided into classes in which one rules over the other, no oppressor against the oppressed. There is no government to rule and there is no power of one over another. There is the administration of things only. Humanity is not divided up into hostile camps. The political barriers that divide nations are done away with. Separate fatherlands and rival motherlands are abolished. The whole of humanity, without distinction of nationality, is bound together in. all its parts and organised into one united whole. All peoples form one great world cooperative commonwealth.

The essential characteristics of socialism are:

1. Common ownership of the means of production and distribution of wealth. The elimination of the right of individuals or groups to dispose of the means of life. That right belongs to society as a whole. Hence, no exploitation of one group by another.
 

2. Economic and social planning on a world scale: This is made possible by the abolition of competition between capitalists, the anarchy of production, wars and militarism.
 

3. Production for use, not for profit: Substitution of the good for the commodity.
 

4. The abolition of the state: with socialism the state is unnecessary. Government in the form of armies, police, prisons, and property laws gives way to a system of administration, allocation, management and supervision of industry and agriculture by all the people, such as is necessary to maintain the world economy in smooth running order.
 

5. Disappearance of artificial differences and barriers fostered by capitalism: Nationalism, race hatred, religious bigotry, and caste are destroyed by international production and cooperation.
 

6. A tremendous increase in the productive capabilities of the human race: Human energy now necessarily spent in the class struggle or destroyed by war, unemployment and unproductive pursuits such as competition, advertising, warfare etc., will be set free. Increased productivity means a shorter work day, security and increased leisure. Society can then take from the individual according to their abilities and give to them according to their needs. The higher form of human organisation that existed in primitive societies with low productivity now is recreated on the highest level of productivity. On this foundation culture – the arts and sciences – can rise to undreamed heights.