Friday, April 17, 2015

We Said It Then - We Say It Now (8)

Another in our series of past election addresses which once again draws attention to the fact that your masters seek your votes because upon their control of the political machine their class supremacy depends. While pretending to be in deadly enmity, they are united as one against you when you try to better your lot. If you are to change the conditions under which you work and live, you must fight to get control of the machinery of government. In that fight you cannot take sides with any section of the capitalist class, because it is to their interest to maintain this system which means luxury and privilege for them. Your interests, being opposed to those of the capitalists, must lead you to ally yourself with a working-class political party waging an uncompromising battle against all the forces ranged in opposition to your class. The Socialist Party is the only party in this country that consistently works for this end: the realisation of socialism.

DON'T BE A MUG – VOTE FOR YOURSELF FOR A CHANGE

Politicians Need Mugs

Somewhere in Islington there is a family of voters who believe everything the politicians say. When the Labour candidate says that he will make life better for the poor, Mr Mug agrees with every word, believing that people were never allowed to suffer poverty under the last eight Labour governments. When the Tories tell us to work harder, pull in our belts and be loyal little wage slaves, Mrs Mug nods approvingly, saying that the only way to become a millionaire is to work hard and do what you are told. When the Tories and the SDP say that we need bombs which can blow up the planet as the only way to achieve peace, young Johnny Mug is proud to vote for bombs which will wipe him out and everyone around him in defence of the nation which he neither owns nor controls. Mr Mug supports the Labour policy of building up more and more "decent", old-fashioned conventional bombs like they used in the Falklands war.

The Mugs will all be voting for leaders on election day, because they believe that democracy means that the majority must obey MPs who sit in parliament dancing to the tune of the Stock Exchange.

The Mugs hope that the vast number of social problems facing and threatening us all - poverty, mass unemployment, homelessness, crime, war - will be solved if politicians pass the right laws.

The Mugs believe that the way we live now is the way we must always live. "There is no alternative: the rich and privileged are in permanent possession of the world; the wealth-producing majority can hope for no more than a few more crumbs from the cake which we have baked."

The Capitalist Madhouse

Socialists do not regard our fellow workers as mugs who are only fit to follow leaders. Most people are tempted to fall for the big lie that the present system of society can be run in the interest of the majority, but the hard fact is that, regardless of which government administers it, the profit system can only "run well" when the capitalists are getting rich at the expense of the workers who produce all the goods and services of society and live second-rate lives.
You do not need The Socialist Party to tell you that there is something badly wrong with the way society is organised at present.

WHY should tens of thousands of workers be homeless and poorly housed while there are thousands of empty houses and half a million unemployed building workers?

WHY are millions of workers thrown on to the scrapheap of the unemployed while so much useful work needs to be done?

WHY are thousands of pensioners left to die of the cold each winter while coal and electricity production are cut due to "lack of demand"?

WHY must vast numbers of workers suffer or even die waiting for hospital treatment while there is no shortage of resources being allocated to the armed forces which exists to kill not cure people?

WHY is food locked away in cold storage or dumped in the sea while around the world 40,000 children starve to death daily?

WHY do those who work hard doing useful jobs find it hard to make ends meet while millionaire gamblers on the Stock Exchange live in parasitical luxury?

WHY? Because we live under a capitalist system where profit for the few who own and control the means of wealth production and distribution is more important than the needs of the majority.

This crazy way of running society only carries on because the majority has been persuaded to vote for it - conned into believing that there is no other way, that capitalism run by leaders of the left, right and centre is the only option.
The present social madhouse will not last forever. Workers whose political support has upheld the system can be persuaded to withdraw that support.

What You Can Do

Unlike the pathetic promises being thrown at you by our political opponents, The Socialist Party promises that it will do absolutely nothing for you. If you want to change society you can do it yourselves.

The socialist alternative will only be achieved when a majority of workers bring it about by our own conscious and democratic action. But what is socialism? What they have in Russia or China? What Labour governments have done? Certainly not. Socialism is about people - all of us, regardless of age, race, gender or sexuality - owning and controlling the resources of society in common and producing goods and services solely for use, not profit. At last society will belong to the people who inhabit it, with all of us having free access to the abundant goods and services which society can produce.

If you think that the socialist objective is worth registering your support for, rather than casting another wasted vote for capitalism or not voting at all, then vote for Steve Dowsett, the genuine Socialist candidate in this election. Do not vote for Dowsett if you want a leader to put things right for you or simply because you can't stand the other candidates; The Socialist Party wants only socialist votes, and plenty of them so that we can show those who uphold this rotten system that there is a growing number of workers seeing through it.

More important than voting, The Socialist Party wants you to find out exactly what we stand for. Come along to our election rally; send off for a free pack of literature telling you about our principles and policy.
Don't just vote, think; don't just think, act.

June 1987,
Islington South & Finsbury



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