7pm 7th February
(above Victoria Street),
Edinburgh EH1 2JL
Directions: About 11 minutes walk from Waverley rail station
Regular meeting of the Edinburgh Branch of The Socialist Party
The collapse of capitalism is not inevitable. If we in the
Socialist Party thought it were, we would not be working so hard to bring
capitalism to an end for it would happen whatever we did. The Socialist Party
is not content to wait for socialism and we are impatient for it and we know it
to be even more urgent now. But socialism cannot be imposed by a minority; it
must be the political act of a majority of workers who are consciously
socialist. We live today under capitalism because the majority of the working
class are content to do so. The job of the Socialist Party is to encourage the
spread of discontent with capitalism and to show that there is an alternative
to it. How are we to do this? First, we diagnose society’s illnesses. We point
out that capitalism causes problems like hunger and poverty and war. We expose
organisations like the Labour Party, and the fraud of the former USSR; we
analyse the influence which “great men” are supposed to have in society and so
on. What it amounts to is a criticism of capitalism. And because the workers’
support for capitalism is so widespread, and so deep-rooted, we have to spend a
great deal of time in criticizing.
The first positive idea about the establishment of socialism
is that it can only be brought about by a socialist working class. We do not
know when this will happen; we do not know, for example, what methods of
production and communication will be at man’s disposal when it does happen.
Because of this, we cannot lay down plans of what socialism will be like. We
can only set out its basis —the common ownership and democratic control of the
means of wealth production and distribution. We are as impatient at this as
anyone. The remedy is with the working class. We are working as hard as we know
to bring socialism about. Nothing is more fundamental to the politics of the
Socialist Party than the working class, because only the working class can get
rid of capitalist society and bring about socialism. Maybe some politicians
make promises they know they haven’t a chance of keeping. Maybe others are more
sincere. It makes little difference to the end result, because capitalism
operates regardless of the sincerity or otherwise of its statesmen.
1 comment:
You socialists,always cribin,everywhere and always.Understand that critic,was once a proper legal elected secret ballot all that proper,outside employer lies and capitals manipulation of profit maxamus no matter the lies.So as a union man, people,what is the most insulting question,what you do for a job,our twenty first has monster unemployment,those that are, those for most, casual minimum waged,AM A UNION ORGANIZER,ooh,sheep,donts yous always pick on the employers,well yes,only time they see me darkning their door step,is when they understand they have been found steeling from my employers.Yes socialist,would not be nice to say that the employer class needs dealing with against the wall,no that would for sure be serious anti proper socialist.Why keep cribbin,only deal with the greed exploit of the employers class profit drive,not all employers but as said the most doors i knocked on 80%,and socialism is like that,that we see is the underside of the glossy glamour of the exploitation of the mass for the uncaring glut of the few.
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