Monday, July 08, 2019

Socialism is the hope of humanity.

The Socialist Party holds that the working class must come to recognise that the competitive capitalist system of private ownership of the land and means of production, means of transportation, mines, etc., is in fact the basic cause of the present chaotic state of world. The capitalist cause must be abolished. Society must be reorganised on socialist lines, replacing private (and state) ownership and competition with common ownership and cooperation. We must make the factories, mines, transport, and all the other means of social production the common property of society so that we can produce things to satisfy human needs instead of for the profit of the few. Only then can the competitive, war-breeding struggle for international markets, spheres of influence and sources of raw materials be ended. Only then will the nations of the world have an economic foundation for lasting cooperation, harmony and peace. In the name of sanity we urge you to study our case for socialism, and to help us bring to birth a society in which all of humanity can live in peace and freedom. 

For decades, capitalism has been, and remains, an economic system in which the enormous wealth produced by the labour of its people constitutes a problem. Not because it can't be used, but because it can't be sold at a profit. And if the private owners of the tools of social production can't make a profit, they close up shop, no matter how pressing the needs of the nation may be. By what right do the owners of industry choke off production when their profit margins grow too slim? Only by virtue of the private ownership that gives them autocratic control over the nation's economy, an autocratic control which is subjecting the majority of people to a crushing burden.

Piecemeal solutions and temporary measures won't do. Not only do they leave the cause of our problems intact, they fail to meet our most pressing basic needs. Our solution must be as broad and far-reaching as the problems we face. The working-class solution to the economic crisis must rest on scrapping the entire economic system. Not sometime in the distant future, but now, when our needs must be met. We must build a movement that will extend democracy to control of the economy; that will replace the profit motive with planned production for use; that will eliminate the class monopoly on the means of life. 

Workers must rely on their own strength; no one else will save them. We must form new organisations which, unlike the present labour bureaucracies which plead the case of the employers, will base themselves squarely on working-class interests. We must build a movement that joins all workers in unity. Its goal must be nothing short of a total challenge to the rule of capital and the construction of a new society. We must form a political party based on our class interests. No faction or variation of the capitalist parties will represent workers' interests. For too long workers have relied on capitalist politicians to be their spokespersons. A political party that expresses our collective class interests aimed at a socialist goal- these are weapons that have only begun to be built. The job of educating and organising is immense. But any postponement of the task is a postponement of the only solution we have -- a reconstruction of capitalist society along socialist lines. There are no other ways out and no one but the workers to do the job

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