Protests without end

To-day members of the SPGB will be attending the anti-war demonstration in London and will be distributing socialist literature. Our leaflet reads

PROTESTS WITHOUT END?

Most believe the sickness of war can be sorted out within the usual channels offered – either a UN force moves in or the troops come home. The former will only compound the problem. The latter can only leave the region concerned more unstable, with warlords and the varying shades of the region's religions vying for political power.

We need to address the root of the problem – the capitalist system itself and vicious competition for profits – and how the problems capitalism creates can only be solved when we abolish the capitalist system itself.

While it is important that workers oppose war, we need to recognise in whose interests wars are waged. It's hard to think of a single war that did not have its roots in the need of small elite to make profits. All wars, even small-scale conflicts tend to be fought over resources, outside markets and areas of influence, trade routes or the strategic points.

To end war – and the need to demonstrate against it – capitalism has to be ended. It needs to be replaced by a global system where the resources of the Earth are common to everyone. Competition and conflict between elites over resources must give way to cooperation for the benefit of all the world's inhabitants.

If you lend your support to a political party or organisation that fails to oppose the real nature of capitalist society, how our world is organised for production and how power is distributed, then you are, in effect, supporting a system that breeds wars.

The Socialist Party asks: Do you want to protest endlessly against each new war as it arises? Or work for a new world of common ownership, democratic control, peace and human welfare?

If you are opposed to war, either oppose capitalism in all its forms or settle down to a life of protests . . .

THE SOCIALIST PARTY aims at the establishment of a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.