Vote The Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

The election campaign is well under way and the capitalist class has put up their dummies who will carry out its orders. The sham battles between the two openly capitalist parties have begun with the usual attacks – entirely valid – upon each other’s integrity and corruption and their dishonesty and graft but they also united in an informal alliance to gang up on UKIP. The bankruptcy of the mainstream parties has rarely seen the light of day as it has recently. Elections are always difficult for capitalist politicians. They must appeal to the working class for its votes while reassuring the ruling class that its interests will be protected. The more the candidates can find a theme that can unite the working class behind capitalist interests, the better. The rulers worry that the inequality chasm between them and an increasingly desperate working class will spark a return to the protests and strikes.  They hope that a “kinder, gentler” image will avoid provoking upheavals—and continue the erosion of working-class incomes and living conditions that feeds their profits.

Most of those who know the Socialist Party understand that it advocates participation in parliamentary action but when it does not put forward its own candidates it will NOT advise people to vote for this or that candidate of any other political party as second best thing but instead suggest a spoiled ballot paper. The Socialist Party stands uncompromising for socialism.

The capitalist class, who own most of the land and the factories, also own the government and rule the people, not for the well-being of the majority but solely for the well-being and profit of the capitalist class. It is only by using their political power that the capitalists make their exploitation of the workers legitimate.  It can only be by the use of their political power that the people can abolish the capitalists’ class-rule and privilege and end their own oppression.

We in the Socialist Party declare that to the working class belongs the future. Organised in the political party the Socialist Party, the workers can, through the ballot box, abolish the capitalist system of ownership  and establish in its place socialism. This is an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the means of production and distribution are the collective property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. In these elections we are asking voters to organise with us and the socialists  of the world to end the domination of private ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of planless production — and substitute in its place the socialist co-operative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilisation. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution where  the necessaries for production are owned in common and operated by and for the people.

Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution being the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal. Our mission is simple. No mention whatsoever of local issues or foreign policies. No promises of "I'll do this and I'll do that", no flattery, no sweet talk. If you vote for us you won't get a wage rise or a tax cut. If you vote for us now, it's not because we've conned you into it with honey-coated charming lies.

We shall proceed with our educational campaign until the working class have understood the fundamental facts of their position—the facts that because they do not own the means by which they live they are commodities on the market, never bought unless the buyers (the owners of the means of life) can see a profit to themselves in the transaction, always sold when the opportunity offers because in that only can the necessaries of life be obtained. We have to emphasise the fact that no appreciable change is possible in the working-class condition while they remain commodities, and that the only method by which the alteration can be wrought is by the working class taking the means of life out of the hands of those who at present hold them, and whose private ownership is the cause of the trouble.

The other political parties, in spite of all their differences (and they are more pretend than real), have one fundamental, common aim – the maintenance and continuance of a social system of the private ownership of the means of production (factories, natural  resources, machinery, etc.) and the profitable exploitation of the working people. Their main aim is to promote the accumulation and concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a privileged minority, and they use the authority of the state to exercise political control over the common people for the specific purpose of furthering their plans in this respect. The working class  needs a parliamentary delegate who is a revolutionary socialist; one who will not be overwhelmed by the gaudy trappings of parliamentary hokus-pokus or stand awe-struck before the pomp and fanfare specially made to impress. We need a person who will not waste time and energy chasing after the unattainable mirage of reforming capitalism out of existence or in trying to make it work better. We need a spokes-person who will use his or her position to challenge the fundamental social, economic and political basis of capitalist society and expose the condition of poverty, misery and war that are bred by it – one who will advance the fight for socialism. Our goal is socialism – everything we propose will be pointed in the direction of that objective. We are under no illusion about socialism being established by such a simple act as a vote in parliament but where it such a democratic process exists we should not decline to use it.

Participation in elections and electing  true socialist delegates can contribute greatly to the task of rallying and organising the working people for the final assault on the capitalists citadel. Always provided, of course, that we build, at the same time, a revolutionary Socialist Party firmly based on the working class, a party where those elected will remain the servants – not become the masters.

If you support socialism, in the local council elections and in the Euro-election - VOTE the Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement, the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress walls of capitalist citadel.