We Said It Then, We Say it Now (3)

Another in our series of past election manifestoes. This is from 1970

Capitalism or Socialism 

We live under Capitalism. This is what it means...

•       A CLASS DIVIDED society where the means for producing wealth belong to a privileged few.

•       The rest of us WORKING FOR WAGES which are less than the value of what we alone produce.

•       CONFLICT over wages between us and our employers in which the government, whichever party is in power, always protects the employers' interests.

•       PRODUCTION FOR PROFIT so that even basic human needs are neglected if there is no profit to be made in satisfying them.

•       ECONOMIC RIVALRY between states leading to wasteful and terrifying preparations for war.

•       RACISM with workers using other workers as scapegoats for the restrictions capitalism imposes on them.

•       WORLD HUNGER while food is destroyed and the means to provide plenty for all lie unused.

All the other parties promise to run capitalism in your interest. They have always failed. They always will. This is not because they are dishonest or incompetent. It is because the capitalist system can only be run as a profit-making system in the interest of those who live off profits.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN says: Trying to reform capitalism is futile. It can never be made to serve human interests. Abolish it and establish Socialism instead.

THE ALTERNATIVE - SOCIALISM means:

•       The world-wide COMMON OWNERSHIP of the means of production and their democratic control by the whole people.

•       PRODUCTION SOLELY FOR USE to satisfy human needs and to abolish hunger, slums, bad health, lack of education and all other aspects of poverty.

•       FREE ACCESS for all according to need to the common store of wealth. The abolition of buying and selling, money, prices and profits.

•       USEFUL WORK based on human need with only one quality—the best we are capable of. No more working for wages for an employer.

•       A WORLD WITHOUT FRONTIERS and the disbanding of all armed forces.

SOCIALISM has never existed anywhere. Certainly not in state capitalist Russia or China or under Labour governments in Britain.

This socialist world of peace and plenty can be ours just as soon as a majority of us want it and organise to get it.

But its establishment is not something we can leave to politicians and leaders. It must be the work of ordinary people like ourselves.

Edmund Grant, candidate of THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN in Hornsey.

(18 June 1970 General Election)

The Workers’ Choice in 2015 

Brighton Kemptown - Jacqueline Shodeke

Brighton Pavilion - Howard Pilott

Canterbury - Robert Cox

Easington - Steve Colborn

Folkestone and Hythe - Andy Thomas

Islington North - Bill Martin

Oxford East - Kevin Parkin

Oxford West and Abingdon - Mike Foster

Swansea West - Brian Johnson

Vauxhall - Danny Lambert