The future belongs to the people

Our fellow-workers demand answers to basic questions. Why must the working class, which produces the wealth of the world, constantly struggles to maintain a decent standard of living? Why is there poverty in the midst of plenty? Why must we live in out-dated and run-down houses when there is enough material and skilled builders to construct comfortable homes for everyone? Why do we fight wars with always a new one always in sight? Can capitalism ever be made to work in our interest? Does it hold out any hope for the working people? If not, how can we end it? What do the lessons of history teach us about the struggle of the working class for liberation from economic exploitation? The Socialist Party has tried to the best of its ability to deal with all these questions. Once the workers have come to understand socialist analysis, the lying and tricky propaganda of the capitalist media cannot mislead them. But the diagnosis of a disease does not cure the disease. The mere voicing of complaints changes nothing. A social revolution will be necessary. The future for our children is in socialism. It is not a question of taking our fellow-workers by the hand and leading them towards the socialist future. We advocate a mass movement for an independent. Socialism is not a miracle. Socialism is the elimination of class exploitation and national chauvinism. We fight for world revolution.

The basic truths of socialist economic analysis are illustrated on an almost daily basis through personal experience of working people. Capitalism is destroying or threatening the livelihoods of millions.  Reformists of every stripe are calling for further state intervention, spreading illusions that the state can "regulate" capitalism by nationalisation or instituting social reforms. But this state is nothing other than the executive committee of the capitalist ruling class, whose army, police and courts are wielded to defend private property in the means of production. Workers don’t need a crystal ball to see their future. Capitalism is unwilling and unable to answer the needs of the working class. The answer to unemployment and poverty is not welfare but a new society which will have real solutions for all, a new society based on human needs, not profits. By expropriating the capitalists and thereby using all the resources of society for the benefit of all, it would ensure an advancing standard of living for the majority.

Many workers will believe that the capitalist state can deliver reforms. While fighting side by side with our fellow-workers, we will always point out that under capitalism such a programme is unrealisable. Nationalism, racism and sexism, as we have also seen, are reactionary ideologies perpetrated by the system for so long that they have a strong hold among workers. They divide and weaken the class struggle and sap the working people of its consciousness as to who the real enemy is. These divisions are also growing because the current leaders are all sectionalists where they purposely propose strategies which teach the working class not to identify with their class as a whole but with only one sector.

Faith that capitalism can be reformed is still prevalent. These are the people whose professional careers are based on the existence and expansion of the welfare state as benevolent go-betweeners, needed to barter and compromise between the crudely greedy rulers on the one hand and working people on the other. They do not insist that the living standards should be raised them to those of the “middle-class” that they themselves enjoy. Instead, they settle for “the right to subsistence,” or even less. They push the acceptance of austerity and misery, cloaked in the illusions of a return to prosperity. Capitalism can’t offer decent living conditions nor provide jobs for all, and therefore a strategy fighting for those while retaining capitalism should be rejected in advance. Demands for decent welfare benefits for all those who need them are absolutely necessary as is resistance to the scape-goating lies about welfare recipients. As socialists who are loyal to our class, we support every effort on the part of workers to better their situation. However, such demands as jobs for all, requires the solution of a socialist revolution. We are open about the fact that we wish to support such struggles and we want to use the opportunities to explain the need for socialist revolution. Unless such struggle is taken, the worst is yet to come.