Forward to Socialist Revolution

The Socialist Party proposes that all resources, all land and buildings, all factories, mines, all the means of transportation and communication, should be, not private property, but the common property of all. We propose that production be made to serve the needs of society, rather than to serve the needs of a few parasites. Planned production for use on the basis of common ownership without any class division is called socialism. Experience has proved that planning under capitalism is impossible. When socialists talk of a society organised on the basis of planned production and distribution we have in mind is very simple. Do away with production for profit.

With our amassed knowledge and information, we can assess all the resources, plant and manpower that is available, calculate how many products each sector of industry can produce, determine the consumption of the population to ensure that nobody will go hungry or without a home. Is this impossible?

We can make use of the best brains of scientists to improve our technology and our methods of work, encourage research for the purpose of improving life, not just merely in industry and agriculture but for all areas of life. Manufacturing output can increase to permit the distribution of the fruits of increased production among all the members of society for the improvement of their well-being, always heightening the technology of production to enrich the economic and cultural life of all the members of society and to ease their toil. Continue this process indefinitely. When you do so there will be no crises, no unemployment, no exploitation, no wars, no fear of the future. Is this impossible?

That would be only a beginning, for human inventiveness knows no limit and the progress is unending. The application of science to human society shows what immense possibilities for the satisfaction of human wants are contained in the achievements of science and in its future growth. Socialism reduces human labour to the easy task of supervising machinery a few hours a day. It leaves mankind free to engage in higher intellectual pursuits. It makes everybody responsible for the welfare of all. Let everybody work according to  ability; let everybody receive from the common stock of goods according to  needs. There is no exploitation, no oppression, no insecurity, no poverty. Life is made humane. Is this impossible?

Capitalism is based on the principle of private property of certain humans "owning" the earth for the purpose of exploiting it for profit. At an earlier stage, exploiters even believed they could own other humans. Profit consists of taking out more than you put in. According to Marxist theory, profit is extracted from workers’ labour when the capitalists pay them less than the value of what they produce. The portion of the value of the product that the capitalist keeps is called surplus value. The amount of surplus value that the capitalist can keep varies with the level of organisation of the workers, and with their level of privilege within the world labour pool. But the working class can never be paid the full value of their labour under capitalism, because the capitalist class exists by extracting surplus value from their labour.

The working class must fight against all attacks on the working class including the attacks on the welfare state which previous generations struggled hard to win. In addition, the necessity of moving beyond this system and to socialism must not be forgotten. Reforms won by workers under this system can always be taken away and that a revolutionary overthrow by the working class is the only solution to crisis and oppression. This system cannot be stopped by force. It is violent and ruthless beyond the capacity of any people’s resistance movement.