To Karl Marx on his 200th Birthday

To Karl Marx on his 200th Birthday

As the only political party that stands solely for Socialism—just as it has stood unwaveringly for over a century—in opposition to all other political parties that would ameliorate Capitalism, but necessarily and invariably fail to do so—just as they have tried and failed collectively for over a century—on this very day, in the teeth of all political parties that submerge Socialism in order to control Capitalism, we defiantly reaffirm Karl Marx’s vision—our Object—in order that humanity may speedily free itself from the uncontrollable Capitalist system of society in which human life is controlled by the anti-human needs of its own creation—the expansion of capital—in opposition to the human needs of its people.

In defiance of all sophisticated and nuanced political Objects—which serve the capitalist cause of obfuscating Marx, and so are necessarily pro-capitalist political Objects—we proclaim to the world, at the commencement of Karl Marx’s third century, the only Socialist Object worthy of human support.

Object

The establishment of a system of society based upon 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.

Here follows the Socialist Party case and solution…

Declaration of Principles

1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., of production and distribution) by the capitalist class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labor alone wealth is produced.

2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the capitalist class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the capitalist class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

8. The Companion Parties of the World Socialist Movement, therefore, enter the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labor or avowedly capitalist, and call upon the members of the working class of each country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labor, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.