The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the SOCIAL property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of ALL IN COMMON. The industries, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the worker, in each industry, but of ALL IN COMMON, and must be administered for the benefit of all. We seek a 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. Together we shall form a worldwide cooperative commonwealth.
What socialism means is an improved and egalitarian distribution of the products of labour and cooperation instead of competition. It is the common ownership of land and all the means of production and distribution. Socialism is the coming of the cooperative commonwealth to take the place of wage slavery. The present economic system – capitalism – is not only a failure but criminal. It robs and it starves. It is a foul blot upon the face of humanity. It promises only an increase of its horrors. Human power and natural resources are wasted by this system, which makes “profit” the only object in business. Ignorance and misery, with all concomitant evils, are perpetuated by this system, which makes a person’s ability to work a product to be bought in the open market, and placing no real value on an individual’s worth. Science and technology are diverted from their beneficial purposes and made into instruments for the enslavement of men and the starvation of women and children.
There is no hope for our fellow workers except by the path mapped out by the World Socialist Movement (WSM), the advocates of the cooperative commonwealth. The resources of the world must pass into the possession of working humanity. All other problems, the problems of nationality and of racism will be solved once society is freed from exploitation and class divisions. Socialism will bring real democracy. We call upon all our fellow-workers to muster under the banner of the WSM, so that we use of our political power and take possession of the State machine, so that we may put an end to capitalism, restore the soil of the land, and turn over all the means of production, transportation, and distribution to the people as a collective body to construct a cooperative commonwealth in place of unplanned production, class war, and social disorder This will be a commonwealth which, will give to every worker the free exercise and the full benefit of his or her faculties, multiplied by all the advantages of modern-day developments.
Socialists visualise machinery and technology, created by the genius of humanity, being used, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new system is to be built, raising production and ending all social division by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. This socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.
We aim at a new society – the socialist commonwealth. Our aim is the commonwealth without the State, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all. Industrial slavery is as old as capitalism itself, and before that, there were other forms of slavery for the workers. So long as the capitalist system exists, some men will be making money out of the labour of others. All reforms of the present system of society simply fool the worker into believing that he isn’t being robbed as much as he was before. Class-conscious workers of the world must attack and destroy capitalism and root it out of the world.
The State is used to defend and strengthen the power of the capitalists and to oppress the workers. In order to destroy capitalism, the workers must first wrest the State power out of the hands of the capitalist class. They must not only seize this power but abolish the state apparatus entirely. The capitalist State is built to serve capitalism, and that is all it can do, no matter who is running it. propose to overthrow the capitalist State and to establish in its place immediately the industrial commonwealth.
Socialists are also opposed to the State and wish to abolish it – to substitute for the government of men the administration of things. The State can only exist as long as there is a class struggle. The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the social property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals, not to sectional owners such as syndicalist unions or cooperatives. It must become the property of all in common. Industries, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the work-fore, in each industry, but of all in common, and must be administered for the benefit of all.
Socialism is primarily an economic transformation, brought about by the class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, and it will change the character of all who come under the influence of the new conditions. The transformation of civilisation into the cooperative commonwealth, involving the greatest change known at least to modern history. Our object is the abolition of wage slavery; severance with all capitalist, reform parties; abolition of class rule; the establishment of world socialism, the brotherhood of man.
THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IS HERE. Together we shall form a worldwide cooperative commonwealth, a great global confederation of free peoples united in one common bond. We work towards a world when there is no longer a master, no longer a slave and the abolition of wage slavery and establishment of the cooperative commonwealth.
