"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. -Karl Marx"
Female
92 years old
Portland, Oregon, Boston, Massachusetts
United States
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World Socialist Party (US)'s Interests
General
What We Stand For
Many people subscribe to the self-defeating philosophy that "socialism" means whatever anyone or any group calling itself socialist declares it means. We maintain that it describes just one very specific goal, that there are certain constant elements of the class struggle which continually generate the potential for a majority interested in the immediate replacement of production for profit with production for use, and that these elements can be codified as a set of principles. These principles we advocate as the basis of organizing for socialism.
In our view, creating a worldwide system of production for the satisfaction of human needs, individual and social, rather than for private profit, requires a majority that is socialist in attitude and commitment. Events since the beginning of the World Socialist Movement (going back as far as 1904) have demonstrated the validity of this judgment. Socialists are committed to one overriding goal: direct, immediate abolition of capitalism, and the establishment of a truly democratic, socialist form of society — through the ballot. Accordingly, membership in any of the companion parties of socialism requires a general understanding of and agreement with the basic principles of scientific socialism. But of course, thinking is no crime, and there is always room for differences of opinion in a socialist party. In contrast to principles, relatively few in number, there are a multiplicity of matters upon which socialists may have all kinds of conflicting views.
The following statements deal with the areas of most general confusion to people who seek to get a better understanding of what socialism means. If you agree with these statements, you are a socialist and belong with us.
1) To establish socialism, the working class throughout the world must gain control of the powers of government through their political organizations.
It is by virtue of its control of state power that the capitalist class is able to perpetuate its system. State power means control of the main avenues of “education” and propaganda, either directly or indirectly. It also means control of the armed forces that frequently and efficiently crush working class attempts at violent opposition to the effects of capitalism. Moreover, the police and the armed forces are often used to combat workers during strikes and industrial disputes with employers. In a modern, highly developed capitalist society the only way to oust the capitalist class from ownership and control of the means of production is to first strip it of its control over the state. Once this has been accomplished, the state will be converted from a coercive government over people to an administration over things and community affairs. The World Socialist Party, therefore, advocates the ballot as the means of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. Socialism can only be established democratically; means cannot be separated from ends.
2) The present, capitalist, society, even with “repair” and reform, cannot function in the interests of the working class, who make up the majority of the population in most of the world today.
Indeed, by its very nature, capitalism requires continual “reform.” But reforms cannot alter the basic exploitative relationship of wage labor and capital, or production for profit. Whatever the intentions of reformers, reforms function only to make capitalism run more smoothly and to make present day society more palatable to the working class by holding out false hopes of a fundamental change or radical improvement. In the long run, reforms benefit the owning, capitalist, class rather than the class that produces the wealth. The World Socialist Party does not advocate reforms of capitalism — only socialism.
3) The World Socialist Party does not support, directly or indirectly, any political party other than our companion parties in the World Socialist Movement.
We can only oppose those parties that one way or another support the present system. Our main purpose is to make socialists, not to advocate the use of the ballot for anything short of socialism.
4) The form of society once in effect in the Soviet Union, and still more or less in effect in China and Cuba now, was not and is not socialism or communism.
It was or remains a dictatorial, bureaucratic form of state capitalism. In those countries, as in the United States, goods and services were and are produced primarily for profit and not primarily for use. Nationalization and government “ownership” of industry in no way alters the basic relationship of wage labor and capital. The bureaucratic class that controls this form of the state remains a parasitical, surplus value eating class.
5) Trade unionism is the institution by which wage and salary workers attempt by various means to sell their working abilities, their mental and physical energies, at the best possible price and to improve their working conditions.
Workers without such organizations have no reliable economic weapons with which to resist the attempts of employers to beat down their standards. But unions necessarily work within the framework of capitalism and are useful, therefore, only to a limited extent. They cannot alter the fundamental relationship between wage labor and capital. They can only react to capital’s fiat, particularly in the case of long-term issues like automation or unemployment. Every wage or salary increase, in fact, only spurs employers and investors to accelerate the replacement of humans by machines in the workplace. If anything, instead of foolishly selling themselves short by demanding “a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,” workers would do far better to follow Marx’s advice and simply abolish employment altogether.
6) The World Socialist Party rejects the theory of leadership.
Neither “great” individuals nor self-appointed “vanguards” can bring the world one day closer to socialism. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. Educators to explain socialism, yes! Administration to carry out the will of the majority of the membership, yes! But leaders or “vanguards,” never!
7) The socialist point of view rests solidly on the materialist conception of history.
a way of looking at things that focuses on how human communities meet their actual survival needs by producing what they need to live (their economic systems, in other words). Out of this process the human brain weaves its ideas, which eventually exert their own influence on the cycle, causing it to become more and more complex as society evolves.
This approach, known as historical materialism, is a scientific method for helping us understand how and why capitalism does what it does.
8) Socialists hold that materialist explanations of human society and the rest of nature supersede supernatural ones.
A religious perspective won't necessarily prevent anyone from striving to abolish capitalism and its evils, and the ethical elements of religious teachings may even be what first make many people aware of the injustices of a class-divided society. But they don't in themselves lead to an understanding of the causes of such injustices. (More often than not, religious institutions themselves justify and commit them.) The world socialist perspective is in any case essentially post-religious, because the case for socialism hinges on the scientific use of evidence. Socialists therefore look on supernatural explanations as obsolete.
Television
Capitalism and Other Kids Stuff, the new video produced by members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (companion Party of the World Socialist Movement) is here now. Click the play button.
The World Socialist Party is the oldest "libertarian" socialist organization in the US. The WSP has maintained democratic and leaderless organization since 1916.
The WSP of the United States is part of a global socialist movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of the people in the world, however "progressive" it might become.
To meet these needs, capitalism must be replaced by socialism.
The only way to achieve socialism is for the working class to recognize this and consciously and politically work to replace capitalism with socialism. The World Socialist Party of the United States does not support the idea of reforming capitalism and therefore does not work for reforms. There are plenty of other organizations that do and yet the problems remain. By relegating socialism to the future, it is relegated to never. Only a party dedicated only to socialism can promote socialism in any real, honest manner.
Among all the political parties in the U.S., only the World Socialist Party is dedicated to socialism as an immediate goal. It is this objective that makes the World Socialist Party revolutionary - our dedication to peaceful, democratic and immediate change.
The World Socialist Party is, therefore, engaged in a war of ideas against all other parties. Those other parties, no matter what they claim, are supporting the capitalist system and opposing the immediate establishment of socialism.
Only the conscious support of the working class will create socialism, and to this end the World Socialist Party seeks to increase understanding of, and mobilize support for, socialism.
The World Socialist Party calls upon every worker to support these efforts in any way that they can. Join the World Socialist Party today!
Declaration of Principles
This declaration is the basis of our organization and, because it is also an important historical document dating from the formation of the World Socialist Movement by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904, its original language has been retained.
Object of the WSP
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 society as a whole.
The World Socialist Party of the United States holds:
1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master 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 master 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, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into an agent of emancipation and the overthrow of plutocratic privilege.
7. That as political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interest of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The World Socialist Party of the United States, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to stand against all other political parties, whether alleged labor or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to support these principles to the end that a termination may be brought 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.
Namibia
Anthony Amugongo
PO Box 1502 Swaziland
Mandla Ntshakala
P.O. Box 981
Manzini
EUROPE
Denmark.
Graham Taylor, Spobjervej
173, DK-8220, Brabrand.
grahamt@sol.dk
Germany Norbert Email: weltsozialismus@gmx.net
Norway
Robert Stafford
Email: hallblithe@yahoo.com
Belgium
martyn.dunmore@pandora.be Italy
Gian Maria Freddi
Casella Postale n.7
c/o Ag. PT VR 32
37131 Verona
gm.freddi@libero.it Sweden
Dag Nilsson
Bergsbrunna villaväg 3B
S-752 56 Uppsala
JAPAN
www.myspace.com/worldsocialismjapan
Join the World Socialism discussion group: http://groups.myspace.com/worldsocialist
The more of you who join the World Socialist Party the more we will be able to get our ideas across, the more experiences we will be able to draw on and greater will be the new ideas for building the movement which you will be able to bring to us.
The World Socialist Party is an organization of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers. So, if you are going to join we want you to be sure that you agree fully with what we stand for and that we are satisfied that you understand and can defend the case for socialism.
If you want to know more about the WSP, its ideas and activities, please contact us. Become a Member!-Click Here
World Socialist Party (US)'s Friend Space (Top 12)
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You would think with all the genius and the brilliance of these times, we might find a higher purpose and a better use of mind. ~ Jackson Browne- Say It Isn't True~
Thanks alot for adding my solo project, Futant Oblivion. I really appreciate the interest, support, and friendship. Feel free to download mp3s from Futant Oblivion
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Hi. We just put up SIX new songs from our newly released demo "Too Late To Give In". Check it out, and let us know what you think. Feel free to BUY it online or at any show. Keep in touch.
Check out our page for information on upcoming shows.
-HYEO
PS. We could always use more shows. Help us out if you can. :D
Whats good? just passin thru so i thought i'd drop u a comment seeing how i RARELY comment people lol (feel privaledged LOL) BUT ANYWAY how you doin? everything kool? come check out my page an lemme kno what u think of my music (got 1 hip hop tune up if u aint heard it) need ppls views n wat not! thanx but anyway get back at me :D
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