The Socialization of the Means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange, to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire community, and the complete Emancipation of Labor from the Domination of Capitalism and Landlordism, with the establishment of Social and Economic Equality between the Sexes.
The economic development of modern society is characterized by the more or less complete domination of the capitalistic mode of production over all branches of human labor.
The capitalistic mode of production, because it has the creation of profit for its sole object, therefore favors the larger capital, and is based upon the divorcement of the majority of the people from the instruments of production and the concentration of these instruments in the hands of a minority. Society is thus divided into two opposite classes: one, the capitalists and their sleeping partners, the landlords and loanmongers, holding in their hands the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and being, therefore, able to command the labor of others; the other, the working-class, the wage-earners, the proletariat, possessing nothing but their labor-power, and being consequently forced by necessity to work for the former.
The social division thus produced becomes wider and deeper with every new advance in the application of labor-saving machinery. It is most clearly recognizable, however, in the times of industrial and commercial crises, when, in consequence of the present chaotic conditions of carrying on national and international industry, production periodically comes to a standstill, and a number of the few remaining independent producers are thrown into the ranks of the proletariat. Thus, while on one hand there is incessantly going on an accumulation of capital, wealth, and power into a steadily diminishing number of hands, there is, on the other hand, a constantly growing insecurity of livelihood for the mass of wage-earners, an increasing disparity between human wants and the opportunity of acquiring the means for their satisfaction, and a steady physical and mental deterioration among the more poverty-stricken of the population.
But the more this social division widens, the stronger grows the revolt—more conscious abroad than here—of the proletariat against the capitalist system of society in which this division and all that accompanies it have originated, and find such fruitful soil. The capitalist mode of production, by massing the workers in large factories, and creating an interdependence, not only between various trades and branches of industries, but even national industries, prepares the ground and furnishes material for a universal class war. That class war may at first—as in this country—be directed against the abuses of the system, and not against the system itself; but sooner or later the workers must come to recognize that nothing short of the expropriation of the capitalist class, the ownership by the community of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, can put an end to their abject economic condition; and then the class war will become conscious instead of unconscious on the part of the working-classes, and they will have for their ultimate object the overthrow of the capitalist system. At the same time, since the capitalist class holds and uses the power of the State to safeguard its position and beat off any attack, the class war must assume a political character, and become a struggle on the part of the workers for the possession of the political machinery.
It is this struggle for the conquest of the political power of the State, in order to effect a social transformation, which International Social Democracy carries on in the name and on behalf of the working-class. Social Democracy, therefore, is the only possible political party of the proletariat. The Social Democratic Federation is a part of this International Social Democracy. It, therefore, takes its stand on the above principles, and believes—
1. That the emancipation of the working-class can only be achieved through the socialization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and their subsequent control by the organized community in the interests of the whole people.
2. That, as the proletariat is the last class to achieve freedom, its emancipation will mean the emancipation of the whole of mankind, without distinction of race, nationality, creed, or sex.
3. That this emancipation can only be the work of the working-class itself, organized nationally and internationally into a distinct political party, consciously striving after the realization of its ideals; and, finally,
4. That, in order to insure greater material and moral facilities for the working-class to organize itself and to carry on the class war, the following reforms must immediately be carried through:—