Are you a socialist?
To be a socialist in a world deformed by nationalism and religion, scarred by political ignorance and with humiliating deference to billionaires is not easy. Discussing socialist politics, socialist ideas and the urgent necessity for the establishment of global socialism with anyone is hard graft, particularly since many workers have a misconception of who is a socialist, what a socialist stands for and what they want democratically and politically from being a socialist.
Socialists are often erroneously linked with the Labour Party and social and economic reformism, or the Left wing of capitalist politics with their penchant for violence, unreasonable anger at demonstrations and the support for state capitalism/nationalisation that used to exist in Soviet Union until 1991. Recently, one newspaper blamed “socialists” for a proliferation in road calming measures (“Daily Telegraph” 10 January 2026). It seems that if there is any identifiable social or political problem those paid to defend the profit system will blame socialists.
The reality is altogether different. What is a socialist you may ask? A socialist is foremost someone who recognises their class position within a social system where the means of production and distribution are owned by a minority capitalist class for the purpose of making a profit to the exclusion of everyone else. A socialist is someone who takes part in the class struggle between the working-class majority of which they are a member and the capitalist class minority; a struggle which foremost revolves around persuading workers to become socialists themselves and to take democratic and political action to create a social system in which “we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”. (the Communist Manifesto. 1848)
A socialist is someone who recognises that social reforms and those who enact them, cannot resolve the social and economic problems facing the working class. And a socialist is someone who not only rejects the capitalist concept of political leadership but understands that to establish socialism where production and distribution take place directly and solely to meet human need, first requires the formation of a socialist majority in society.
In short, a socialist is someone who wants to see a point reached by the working class in social and historical development where a politically active socialist majority exists within capitalism and is capable of democratically sending socialist delegates to parliament. These socialist delegates will not form a leadership nor form a government. Instead, they will ensure the machinery of government, including the armed forces, will be “converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation” (SPGB D of P Clause 6). This will ensure the peaceful transformation of the profit system to world socialism: the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution by all of society.
This takes about a couple of minutes to say to someone enquiring what a socialist is and what they do. All is not plain sailing though. If a socialist is allowed to speak for a couple of minutes, then what is taken as socialism is often written off as ‘utopian’, ‘pie in the sky’ or against ‘human nature’. Few are prepared to accept the fact that socialism is a simple proposition where production and distribution takes place democratically just to meet human need.
At this stage in capitalism’s history making socialists is hard work. Our opponents have had a field day distorting its meaning. We have had George Orwell claiming socialism is “human decency”, Hitler claiming it has something to do with nationalism while Stalin used it as a social system in its own right between capitalism and communism. And today, our work is made harder still by having the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders they are “socialist” while simultaneously wanting to retain capitalism and class exploitation.
What is and What is not Socialism
What is and is not socialism?” We’ve now come to the question of what is and what is not socialism. When the Socialist Pary of Great Britain was founded in 1904 it gave a clear and succinct definition of socialism, The Object of the SPGB is stated as:
“The establishment of a system of society base 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”
Socialism, then, is not nationalisation, socialism is not government ownership, socialism is not what existed in Russia or Cuba, China, Venezuela and Vietnam and socialism is not the Labour government passing “socialist” reforms or to regulate the capitalism.
In fact, socialists have a particular contempt for the Labour Party and social democratic parties in other countries, who erroneously believe you can run capitalism in the interest of all society. You can’t. Capitalism forces Labour governments to behave in the only way possible, that is, support for the interests of the capitalist class and the profit motive.
The Labour Party is not a socialist party, has never been a socialist party, and will never be a socialist party. We urge workers not to vote for the Labour Party and its leaders no matter how benign. The problem workers face is not the evil Conservative Party but the profit system and the private ownership of the means of production and distribution.
There appears to be a current streak of servility in the working-class mind-set. Rather than have the confidence to take matters into their own hands, workers defer to political leaders to do the thinking and acting for them. Workers, in the main, are held in suspended animation from one election to the next, only to be bought out to vote for this or that capitalist political party.
However, politicians can only act in the interest of the capitalist class and can only defend capitalism. All capitalist political parties disappoint. When in government, they always end in failure. Their responsibility to the capitalist class and its interests always goes against the interest of the working class a majority in capitalism who are forced onto the labour market to see their ability to work for a wage or a salary. As a class workers are exploited producing what Marx called a “surplus value” out of which the capitalist class draw their unearned income of rent, interest and profit.
Real dissent is to reject political leadership as a purely capitalist concept. Leadership has nothing to do with being a socialist or with socialism. Workers can stand on their own two feet They can think and act for themselves.
The Failure of Reforms
We are often told that capitalism is the only game in town. If it is the only game I town it must be the answer to a very stupid question. While capitalism persists, the severe economic and social problems facing the working class will remain. The reformers have been in the political driving seat for over two hundred years. Housing reform, for example, fills a library with legislation, but the housing crisis continues. Workers do not get the housing they need and if they do, is often mean and substandard.
Marx’s socialist colleague, Frederick Engels was writing about the housing crisis in the late 19th century. He published a pamphlet in 1872 of “The Housing Question”. He argued that reforms do not fundamentally affect the root cause of housing as it effects the working class. The problem is capitalism. After the First World War it was the promise of “homes fit for heroes”, then after the Second World War it was the utopian vision of high-rise flats while “Parker Morris Standards” were going to solve housing need of living conditions. Housing provision after 1918 came to a standstill due to economic crises. After 1945, poorly constructed high-rise flats just added to the housing problem, and many since have been demolished while the Parker Morris Standards could not be afforded and so were dropped in the early 1980s. Today many workers live in unfit and cramped properties with damp, mould, disrepair and with potentially life-threatening inflammable external wall panels The Grenfell fire is a tragic example of working-class housing when it goes horribly wrong. Like everything else in a social system whose primary motive is profit, the working class only gets second best or nothing at all.
Abolish Capitalism and Establish Socialism.
There is no alternative to the market and the profit system we are told. It is pure unsubstantiated dogma. There is an alternative to capitalism and that is socialism. Socialism has never existed and requires a global working class to make it a reality. We, we do not need to live in a profit-driven system in which the majority are exploited producing more in social wealth than what they receive in wages and salaries. There is an alternative. There is production just to solely and directly to meet human need.
The skill and creativity of the working class exists, and the materials, land, factories, transport and communication systems exist. What is lacking is the imagination by the working class, those who live off salaries and wages, to change society in a revolutionary way. Unlike socialists most workers temporarily cannot imagine the end of capitalism. They cannot think outside the capitalist box.
Yet workers have more political power than that they imagine. Workers have the vote. They can organise and they can organise politically in their own interest as socialists. They can take conscious political and democratic action within socialist parties and abolish capitalism and replace the profit system with world-wide socialism.
