Chapter I. The Socialist Attitude in Brief

On the inside cover of this pamphlet will be found the Object and Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

There, in compact form, is a statement of the aims and methods of Socialists. It was drawn up in 1904 when the S.P.G.B. was founded and it has not needed to be revised at all. If it is examined and compared with the points of view now being expressed on nationalisation and monopolies one very important feature will be noticed.

This is the fact that whereas other organisations are interested in the extent to which industry shall be controlled and regulated, and in the machinery of control, the S.P.G.B. has always been interested primarily in the question of the ownership of industry.

 This is not an accidental or unimportant difference. It goes right to the root of the question what form social organisation should take.

While non-Socialists (including the Labour Party) take sides in the dispute whether industry should be left alone or brought under State control, and whether State control would be more efficient or less efficient than existing private control, Socialists urge the workers to concern themselves with the problem of ending all forms of private ownership, including that form of private ownership which consists of wealthy individuals investing their capital by lending it to the Government instead of putting it into private undertakings.

 Both are forms of the capitalist social  system and both must be ended if Socialism is to take the place of Capitalism.

A capitalist is a person who owns sufficient property (whether in land, or in a business, or shares in a company or investments in Government loans, etc.), to be able to live on the income derived from his property without the necessity of earning his living.

 A member of the working class is a person who, not owning property at all or having only an insignificant amount of it, has to earn his living by working for a capitalist or for the capitalist State.

 The great majority of the population, including of course the wives and children of the workers, are in the latter group : they constitute the working class.