I have been asked to say a few words about the WSP and what it stands for. Due to the great strides during the past hundred years, in science and technology, in the efforts by the capitalist class to increase their profits and to win new markets, the material conditions in 1978 are now ripe for the establishment of Socialism. The very evolution of capitalism itself has solved the problem of production.

Nobody starves today because enough cannot be produced. An outstanding illustration is the 1942 issue of the Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture. This report was titled “Farmers in a Changing World.” What a significant title that is! It showed the state of Texas alone, using the latest farm equipment and the latest information on agronomy, could produce all the food needed to feed the entire United States; and, further, the United States could feed the entire globe, under the same conditions.

The urgent need today is a world fit for human beings. This is not only possible, practical and necessary today, here and now; the evidence is overwhelming that no longer can capitalism be reformed or administered in the interest of the working class, or of society, for that matter — (and, just as an afterthought, we owe a great debt of gratitude to capitalism. You could not “skip” capitalism. Capitalism is an important stage in social evolution).

Two items to illustrate this. First, in spite of all the Government experts, authorities, Congressional measures, and scholarly advisors, with their profound plans for eliminating inflation and pollution, international relations, poverty, and other problems, ad infinitum — these problems still remain.

The second item I want to mention is this. All the dedicated efforts of liberals, radicals, progressives, not to forget the so-called “socialists,” with their dilute deluge of measures of reforms to ease the lot of the poor victims of capitalism are of no avail. Especially futile are the measures advocated by the “practical,” “non-sectarian,” “in-the-meantime” socialists, with all their programs. Their plans do not alter the situation in any way, nor do they rouse socialist understanding. The World Socialist Movement, parties and groups scattered in many countries, maintain that neither they nor [any other] leaders can emancipate the working class. This is the task of the vast majority of class-conscious workers, using their political power to introduce a socialist society. And the signs of the times are encouraging in this respect.

Although Comrade Rab had been invited to write this by Kerr Company, it was not published until now. They asked Rab to make so many changes that, in the end, he refused.

About John Keracher

 John Keracher was born in Scotland in 1880. He spent rhe early years of his adulthood in England, whete he was exposed to the ideas of the Social Democratic Federation. Thus, his entry into the Detroit Local of the Socialist Parry of America in 1910, soon afrer his arrival in rhe Unired States in 1909, was a natural outgrowrh of his background.

As a human being, Keracher was full of lively wit and good nature; his calm manner went unruffled by obstreperous opponents, critics; and hecklers. I can readily attest from personal experience that to those seeking personal advice or enlightenment on socialism, he was like an oasis in the desert, a quenching cactus. He was uncompromising in his principles but refrained from ad hominem attacks, and confined himself to the issues as he saw them. He relied on the logic of his arguments to counter critics.

(The Western Socialist, No.1 - 1967) The Washington Post, Sept. 11, 1965, editorially chided President Johnson for “permitting his enthusiasm to run away with his judgment (in his pledge) not only to reduce crime but to banish It.” We must have a “new approach to crime,” wrote the editor. And he quite properly pointed out that: “Crime is not committed in a vacuum. It is only a product of the environment which this generation and its predecessors have created.. .The crime commissions are likely, therefore, to find themselves wrestling (our emphasis) with the basic social problems of the age.”

One would assume, then, that “the new approach to crime” would wrestle with “the basic social problems of the age.” Modern society Is a class society where the ownership of the wealth produced by the vast portion of the population (the working class) belongs to (is the property of) the relatively few owners of the means of wealth production (the capitalist class). We live in a property society whether it be privately or state owned. The sanctity of property rights is the holy of holies. Basically, crime consists in violations of these property relationships in their many and various aspects. (An exception can be made for the relatively few pathological “crimes.”)

What should be the minimum requirements for membership of a Socialist Party? They should be broad enough to include all who are Socialists. There is no justification for barring Socialists from membership. They should be narrow enough to exclude all who are not Socialists.

Since the criterion for membership is based on whether an applicant is a Socialist or not,  it becomes necessary to define what is a socialist.

The starting point, or rather, the pivotal centre of our logic is the conception of the universe as being a oneness, a unity, an eternal, absolute truth, all embracing, infinite and unlimited. It is impossible to conceive of anything outside the universe. To attempt it would not only be useless, but folly. The parts composing the universe partake of its infinite nature, i.e., of existence. A mahogany chair has the characteristics of all chairs, regardless of where it is found, on earth or in the heavens above. Yet, at the same time, it is finite. The chair is built, wears, breaks and decays into other forms. we cannot know all there is to know about the mahogany chair. We can analyze and dissect it to the smallest particle, but still there is more to find out about it.

However, we can know its classification and function. Though the intellect does not fathom all, yet it is true understanding. We know that it is a chair, not a bed or a table. Still further, we know it is a mahogany chair, not an oak or an ash. All things existing are attributes of the universe, each one being infinite and true but not the whole truth. They are all relatively true, i.e., parts of truth; but only the universe itself is the absolute truth—the whole truth. Within this absolute universe, everything is interrelated and in a process of change, e.g., the evolution of the earth from its original gaseous mass, unable to support life, to its present form with its “wonderful civilization.”