Membership in the Socialist Party USA is based on agreement with the
statement of principles. Those who with to join simply sign a statement indicating that they agree with the principles, and then send dues to the party.
The statement of principles are general enough to accommodate a variety of interpretations. The SP USA is a multi-tendency party, meaning that there is disagreement among the membership over some of the details of these broad principles. The party is also fundamentally democratic in character; party members freely debate and discuss among themselves many of the details of socialist principles and practice.
I think that consideration of these principles are important, because many people, including those on the progressive left, have many misconceptions about what socialism is. The first sentence in the SOP reads, "The Socialist Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people's lives under their own control -- a non-racist, classless, feminist, socialist society in which people cooperate at work, at home, and in the community." Many equate socialism with government bureaucracy, rigid top-down control, authoritarianism, or other practices that I would characterize as "socialism from above". The Socialist Party makes it clear in its principles that this is not what socialism is and it is not what the SP advocates. Instead, the SP makes it clear that it advocates "socialism from below"--a radical democracy in which communities and workers democratically manage society's resources.
I think that this in a nutshell summarizes the key point about socialism. If people begin to understand that socialism is nothing more than simply putting radical democracy into practice, then much of the resistance that exists in many people's minds to socialism will melt away. Many on the non-socialist left (liberals and progressives), if asked if they would embrace the concept of radical democracy, would say yes, of course they would. And yet if you asked them their opinion of socialism, they would say that they reject it. This is the disconnect that socialists have to address.
The SOP elaborates on this point almost immediately in its statement of principles, when it says:
Socialism is not mere government ownership, a welfare state, or a repressive bureaucracy. Socialism is a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighborhoods, homes, and schools. The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few.
Giving workers, consumers, and neighborhoods democratic control over their lives represents the core of my values--and I believe that this can be (and should be) consistent with the core values of all on the progressive left. If those on the progressive left better understood that this is what socialism is about, many of them would be more receptive to socialism as an ideology.
Once we understand that socialism is simply another name for radical democracy, then many of the other elements in the statement of principles clearly fall into place. The SOP states that the party opposes both capitalism and the dictatorial "Communist" systems. Both systems deny fundamental human rights; both systems deny communities and workers fundamental democratic control of the production, distribution, and use of resources. On the other hand, democratic socialism, as advocated by the SP, does require a revolution, in order to throw off the old structures of power that govern and control society:
Democratic revolutions are needed to dissolve the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government. By revolution we mean a radical and fundamental change in the structure and quality of economic, political, and personal relations. The building of socialism requires widespread understanding and participation, and will not be achieved by an elite working "on behalf of" the people.
The term "revolution" may seem scary, but in reality any kind of change in which the forms and structure of power are democratized necessarily represents a "revolution". Only by overturning existing power structures can true radical democracy be achieved. That means overturning the entrenched power that current exists in the capitalist system, and it means establishing new avenues of radical democratic participation that will stand in contrast to the current economic and political structures that control capitalist society. Some of the broader details of this are discussed later in the SOP, but the key point here is that democratizing society can only be achieved by a broad mass of people taking power away from the ruling capitalist class.
What mass of people? Here is where it is important to understand what we mean when we talk of "class". In American political discourse, class is often described in terms of income levels. We often hear talk of the "middle class", which is assumed to be most people with middle incomes, while the "working class" is assumed to be factory workers, and "lower class" refers to people with low incomes. But this is not the socialist understanding of class. When socialists talk about the "working class", they refer to the vast majority of people. Socialists define class in terms of whether or not one must sell one's labor to make a living. If you have to find a job in the workplace in order to survive, rather than earning money off the labor of others, you are in the working class. For the most part, it isn't much more complicated than that. And that means that I am a worker, and in all probability you are too. Capitalists--those in the ruling class--are those who control the means of production. Most of us don't control the means of production, and instead earn our incomes on the labor market. And what socialism advocates is turning over the management of the means of production to the vast majority of people through democratic institutions.
The SP statement of principles puts it this way when says, "The working class is in a key and central position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future – to a real radical democracy from below."
Liberals and others on the progressive left have nothing to fear when socialists talk about the working class as the basis of socialism. Recapitulating, then, all socialists mean is that when you take society as whole, and subtract out the capitalists, essentially what you have left are the workers. That is to say, those of us without the power in capitalist society are the ones who need to democratize society.
The opening section of thestatementt of principles concludes with this simple statement: "
Radical democracy is the cornerstone not only of our socialism, but also of our strategy. "
Radical democracy is the basis of socialism, and the basis of what the Socialist Party USA stands for.
