The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is an

international organisation ''International Organization'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the entire field of international relations, international affairs. It was established in 1947 and is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of th ...

of socialist parties created in 1904 with the founding of the

Socialist Party of Great Britain The Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) is a small socialist political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1904 as a split from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), it advocates using the ballot box for revolutionary purposes and ...

(SPGB). The member parties share a common classical Marxist worldview and an adherence to

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

defined as a distinct

economic system An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within an economy. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making proces ...

from

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. As a result, the parties of the WSM are held in sharp contrast to

social democratic Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

political parties and Marxist–Leninist movements. In contrast to social democratic parties, the WSM parties do not pursue social and economic reforms to

, nor do they seek political office in electoral politics and they do not focus on so-called progressive causes, believing such actions to be irrelevant to their fundamental goal of socialism. In contrast to Marxist–Leninist communist parties, they do not subscribe to the theories of

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

vanguardism Vanguardism, a core concept of Leninism, is the idea that a revolutionary vanguard party, composed of the most conscious and disciplined workers, must lead the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism, ultimately progre ...

and

democratic centralism Democratic centralism is the organisational principle of most communist parties, in which decisions are made by a process of vigorous and open debate amongst party membership, and are subsequently binding upon all members of the party. The co ...

, believing such practices to be antithetical to the realisation of socialism. The WSM defines socialism as a moneyless society based on common ownership of the means of production, production for use and social relations based on cooperative and democratic associations as opposed to bureaucratic hierarchies. Additionally, the WSM includes statelessness, classlessness and the abolition of

wage labor Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under ...

as characteristics of a socialist society—characteristics that are usually reserved to describe a communist society, but that both

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

Object

The WSM sees its function as the proliferation of socialist ideas and the dissemination of structural analyses and critiques of capitalism as well as to correct misconceptions regarding socialism and to make people aware of the structural issues inherent to capitalism while facilitating open debate regarding the future organisation of a post-capitalist society.

Positions

Capitalism

The WSM maintains that

is a regressive and backwards system given modern civilisations' current level of technological and economic development. Regardless of how progressive capitalism becomes, it cannot meet the needs of the majority of the population and solve its inherent structural issues. The WSM as an organisation does not participate in

labor union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

activity, social activism or progressive movements, although individual members may and are permitted to do so as long as they remain within the context of economic/social rather than political activism. The WSM perceives such activity (such as support for organised labour unions) to be within the scope of the current capitalist system and therefore insufficient for bringing about fundamental change in the structure of society because the demands of such activities are to reform capitalism. The WSM is also differentiated from the majority of socialist parties that have become defined by their strategy and immediate demands—and in the case of social democratic parties—preoccupied with gaining and maintaining political office, adopting capitalist perspectives in the process.

Socialism

The WSM defines

in its classical formulation as a "system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the community". Socialism is characterised as a stateless,

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

less, post-monetary economy based on

calculation in kind Calculation in kind or calculation in-natura is a way of valuating resources and a system of accounting that uses disaggregated physical magnitudes as opposed to a common unit of calculation. As the basis for a socialist economy, it was proposed ...

, a free association of producers (

workplace democracy Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms to the workplace, such as voting systems, consensus, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, and systems of appeal. It can be implemented in a ...

) and free access to

goods In economics, goods are anything that is good, usually in the sense that it provides welfare or utility to someone. Alan V. Deardorff, 2006. ''Terms Of Trade: Glossary of International Economics'', World Scientific. Online version: Deardorffs ...

and services produced solely for use and not for exchange.

Impossibilism

The WSM takes an anti-Leninist stance, arguing that a vanguard party and single-party state is antithetical to the development of socialism and prone to corruption. The WSM believes that socialism can only be achieved through mass support for socialism and educating the public toward that end and neither promotes nor opposes political reforms of capitalism (such as social democracy), criticising such reforms as being ineffective for promoting a fundamental restructuring of society toward socialism. The WSM is also opposed to a transition stage between capitalism and socialism, such as

market socialism Market socialism is a type of economic system involving social ownership of the means of production within the framework of a market economy. Various models for such a system exist, usually involving cooperative enterprises and sometimes a mix ...

, arguing that such a transitional stage is no longer necessary given modern technology.

Activity

The WSM's activities are solely based on the realisation of socialism and nothing unrelated else to socialism, such as social activism and campaigning for non-socialist, socially progressive causes that are irrelevant to socialism as a distinct system from capitalism. The WSM do stand in elections on occasion as they believe that sending delegates to parliament is a useful tool within the socialist revolution as an additional measure along with a bottom-up reorganisation of society on the basis of socialism. This view places them within the context of

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

and therefore distinguishes them from many

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

organisations that may support the idea of socialism as the WSM sees it, but not the Marxist tactics they propose.

Publications

''World Socialist'' (

OCLC OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...

br>474640161
was a bi-annual journal that was produced by the international from 1983 to 1987 and the international's only publication to date (''World Socialism'' 69 was a multilingual publication by the Socialist Party of Great Britain). The ''Western Socialist Journal'' was published from 1933 to 1980, but from 1939 involved at least two companion parties in North America. ''Socialist Comment'' involved at least two companion parties in Australasia.

Radio

The World Socialist Party of New Zealand run ''Radio Imagine'' out of

Manurewa Manurewa is a suburb in South Auckland, New Zealand, located south of Manukau, Manukau Central, and southeast of the Auckland City Centre. It is home to the Auckland Botanic Gardens, which receives over a million visitors a year. Manurewa h ...

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

Companion parties

All the parties began as offshoots from the Socialist Party of Great Britain. WSM members in countries without a companion party of their own are as a rule SPGB members. It is made up of the following parties: * The following were companion parties of the WSM, but have disaffiliated or been expelled: * League of Democratic Socialists (Austria) * Socialist Party of North America (1911) In 1979, a group used to exist in Sweden with the name World Socialist Group ('). This group believed an altered version of the Object and Declaration of Principles of the Companion Parties of Socialism. It was not a political party, but it wanted there to be a socialist party in Sweden.

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control International socialist organizations