The Scottish "Socialist" Party despite its name, does not stand for socialism but is a left-wing nationalist - a Tartan Trotskyist - party. The SSP is lucky that there isn’t a political equivalent of the Trades Description Act or they could be prosecuted for fraudulently describing what they are trying to sell as “socialism”.
Historically, socialism was generally seen as a worldwide system of common ownership and democratic control in which the watchword would be “From each according to ability, to each according to need”. It would mean the end of the wages system along with money, buying and selling and the capital/labour relationship. Compare what socialism originally meant with the SSP’s programme of reforms of the capitalist system. The difference between Labour and the SSP is only in the detail – both are all for patching-up capitalism but cannot agree on how this should be done. Reformist political parties in opposition always claim how much better everything would be if only they were in power and the SSP is no exception. Everything would be better: the NHS, the environment, the economy, business efficiency, productivity, road safety, tourism, etc. On top of all this there would be savings of many millions, even billions, of pounds, giving us all more spending power as well as big savings for businesses.And how is all this to be achieved? By two old leftist illusions; taxing the rich and nationalisation (disguised as public or social ownership). Apparently, nationalisation would be more efficient and cheaper, despite the evidence of past experience, and taxing the rich must mean that we’ll still have them. The source of their riches is the surplus value wrung from the working class but the SSP seem not to have noticed this. This has nothing whatever to do with socialism. The SSP’s aim is really just the same as all the other reformist parties – they try to solve capitalism’s problems by merely re-organising it. If all their proposed reforms were adopted – nationalisation, the multitude of changes in the tax system, defence budget cuts, etc., we’d still be living in a money-driven, buying and selling economy, still working for wages and salaries, still insecure, being hired and fired, in short, in capitalism.
The SSP is a direct descendant of Militant and campaigns to get elected with non-socialist votes on a programme of attractive-sounding reforms to capitalism. It is a ploy to attract a following. But it's a bad tactic that can only encourage illusions about what can be achieved under capitalism, and then the inevitable disillusionment. It glosses over the fact that capitalism is not a system that can be humanised or reformed or transformed into something better. What those who want a better society should be doing – should have done – is to campaign to change people's minds, to get them to realise that they are living in an exploitative, class-divided society and that the only way out is to end capitalism and replace it by a new and different system. The SSP advocates the break-up of the British state and the creation of a free Scottish socialist republic. But a single socialist country in a hostile capitalist world is just impossible, and the SSP aim is Scottish state capitalism.The SSP have done so much to discredit the idea of socialism by associating it with a state-run economy.
All over the world there are independent nations and yet we still have the very opposite of what the SSP thinks political independence will bring. Many of these independent nations have had leftist governments, which all claimed they could solve capitalism’s problems but failed because the system’s problems are inseparable from it. The SSP simply hasn’t noticed that we live in a global economy over which they could have no control. Capitalism’s problems are global so their solution can only be global. This means world socialism and not the narrow, nationalist proposals of the SSP. Scotland is only a small part of an economic system which embraces the whole world. It could never enjoy any real autonomy or self-sufficiency in the face of the world market. From day one it will be buffeted by hostile economic forces entirely beyond its control. In no time at all, Scotland will be faced with two choices — either total ruin, or the complete restoration of capitalist economics. The SSP's independent socialist Scotland would be neither independent nor socialist.
We little care if Tommy Sheridan, the leader of Solidarity Scotland’s "Socialist" Movement, told lies or not in court about his sex life. It’s only the political aspect of his life that concern us, and he has certainly told countless lies about socialism. Sheridan was a Trotskyist, originally of the Militant Tendency and Trotskyists, being Leninists, hold that workers are incapable of evolving beyond a “trade union consciousness”. So, according to them, putting the straight socialist case for common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit to workers is to cast pearls before swine. Instead, according to the Trotskyists, what must be put before workers are demands that the government introduce this or that reform within capitalism. Getting workers to support such “transitional demands” is the only way they calculate they can get the mass support which, when the government fails to respond, can be used to catapult their vanguard party to power. But this requires people which a degree of charisma on the ground who are capable of winning a personal following( Militant has been rather successful in this with Derek Hatton in Liverpool and Joe Higgins in Dublin). Normally, the Trotskyist gurus (such as McCombes co-author with Sheridan of their book Imagine) direct the organisation from the shadows, are not up to this. They require front men - Tommy Sheridan. The trouble, from the point of view of the Trotskyist gurus in the background, is that such front men have, because of their following, a degree of independence and can prove difficult to control. Which is what happened in Sheridan’s case.
The Socialist Party replied to John Maclean's cretion, the Scottish Workers' Republican Party in 1925.
"The chief fallacy of their position is their insistence upon a Scottish Workers' Republic. This demand is both reactionary and Utopian. The struggle of the workers of the United Kingdom must be a united one. The workers are under the domination of a class who rule by the use of a political machine which is the chief governing instrument for England, Scotland, Wales, etc. To appeal to the workers of Scotland for a Scottish Workers' Republic is to arouse and foster the narrow spirit of Nationalism, so well used by our masters. Economically the demand is Utopian, as the development of capitalism has made countries more and more dependent on each other, both through the specialisation of industry or agriculture, and also by the force controlled by the Great Powers to suppress or control the smaller nations. The history of " independent " Hungary, Poland, and the Balkan States shows that the realisation of " political independence " by a country leaves the workers' conditions untouched and actually worsens them in many cases. The appeal to the worker in this Manifesto to "rally to the cause of a Workers' Republic for Scotland" is made "so that we might win you away from the service of the imperialist gang who direct their activities from London" If the worker is to be won for Socialism, it is by getting him to understand the principles of Socialism, and not by appealing to him to concentrate on Scottish affairs. Socialism is international.”
This is still our position in face of those today who seek to revive the idea of a “Scottish Workers’ Republic”
Members of the Socialist Party understand well the urge to do something now, to make a change. We say people should have full access to services like education, properly maintained roads, refuse collection, libraries etc, but we ask you to reject taxation or direct charges via privatisation as ways of providing them. Instead, we ask you to support free access to these vital services as well as to all other needs, like food, housing, public transport, domestic appliances, furniture, gas, electricity, clothing etc. A society of free access to whatever people need is readily achievable by replacing today's capitalism with a new system where we all collectively and directly own and democratically control the means of production and distribution (i.e., farmland, factories, raw materials, power stations, water supply, roads network, railways etc). If we all directly own and control these assets - rather than them being owned by private individuals and, or, the state - then we will also collectively own all that they provide, resulting in free access to all goods and services. People don't have to buy what's jointly theirs already. Nothing will have a monetary cost with real socialism. In fact, money, having no function at all, will be redundant. People will still work, but the purpose will then be for meeting society's needs - not making profits for, and rewarding, a tiny minority class who have taken possession of the vital resources and machinery that make life possible. Do you want to stick with council tax, local income tax, national income tax, value added tax, stealth taxes, National Insurance or get rid of the lot of them, along with the time-wasting, bureaucracy, confusion, stress and worry they cause, then it is by choosing to have classless moneyless leaderless free access one world.
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