Nationalism – His Masters' Voice

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WORLD SOCIALISM

Capitalism has nothing to offer but barbarism. All too often, the employing class have resorted to nationalist flag-waving to defend “native” business enterprise against "foreign" competition - conflating the interest of the bosses with those of workers. The Socialist Party rejects all nationalism this is not the case with the many on the Left who support nationalist struggles. Every barbaric anti-working class nationalist movement with its attendant policies of genocide has found supporters within the left-wing. Apologies are made for death, rape, torture and human misery on the specious grounds of “your enemy is my friend”. 

The working class has a difficult, but urgent task: to gather all its resources to try to stop the attacks being waged against it. What is on offer is not ‘independence’, but the division of the working class into hostile camps, alongside the continued unity of the exploiters. Business as usual for British Bosses, in fact, nationalists should not imagine that they are ridding themselves of the exploiting class.  Just as in the case of Westminster rule, the real decisions will continue to be made by the British billionaire class behind the scenes in their board-rooms. The SNP will simply be what all other British politicians are and have been for centuries – the public face of a very old, very experienced and very cunning ruling class. The reality, far from being the socialist paradise that is painted by the Left-nationalists, in Scotland it will simply be a race to the bottom, as the government compete to attract investment by lowering wages, lowering corporation tax, restricting workers’ rights, to prove their subservience to capitalist class. This is a law of economics under capitalism, and especially in times of crisis, when unemployment is climbing ever higher and workers are becoming desperate for whatever they can get. Better conditions for workers, higher taxes for improved social services will be seen as less ‘attractive’ to ‘investors’ (capitalists), since anything that benefits workers cannot help but impact levels of profitability. So the capitalist will invest in the more ‘flexible’ side of the border, and the cry will go up on the other side … “we, too, need to be more flexible”. Down will come the wages, the corporation taxes and other ‘barriers’ to profit-taking. Back will come the exploiters to reap the rewards … until the workers on the other side of the border can be forced to accept even worse pay and conditions in the interests of ‘job creation’ and ‘competitiveness’. The Scottish nationalists such as Salmond and Sturgeon are showing they are more than willing to play their part. Such a future has appeal to the ruling class, but it is hardly the manifesto of a left-wing liberation struggle!

The separation of Scotland from Britain will fix the problems of our fellow-workers. The SNP present themselves as the progressive party but in truth all they promise slightly-less-inefficient hospitals and slightly-less-inefficient schools. We deserve a lot better  and there is little evidence that this is anything more than wishful thinking on the part of those who assert it. The Scottish capitalist parties will do what the capitalist ruling class requires them to do, no matter how people vote or how many of them take to the street to express their opposition. What we are witnessing in Scotland has its echoes all over Britain. The outward appearance may seem to be more progressive, since many left-wing workers support the call for independence, but it is essentially a mirror of the rise of those on the left who supported Brexit and call for increased immigration controls to gain support among impoverished and misguided English workers. As the recession bit ever deeper, workers have been suffering the same demoralisation and the same frustrations and have been asking themselves what the solution is. As independence has been used to dupe workers, elsewhere immigration has been blamed for the mounting misery. In Scotland nationalism has been offered up as the ‘answer’ to the problems of capitalism. But its effect is the same – it gives workers a scapegoat for the ills of capitalist society. “Don’t blame capitalism, blame the immigrants!” say the the British nationalists to discontented and disillusioned workers in England. “Don’t blame capitalism, blame the English!” say the SNP. 

Capitalism has shrunk the planet. The internet and other social media have brought the whole world into contact with one another. Communication and transport networks have made global production and distribution easier. Socialists do not envisage cultural uniformity but there is more that unites human beings than divides them. There is a universal need for shelter, food, housing, creativity and so on. Human beings are both social and co-operative and can work together to produce and distribute goods to meet human need. We cannot trust the capitalist system to be run in the interest of workers. Everything we win in the course of class struggle can be taken away again if we let down our guard. The only way to keep hold of the gains we make is to get rid of the capitalist system and establish socialism. A lack of local power is not an argument for nationalism; it is an argument for socialism. In the Socialist Party,, our job is to promote understanding in order to help workers discard popular yet harmful prejudices. If we don’t do that, then there’s really not much point to our existence, since it is only through discarding the prejudices that keep us shackled to ruling class ideas that we will be able to build a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism and building socialism. When we in the Socialist Party argue against Scottish nationalism, we do so not because we wish to endorse the rule of Westminster, but because we wish workers to understand that it is not ‘the English’ who are their enemies, but the British ruling class. And because we wish to create a movement that is as strong and unified as possible that will have a fighting chance of displacing our exploiters. Say no to nationalism, which ties workers to capitalists and turns us into tools of our own oppression. Say yes to working-class unity, yes to revolution, and yes to a socialist future.