Away with Capitalism

“Forward is our watchword, whether we like it or not.” Joseph Dietzgen

Capitalism can offer us very little else but a series of crises of one sort or another.

Our fellow-workers are beset on all sides by those who would have them fight for what are designated as their liberties. The workers are led to believe that their forefathers fought for and won something the present generation must guard as a sacred treasure. The ruling class give it the name “Democracy,” and millions are worked up into a state of frenzy by the capitalist class and their lackeys, until they are prepared to fight and die for their "privileges” and their “freedom.” The history of the working class is one of sorrow and starvation, of slavery and of shame. There is nothing in it that would justify us in risking our lives to preserve. The Socialist Party considers it is foolish to support war for democracy and die for capitalism. We think it is best to fight against capitalism and live for socialism. If you realise the truth, of your position, you will refuse to be hoodwinked by any call to patriotism made to induce you to protect capitalist interests. It is life we want, not death. When the means of life are “ours,” fellow worker—the life that is life shall be yours.

The capitalist class owns what is essential to all; the working class, owning nothing, sell their lives in the form of human energy, mental and physical, to the owning section. They receive in return wages—food, clothing and shelter—barely sufficient to generate in their bodies the quantity and quality of labour-power they are called upon to deliver. All over and above what is required to keep the working class in fair working condition, after the wear of the machinery of production has been made good, goes to the owning class in the shape of rent, interest and profit. All the capitalist class does is to speculate on a good thing. When a worker has sold his labour power to the owning class it is no longer his, the use of a thing belongs to the buyer.

As far as the Socialist Party is concerned, the theory of class-conscious proletarian revolution on a world-wide scale in the highly developed areas of capitalism and the introduction of socialism or communism, whichever you prefer (the terms mean the same thing to us), is still a part of Marxism. Marxism to us is the Materialist Conception of History, the Critique of Capitalism, the Labour theory of Value, Class-struggle, and, of course, quite logically from these flows the Socialist revolution. The idea of socialism being established in one country, or backward countries, apart from being in complete opposition to this proposition, has been adequately dealt with in our literature, particularly in the pamphlets on Russia. What existed in Russia was not in the least like the definition of socialism used by socialists. In Russia, production and distribution were largely in the hands of the Government as was in the past the coal mines and railways, etc., here. They operated to produce commodities for sale at a profit, and backing them financially is the very large Russian national debt owned by large and small bondholders. There was in Russia as great (or even greater) inequality of income as in this country though not as great inequality of ownership of accumulated wealth. Also though Russia has private trading it has not the British company system of shareholders.

This is state capitalism just as are the nationalised industries in Britain. And when did socialists ever describe it as socialism? We can of course answer for ourselves that the S.P.G.B. never did so on any occasion since its formation in 1904. The form of society that has emerged in Soviet Russia, despite its dictatorship—personal or collective—its slave camps, its mass murders, etc., is not so much removed from that of Britain or France or the United States. In Russia, large numbers of workers were employed by the State for wages. Goods and services are not rendered just because they are needed, but, like elsewhere, for a profit. The peasants of Russia are exploited like the peasants of France or Spain. The workers of Russia were exploited just like the workers of Britain or America. The land, the factories, the means of transportation, were not the property of the people but belonged, again, as elsewhere, to a few. In Britain or the United States, we call it capitalism: a society of wage-labour and capital. In Russia, the Communist Party call it “socialism.” But the Socialist Party still called it Capitalism—State Capitalism. Socialism would have none of the features of the former Soviet Union. Socialism will be a free society and democratic throughout. The means of living will belong |o all. Secret police, dictatorship and the horrors of a coercive State will no longer be necessary.

Socialists have also a simple solution for the problems of nationalism. It is that all people shall be enabled to live happily wherever they are or wherever they want to go. It is the only solution and it can only be applied when the world has become a socialist world. It cannot be applied in a capitalist world.

All the non-socialists claim that they have a solution that can be applied now. They pay lip-service to various forms of the principle of "self-determination," the principle that nationalist groups should be free to decide for themselves. It sounds fine but it cannot solve the problem even though if the group is powerful enough with or without military aid from outside, it may succeed in breaking away and setting up its own government or joining another country. It cannot solve the problem because the material on which Nationalism feeds—differences of colour, religion, language and tradition—exist everywhere in every country and because the economic conflicts which capitalism constantly produces at home and internationally will always inflame this material; as fast as one conflagration is put out others spring up. And the economic conflicts taking on the nationalist disguise, with its fever and hatreds, go on between independent nations just as much as when a national group is struggling against alien rule.

 Capitalism is a competitive world in which national groups survive by armed force. No government, whatever its professed principles, will voluntarily see its armed strength undermined by granting the right of secession to all who demand it. The Northern States of U.S.A. fought a bloody civil war to prevent the Southern States from seceding in the eighteen sixties. British capitalism gave up India because it lacked the means to hold it, but India's sovereign government acts in accordance with exactly the same "what we have we hold " principle as he denounced during the struggles against the British Government. Everywhere the countries that have won their "freedom" show conflict with their own opposition group, the Karens in Burma, the African-Americans in U.S.A., the Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East, the Tamils in Sri Lanka; not to mention the nationalist movements in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

As all these examples show, the word "self-determination" is a misnomer, for none of the nationalist movements accept that individuals shall be free to choose. Nationalism and the struggle "for the bloody rags called flags of civilised savages," is not an honourable struggle but a display of human ignorance utterly without justification for the workers in the modern world. In the primitive society of past ages, patriotism or tribal solidarity was a necessity of survival. In a future, socialist world, freed from the exploitation of man by man, there will be no economic conflicts to masquerade under and take advantage of language, colour and other differences. In the present class-divided and frontier-divided capitalist world,

nationalist frictions will continue to serve ruling class ends until they are overcome by the growth of socialist understanding and socialist international unity.

What would Marx and Engels have thought of Lenin?

They would have opposed his claims of 'socialism' with every fibre of their being.

Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably and would not have recognised state capitalism as a 'socialist' stage, as claimed by Lenin.

The Russian Empire - by which term we include the seven members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assurance (Comecon) - was a group of countries which exhibited all the features of capitalism.

As scientific socialists, we shall explain what we see as the two main defining characteristics of capitalism and will then proceed to demonstrate that these exist within the Russian Empire.

Firstly, capitalism is a system in which wealth takes the form of commodities. i.e. objects produced for sale on the market. Commodity production is not unique to capitalism, but the commodity nature of labour power is.
So, capitalism is defined by the fact that the mental and physical energies of most people have to be sold on the market for a price called a wage or a salary. Where there is wage labour there is capitalism.

Secondly, capitalism is defined by the law of value. Value is a social relationship which exists in property society where commodities are exchanged. Where there are no commodities, because production and distribution have advanced beyond the stage of buying and selling relationships, there will be no need for the concept of value or for prices and money. As Marx pointed out, "Value is the expression of the specific characteristic nature of the capitalist process of production" (quoted in T. Cliff, Russia A Marxist Analysis, p.148).

Most early socialists, including Marx and Engels, accepted the logical supposition that the abolition of capitalism would necessitate the ending of commodity production, wage labour and the law of value, including prices and profits. In short, they were under no illusion that socialism - which is to be the antithesis of capitalism - could exhibit the social features of the capitalist system.

For example, Engels pointed out that "With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with. .," (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific). Marx, replying to a German writer called Wagner who thought that the law of value would exist in socialism, rejected explicitly "the presupposition that the theory of value, developed for the explanation of capitalist society, has validity for socialism".

It is often imagined that the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917 (October according to the old Russian calendar in force at the time) was the most significant event in Russia that year. In fact, this is far from the case.
In March (February) 1917, a far more significant revolution took place. This was not led by any party or faction but resulted from the spontaneous indignation of Russian workers and peasants who were suffering huge losses in the imperialist war, were starving in the towns and deprived of land in the vast peasant areas.

The workers of Petrograd and Moscow set up soviets (councils) without any help from the Bolsheviks who later claimed credit for these bodies - in fact, Lenin was living in exile in Switzerland when the revolution broke out and did not return to Russia until April.

The workers and peasants of 1917 were not interested in ideas about socialism - their demands were for peace, land and bread. When Lenin turned up in April 1917 he told the Bolshevik party that they should turn the revolution into a socialist revolution - in a country which had only developed capitalism in a few cities and in which three million industrial workers were overshadowed by over a hundred million peasants.

Listening to Lenin's impractical scheme, Bogdanov - a fellow Bolshevik - described such ideas as "the delirium of a madman". Bogdanov had a point. The Bolsheviks won power mainly by offering everything to everyone, even though many of the promises conflicted.

Using the anger of the workers and peasants against the provisional government which was set up in March and insisted in pursuing the unpopular war, the Bolsheviks seized power. Having obtained power, the Bolsheviks were forced to act like puppets, dancing to the tune of the existing historical conditions. In short, they were forced to develop capitalism.

But, being a party which was led by a number of dogmatic intellectuals, the Bolsheviks maintained the myth that they were creating genuine socialism. For example, in 1919 Bukharin and Preobrazhensky wrote that
Communist society will know nothing of money . . . Thus, from the very outset of the socialist revolution money begins to lose its significance . . . By degrees, a moneyless system of accounting will come to prevail. (The ABC of Communism).

In 1920 Zinoviev declared boldly: "We are moving towards the complete abolition of money" (quoted in E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, Volume 2, Penguin, p.263). This was pure utopian fantasy.

Lenin and his fellow Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd, who tended to be less taken in by their own rhetoric than were their Moscow comrades, did not take long to realise that their job was to develop state capitalism. Leninists often gasp with horror when it is suggested that Lenin ever had such intentions - they should read the man himself:
. . . state capitalism would be a step forward . . . if in approximately six months' time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success . . . ('Left-Wing' Childishness and the Petty- Bourgeois Spirit, May 1918).

By March 1919 the Bolshevik party congress resolved that "in the period of transition from capitalism to communism the abolition of money is an impossibility". The so-called period of transition, which the Bolsheviks called socialism, was a period of state capitalism - a point which Lenin had explicitly made even before the Bolsheviks seized power:
Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people . . . (The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat it, September 1917).

So, when the Russian Empire described itself as socialist it did so in the logically perverse Leninist sense of meaning that it is state capitalist.

In the early days of state capitalism, the Bolsheviks claimed that the basic features of their society were different from those which define capitalism in the Marxist definition. By the time of Stalin this had all changed, and in his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, written in 1952, Stalin admitted that commodity production and the law of value existed in Russia:
. . . our commodity production radically differs from commodity production under capitalism . . . It is sometimes asked whether the law of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system. Yes, it does exist and does operate.

So, Stalin admitted that he was presiding over a system of buying and selling, wage labour, value and price- all of the features which Marx attributed to capitalism - but kept up the illusion that this was socialism.

So far from the Trotskyist delusion then, of Russia has become a failed workers state with the advent of Stalin.

It was intentionally a state capitalist entity, from the moment Lenin seized power and Marx and Engels would have had no hesitation and described it thus.

Matthew Culbert

Make the right choice

Capitalism is maintained and sustained by the credulity and ignorance of its victims, the working class. Not only do the workers produce capitalism's vast wealth but they are conditioned and indoctrinated by the educational process, by the media, and by politicians into believing that there is no alternative to capitalism. Of course, this does not mean that workers are content and approve of the way capitalism functions. Quite the contrary, anger, and alienation are widespread. Resistance and protests against aspects of capitalism are everywhere. The hope of solutions to the anarchy of capitalism is been repeatedly shattered. Today, more and more people see the stark realities of the wages and money system. They face the choice that they live under capitalism with its misery or move forward to socialism.

Socialism can only be brought about by overwhelming democratic consensus. It will involve the rejection of the concept of private or State ownership of society's means of life - the land and the instruments for producing and distributing all the things people need for a full and happy life. Socialism is the voluntary association of free people cooperating in creating at regional and global levels the goods and services they need and consuming those goods and services as required. The exchange market economy will disappear, freeing hundreds of millions of human beings from the demeaning servitude of functions used by our masters for our exploitation.

The common view is that socialist society would quickly grind to a halt and its people starve to death because no one would find it worth their while to grow food or indeed to make anything without the motivation of money and a wage. Here the norm for capitalism is projected as the norm for socialism, and because it does not fit. socialism is rejected as impossible. It is not easy to break the bonds of traditional thinking to comprehend a society of free people engaged in the rational pursuit of the means of everyday life for their own good without the carrot of pecuniary reward or the stick of penury.

Earth is abundant with plentiful resources; today our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter-productive to our survival. Modern society has access to highly advanced technologies and can make available food, clothing, housing, medical care, education, and develop a limitless supply of sustainable renewable, non-polluting energy such as geothermal, solar, wind, tidal, etc. It is now possible to have everyone enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities that a prosperous civilization can provide. This can be accomplished through the intelligent and humane application of science and technology. We can build anything we choose to build and fulfill any human need. It is not money that people need; rather, it is free access to the necessities of life. Money is to be irrelevant. All that would be required are the resources and the will, for we have the skills and technology. World socialism  is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. In such a society, the measure of success would be based on the fulfillment of one's individual pursuits rather than the acquisition of wealth, property and power.

Socialism would allow people free access to the common store of wealth set aside for personal consumption, according to what they themselves judged to be their reasonable needs. Other needs would be satisfied on the same basis. Houses and flats would be rent-free, with heating, lighting and water supplied free of charge. Transport, communications, health care and education would be organised as free public services. There need be no admission charges to museums, parks, libraries and other places of entertainment and recreation.

Such free access would be a much more direct way of ensuring that people were freed from material insecurity than the impractical Basic Income Scheme or Citizens Wage. It would also involve the transformation of work. Instead of working for wages to produce profits for an employer, people will be able to co-operate to produce what they really needed. Socialism can only be voluntary. It is the co-operation of the majority in a climate of abundance. The abundance exists now Only the money system stands in the way. Co-operation exists everywhere and always has. Only we re conned and cajoled into thinking we're incapable of it. All that is needed is for people to agree that capitalism is unnecessary and undesirable. The power is in our hands. We are the workers who run society. Without us nothing moves, nothing functions, nothing gets made. If we refuse en masse to support a system of poverty, wars, and prisons, it cannot continue to operate.

Meet The Glasgow Branch

Glasgow Branch Meetings

Wednesday, 20 September  - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Wednesday, 18 October  - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Wednesday, 15 November  - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Wednesday, 20 December  - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Venue: Maryhill Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow G20 7YE

Regular meetings of the Glasgow Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Everyone welcome.

Common ownership will foster new kinds of relationships between human beings. Women and men will, at last, be free to live life as they choose, to cooperate with each other in building a future in which we will no longer be exploited. A socialist world will only be possible by people behaving in pro-social ways. We do not ask for a fundamental change in human nature. None is needed. Even today, with the market system dominant and people encouraged to look after themselves first, most men and women behave pro-socially when they see someone in need of help. Market forces are forces alien to the best in human nature (human behaviour would be a better term). The building of the world socialist movement is a task for those not passively submitting to the discipline of the market but able and willing to help create something better for themselves and their fellow humans.

In a nutshell, Glasgow's only socialist group argues that:

1. The resources to produce what we need are owned by the rich 5 percent, while the remaining 95 percent of us do all the work.

2. These two groups, or classes, are always going to be at loggerheads because of it.

3. This dispute will only be settled when we 95 percent organise and abolish class ownership, and run a democratic system of communal ownership instead.

4. When we do this, there will be no further oppression of any sort.

5. But we must do it ourselves, without leaders.

6. Since we can't fight governments and armies, we must organise to take them over by political means and abolish them along with ownership by the rich.

7. We must oppose any party which wants to keep or reform the present system, no matter how well intentioned.

8. Glasgow's SPGB branch calls upon all workers to organise to do this, in the interests of themselves, their children, and the future of the planet.

The non-religious majority

The number of Scots who say they are not religious has risen to almost three quarters, according to figures released by Humanist Society Scotland 

23.6% said they were religious, while 72.4% said they were not. In 2011 when 56% said they were not religious while 35% said they were.

Earlier this year a survey of Scottish Christians found that the number of people who regularly attend church services had fallen by half over 30 years.

Another Fine Mess

Canadian capitalists are worried about the clown in the White House doing harm to NAFTA and have urged Justin Trudeau not to let him.

"What I hear from the business community is for NAFTA to be trilateral," said Perrin Beatty, president and chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Canadian capitalists exported $355 billion in manufactured goods in 2016, with more than 80% going to NAFTA countries, according to the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, (CME). So you can bet they don't want numb nuts wrecking everything for them. Though in the final analysis its capitalism itself that is crazy, not Trump.

One could paraphrase Oliver Hardy, "Capitalism, this is another fine mess you've got yourself into." 

John Ayers.

You Are Free To Be Homeless

On August 4, the Toronto Star, reported prices, in the Toronto Real Estate market, were in decline for the third consecutive month. This means the average cost of a home dropped from $ 919,000 to $746,000. The signs are this will continue.

 So some bought high and regret not waiting a little longer. Some whose house was paid for, saw it lose value. Some can't afford the down payment despite the drop and rent at exorbitant prices. Of course, some are free to be homeless.

One thing is for sure dear reader, you may believe in capitalism if you see unfit, but it'll screw you one way or another.

 John Ayers

No to Nationalism

About 1,500 people attended another Scottish independence rally in Glasgow. One of the organisers and main speakers was Tommy 'liar, liar, pants on fire' Sheridan, intent upon keeping his ebbing political career alive. We also witnessed a massive demonstration in Barcelona for Catalonian independence and heard in a statement from the Kurds that they intend to hold a referendum on their independence, so perhaps it is pertinent for the Socialist Party to once more reiterate its position on nationalism.

In the struggle to win the minds of the working class, the Socialist Party has to contend the loyalty felt by many members of the working class to "their country", the place in which they happen mostly by accident of birth to reside in. Feelings of loyalty to a nation are purely subjective. Every nationalist movement believes it is unique. But broadly speaking, nationalist ideologies and movements represent the interests of the capitalist class.  We expect jingoist Tories to be flag-waving fools, rejoicing in the lunacy of nationalistic fervour, with sick demonstrations of patriotic enthusiasm used as a means of whipping up workers' support for the pernicious belief that we, who do not own the nation's wealth, have an identity of interest with those who do.  Too often fellow-workers have been urged to concern themselves with the interests of the nation - to fight to defend one against the other or to establish new ones, as in the case of Scottish nationalism. What particularly angers members of the Socialist Party is when self-styled Marxists endeavour to deodorise the stink of national patriotism The Socialist Party continually finds the need to challenge those from the Left who pay lip -service to the idea of workers of the world uniting and then support the nationalism of the SNP.  The problems of workers in Scotland are the problems of wage slaves everywhere and they will not be solved separately within a sovereign state from the rest of the working class.

It is an obligation of the Socialist Party to warn our fellow-workers of the futility a nationalistic policy as far as they are concerned. There can be no relief for the oppressed Scot in changing an English robber for a Scottish one. The person of the robber does not matter — it is the fact of the robbery that spells misery. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends. Our fellow-workers are being used like pawns to fight the battles of their oppressors. Let the thieves fight their own battles.  For the worker in Scotland there is but one hope. It is to join the world socialist movement and make common cause with the workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation: saying to both English and Scottish capitalists: “A plague on both your houses." For the true battle-cry of the working class is broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rallying cry is: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

Money Must Go

We live in a society where almost everything is bought and sold. That which you need in order to live is a commodity; you must buy it from someone who will make a profit out of selling it to you. Our minds are dominated by money. No money,  No honey. It is hard to envisage the world without money. It requires a considerable jump of the political imagination to think of life without banknotes, coins, or cash-cards. From cradle to coffin, lives are conditioned by money. Without it we starve; because of it, we are poor; if we steal it we get locked up.

Money is indispensable to the capitalist system, but capitalism is not indispensable to human society. “We need money—we can't live without it" is a well-conditioned criticism of any proposal to end the money-system. As proponents of a money-free society, many objections are put to the Socialist Party about this idea. What happens if we all want a yacht or Maserati or private jet, they ask emulating present-day billionaires?

There are two responses. The first is that the objector assumes that people would have transformed capitalism into a socialist society without changing their ideas or attitudes. They still dream of living like the rich. But socialism is not going to be something introduced for people, delivered to them by an enlightened elite, but something that they themselves are going to have to establish in full awareness of what they are doing and why. Would people who establish socialism going to want to ape the rich? And, understand that, in a society where goods and services will be freely and permanently available in relative abundance, greedily and selfishly grabbing and hoarding will be a foolish and pointless thing to do

The second response is that in socialist society everybody will have a Rolls-Royce! Not literally, of course, but in the sense that whatever is produced in socialism will be of the best quality, though, once again, without any of the prestige that attaches to the best things today just because they are out of reach of the vast majority and only available to the rich. The yacht and the jet can be time-shared with others. The fact is that, while it is true that resources are limited in an absolute sense, it is not true that human wants are limitless. It is technically possible today to produce enough of what humans, as rational beings, are likely to reasonably want in a rationally-organised free and equal society.

Are our fellow-workers capable of living in a society of free access? Will they take too much? Will they all refuse to work? These are the fears about the nature of human beings that we in this money-mad society are urged to have. Socialists do not share such worries. We know just how co-operative and sharing and intelligent workers are capable of being. After all, we are a party of workers. Given a money-free society, men and women will co-operate together to make it run as efficiently as possible and will take what they require and desire. They will do so democratically. And we could do so tomorrow if the vision of a moneyless society grabs hold of enough imaginations and penetrates the consciousness of enough of those millions of fellow-workers who are currently crying out, openly or quietly to themselves, under the stresses and strains of the unbearable pressures of the money system. Without money, humans will be free to relate to one another in ways which we have forgotten or only half-remember. Banks can be turned into community centres and ATMs can be melted down for scrap-metal. 

The Socialist Party stands for a world without money. All wealth will be commonly owned so there will be nobody to buy what you need from. The right to live, and to be comfortable and happy, will not depend upon your wallet or bank-balance. The value and quality of of life will not be costed by accountants and actuaries. In socialism, people will work according to their abilities and take according to their needs. Who will decide what their needs are? Not the advertising industry. People will decide for themselves. Who but humans ourselves are able to decide what we need?  There will be no "socialist market", contrary to the Left intellectuals. It is quite obvious that the market, which is a mechanism for buying and selling commodities and realising a profit for the sellers, will have absolutely no function in a community where nobody is buying or selling or making profits. In a society where production is solely for use, people will have free and equal access to take what they need from the common distribution centres.

The Socialist Party stands for a society in which all factories, farms, offices, docks, mines, the entire means of producing and distributing wealth will be owned by the entire world community. The resources of the earth will belong to everyone. No laws will exist to preserve the right of one section of society to use things and another section to be denied the use of them. World socialism will be based on free access for all people to all the goods of the earth. In such a society money would be an out-dated relic. Nobody will buy anything or sell anything or pay for anything. Those who still cannot imagine such an arrangement should remember that people in pre-capitalist societies would have found our present social order equally difficult to comprehend.

Would people be happy if we didn't use money? Today most people work at boring monotonous jobs in offices and factories not because they like the work but because they need money. The abolition of money would liberate them all from wage-slavery. It is not money as such which can satisfy needs. In Robert Tressell's novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Owen, explained to his workmates "money itself is not wealth: it’s of no use whatever....Money is the cause of poverty because it is the device by which those who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits of their labour”

 Those who have made the mental leap from the prison of the money system to the freedom of world socialism are urged to join us now in our struggle to create the society of tomorrow. The objective is urgent. We have waited for too long.

Things you should know

CAPITALISM is the sort of society you live in now. It is a system of wage-slavery in which a small minority owns most of the world and (sometimes) employ the rest of us. In capitalism, most things are sold for a price — production is for profit rather than for use. The world is divided by frontiers into warring factions known as "nations". Symptoms of capitalism include war, hunger, boom-slump cycles, strikes, widespread loneliness and despair. Countries like Russia or China, whose governments claim to be "socialist" are, of course, capitalist like their western rivals.

COMMUNES (kibbutzim, and similar communities) are attempts by a few to get some shelter from the capitalist rat race. Whilst they may benefit their members, from the standpoint of abolishing capitalism they are a waste of time. Socialism in one country is not possible, let alone socialism in one farm. Socialism could, however, be described as a world-wide commune.

HUMAN NATURE is a most frequent objection to the idea of a socialist society. It is supposed that human beings have some fixed patterns of social behaviour which are especially conducive to capitalism. In fact, what is normally termed "human nature" is the result of social conditioning. Private property, leadership, aggressiveness and monogamy are no more congenial to human beings than alternative forms. A knowledge of different societies, historically and geographically, is sufficient to knock the human nature myth on the head.

LABOUR PARTY is often called "socialist" (less now than in the past, it's true) but in fact never has been. The Labour Party was formed to improve the conditions of workers by reforms within capitalism. It sought gradually to change capitalism; instead capitalism has gradually changed it. The Labour Party is now no more than an alternative team for the management of British capitalism.

PATRIOTISM is irrational from the point of view of humanity as a whole and runs counter to the interests of the working people. It is therefore opposed by socialists, who do not offer "policies for Britain" or for any other of the artificial political entities into which the world is now divided but demand a world community without frontiers.

POPULATION EXPLOSION is certainly a reality, but it is a myth that it is responsible for hunger, pollution or overcrowded living. The world can easily support many times its present population in comfort and plenty of room. Hysterical Malthusianism diverts attention from the real problem: production is geared to the market, rather than to the satisfaction of human needs.

REFORMS are basically attempts to solve problems within capitalism rather than by doing away with it. Capitalism never runs out of reforms. Socialists are not opposed to all reforms, but we don't think it is our job to propose them or campaign for them. Reforms are usually of negligible value to the working class, and often create new problems which require further reforms. Fundamental social problems are always untouched because these are rooted in capitalism.

RELIGION is opposed by all rational people, but especially by socialists who see it as compensation for social misery, and a diversion from the urgent problems of the real world. Happily, religion is steadily ebbing away in the most advanced areas of capitalism.

REVOLUTION is the process of changing from one social system to another. It is not necessarily a matter of barricades and bloodbaths, and not at all in the case of the socialist revolution, which requires mainly mass understanding and democratic organisation. It is part of the job of socialists to hasten this revolution by spreading socialist understanding.

SOCIALISM is the next stage in human social evolution — unless capitalism destroys us first by means of nuclear/chemical/ biological war, or ecological collapse. Socialism will mean the abolition of private property, money and the wages system; the introduction of voluntary work and free access to necessary goods and services. Socialism is a world-wide society of voluntary co-operation. It will put an end to wars, poverty and unemployment, enabling our species to concentrate on the less serious problems of everyday living.

Class is a redundant issue. Everyone's a worker now.

Class is still very much the basis of present-day society. In this society people are divided into those who own the workplaces in the form of capital, the employers or capitalist class, and those who do the work but do not own what they produce, the working class.

As a system of society which predominates throughout the world, capitalism is based on the extraction of surplus value through the wages system. Even if there has been some separation of ownership and control in capitalist enterprises, this does not affect the inherent class antagonism between those who own and those who produce. Ultimately, those who benefit are still those who don't need to work because they enjoy an unearned income derived from the exploitation of those who do.

Exploitation is a thing of the past. If you don't like your job you can always leave it.

Exploitation exists because of the very fact that people work for employers. Employers buy our capacity to work with a wage or a salary and then extract more work out of us than it cost them to pay us. This unpaid surplus work is the source of their profit. So there’s a conflict of interests at work: they want to get as much out of us for as little expenditure as possible, and we need the money in order to live. It's the only way this competitive organisation of society can work, since their success depends on our exploitation. It's nothing to do with morality or low wages. It's all about the employers owning the workplace and us earning our livelihood by being a wage slave. And it really is a form of slavery, because although we can leave our particular job we can't leave that class of people who are compelled to get a job.

As long as I get "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" I don't mind if my employer makes a fair profit.

There can never be anything fair about the wages system for workers, since this is the mechanism of our exploitation. It pre-supposes that workers do not own or control the workplace. Wages and salaries are the price of the value-creating ability we sell to employers. We produce goods and services worth more than we receive in pay, whether the pay is high or low. This socially-produced surplus value is the source of the employers' profit. Employers operate in a competitive world economy and will, irrespective of the size of their profits, pay their workers only what they must. Without the resistance of workers, wages and salaries would be lower than they are. So we have a class struggle at work.

I work in an office. I don't produce anything physical, so how can I be exploited?

The life-blood of this economic system is the making of profits through the exploitation of the whole working class. This is a social process which involves the whole workforce in a complex division of labour in which some physically alter materials while others are involved in planning, design and organising. All of these roles are part of this economic system and all those who perform them are exploited as they all contribute in one way or another to the production of profits for the employing class as a whole. As a class we run society from top to bottom. We do not run it in our own interest, however. We run it for the profit of the employing class, a minority of people with most of the power and wealth and the freedom this gives them.

I am not working class: I earn a good salary, own a house and big car; I've been to university and take a Mediterranean holiday every year.

You may think of yourself as being a "professional" or "middle class" but this doesn’t affect your basic economic position. Because the property you own does not bring you in a regular income large enough for you to live on, like the rest of us you are compelled to sell your working abilities. Your pay may be called a salary but you still belong to that class of people forced to hire themselves to an employer. From this perspective, things like status, level of earnings, education, type of job or occupation are besides the point. They do not affect your exploited class position in society, even if you arc in some respects better off than most other workers. Salaried doctors, managers, teachers, scientists, and so on are comprised within the working class.

There will always be classes; there will always be rich and poor - it's only human

nature.

It is class society which operates against human nature. Capitalist exploitation creates rich and poor people, with their opposing interests. But there is no reason why our rational desire for mutual aid should not allow us to establish a classless society. To end class exploitation requires class-conscious political action by the working class to establish common ownership and democratic control of the places of work. This will do away with the wage slavery of working for an employer and open the way for work based solely on human needs and abilities

Life without money

Capitalism seems a very complicated affair, requiring complicated plans. To our fellow-workers, the simple socialist proposition of converting the means of production from private or state ownership to common ownership, and thus making all the wealth produced freely available to everyone according to their needs, is too difficult to comprehend. So accustomed are they to have placed before them the complicated plans, programmes and policies of other political organisations that the simplicity of the Socialist Party proposition makes them suspect that there must be a flaw somewhere. The cunningly conceived schemes of governments and the hotch-potch of incomprehensible “immediate demands” of the reformists give them the idea that politics is a most profound business. Then to be told by a member of the Socialist Party, an ordinary worker like themselves, that all society's problems have a common cause in the capitalist system and that the solution just rests in the abolition of capitalism, leaves our fellow-workers somewhat suspicious that they are somehow being tricked. They take fright at the idea of a society without buying and selling, without prices or money. Not only is the money system inefficient, wasteful and socially destructive, but it will corrupt any system in which it operates. This means that there can be no fundamental social advance while we retain a money system. Like all radical concepts, a social organisation without money is difficult to envisage and therefore seems impossible, but we ignore the implications of refusing to do so at our peril. The idea of socialism as a world without money can be found in sources covering a wide historical span and a great diversity of authors.

The case against money is the case against capitalism which is an irrational system of “production for production’s sake”, of “growth for growth’s sake”, leading to recurring economic crises and slumps like the one we’re in now. Wars and preparation for war with armament production and defence spending arise when capitalist states compete over sources of raw material, trade routes, markets and investment outlets. Capitalism puts short-term cost and profit considerations before protecting the environment and respecting a balance of nature. Capitalism does not allow production to be geared to meeting the needs of people for food, clothes, housing, healthcare, education and the other amenities for an enjoyable life. People’s needs are met but only to an extent that they possess money to pay for them.

The Socialist Party wants to replace the present capitalist system with a new system based on common ownership instead of ownership by the few and with production directly to meet people’s needs instead of production for sale on a market with a view to profits. In such a socialist (or communist the two words mean the same) society – money would be redundant. So we don’t want to “abolish money”. We seek a change to a social system in which money would be redundant and so would disappear. The Socialist Party says capitalism must go if we’re going to provide a decent comfortable life-style for every man, woman and child on the planet. What is needed is for the Earth’s resources to become the common heritage of all. Then, they could be geared to satisfying people’s needs. If productive resources were commonly owned, then so would what they produced. The issue to be dealt with would be, not how to sell to people what had been produced (how could you when they’re already the joint owners of it?) It’s how to distribute what’s been produced. In other words, the exchange economy (buying and selling) is replaced by distribution (sharing). For this, money is not needed. Given the capacity of modern technology to produce abundance, the aim to be reached as soon as possible would be free access to goods and services. The implementation of the principle of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”  there would be no requirement for money.

Even today within capitalism, some things are free at the point of use such a the National Health Service and people know they will continue to be freely available they only take what they need. In Scotland, there is the Entitlement Card for the over-60s to free bus travel from Berwick-on-Tweed to John O' Groats. Do we spend all our time going from one end of Scotland to the other? Of course not. We only travel when we need to. Maybe more than we would if we had to pay, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It only shows how having to pay means that some needs have to go unmet. Over-use or over-consumption is not going to be a problem. The issue will be ensuring that the distribution centres are always stocked with what people are likely to need. The supermarkets have already solved much of the problem with elaborate supply-chains to keep their shelves filled. If stocks run short, bar-codes signal to order or produce more. If the warehouse fills up, that’s a signal to order less. This system stock-control works irrespective of whether gods are bought or taken freely. Organising production and distribution through money is not necessary. In a money-free society production and distribution could be largely self-regulating, monitored by check-outs without cashiers.

Adapted from a talk by Adam Buick, contributor to  'Life Without Money'

Giving/receiving not buying/selling.

The Socialist Party proposes to end private and State ownership of the means of production and distribution and instead create a social system which will satisfy the economic needs of the community and where those means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by the whole of the people. There were no class divisions. When all those things necessary for the well-being of the community no longer belong to any individuals but are owned are owned collectively by the whole people, none are possessors and none have any advantage over others. All are in the same situation, all have the same interest. Society loses its class nature with the abolition of private property and being class-free, there can be no class interests.

Alongside this abolition of class inequality, the wage-labour system will also come to an end — that is to say, men and women will cease to work for wages. To-day, people work for wages because they do not get an opportunity of working directly for themselves. All the instruments of labour, all the raw materials, all means by which alone men and women can gain their livelihood, are in the hands and under the control of the few hence all others have no opportunity of gaining a livelihood except by placing themselves at the disposal of the owning class. In today's capitalist world we sell our labour-power to employers, whose object in buying it could be is to make a profit out of it, that is, to pay less for it than the amount we can produce. Therefore, once the private ownership of the means of living is abolished, men and women will cease to sell their labour-power for wages. But the means of production and distribution have developed so much that it has made it impossible for them to be owned by the individuals who operate them and even beyond the stage where they could be owned and controlled by the actual groups operating them. The vast and complex system of industry can only be efficiently owned and controlled as a whole and by the whole community.

Socialism does not require that people should put the interest of others before their own (altruism) but merely that they should recognise that it is in their own best interest to co-operate with others to further the common interest. To establish socialism people do not have to stop being selfish and become saints; they merely have to remove, by conscious political action, the barrier which coercive, class society represents to the free exercise of their nature as co-operative, social animals.  Socialism will be a society based on giving/receiving rather than buying/selling.

Scientists and technicians like the rest of us they are constrained by the system we live in. They are not directed by the wishes, needs and aims of society as a whole but have to follow the logic of their master, the market. Everything becomes possible when the tools are in the right hands, the hands of the producers. It becomes a matter of organisation to bring in the new society. There is plenty of work to be done to achieve the satisfaction of everyone's basic needs but is deliberately left undone as the profit motive dictates. It takes a fundamental shift in emphasis away from the dictates of a small minority to the wishes and needs of the overwhelming majority.

This requires that majority populations worldwide capture the state apparatus politically in order to restructure social decision-making and administration.  Depriving the capitalist class of the state and its functionaries are the first objective. Once the decision is made, then it becomes a matter of organisation. Suffice it to say there will have been a period of planning and co-ordination by mass organisations in work places, in neighbourhoods, in educational establishments, in organisations with international links and in civic organisations, which will culminate in the collective and proactive decision of the people to take control over the direction of their lives immediately and for the future. A totally democratic system, from the broadest possible base, representing the widest possible views will be bottom-up, proactive, participatory democracy at all levels: local, regional and world with delegates elected to carry forward the message and speak for the whole community.  With ever-increasing numbers involved, discussion and debate will determine the direction of the variety of paths to be taken. It just seems common sense to place the role of social, political, environmental and whatever other decisions firmly with the people. Why complicate what could be a perfectly simple arrangement with meaningless and pointless monetary budgets. The inputs required for allocating resources need only be manpower and materials. Why suffer a price system that only confuses and complicates every issue. Buying and selling and the exchange economy will be redundant as we shall willingly share in the work with our hands and head.