Edinburgh's Colonies

Fact of the Day: As part of the "EH4" postcode, Blackhall and its immediate surroundings have the second highest number of millionaires in the UK and the highest number in Scotland.

Edinburgh was a stronghold of various radical groups such as the Friends of the People, the United Scotsmen and those involved in the Pike Plot in 1794. Edinburgh was also a centre of opposition to Britain’s involvement in the war against revolutionary France. Out of a population of between 70,000 and 80,000, 11,000 citizens signed a petition calling for a halt to the war. Riots in 1800 and 1801 signified that the opposition was also concerned about the economic impact on ordinary people. Campaigning for the right to vote saw the ordinary citizens of Edinburgh active in the reform movements of the 1830s, 1860s and 1880s.

There was an Edinburgh trade union committee in the 1830s. This is known because the press refer to a march and rally organised to celebrate the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832. However, it seems probable that the formation of a permanent trades council in Edinburgh took place in 1853. It has met continuously since then.

Reports on the Old Town of Edinburgh in the 1840s documented that the area had the most unsanitary living conditions of any other city in Britain at the time. It was reckoned that ‘overcrowding in the Blackfriars area was four times greater than in prison cells’ in this period’. The Edinburgh News went so far as to describe Old Town houses as ‘chambers of death’. In 1850, it was noted at the Reform Association that ‘the unclean heart of Edinburgh would not be gutted out until it was planted all around with new houses.’ The collapse of tenements on Edinburgh’s High Street on the 24th November 1861, when 35 people were killed and a further 100 injured also brought the issue of the condition of buildings in the Old Town into sharp public relief.

 Trade unionism among skilled workers like printers, stonemasons, and upholsterers dates from the turn of the 19th century. Because of this, much of the radicalism of the Chartist movement for the vote in the 1830s and 1840s was located among the skilled artisans. Edinburgh stonemasons were the first in Scotland to win the nine-hour day in 1861 when much of the New Town was being built. Out of the strike, which turned into a three-month lockout, the workers set up a house building cooperative. A decade later this cooperative had built 1,000 affordable homes for workers in the city. The most famous of these are the seven sets of “colonies”.The intention was to use their collective practical skills as builders and joiners to build ‘comfortable and respectable houses’ for rent or sale at reasonable prices for working people. Houses for those who ‘prefer the privacy of self-contained dwellings with private gardens to homes in common stair tenements. The first houses at Stockbridge cost between £100 and £130 to buy and a mortgage scheme was established to allow ‘every facility for acquiring the Company’s property’. A house could be secured by a £5 deposit, and property investment companies loaned the balance to be paid back in instalments of £13 per annum for 14 years on security of the title deeds. This compared very favourably to the annual rent at the time of £11 per annum for an Old Town flat and enabled workers on modest, but regular incomes to be rehoused in better homes.’ 

It was also made a condition of purchase that it was ‘unlawful to convert, or permit to be converted, any of the dwelling houses into sheebens or brothels or to have any cow house, pig house, or manufactory.’ The Colonies were a radical experiment in home–owneship based on the principles of mutuality and participation. They are a monument to the cooperative housing movement and are recognised as important in histories of working-class housing in Britain. As well as having an interesting social history, the Colonies are of architectural interest. The cottage style of the two storey terraces with upper flats often reached by outside stairs is unusual in the Scottish cities. The overall scale of the layout, the high-quality workmanship and the detailed control of their design cannot be matched in this type of housing anywhere else in Scotland.

You Can’t Beat the Enemy While Hoisting His Flag

“The workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself THE nation it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.” - Marx

There is certainly good reason to recall this elementary truth that Marx and Engels put forth in the “Communist Manifesto”, for it is a truth that capitalist ruling classes are always seeking to camouflage. We live today in an era of populism – simplistic solutions to complex questions. All kinds of nationalism pervade the world today, especially in countries that have nothing to offer their people but ideologies, hopes and promises.

Although the SNP have successfully jettisoned their "Tartan Tory" image for a more radical garb it would be mistaken to make an alliance with a political party that threatens the unity of the working class. Scottish nationalism divides the working class before its common enemy, the British capitalist class. It chains Scottish workers to the interests of “their” bourgeoisie. Only socialism can guarantee an end oppression.  An independent Scotland would be intrinsically neither better nor worse than any other capitalist state. Scottish independence is something that the capitalist class can live with and it is not intrinsically contrary to the interests of the bourgeoisie. The truth is that nationalism (no matter how it is dolled up with pseudo "socialist" phrases) represents no way forward for the working people.  Without class unity, there is no way forward for the Scottish workers. That should be our starting point. The Socialist Party sets out to defend the common interests of the workers of Britain, Europe, and the entire world against the common enemy — the Scottish, English and Welsh and global capitalist class. The unity of the Scottish, English, and Welsh workers has been forged in common struggle and organisation for generations.

There is wholly false assumption that Scottish people are automatically more left-wing than the English. There is no separate "Scottish Road to Socialism". It is the false demagogy of the "left" wing of the nationalists. The Tories were the only party ever to achieve an absolute majority in a general election in Scotland, as recently as 1955, even if they came close to meltdown in the Thatcher years. And when it comes to working class militancy, the Scottish record is by no means one of automatically being better than England. The militant heart of the great mining strikes of 1972, 1974 and 1984–85 was Yorkshire, not Scotland, while the language of separate Scottish interests was used to keep the Ravenscraig Steel Works operating on scab coal through the 1984–85 strike. The Tory Industrial Relations Act of the early 1970s was defeated by the defiance of London dockers. The Poll Tax was finally destroyed by a riot in Trafalgar Square, even if the non-payment campaign that started in Scotland played a role. Neither national group of workers has an intrinsically higher class consciousness than the other.

Nevertheless, some argue, Scottish independence on a left wing basis, with a government majority of Solidarity, Scottish Socialist Party, Green, and Labour left MSPs would surely pose a challenge to capital. In fact, even if a majority of MSPs were socialists, an independent Scottish Parliament would no more be able to introduce socialism than the Westminster parliament.  The State would not be destroyed simply by transferring its functions from London to Edinburgh, any more than it was destroyed after these functions transferred from London to Dublin in 1922 and a very conservative Irish government.  If the scenario of a left-wing breakaway is to occur, it could only happen in conditions of massively heightened class struggle, but in what possible circumstances would this take place in Scotland and not the rest of Britain? And if the main reason why Scots are attracted to independence is precisely because it promises a road to socialism, why would they embrace independence at the very point when this appeared to be happening across England and Wales also. The only conditions under which the scenario is possible are the same ones that would render separation irrelevant.

Nationalism and socialism are antagonistic ideologies. The SNP is not at all interested in destroying the capitalist system – far from it. They want to make much more profit for the “national” capitalists and profit is extracted from the unpaid surplus labour of the working class. The SNP pushes independence to protect the interests of our national capitalists, to build up the illusion that by fighting against “foreign” capitalists in order to put “our” economy in the hands of “our own” bosses

.

The struggle against nationalism within the working-class movements must be intensified and this struggle is an integral to rebuild a genuine socialist party, without which the social revolution is impossible. Many in the media rejoice that nationalism has triumphed over socialism – it is time to prove them wrong. We live in the epoch of potential social revolution – the rise of world socialism and the overthrow of global capitalism. In this epoch the capitalists are counter-revolutionary, and its ideology, including nationalism, is completely reactionary. There is now only one class capable of overthrowing capitalism: the working class. There is no middle road between the capitalist system and socialism. There is no ideology that serves the interests of both the bourgeoisie and the working class. The results of socialists burying their class independence beneath the mantle of national independence has been disastrous. The exploitation of wage labour, competition, the squeezing out, suppressing and swallowing of rivals among the capitalists themselves, the resorting to war and even world war, the utilisation of all means to secure a monopoly position in its own country and throughout the world - such is the inherent character of the profit-seeking bourgeoisie. This is the class basis of nationalism. At home, the capitalist subordinates the interests of the nation as a whole to its own class interests. It places its class interests or the interests of a certain top stratum of society above the interests of the whole people. Moreover, it tries to monopolize the concept of the nation, posing as the spokesman of the nation and the defender of national interests in order to deceive the people. Abroad, at the same time, it counterposes the interests of its own nation (in essence, of its bourgeois top stratum) to the interests of other nations. The bourgeoisie strives to place its own nation above other nations and, whenever possible, to oppress and exploit other nations, completely disregarding their interests. Such is the nationalist concept of the nation and the class foundation upon which it is based.

Capitalism will doom the planet - Socialism will save it

We live in a time of tremendous instability. Concerns about growing authoritarianism in politics – as reflected in the rise of populist power in politics are legitimate. We live in a time of ecological unsustainability that threatens human survival. Record inequality means a growing number of people around the world are economically insecure and struggling to pay for basic goods such as health care and education.  "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." The quote comes from Stalin. The policy comes from capitalism.

  With every day that passes, the wealth and power of the capitalist class is further consolidated. The gap between rich and poor grows a process that is linked to the immense profits that continue to be amassed by a greedy handful at the expense of the rest of us. Under capitalism, the only true givers and strivers are the working-class.  Ruling class philanthropy is yet another tool to advance their class interests, another tool of oligarchical control. Not only do philanthropists indeed have more power than ever before but that influence is likely to grow far greater in the coming decades. In the name of redistributing wealth and power, a tiny group of the most privileged members of society will help decide which social justice groups – and causes – will thrive and which will wither. There exists no real debate about capitalism versus something else,  closing their eyes to any alternative more egalitarian future. Capitalism and inequality are the only conceivable game in town. But there’s nothing rational about the world we currently inhabit. 

Over a century ago, John D. Rockefeller’s proposed foundation denounced by the then U.S. attorney general as ‘an indefinite scheme for perpetuating vast wealth’.  In the past, robber barons benevolently” bestowed upon the peasants, cathedrals and churches to buy their way into Heaven, now the modern-day robber barons offer charity to buy off their guilty consciences. Philanthropists often operate subtly, working behind the scenes to set agendas and shape decisions – backing ideas, research, and pilot projects, emerging as the new social engineers of our time.

Working men and women, You work all through the year and, in the sweat of your brow, produce everything in the world. You have built all the railways, the planes, the ships, the cars. You build houses and yet, do you not live in small shabby homes than only a few of you can call your own. You have made everything in the world and provided for all. The rich who eat and drink freely and enjoy themselves luxuriously all through life and still their wealth ever increases while yours diminishes. Good-for-nothing parasites look down on you as low-lives.  Those millionaires, doing no work, but playing and enjoying themselves in their easy and sumptuous life continue to get ever more money and wealth while you go on diligently toiling and laboring and making every good thing in the world.   ou ought to think the matter over well and seriously for yourself, somewhat in the following manner: Why am I, the master of this world, the head of the industry and the very pillar of society, compelled to lead such a life? Do you never in your miserable life think of it? Have you never thought of your present fate as a sad one that is even lower than that of some animals? Have you never thought of getting rid of such an awful life as soon as possible? If you think of the matter as we do, then you ought to organize with other workers; the sooner the better for you and for all, and thus you should get rid of those who live by exploiting you. If you realize yourself the very power and influence you could command, you must organize yourselves into a union with your fellow workers. And then, and only then, you shall get rid of your present miserable life. The fact that you organize or not shall decide the very destiny of the world in either way -- prosperity and happiness, or decadence and misery!

A socialist vision is emerging little by little around the world, soon to once again embrace the labour movement. It is the future. But reaching the future depends on dealing 
with the present, and the present is presently bleak. But the news isn’t all grim.  It's time to get to work. This is not just a one-time 'Dump the Tories” campaign we're undertaking, but the mobilisation of a long-term grassroots socialist movement to reject the capitalist system. The task, then, is as simple as it is difficult: To have People's Power, we must build it. Social democracy requires us all to join together, with each of us doing as much as we can, when we can and for as long as we can. That means creating contacts of like-minded activists, holding meetings to try to agree on issues and approaches, create online networks and email lists. We’ll connect with peoples fighting class struggles and expand international solidarity. We are inviting you to join us on this path of sowing the seeds of socialism. Our task is to galvanise fellow-workers into political action to change society. We need vision and we require organization aiming for transformation of society

Unite the Workers of the Whole World 

The Old Suffer

Over 200,000 over-65s in Scotland are struggling financially, according to new research for Age Scotland.

The charity said despite one in five pensioners struggling, an estimated £292 million in Pension Credit and Housing Benefit is going unclaimed each year. If those who are eligible for Pension Credit make a claim, it could increase their income by an average of £42 a week – or £2,184 a year. 

With 158,000 pensioners now living below the poverty line the organisation is urging older people to get in touch to find out if they’re entitled to extra financial support.

The UK government’s latest figures show that one in 10 people aged 65+ would not be able to pay an unexpected expense of £200, to replace a broken washing machine for example.

Is it Better to be Exploited by One’s Fellow-countrymen?

As the General Election approaches, many of Scotland's self-avowed “left-wing” intellectuals and trade unionists, who say they want to defend the interests of the Scottish working class have started promoting tactical support for the SNP. The electoral successes of the SNP have pushed to the fore once more of the question of Scottish independence. Some on the left regardless of reservations about the SNP argue for support for independence for Scotland, albeit for a ‘socialist’ Scotland.  The Socialist Party does not, of course, defend the present centralised UK state but it does not support separatism in Scotland.

Left-nationalists preach that socialists and Scot Nats shared common agendas. They endeavour to wed socialists and nationalists into a marriage of convenience. You can make all the fine-sounding speeches you want to about mixing socialism with a supposedly progressive nationalism but that doesn’t alter the reality. Socialism cannot be accomplished without the capture of political power by the working class. Nationalism, on the other hand, is completely compatible with the continued existence of capitalism and the possessing class is past masters at exploiting nationalism when they need it. As a result, self-described left-nationalists end up despite themselves, promoting the interests of their own national bourgeoisie. Scottish nationalist agitation, whoever carries it out, does not strengthen the force for socialism, a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it.

Left-nationalists insist that their nationalism has nothing in common with the nationalism of right-wingers and that theirs is a nationalism of liberation.  How many peoples are now paying a heavy price for having put their faith in nationalist leaders? In spite of their “formal independence” many countries are still governed according to the rules of capitalist exploitation and foreign domination. Surely, Scots have enough experience to know that they cannot place any confidence in the capitalists, even if they are nationalists.

History has already taught us that the “nation of the nationalists” is a very deceptive notion. The “nation” – in the programmes of the nationalist parties and at election time, especially, when victory seems possible – designates everyone without exception: firefighters, workers, politicians, police, judges, industrialists, housewives and unemployed. But once the nationalists are victorious, at the first important conflict we see the “national” police clubbing the “national” workers by order of the “national” state whose legality is maintained at all costs by the “national” judges: the “national” housewives and their children go without basic necessities, the “national” industrialists maintain their profit level and the “national” finance companies do a great business. The SNP leadership, in its blind ambition to end the hegemony of the City of London financiers are is ready to make every concession to the bankers of the EU.  Perhaps the separation of Scotland is hard to accept for a section of Scottish and British capitalists, but capitalism itself wouldn’t be hurt by it. Strengthening one enemy at the expense of another by exploiting the contradictions within enemy ranks, is something the working class may do when it serves its interests and advances its struggle. But under no circumstances can it do this when it means sacrificing its fundamental interests when it hinders rather than serves its revolutionary strategy. This would definitely be the case if Scotland were to separate. Separation would undoubtedly weaken a certain section of the British bourgeoisie, but it would also do considerable damage to the Scottish working class as a whole. If we don’t oppose independence, it can only lead to the growth of nationalist ideas among Scottish workers, rather than internationalist ideas that go beyond even Fortress EU.

Independence is nothing but a dead-end road. It doesn’t bring us closer to socialism, only farther away from it. It maintains and reinforces the divisions within the British working class – a real boon for the different sectors of the bourgeoisie which do their best to keep us divided. Furthermore, it pushes narrow nationalism and in so doing, strengthens the SNP.

  One thing is sure, we’re not going to get any closer to socialism by building up the SNP, a party that represents capital and the interests of Scottish capitalists in particular. Whether they like it or not, the people who are pushing this option descend into class collaboration.  Fine talk about capitalist exploitation amounts to nothing but hollow words. Their attacks against the SNP are only for show. But their performance can’t hide what’s at the bottom of their position – it’s compromise, concessions, collaboration, critical support for the Scot Nats. How absurd is the left-nationalist position once it is reduced to its bare bones: for lack of a socialist party we should be content with a capitalist party!

There is only one alternative – a world socialist cooperative commonwealth

Mainly About Us

The transition of human society from capitalism to socialism will be the most profound change in human society in over 10,000 years. No other economic transformation, not even the rise of capitalism, can compare. For the first time since the earliest of human societies people have finally started to practically work toward a social order not based on exploitation. That is, they’ve actually started to strive towards a society in which a tiny elite will no longer have the power to use for its own benefit the labour power of the vast, impoverished producing classes. 

For the greater part of the 200,000 years since the appearance of homo sapiens, scholars have drawn a picture of societies often described as “primitive communism.” These were social orders where people lived in small groups (most often labelled tribes or clans) in a way where the work and the means of production were shared in common. There was what we would consider being an extremely low level of technology, necessitating constant movement to find food and water. At some point, approximately 10,000 years ago, social conditions changed. As a result of population growth, technological advance, and the end of the last Ice Age, there was the development of settled agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the rise of towns. Among these momentous changes came the rise of classes – a split between a majority who worked and a small privileged few who lived off the labor of that majority.

Over time, the system of shared economic relations was, for the most part, obliterated. The new systems of class society took many forms. Over the millennia, we have seen the division of society into two main classes: master/slave, lord/serf, and capitalist/worker. One master class replaced another. Any idea of economic and social equality became a distant dream – the reality of poverty, war, racism, male supremacy, and human aggression – were part of the “natural” order of things. People of course never gave up the struggle for a better life, though. 

The people of our planet are now standing together united with this goal: the 10,000-year era of class exploitation must be ended and a new society based on equality, justice, and peace should be our vision. When the working class gains political and economic power, the ill-gotten wealth, power, and influence of the exploiters will disappear. The domination of one class by another, a feature of human society for 10,000 years, will become a thing of the past.

 In 1904, some members of the Social Democratic Federation, having done their damnedest to steer that compromising, reformist organisation on to the socialist path, were expelled from it. With others, they set about creating a political party with which they could work for socialism. The founders of the Socialist Party were under no illusions. We do not want, within our membership, those who do not subscribe to its principles. Neither would it be honest for workers to be drawn into our organisation without fully realising the implications of the principles and the nature of the Socialist Party they were joining.  It has maintained its opposition to Capitalist wars during two major world conflicts, and although the first of these conflicts was a bad setback for the Socialist Party, it did not destroy it. We are not satisfied with our numerical strength, but we are certainly not ashamed of it. Of one thing we are extremely proud. That is the quality of our membership. It is the quality—the understanding and determination—of the members, that gives an organisation its strength. We have seen a number of so-called working-class political parties grow into mass organisations — then wither away to nothing.  The development towards Social Revolution is not to be measured strictly by the growth of the revolutionary organisation.

 The workers have been, and are, throwing off the capitalist ideas that have been instilled into them. Many of the arguments against socialism that the founders of our Party had to answer are seldom heard today. The socialist case, although it is not widely accepted, receives tolerant attention nowadays. The days when members of our Party had to defend their speakers from the fury of a jingoistic audience are passed. The process of discarding old ideas and accumulating new ones goes on all the time, and the numerical strength of the Party that gives expression to the new ideas can only be taken as an indication and not as a measure of the progress made. Mankind's ideas are not to be emptied from or crammed into their heads as one empties a sack of potatoes and refills it. Old and unsound ideas can only be removed when new ones drive them out. New ideas are continuously being accumulated until the equivalent of that breaking point is reached. Not until a man’s mind has been cleared of its capitalist notions by the introduction of socialist ideas does he embrace the Socialist Party. The minds of all workers in the capitalist world are undergoing this process and are progressing, in varying degrees, towards a socialist understanding. Our task is to assist the process.

Nationalist Nihilism

Socialist sympathies are with the oppressed, they relate not to emerging nationalism but to the particular plight of twice-oppressed people who face both a native and foreign ruling class.  Yet it is an illusory hope that the impoverished can improve their conditions through national independence. National self-determination has not emancipated the laboring classes in the developed nations and the developing countries in Asia and Africa. Nationalism promises little for the poor save indulging on more equal terms in national prejudices. No doubt, this means something to those who have suffered from a particularly arrogant colonial system.

The SNP is a capitalist party. It works on behalf of the capitalists. The difference between the SNP and the other capitalist parties is not that it is calling for a different social system. What’s different is that they are looking for a new sharing of constitutional powers. The sharing will just be between groups of capitalists. They are intent on keeping it in the family. What the Socialist Party wants is real independence. What we want is genuine freedom from capitalist exploitation and domination.

Whatever twists and turns lie down the road in the fight for socialism, one thing is certain: the success of that struggle depends on achieving the greatest possible unity of the working class, it is utterly ridiculous to argue that the working class ought to divide itself into two different countries in order to accomplish this unity. It is completely absurd to justify this with the false argument, disproven many times, that the battle for socialism would be easier if it were led by a more nationally “pure” and homogeneous working class. Working class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted to the crisis measures imposed by the capitalists. Unity is necessary to stand up against all the attacks on our democratic rights. The working class faces a powerful and belligerent enemy which is solidly united despite disputes within its ranks. The people are not going to win by dividing themselves. Those leftists who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class are the objective allies of the capitalists who have seized the leadership of the nationalist movement and who are busily readying themselves to join the ranks of global capitalism. Capitalist enterprises, inevitably move towards becoming monopolistic corporations, regardless of the nationality of their owners.  The left-nationalists claim the task is to transform bourgeois independence into a socialist independence. In reality, they find themselves in the camp of those promoting division of the working class and promoting austerity policies. This “independence leads to socialism” thesis must be thoroughly demolished in all industrialised countries. Supporting Scottish independence in the name of socialism is a monumental hoax.  It flows from the same kind of logic that leads others to preach the nationalisation as the cure for all our ills.  In this upcoming General Election, it is up to the working class to show these pretenders that it will not be duped by their political nonsense and deceitful rhetoric.

For sure the British nationalists are intent upon using the various immigrant populations living in the UK as scapegoats to mask who is the main enemy – the employing class.  The enemy of the people is not the migrants and refugees nor the “English”. The enemy of the people is the owning class. The Scots have nothing to gain from nationalism.  The Socialist Party refutes the idea that it could be in the interests of the working-class movement to support a capitalist party such as the SNP.  The left- nationalists believe that it is necessary to achieve independence first and then socialism. This is the kind of argumentation that was used to channel people into support for a capitalist party. Socialism is put off until “later”. It is never a struggle to begin right away. The SNP is no more interested in a socialist revolution than the capitalists of Scotland as a whole. Surely, fewer and fewer people still believe that independence is a step forward in the struggle for socialism.

 The way to put an end to national oppression is to attack the root of the problem. The proletariat will not win victories in either the struggle against capitalism or the struggle against national oppression if it fights in dispersed formation against the same enemy. All it will do is make a “breach” in its own ranks. Scottish workers must unite with the only class whose interests lie unreservedly in eliminating both national oppression and capitalism – the global working class.

Is there any hope?

The world has clearly has moved into unknown territory — a world we fear what may come next. And it makes us anxious. have no idea what the months and years ahead will bring. The future appears vague, hidden beyond the horizon. All the customary signposts have gone missing. In the absence of any clarity, the call to radical hope that from disaster something good can emerge. In the coming years, workers will undoubtedly be confronted by the most difficult challenges that many of us have ever faced. We can expect an assault on everything.  The capitalist class are seeking to make labour power cheaper, decreasing wages by union-busting, outsourcing an off-shoring. Production in capitalism is carried out with the purpose of creating exchange values (commodities to be sold for profit), not use values (things that human beings really need to survive).  Capitalist “democracy” is facing a crisis of legitimacy: fewer and fewer people believe in the ability of government to produce prosperity or promote equal opportunity.  Racism nationalism and xenophobia sexism, homophobia, and all other things that divide the working class has combined to sap working class confidence and has produced demagogues like Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump or Nigel Farage or Viktor Orban. But it also inspires the socialist movement.

A lot of people seem to be talking a lot about socialism these days, but what does it mean?  The myth perpetrated against socialism is that it is a gloomy world devoid of fashion and creativity where citizens wear the same gray clothes, eat the same bland food rations, and are ordered to think the same thoughts. We are told socialism is hostile to the individual in every possible way – to individual thought, expression, choice, freedom, and creativity.  Yet it was Marx and Engels who wrote, “The free and full development of each is the precondition for the free and full development of all.”  Our thinking about a socialist future, what it would be like and how to achieve it, acquires a new urgency.

Social-ism is called what it is because it asks us to recognise the social dimension of our existence so we can see how much we rely on the work others do for us that makes our lives possible. It is recognizing our interdependence. Capitalist culture loves to tell us we are competitive beings and can’t achieve our best without competing against one another. Yet if you were to really pay attention in the world, you would notice that you spend far more time cooperating, collaborating, and depending on others to get things done, to achieve your goals, to meet your needs, to take care of your kids, and so on, than you do compete with others. Socialism must entail the complete socialisation of the economy, not just the redistribution of the product. Workers have to have real, not just notional, control of the means of production and understand that it is in their hands to make or break. It must be seen as the transformation of the entire social formation – to use Marxist terms, both the base (means and relations of production) and the superstructure (social and political system, values etc.). Capitalist culture tends to pit individuals against each other. A socialist society wouldn’t ask us to be who we are not. It would create a social system that accentuated rather than obscured the cooperative or social dimensions of our beings, leaving us to live out our competitive drives in our places of play and sport. Socialism is the modern expression of the age-old quest by humanity for humanity. So long as classes and class exploitation and oppression have existed, a struggle for freedom has been waged.  A revolutionary reorganisation of society to one that is people-centered, democratic, peaceful, and in harmony with nature is necessary if humanity is to survive and flourish. The old ruling class will be overthrown and the working class will hoist the proverbial red flag.

The socialist revolution is not inevitable but a product of a complex and contested process, a transformation orchestrated by real people consciously and creatively shaping their conditions of existence to make their lives more livable, secure, enjoyable, and meaningful.  No one can predict exactly how this process will unfold or what the new society will ultimately look like - there is no blueprint. Majorities make lasting change. People gain a deeper consciousness, including socialist consciousness, in the course of greater participation in the struggle for immediate radical economic, political, and social change. The revolutionary process unleashes the creative energy of millions through a wide variety of forms of mass protest, including mass non-violent action, in the battle for ideas and in the cultural sphere. These forms of action are connected with voting and mobilisation in the election arena, which will be greatly democratised as millions more become engaged. It must result in the election of ordinary working people to office at every level. The world socialist movement must be fully democratic, collaborative and inclusive. It must place the actual needs of people and nature above all else. The climate and ecological crisis is a crisis for humanity. It is also a crisis of capitalism and its inability to address the inevitable havoc of actual climate change and adapt to a fully sustainable model.  Profound and radical changes in our economy and society must begin if the Earth is to avert destruction.  It means transferring all natural resources and the energy production sector to common ownership managed under democratic control. It means a radical reallocation of resources needed to rebuild the planet's infrastructure, retrofitting for conservation and converting to renewables. It means adapting to the inevitable changes wrought by global warming, including extreme weather events, coastal flooding, relocating communities, building massive public works, overcoming drought, and deforestation. The move from production for the creation of commodity values to production for the creation of use values will be central to the socialist effort to create greener ways of doing things, without consumerism but rather with the promise of a life of modest dignity for all. Socialism of the future will have to find ways, technological and other, to produce everything needed by the human race more sustainably, efficiently, and cleanly than under the present capitalist system. That means that scientific socialism will have to be really, really scientific in every sense. Our goal today should be to overthrow capitalism, not to reform or ameliorate anything.

Marx called for an equalitarian society, one where we will live by the principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Facts matter and they make a difference in how we see the world and what we do about it. There is always hope because without it there could be no struggle. Let us resolve to wipe out homelessness, poverty, racism and injustice once and for all! Probably no society has been so deeply alienated as ours from our communities and from nature.

We are here as caretakers and stewards of the planet. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Fostering an understanding that encourages us to recognise our interdependence and our cooperative nature is the key challenge for those working for a socialist society. Our aim to build a sustained movement of the immense majority is a real – not wishful – possibility in the not too distant future. If people power is to grow, it must be in arenas old and new. To act to stop the developing perfect storm of environmental and human disasters it is going to be up to us, the world’s 99 percent. The capitalists are not going to resolve these situations, which arise from the very nature of capitalism itself. Capitalism cannot continue on its present course, and if socialism is not achieved, worse forms of capitalism may replace the present one. 

World Socialism – the reign of humanity

 

In pubs across Scotland you may hear some of the clientele, under the influence several drinks, giving voice to patriotic songs such as "Flower of Scotland” or “Scotland the Brave” but you might "Belong to Glasgow", but Glasgow like every city in Scotland and the world over belongs to the property speculators and the owners of capital. Most of us don’t own a square foot of Scotland. It doesn’t belong to us: we just live here and work for the people who do own it. In or out of the Union, that won’t change.

To talk of Scottish interests is to gloss over, to ignore the basic conflict of interests that inevitably arises from the structure of capitalism. The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fundamental class-antagonism, and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and seat of government. The defence against this stratagem is, as always. the re-statement of the socialist case that the simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same in an independent Scotland as far as the working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one.

The Scottish National Party is endeavouring to enlist the support of workers there, on the ground that they can better feed and house Scots better than their fellow-slaves in England, and they propose a whole series of reforms for the special benefit of workers in Scotland, such as increased wages, shorter hours, better housing, and public spending, etc., and with this avowed end in view, calls for the restoration of the Scottish Parliament, which voted for its own extinction.  Scottish workers may well ask themselves whether it is worth their while to go through so much for manifesto promises. The truth is the capitalist class is not primarily concerned with geographical boundaries or the nationality of the people whom they exploit. The Scottish nation, whether independent or united with England, is divided into classes, as is society everywhere. It is this division which accounts for the existence of the evils from which the Scottish workers suffer. English rule did not account for the fact that the clearances of the Scottish Highlands led to the congestion in its industrial slums. The Scottish chieftains themselves turned out their own clansmen in order to make way, first for sheep and later for deer, in order to fill their own pockets. The notorious Duchess of Sutherland, for example, had 15,000 people hunted out in the six years 1814-20 and called in British soldiers to enforce the eviction.

The history of Scotland, while differing in detail from that of England, followed the same general course. By their expulsion from the land during the Enclosures, a nation of peasant cultivators was converted into wage-slaves, exploited by a class ready to convert the world into one gigantic market. The forces of competition thus let loose may be held in check to some degree by national legislatures, but no final solution for the havoc they create can be found along such lines. The problem is essentially an international one and must be internationally solved. That, however, calls not for nationalist parties, but for parties in all countries which clearly recognise the common interest of the workers of the world, namely, to achieve their emancipation as a class. When the workers get on the right track of understanding their position they will cease to fret and obsess over comparatively trivial differences in their conditions, whether as between nations or between districts or separate towns. They will recognise that they suffer varying degrees of poverty because at present they exist merely to produce profits for their masters and that it is a matter of comparative indifference to them whether these masters are English or Scots, Germans or Japanese. Their aim will be to abolish masters of every nationality and to organise the production of wealth for their common good.

There are in Scotland the Left Nationalists, many of whom are deserving of the epithet “tartan trots”, who believe that an independent Scotland is a step closer to socialism. They make an appeal to the workers of Scotland for a Scottish Workers' Republic so that they might win you away from the service of the imperialist gang in London. The struggle of the workers of the United Kingdom must be a united one. To appeal to advocate for an independent 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 and also by the global institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank controlled by the Great Powers to suppress or control the smaller nations. The history of countries that have gained independence shows that the realisation of "political sovereignty" by a country leaves the workers' conditions untouched and actually worsens them in many cases.  If workers are is to be won over to socialism, it is by getting them to understand the principles of socialism, and not by appealing to them to concentrate on parochial Scottish affairs. Socialism is worldwide. 

The Socialist Party understand only too well the urge to do something now, to make a change. That makes us all the more determined, however, to get the message across, to gather our fellows to clear away the barrier of the wages system, so that we can begin to build a truly human society.

Capitalism has a lot to answer for.

These are undoubtedly scary times but we must not be ruled by fear. The fear-mongering accompanying the narrow nationalism has not gone unnoticed or unchallenged.  These days we are witnessing the ignorance of populist politicians who continue to sow suspicion of “outsiders”. They have persuaded millions of voters that vulnerable men, women, and children fleeing war-torn or famine-ravaged countries for safe-havens are foreign enemies and their biggest threat. The xenophobic hyperbole has persuaded many that refugees pose a major risk. Eager to retain or acquire political office, these shameful charlatans propose bogus remedies such as walls and fences. It’s much easier to scapegoat the weak than offer effective solutions to peoples' social problems that actually do make so many feel anxious and insecure.  Voters who were drawn to politicians with quick-fixes for the festering inequality and putrefying poverty will be sadly disappointed.

Almost everywhere in the world, un or underemployment is growing, the gap between rich and poor is widening, and environmental devastation is worsening. It has become apparent that these many crises which have given rise to right-wing sentiments share a common root cause: a global capitalist system that is devastating the lives of hundreds of millions of people, but also our ecosystems.

In democracies, the “demos,” the people, rule; not social or economic elites.  This was the understanding of philosophers in Athens twenty-five centuries ago. The emergence and dominance of capitalist economic relations has now marginalized the will of the people. The wealthy have more political influence in than others – not because they are endowed with more wisdom and are more persuasive, but it is thanks to their economic and social power.  The rich rule. And governments serve their interests. Bourgeois democracy is a shell game played every few years in the duplicitous hands of the country’s wealthiest citizens. Marx’s notion that bourgeois ideology blinded workers to their exploitation was prophetic, predicting the passive acceptance of the rule of the few over the many. Capitalist rule is not only disenfranchising people worldwide, it is fueling climate change, destroying cultural and biological diversity, and replacing community with consumerism.

Once we understand the systemic nature of our problems, the path towards solving them becomes clear. Bonds of local interdependence are to be strengthened, where a sense of personal and cultural identity begins to flourish, based on the principle of connection and the celebration of diversity as opposed to the fear-mongering and divisiveness in politics and the media.  Capitalism is dominated by the scapegoat mentality. 

It would be easy to dismiss the fear of “Muslims” – all Muslims everywhere – as casual racism. Of course, racism plays a part in the field left open for the far right to argue that Muslim refugees are unacceptable because “their” culture is incompatible with “our” culture. Yet xenophobia is not always racism and is not always without cause.  Whether we like it or not, mass migration has exacerbated concerns among many European natives that their culture is under threat. For the socialist, neither the word “natives” nor the idea of a “culture” under threat sits easily. Yet they mean something to a large number of Europeans and Americans. Too many accept the view that migrants steal native jobs while also living off welfare and that the evidence predominantly shows that migrants, in general, have a  positive effect on the host economy and that refugee "invasions” may, in fact, actually boost the economy. There is no serious dispute that Europe can benefit from immigration to compensate for its ageing population, in order to have a balanced demography. 

Yet even when people accept the economic arguments – which in the wake of the financial crisis, many do not – this isn’t their primary concern. Discussions move from competition for scarce jobs to the lack of class spaces in schools, the waiting times at hospitals and the shortage of housing. Refugees are collateral damage in the debate over austerity policies and cut-backs in social services by the government.

“We may see people in Dundee starving to death.” - Charity boss

Kim McRae is services manager for One Parent Families (OPF) Dundee support services, an organisation which offers advice for families on a range of issues.

OPF Dundee was part of the Fun and Food programme during the holidays, which provided free activities and lunch to families living in an area of high deprivation. A number of agencies were involved in the initiative, including Cash for Kids and the Northwood Trust This year, OPF Dundee ran sessions in Whitfield, Fintry and St Mary’s during the school break.

Ms McRae said: “In the second week, we had 53 people come to our sessions in Whitfield which was the most I’ve ever seen. It was absolutely unbelievable. It just highlights the awful poverty that some people are clearly living in the city. People can’t afford to feed themselves. If you imagine your children are eligible for free school meals, five days a week and then that suddenly comes to an end. You may have no extra money and you are going to struggle. We had to make referrals to food banks during the sessions too.”

Ms McRae continued : “The foodbanks in Fintry are bursting to capacity. And these aren’t just people struggling on benefits. More and more people are now ‘working poor’ so they have a job and still don’t have a decent standard of living — it’s tragic. We see parents trying their best to survive. But if there’s a case where they don’t have the money, they will feed their kids and go without food themselves if they have to."

She then related, “We had one woman who couldn’t afford to feed herself so she was drinking cups of tea full of sugar so her child didn’t go without food. Another reason that the Fun and Food programme is organised is so it can help people come to a warm building when they are too poor to heat their homes. We see people struggling to buy other essentials like cleaning products or even toilet paper. I’ve seen adults burst into tears with the situation they are in. To see people struggle to provide the basics is very upsetting. The level of poverty we see is deplorable — and that’s just what we see. There will be hidden poverty across the city. People still feel there is a stigma attached to asking for help or going to a foodbank. But if it wasn’t for foodbanks in Dundee, I don’t know what some people would do.

Ms McRae the  concluded, “We may see people in Dundee starving to death.”

Nationalism - From one prison to another

The Socialist Party is not concerned as to whether those who support the SNP and the nationalist movement are sincere or not. We are endeavouring to show Scottish working men and women the plain, bald facts of the position, regardless of whether these facts are palatable or not. We, who are working people, should concern ourselves with the chains that shackle us to the cogs and wheels of capital—that doom us forever to the toil and sweat of wage-slavery. Nationalism is nothing but a change of masters. Whether the government of Westminster or the government in Holyrood rules, whether the flag be the Saltire or the Union Jack, whether the Union ends or continues, you, as a worker, will in no way be any better off. Does our Scottish 'heritage' do anything to help us to overcome our actual working class heritage of poverty, insecurity and social degradation, the real heritage that workers of every nation shares in. Since the Holyrood parliament was established it has been a hunting-ground for ambitious politicians. It has also been the home of ignorant political leaders. The constitutional form of government makes no difference to the workers. Government implies subjects, and under the capitalist system of society the actual governmental machinery, Parliament, councils, and judiciary, etc., are representative of the capitalist class—the necessary machinery for ruling a subject class composed of wage-slaves. The boasted equality pledge of nationalists should be viewed as the fraud it is. For if there existed a real equality there could be no governing class or government, but only administrative assemblies charged with the administration of things in accordance with the wishes of the majority. But capitalism being a system wherein one class governs another, where one class is idle yet wealthy, and the other class producing wealth yet always poor, neither equality nor democracy can exist, the latter only being possible when the former is present.

Capitalist government is deliberately organised and maintained for robbery and oppression. Capitalism everywhere tends to reduce the workers to a minimum standard of subsistence, and steadily encroaches on their paltry rights and liberties. It is a false idea of the nationalists that the Scottish workers must struggle for national independence before they can tackle the problem of poverty. The working class everywhere is under one capitalist government or another. The continuance of the private property system remains the core belief of the nationalist movement, and so long as private property remains the miseries that necessarily flow therefrom will remain also and continue to afflict the workers under a “free” Scotland. To split territories, set up new governments, or to re-establish old ones will not help them nor even simplify the problem. Their only hope lies in the speedy establishment of socialism. They must join hands with the workers of the world, and make common cause against the ruling class. They must make ready for the last war—the war of classes, in which classes must be abolished and a real equality established on the basis of common ownership and democratic control of all the means of life.

Capitalism forces us accept our role of a propertyless, docile class. That enforcement cannot be accomplished by the police or authoritarian dictatorships. It is achieved by controlling our ideas, by manipulating how we think. By promoting among us, the working class who own nothing but our ability to work, the belief that we share ownership in a country or 'nation'; that patriotism somehow serves our interest or that religious superstition will earn us a good life in an afterworld if we meekly acquiesce to the miseries of being a wage-slave. Those who promote hatred and division among us, those who preach nationalism or patriotism, are playing the game according to the rules of capitalism.

Workers have no country and we have learned to understand that we have made a giant stride forward in acquiring class consciousness. The countries we live in, together with the machinery of production and distribution by which we live, are the property of the ruling class. The Socialist Party, therefore, urges the workers of Scotland to unite with workers elsewhere to set up a worldwide socialist cooperative commonwealth where the peoples of the world will join together to produce for their needs. This will be a society without frontiers, without nations, and without States. This is the real alternative to nationalist panaceas. From the point of view of the Scots workers, he or she would remain the wage-slave being bought and sold creating surplus value for the privileged. Post-independence a Scot might well consider him or herself as having achieved emancipation.but it will all be moonshine. The Socialist Party possesses no interest in nationalist movements. The Socialist Party strives for the elimination of countries and its replacement by a nation-less world devoid of frontiers, caste systems, and religious barriers. If nationalism was a recognised disease, its terrible toll of human life would excite the demand for a cure.

 SNP leaders blame the dreadful social conditions in Scotland on British rule when in fact these conditions are part and parcel of the capitalist system of society all over the world. To end them, calls not for a national revolution, but rather for the organising of the working- class all over the world in a social revolution. There is no essential difference between the capitalists of England and Scotland. Both are characterised by the same greed, the same ambition, the same hypocrisy, and corruption.  Would the working class be worse or better off under the UK or a sovereign Scotland? Would there be anything to choose between the two? Surely, in both an independent Scotland or the United Kingdom, the workers' standard of living would be much the same. So would the slums, the unemployment and the other problems of capitalist society. The Scottish Nationalists bait their ambitious schemes with fake promises of prosperity for the working class. And world socialism would still remain the only solution to these problems. It is time to turn a deaf ear to the empty promises of nationalism and look forward with hopeful eyes to the day when Scotland shall be a land where its wealth is owned and controlled by its workers—and a harmonious member of a world cooperative commonwealth. 

‘I am not a nigger—I am a man.’

 

The objective of the Socialist Party is to free white brown and black workers from wage-slavery and to end the evils of capitalism. The root cause of modern racial prejudice is the capitalist system, a society of competition and struggle: struggle between worker and worker. For the working-class, it is a society which breeds division and strife. Capitalism is a system of competition rather than co-operation.  The Socialist Party is angry and indignant about the sorts of lives we are forced to endure, about bad housing. unemployment, old people dying of cold in winter, and all the other depressing features of poverty — but we don't place the blame on other workers — whites, or blacks, because that only hurts ourselves. It suits the capitalist class that the anger is directed away from them, and divertd from the real cause of the problems. What really worries the ruling class is when members of the working class get together, when they organise an efficient democratic political movement with the single aim of throwing them out, and they fear when that movement seems to start to attract support. So long as racism among different groups, is providing each race with a scapegoat to blame and averting any approach to the real problem, the ruling class can enjoy the benefits of working-class disunity.

Race and immigration serve a double purpose for capitalism. First, they can be used as straight-forward vote winners for the politicians. By trading on the prejudices that capitalism and its politicians have themselves instilled into the working class the politician hopes to suck in the votes of irrationality. Second, the race issue has at least one important function — it provides a "easy answer" to the difficulties of capitalism and so turns attention away from the problem. The result is that instead of the real issue, Socialism or capitalism, confronting the electorate at election time, the issue of race is thrown up. While the workers are busy blaming each other for their problems (the whites blame the blacks, the blacks the pakistanis, the hindus, the muslims etc, etc.) instead of seeking the real causes, capitalism continues in safety.

Any attempt to rationalize racist attitudes, or to surround them with an aura of scientific justification, is ludicrous. All human beings are genetically similar, and what variations there are exist within every group and in no way lend support to ideas of innate superiority or inferiority.  All humans belong to one species: we have the same blood, and we can interbreed to produce offspring. Those who have tried to divide the species into races, based on inherited physical features, have disagreed about how many races there are. But their scientific investigations have shown that there are no “pure” races. 

The Socialist Party condemns racist ideas. We find such attitudes pernicious and repugnant, Racists are invariably ignorant and irrational. They seek only the most crude and superficial explanation of social problems. They need a whipping-boy, a scapegoat. The Jew to blame for money grabbing and financial swindling. The black man to blame for housing squalor or unemployment. If they can find in the immigrant a convenient outlet upon whom to vent their frustrations and resentments, they need look no further. The way to defeat racism is not to fight the white supremacists on the streets, as some on the Left would like us to do. You cannot clear up confused ideas by fighting confused people. The lies of racism must be constantly exposed. Old ideas must be challenged by new realities. The only way to get rid of racism is to get rid of the out-dated social system which keeps producing it. 

The Socialist Party call on all men and women of the working class, whether they are black, white, brown or yellow, whether they are employed or unemployed, old or young, to join us in a growing political movement to end this violent, poverty-stricken way of organising society. It is ours for the taking as soon as we make up our minds to act all together. Workers of every colour and country can unite to establish a society where production will be for the needs of all, not for the profit of a few. Racism divides the working class; socialism will unite the human race. The Socialist Party advocates a world where the whole of humanity is united about social relationships of equality and co-operation. The identity of the socialist is not with any national grouping, brand of religion, any alleged ‘race’ or ethnic culture. The Socialist Party has gone beyond the shallow allegiances that misdirect the attitudes of those who are still burdened by nationalism, religion or racism. The Socialist Party has no hesitation in taking a stand. We condemn racism. To us it is repugnant. We are opposed to any attitude that discourages the unity of the working class. Even so, our disgust is extended by an understanding of the problem. Disgust without knowledge is impotent. The racists are not inherently evil people. They are men and women who are moved by fear, insecurity, frustration and ignorance, all of which are attitudes conditioned by social forces. They possess a history of struggle and insecurity. They are on the defensive, they are anxious to protect jobs, a standard of living, a standard of housing, that they feel has been hard won. Now they feel hard done by. Mere condemnation will not help them. Workers who don't understand why capitalism condemns them to impoverished lives are all too ready to blame their problems onto other workers, from other towns or from other countries or of other "races".