Poverty and Revolution

No one can understand the world without an understanding of the state, and of classes and class struggle. Under the capitalist mode of production, the principal classes in society are the capitalist class and the working class. Their historically-determined production relations form the basis, the economic structure of capitalist society. The capitalist class owns the means of production, the workers work for this class for wages; having no means of production of their own, they are forced to sell their labour power for what they can get. They are thus an exploited class. The state is part of the superstructure erected on the basis of capitalist production relations to reinforce the power of the capitalists to exploit the workers. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote: ‘The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.’ Whichever party may have gained the most seats at election time, the capitalist class still constitutes the ruling class and consequently, the capitalist system is still dominant. The state is an organ of class rule, a machine for the oppression of one class by another. Under capitalism, it is organised violence against the working class. It is the main weapon of the capitalists for maintaining their class rule and the privileges which stem from it. And history bears out the truth of this conclusively.

Capitalism inevitably produces exploitation and poverty, war, the oppression of women and 'minorities', poisonous environmental pollution, and the waste of human and natural resources, none of which can be consistently eliminated without the socialist transformation of society.  Many like to paint the ideas of the Socialist Party as no more than a hopeless dream or even a nightmare.  Let us face the facts and that is that the education of the masses is a large and strenuous task, but there can be no socialism until the people desire socialism and strives for socialism. The Socialist Party cannot take part in the work of socialist education till we are ourselves deeply imbued with the socialist ideal and our thoughts and our desires are constantly turning towards the system of society in which the land, the means of production, and distribution are held in common, where production is for use, as and when required, not for profit, exchange or sale and the organisation of production and distribution is by those who do the work for the general welfare and mutual harmony with the other workshops producing the like utility, also with those of all. The Socialist Party declares that the victory of socialism will be achieved only by the independent revolutionary class struggle of the workers against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state, only by the abolition of the capitalist state and the entire capitalist order, by the building of worker’s power and the construction of a world socialist society.

The capitalists like to pretend that capitalism is eternal. The fact is, however, that for the greater part of human history mankind lived in tribal society under a system of primitive communism, a system without classes, in which acceptance of the authority of the elders did not require a special coercive force but was freely given, and questions of paramount importance were decided by the tribal assembly. In those times there was no state. Nor did the notion of male superiority exist. Women took part in decision-making on terms of full equality with men. They had an honourable place within the tribe, not only because they did their full share of work on an equal footing with the men, but also because the only sure way to reckon descent was through the mother. It was the development of private property giving rise to the problem of individual inheritance which in turn brought about a male-dominated type of family – the patriarchal family – the emergence of which Engels described as ‘the world-historic defeat of the female sex’

Marx and Engels advised the workers to unite in trade unions and fight for improved wages and shorter hours. In these struggles, victories would be won. The workers could wring concessions out of the capitalists. ‘Now and then’, the authors noted in the Manifesto, ‘the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers.’ Better living standards could be won by trade union pressure, as by political agitation, to secure such improvements as the Ten Hours Act. But such gains would be meagre, precarious and temporary.  As Marx answered Citizen Weston, though real wages could be increased here and there by trade union activity, ‘The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages.’

The system is rooted in the exploitation of the producer by the property owner, as was every previous system since the birth of civilization. Unlike previous systems of class exploitation, however, capitalism had developed the productive forces to a point which renders the existence of classes unnecessary. Private property alone stands between mankind and the fairly rapid advance to an age of abundance.

Poverty, in itself, has never been a cause of revolution. (Otherwise, revolutions would happen every day in some part of the world.) That capitalism will waste and misuse resources is not seriously in dispute. But the waste and misuse of resources, though it arouses opposition and generates pressure for social change, does not in itself create revolutionary situations. But Marx believed that impoverishment, the incompetence of the ruling class ‘to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery’, a forcing down of the level of life through economic crisis, seemed, in the mid-nineteenth century, an essential pre-requisite for proletarian revolution.

Unite and triumph

There were many attempts before Marx’s to understand capitalism and propose an alternative to capitalist society, because although capitalism as it first emerged was progressive in as far as it had to eliminate feudalism and many forms of absolutism, it was not long before it became obvious that capitalism itself was exploitative and oppressive, and finally the major obstruction in the path of human development. Through Marx, we came to understand that ultimately the most critical and defining aspect of any society is the mode of production, how that society gets its food, clothing, and shelter; society’s raison d’etre and its reasons for changing became crystal clear. Marx showed us how and why primitive communalist society changed to slave societies and how feudalism grew out of slavery and capitalism out of feudalism. Marx identified and explained how class society was formed and how the various classes, basically groups of people with the same relationship to the production process, how they formed and how and why ultimately the motive force of history is the struggle between those various classes, i.e., class struggle. Marx explained why the working class was the most advanced class and the only revolutionary class under capitalism. Marx revealed the fundamental secret of capitalism, surplus value, which can be defined basically as all the wealth which the workers create but do not get. All of the learned men of capitalism speak so disdainfully of socialism’s past and contemptuously of its future. Socialism is irrelevant! It is utopian! But politics is concerned with alternatives and if socialism is a quixotic cause, what do they have to propose instead? In nine out of ten cases, it boils down to what we now have: a perverse social system run by the corrupt careerists. What could be more utopian, absurd and irrelevant than this? By comparison, socialists are eminently practical and realistic men.

The Socialist Party maintains that our society is divided into classes based on groups of people standing in the same relationship to the means of production. The Socialist Party holds that the interests of these classes are antagonistic and irreconcilable and that a constant struggle goes on between them over the division of the wealth that. society produces. The Socialist Party understands that the ability of the present ruling class, the capitalists, to maintain their power is due to their using their economic strength to control the State (government} and use it as “an instrument of oppression” against the rest of society. The Socialist Party agrees that the owning class is the ruling class because it controls the State. The government protects the capitalist class by protecting the source of its economic strength private property. It is the will of the capitalist class that the rights of private property be protected. It uses its control of government to write down its will and call it law. It uses its control of government to enforce its will, the law. The law is the voice of the ruling class. Although democracy literally means “rule of the people”, we live in a class society in which one class maintains its favourable economic position because it controls the rule by the people, since the capitalist class is a small minority the capitalist class controls the government only as long as the majority of the voters permit them to. It means allowing the masses to vote but using capitalist control of the communication of information to teach the masses to vote against their own interests.

It is on this issue of capturing political power by the workers that the widest division of opinion exists amongst those professing to be socialists. Whether this taking power by the working class or the social revolution as it is called, will be accomplished gradually or suddenly, legally or illegally, peacefully or violently has been the most vital questions asked within the labour movement. The Socialist Party has chosen its path.  The revolt against the injustice of class oppression and exploitation is as old as these social evils themselves. Revolutionary organizations trying to overthrow capitalism are as old as capitalism itself. Socialism can only come about through a successful overthrow of capitalism by a self-organized working class.

The Socialist Party believes in the possibility of humankind to shape its own destiny,  to abolish all social conditions which make men and women into oppressed, exploited, mutilated, miserable beings; to realize a society in which the free development of each becomes a precondition for the free development of every individual. No other class than the working class has the potential to replace capitalism with a socialist society. The fate of humankind is for that reason tied to the victory of the world working class.  Humanity is at a crossroads: either socialism or barbarism. The awareness of the potential self-destruction of humankind (environmental catastrophe, nuclear war devastation or whatever) is today growing. Either it will be the victory of the world socialist revolution, or the decline and fall of human civilisation, if not the disappearance of the human race. For the Socialist Party, the emancipation of humanity has to be total and global. The overthrow of capitalism, of private property, commodity production, and wage labour, is a necessary precondition for the successful achievement of human emancipation.

What we need is members!

The world about us is falling to pieces. The need for revolution is being increasingly widely realised. The world today is characterised by a growing awareness of the widening gap between rich and poor with popular outrage at the massive salaries and share option schemes awarded to those who run various industries has become a journalistic commonplace. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind. It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of less developed countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humanity. The hour is late and urgent action is necessary. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. The only viable way forward is revolutionary struggle to achieve a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create world socialism it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through a social revolution. The working class depose the capitalist ruling class and establish socialism, a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society

The working class is defined as all those who:

1) Do not own the means of production; 

2) Have to sell their labour-power to the capitalist class to make a living; 

3) Directly, or indirectly, create surplus value... which is expropriated by the capitalist class.

In a capitalist society, that which the worker sells — labour power — his or her physical and mental skill, takes on the character of a commodity. This exploitation, or expropriation of surplus value, creates an irreconcilable, antagonistic class contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie. Only the emancipation from capital itself can liberate the working class. Its mission, therefore, is to overthrow the bourgeoisie, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and replace capitalism with socialism, a classless society. The working class is not a small, narrow class but constitutes the majority of the population. 

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. The revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system is the historic mission of the working class. To use the word “socialism” for anything but people’s power is to misuse the term. State ownership of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism.  Nor is the “Welfare State” socialist. Although the Left claims to have for their object the ultimate establishment of a new social system, their immediate aim is the reforming of the present social system. Their appeals are mainly made to those workers who desire to improve their lot within the confines of the capitalist system.

The task of the Socialist Party, therefore, is to help the transfer of power from the capitalist class to the workers. The Socialist Party's aim has to be not a better wage, but people’s power. We have to remember that all politics is about power. Capitalism is maintained by class power and will only be displaced by other class power. The Socialist Party calls for power for the working people. The reformists exercise power on behalf of the oppressor, and who claims to do a little good on the side. The Socialist Party is not a reform party. Its avowed purpose is the abolition of the present social order, the ending of the exploitation of labour by an idle parasitic class. It makes its direct appeal for the support of the workers as propertyless wage-slaves, not as “tax-paying” citizens, nor as charity chasers, seeking a handout, or dole, from the capitalist state. It points to the necessity for the conquest of political power from the capitalists and the reorganising of society upon a class-free basis. Certain economic laws govern the capitalist system, which is a commodity-producing one. A knowledge of those laws is imperative if the workers are going to participate intelligently in the daily struggles against their exploiters.

The Socialist Party has pursued the policy of reaching as large numbers as possible with a sound elementary advocacy of socialist principles. This work has been carried out through public meetings, literature, lectures, and personal contact “on the job” and elsewhere. In fact, everywhere that workers gather it has been our aim to keep class issues before them. It is only through studying history from an economic and class viewpoint that the real facts reveal themselves. A knowledge of history is useful to the workers, but they are often encumbered with it, not enlightened. The mode of interpreting history, as taught by the Socialist Party, the Marxist materialistic conception of history, is an illuminating method that clarifies historical research. The capitalist class and their servants dare not divulge history as a history of class struggles. Yet upon close examination that is all that we find it to be. The State upholds the power of the owning class, the capitalists, and represses (when necessary) the producing class, the workers when they resist the rule and robbery of their masters. The State, or government, is the real organised force that confronts the masses of the people, the exploited proletarians. Organisation must be met with organisation, and ultimately the workers must triumph. Without this course being pursued, the workers and their children, and their children’s children will remain the wage-slaves of the capitalists forever.

The hour is late. Join with us now.

Socialism is the Hope of Humanity

The future of humanity is that we will either drift on in eternal slavery, perhaps disappear from the Earth from an environmental cataclysm or it will seek out and find a new road through which it will attain the cooperative commonwealth - real socialism.  People are not going to submit forever to an existence of want and idleness when they can see within their reach an abundance of machinery and raw material more than enough to satisfy their needs. They will realise that it depends only on their will and daring to change their miserable status to one of comfort and abundance. When we attempt to understand the whole situation sanely, we can say there really are no natural causes for human suffering (economically speaking). After all, so long as the human race exists, the Earth will produce crops, the trees will yield fruit, gardens will grow vegetation, cows will feed us milk and human skill and ingenuity will always provide comfort and luxury for all. Why, then, must the life and happiness of a whole race depend on the financial sheet prepared somewhere in a Wall Street office? Why should we dwell in misery and leave the politicians and stockholders to decide our fate with “percentages”, “returns” and other hocus-pocus chicanery of the market? There are plenty of resources on our planet to be shared by all people alike. And if they ever come to realise that no minority class has a moral or legal right to declare a monopoly of the land and her products, they will then visualise a just and humane social order. Every war which the State has engineered at the behest of capitalism was imposed upon the people under fraudulent claims as are the imposed systems of economic exploitation during times of peace. The State is the legal protector of the wealth it has taken from the producing masses. 

No one can deny that the main tendency of capitalism is leading to increasing economic panics, unemployment, and competitive conflicts among capitalist nations themselves - all this heads inevitably towards barbarism. In the bankruptcy in which capitalist economy finds itself, war is the only industry really profitable because it is capable of putting labour and capital in motion and of securing a safe market for the unlimited efficiency of modern production. War, therefore, is a matter of life and death also for the capitalist system of economy. Mankind will forever face a bitter-struggle for existence just so long as the system of distribution will be based on individual or corporate profiteering, which is at the centre of our prevailing social order. All the wizardly juggling of figures by expert financiers in the ledger sheets and all the scheming acrobatics introduced in budget balancing, tax revision, wage and labour adjustment, tariff barriers, etc., will not help to alleviate the ills of the suffering masses who are the chief victims in the periodic crises. At most, these clever manipulations can only serve to transpose the surplus profits from one individual or group of profiteers to another. The truth of the matter is that no political candidate dares to speak about the causes of all the resulting evils which the people suffer from capital and government. Capitalism could not exist without the forceful protection of government, and the latter. Even if the governing institutions were better constituted and of a higher moral character, still the State would not be what the State idea pretends to be. It has been founded and is nurtured for the purpose of protecting and perpetuating the reign of the ruling class. Against the system of capitalism and its government, the socialist advocates voluntary cooperation among men and women for the economic equality and social democracy of all. 

The formation of a new society, is possible alone through socialism, i.e., through the re-establishment of the natural relations of men and women and their communities to one another.  Every living being strives unceasingly for enjoyment of life; this endeavour is the basis of all his or her actions. Each human being seeks to learn by what ways and means he or she can attain the highest purpose of life. Through experience and observation one arrives at the conclusion that the individual separated from the society of his or her neighbours produces the mere necessities of life by the utmost wearisome labour, but that through the common labour of many, these necessities are easily and readily obtained, allowing leisure for the pursuit of the arts and sciences, by which life is made pleasanter and richer; this knowledge imposes upon one the duty of working for the common weal, since each individual welfare is assured only through universal well-being. By experience and clear knowledge of the qualities of mankind, we arrive at the firm conviction that a lasting welfare of society can be established only through the socialist society.

A moneyless society (an anarchist article)

A 1940 pamphlet published by Man!, an anarchist newspaper out of New York and posted on the Libcom website

8. A moneyless society

The case of an economic system without money is equally simple to present, equally easy to grasp. A world without money, and without any kind of substitute for a monetary exchange, would not be a world of chaos, as some might suppose. It would not be a world where progress is at a standstill and true ambition has died of inertia, as the alarmists would have us believe. It would not be a world of idlers, each doing his best to live on the product of another’s labor, without compulsion to labor for themselves, as still others claim. It is a sad enough commentary on our present system that so many of us think of initiative only in terms of money and conceive that economic stress is the only spur which will goad men into working. Such convictions only underline the basic fallacy of a life than can give rise to them.

But what would a world without money be like? I think it would be a world without poverty and hunger and unemployment; without child labor and overwork and economic misery; without fear for the future and driving misery in the present; without the ignorance that comes from lack of education and the cruelties that come from greed and insecurity. I think it would be a world where man could choose his particular work and might work at the thing for which he is best fitted. I think it would be a world where everyone might be well and comfortable, fed and housed, clothed and shod. I think it would be a world where everyone had an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and everyone had an equal share of the wealth of his country as produced by the labor of all for the use of all.

It is easy enough to envision. The foundation of any economic system, after all, is no more than the old law of supply and demand. Under our present economy of scarcity, the supply is limited by the demand. And the demand is limited by the ability to pay for the supply. And this in turn is limited by the supply itself, the production of which furnishes us our buying power. The profit motive, which is the mainspring of our monetary system, is responsible for the lag between production and consumption since the producer-the laborer or farmer-is paid less for what he produces than he must pay to buy it back for his own use. So demand lags behind supply until, at length, the supply must be stopped until the surplus is consumed, reducing buying power to its final minimum.

Under a system which does away with money and the consequent profits therefrom, the demand will mount, and the supply will mount with it, until at length each country will be producing to its utmost capacity to satisfy the demands of its citizens. There is demand enough even now to keep farms and factories going full blast; all that is lacking is the money. Where men may have for the asking all they need of the world’s goods the demand will not fall.

Will the supply be sufficient to balance that tremendous demand that lack of money alone keeps in check today? Well, I am no economist. I have no statistics to quote. I only know that produce rots on the trees and in the fields; that factories stand idle or run at half capacity; that whole great areas of the earth lie untapped and unreclaimed; that elements lie unmined in the ground; that there is an unimaginable world about us for science to explore and make use of.

Here in the United States alone are sufficient resources, if utilized to the full, to give each family of all our millions the equivalent of 5000 dollars a year income. That much, at least, is a statistical fact. Knowing that, I venture to predict that with all the vast resources of earth at our disposal and all its vast man power at work, the supply will not fail.

Under our present system it does not pay to utilize these resources, discovered or undiscovered.

In a system of free exchange of the products of labor, these things will take their rightful place. There will be no surplus until all have obtained the necessities for a decent existence, and then the surplus will be converted into luxuries for the many rather than for the privileged few. Invention will come into its own when each simplification, each labor saving device will mean a benefit to all, rather than the loss of a living. Machines will be utilized to provide leisure rather than unemployment.

This is democracy carried to its highest point, extended to its logical extreme.

It is self-evident that under such a system the evils stemming from greed will be non-existent. Vice and crime, violence and corruption, even war itself, must of necessity disappear once the economic basis for them has been abolished. So a moneyless society of free exchange of labor for the produce of labor will mean more than the abolition of mere economic ills. It will mean a whole new world, a better world, the world we hopelessly dream of today, for our children and our children’s children to inherit.

Utopian? Perhaps. It will be no quick and easy task, at any rate, to spread such a gospel around the world until it takes effect. It is a task of years, perhaps of centuries.

The introduction of such a system will cause no chaos in the precise and ponderous machine of civilization. It does not even involve such a dictum as that usually quoted to excuse imperfections in other Utopian schemes: that the few must suffer for the good of the many.

No one will suffer. No one will lose by it. Even the richest man can consume only a limited share of the world’s goods for himself and his family’s use. That share he may have for the taking, he and everyone else. That he cannot have these without conceding the equal right of others to them is the point on which the success of such a system rests. It is the basic principle of the, Golden Rule of every great philosophy and religion; put into practice in such a way that in order to benefit by it, a man must comply with it.

There may be those who can find objections even to this universal principle of good. They may brand this as merely another crackpot scheme, as this or that dangerous “ism”, even as an outright attempt to tear down government into anarchy.

To such reactionaries I can do no more than point out that progress has always been achieved by revolt against the old bad order of things. I can do no more than remind them of the speech of a certain famous young rebel made less than two hundred years ago, a speech which has become a part of our American tradition. Let me borrow from that speech to answer them:

“If this be treason, gentlemen, make the most of it!” John Steinbeck

EDNA LARKIN

Green Futures

The dream of a just and classless society has long stirred the hopes of women and men, shackled by exploitation, poverty, oppression, and war. The early 19th century labor movement envisioned a cooperative community of producers and many constructed intricate blueprints for egalitarian societies. So we can’t claim that Marx and Engels invented the idea of a society defined by common ownership, mutuality, freedom and equality although they said much about socialism. Climate change in particular has radicalising potential, as more and more people are beginning to question the prevailing economic system’s detrimental effect on the environment. But mainstream environmental groups aren’t offering a coherent critique of capitalism’s ecological consequences or doing the work of presenting alternatives.

The global economy, despite all of the bumps in the road, is delivering aggregate annual growth of 3-4%, leading to a doubling of output every generation. Yet the global economy is not delivering sustainable growth in two basic senses. In many parts of the world, growth has been deeply skewed in favor of the rich; and it has been environmentally destructive – indeed, life-threatening. Climate change is the greatest of these environmental threats. Given the current trajectory of global fossil-fuel use, the planet’s temperature is likely to rise by 4-6 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level, an increase that would be catastrophic for food production, human health, and biodiversity; indeed, in many parts of the world, it would threaten communities’ survival. Governments have already agreed to keep warming below 2º Celsius but have yet to take decisive action toward creating a low-carbon energy system.

Capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on the inhabitants of the earth. Tragically, the future could be even worse for a simple reason: capitalism’s destructive power, driven by its inner logic to expand, is doing irreversible damage to life in all its forms all around the planet. Rosa Luxemburg famously said that humanity had a choice, “socialism or barbarism.” In these days of climate change, her warning has even more meaning. Almost daily we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification, and on and on to the point where we are nearly accustomed to this gathering catastrophe. Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Unless we radically change our methods of production and pattern of consumption, we will reach the point where the harmful effects to the environment will become irreversible. Even the most modest measures of environmental reform are resisted by sections of the capitalist class. This makes the establishment of a socialist society all the more imperative.

At one time the environmentalist was all about conserving a unique spot of nature or protecting this or that rare animal. Now, they are activists against the extractive industries, campaigners against the consumer culture and increasingly, protesters against the profit system. They are fighting for the planet. People may not care much about a few islands disappearing. But untold millions of people will face the need to escape cities worldwide that will not be able to cope with and survive many feet of higher oceans flooding their infrastructure, streets and housing. Where will those millions of people go? How will such deep economic disaster be managed by governments? Scientists are unanimous in warning us that unless we very rapidly reduce CO2 emissions, we risk passing a tipping point beyond which we will be powerless to prevent uncontrollable global warming. We risk a human-produced extinction event. Before irreversible climatic feed-back loops take over, making human action useless, we must replace fossil fuels completely by renewable energy. This is by no means a hopeless task. The technology needed is already in place. The main obstacle to be overcome is the fossil fuel industries. They will use any method, fair or foul, to cash in on the vast deposits of fossil fuels which they own.

“If you want parents to make the choice to reduce their number of offspring, there’s no better way than making sure those offspring survive,” said Joel Cohen, author of the magisterial book How Many People Can the Earth Support? “There’s no example of decline in fertility that has not been preceded by a decline in child mortality that I know of.” There is abundant evidence of this pattern all over the world, regardless of religion. Where children die and women are repressed, population booms. Where children thrive, and women are empowered, population growth stops.

Sustainable agriculture expert Gordon Conway writes in his book, One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?:

“A popular misconception is that providing the developing countries with more food will serve to increase populations; in other words, it is a self-defeating policy. The more food women have, the more children they will have and the greater will be their children’s survival, leading to population growth, so goes the argument. However, the experience of the demographic transition described above suggests the opposite. As people become more prosperous, which includes being better fed and having lower child mortality, the fewer children women want. Providing they then have access to family planning methods, the fertility rates will drop and the population will cease to grow.”

The key factor connecting child mortality and lack of women’s rights is poverty. Therefore, environmentists have to do is, first and foremost, campaign for social justice. If ending all poverty was as simple as producing enough food to feed everyone, our work would be done. Farms already grow enough food for every person on the planet — 2,800 calories a day, if it were divvied up equally. But we have never shared resources equally.

Clearly, there’s tremendous room for improvement, and increasing yields. In Sub-Saharan Africa, farmers get a little over a ton of grain per hectare in an average year — about what farmers in Europe were getting during the Roman Empire. During the Green Revolution, the push to increase yields was focused on large farmers, and sometimes smaller farmers did not benefit. There’s a huge amount of conflicting literature on this point. As Conway writes, “A review of over three hundred studies found that for 80 percent of the studies inequality had worsened.” In addition, the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizer during the Green Revolution caused all sorts of environmental problems.

The current jargon is “sustainable intensification,” which — as happens with jargon — is taken to mean everything and nothing. Sustainable intensification includes a panoply of agroecological techniques. Farmers are planting nitrogen-fixing trees, which shelter crops, prevent erosion, and provide fertilizer. There’s the push-pull strategy, where farmer push bugs away from grain by growing insect-repellent plants along the rows, while also pulling pests away from the crops by planting attractive plants outside the fields. Aquaculture is on the rise, creating an opportunity for more fish polyculture. Farm technology isn’t a war between good and evil — it’s a quest for whatever works. Small farmers have proven that they can use tools of industrial ag. in a non-industrial way. They use high-tech hybrid seeds to get record-breaking yields with an alternative cropping technique. In Niger, farmers developed a method of using Big Ag fertilizer on a tiny scale: by filling a soda-cap with a mix of phosphorus and nitrogen, and dumping this micro-dose in with each seed.

Many people worry that giving poor farmers industrial technology will lock them into an industrial path. There’s no doubt that is true, as far as it goes. If it’s easy to get nitrogen, you may not want to do all the work, and develop the skills needed, to nurture nitrogen-fixing trees to maturity. GMOs, because they are politicized, are especially controversial. Genetic engineering is not a silver bullet. At the same time, the goal of helping small farmers improve their lives gets a lot harder if they are held to an impossibly high standard, and we keep rejecting the tools that they’d like to use. Small farmers are already taking a middle path — it’s not as if use of some modern technology will forever corrupt them. In Ghana, farmers trained by 4-H in agroecological techniques abandon them when they actually have to manage their own land and make a living. And an organic farmer training people in Malawi has found that teaching small farmers how to use a little bit of synthetic fertilizer and herbicide is much more likely to work than the all-natural alternatives. As the U.N.’s former special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, put it, “While investment in organic fertilizing techniques should be a priority, this should not exclude the use of other fertilizers.”

A wider issue is the lack of infrastructure, the lack of good transport. Roads and railways are terrible for the environment when built through undeveloped wilderness, but great for the environment when built through poverty-stricken rural regions.

http://grist.org/food/so-can-we-really-feed-the-world-yes-and-heres-how/

One way or another, the coming decades will be decisive for the fate of human civilisation. Unless greenhouse emissions are swiftly and drastically curbed the result will be environmental catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale, threatening the survival of all life on the planet. The reality of climate change is already manifesting itself in an increasing number of extreme weather events, such as heat-waves, droughts, floods, and typhoons. Melting ice sheets are resulting in rising sea levels and increased flooding of low-lying areas. Some islands will soon be totally submerged, turning their inhabitants into climate refugees. Some solutions to climate change are known and simple: rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels, make the switch to renewables and halt deforestation. But significant economic interests at the heart of the capitalist system have big investments in coal, oil and gas. Protecting these interests, governments refuse to take more than token measures to halt climate change. The goal of the big corporations is to secure the greatest possible profits for their super-rich owners — regardless of the consequences to the planet and its people.

Imagine an alternative, a society where each individual has the means to live a life of dignity and fulfilment, without exception; where discrimination and prejudice are wiped out; where all members of society are guaranteed a decent life, the means to contribute to society; and where the environment is protected and rehabilitated. This is socialism — a truly humane, a truly ecological society. With socialism, our work would engage our skills and bring personal satisfaction. Leisure time would be expanded and fulfilling. Our skies, oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams will be pollution free. Our neighborhoods would become green spaces for rest and recreation. Communal institutions, like cafeterias will serve up healthy and delicious food and offer a menu of cultural events.

The Tender of Union

Scotland’s under-developed urban infrastructure and fragile agricultural system were particularly vulnerable to the strains and pressures of prolonged warfare. The arable lands and crude transport system of Perthshire and Fife, for example, were so exploited and abused by the marauding armies in central Scotland that by the early 1650s the region, one of the most fertile in all Scotland, could hardly sustain its own population. The rural countryside and the great estates of the nobles were likewise exposed to the violence and degradation of roving armies and bandits throughout the period. Friend and foe alike laid waste to the lands of Inverness, Argyll, and Perthshire even after the so-called pacification and union. Offensive operations designed primarily to terrorize and plunder, reprisals for the killing or troops or the destruction of military stores, defensive scorched-earth campaigns, and the maintenance of armies literally destroyed the agricultural stability of many regions. The actions of the country folk fleeing en masse before Cromwell’s advance into Berwickshire and the Lothians shocked even the hardened English veterans of the southern wars. Despite the prospect of an exceptionally heavy crop yield that summer, the entire countryside along Cromwell’s line of march was laid waste by the rural population in order to deprive the invaders of any sustenance on Scottish soil. While some regions of Scotland, therefore, enjoyed the fruits of a much-needed plentiful harvest in 1650, Berwickshire and the Lothians endured a particularly lean year, and, ironically enough, were forced to depend upon the importation of food from England for sustenance.

The human cost of the wars also robbed local economies of vitality, sapping the strength of even tiny market burghs. Few if any towns escaped the war years without deep and often crippling wounds to their economies, property, or populations.

During the debates and discussions about Scottish Independence, much focus is placed upon the 1707 Act of Union and the earlier union of 1654 by the republican Oliver Cromwell is often overlooked. After the English invasion of 1650, and the defeat of the Scottish armies at the Battle of Dunbar, Scotland was placed under English military occupation with General Monck as military governor of the county.

Initial plans for England simply to annex Scotland, crudely asserting the right to control the territory, its people, and resources, were dropped in favour of a more moderate and thoughtful political and constitutional settlement, involving a degree of Scottish involvement, and based upon the idea of a union of England and Scotland as a single ‘Commonwealth’. These proposals were set forth by the Rump in a Declaration of Parliament ‘concerning the settlement of Scotland’, drawn up in October 1651, debated by parliament during the autumn and issued in its final form in December. The Declaration made clear parliament’s intention, on grounds of ‘freedom’ and ‘security’, that Scotland should be ‘incorporated’ with England into a single ‘Commonwealth’, and also implied that English style toleration of various Protestant faiths would be extended to Scotland. All crown lands in Scotland were to be appropriated and all Scots who had supported the royalist cause and royalist operations against England and the English would also lose their lands; thus all those who had been involved in the Scottish-royalist invasion of 1648 as well as in the renewed war of 1650-51 would lose their estates. Finally, the Declaration promised peace, protection and the enjoyment of their ‘Liberties and Estates’ to all other Scots, in the process pledging to abolish all feudal duties still attached to the holding of land in Scotland, freeing people from their former ‘dependencies and bondage-service’ and so creating ‘free people’ who held land on ‘easie rents’ and ‘reasonable conditions’ – not only creating a more free and modern system of landholding in Scotland but also in the process undermining the influence which the Scottish landed elite could exercise over the people. The Declaration of autumn 1651 became the basis for the attempted English settlement of Scotland over the ensuing two years. In some ways, much progress was made. Thus from January to April 1652 commissioners sent by the English parliament met elected representatives of the towns and counties of Scotland in Dalkeith, to present and explain the Declaration and to obtain from the Scottish representatives' pledges that they would accept those terms. The commissioners did secure such acceptance from an overwhelming majority of the Scottish representatives.

Between October 1652 and April 1653 a select group of Scots, chosen by elected representatives of Scottish towns and counties, held further discussions in London with the Rump Parliament and its agents. The English parliament drew up and debated a Bill for the Union of Scotland, which would also give Scotland the right to send MPs to sit in future in single Anglo-Scottish parliament. The new Protectoral government which took power in England in mid-December 1653 moved quickly to advance new or existing policies. The written constitution itself, the Instrument of Government, paved the way for union, for it implied and stated that the political and constitutional union was a fact, repeatedly stressed that it was a British, not an English constitution, speaking of England, Scotland and Ireland, too, comprising a single Commonwealth, and allocated Scotland a small number of seats in the new, elected, single-chambered parliaments which were to meet from time to time. The ordinance uniting Scotland with England as a single Commonwealth confirmed the arrangements enunciated in the Instrument of Government, declaring Scotland to be a single Commonwealth with England and confirming that Scotland would receive 30 seats in the Protectorate Parliaments. It formally abolished both the separate Scottish parliament and monarchy in Scotland and discharged the people from any allegiance to the Stuart line and family. This political union was to be matched by an economic union, for goods were to travel freely between England and Scotland and Scotland would be encompassed within the single, Commonwealth-wide tax system. The ordinance went on to abolish almost all the remaining elements of the feudal tenurial system in Scotland and with it all feudal obligations imposed upon land and land tenure, including ‘servitude’, ‘vassallage’, military service and the separate judicial powers of landowners. The ordinance uniting Scotland with England had effectively abolished the judicial powers, jurisdiction and ‘private’ courts of Scottish landowners. In part in a move to replace them, Protector and Council extended to Scotland courts baron, small, local, manorial courts which dealt with minor issues such as debt, trespass, contractual wrangles and so on. The courts, which were to meet regularly, had power only to determine by jury small issues, of limited financial value and where the ownership of the property was not in doubt or question.

Glencairn’s Rising brought home to the English military leaders on the ground and, through them, to the English regime in London, that a policy of simply oppressing, undermining and excluding the Scottish landed elite would alienate them, give them no reason to remain loyal to the English occupiers and instead drive them into the arms of any movement – Scottish, royalist or whatever – which might offer a more palatable alternative. A number of carrots were dangled in front of selected Scottish landowners. While debt and the fear of its consequences might drive men into rebellion, if conversely, the English regime could offer some help in alleviating elite debt and in preventing great estates from falling prey to creditors and their agents, then the Scottish landed elite might be won over and see real benefits from English rule. Several measures were put in place to alleviate the overall burden and impact of debt on Scottish landed estates.

Free trade was established

The other important elite group to be affected was the Scottish church. Following negotiations and debate in Council, Protector and Council issued in early August a settlement of the Scottish church, nicknamed ‘Gillespie’s Charter’, was agreed. The financial position of the universities Glasgow and Aberdeen was boosted by granting to them lands and incomes formerly vested in certain, now defunct bishoprics and religious houses in Scotland. The money was to be used to support the universities in general, some senior academics and administrators and students studying particular subjects. Commissioners were set up for various Scottish regions with power to examine the qualifications of candidates to vacant livings; only those judged and certified by them to be ‘of a holy and unblameable conversation, disposed to live peaceably under the present government, and who for the Grace of God in him, and for his knowledge and utterance is able and fit to preach the Gospel’, were to be appointed and granted stipends.

Although it had been stripped of most of its feudal rights and powers, the Scottish landed elite largely survived, pardoned by the Protectoral regime and with its somewhat precarious material position and landed status actually protected and in some ways underpinned by the English regime. Equally, in the end, the Scottish Presbyterian church also endured and although it had been required of necessity to recognise and to reach a compromise with the secular power of the English regime, that regime, in turn, had largely accepted and compromised with the established religious position of the Presbyterian church.

Despite the continuing military presence, the Protectorate established or re-established elements of more traditional, civilian government and administration in Scotland, which performed at least adequately and which provided a level of stability, security and peace at least comparable with the monarchical regimes of the seventeenth century. A few Scots actively supported the Protectoral regime; the vast majority acquiesced with it and lived peacefully under it, making the most of any advantages which the new order might bring while also retaining what they could of their old ways or seeking to modify the new regime to bring it closer to the Scottish way of doing things. Compromises were made on both sides and to some extent, the Protectoral regime achieved a fair degree of peace and stability in Scotland.

Orders were issued that the filth and sewerage in the streets were to be cleaned up within 30 days and the practice of throwing water and night soil from windows was prohibited. In October 1655 a local tax or cess (assessment), was levied to pay for horse and carts to carry away the filth and muck.

A general feeling existed even among Scottish people that the English rule of law was more merciful to the Scottish than the Scots had previously been to one another. This was perhaps no more apparent than in the Highlands. The clan system, often viewed through a haze of romanticism, was patriarchal and authoritarian. Through bonds of kinship and mutual obligation, it allowed a large lower class to be controlled and exploited by a small aristocracy. One of the first acts of the new government of union was to offer an amnesty to all vassals and tenants who had followed their clan leaders or lords in opposing the English. Mercurius Scoticus advised: ‘Free the poor commoners, and make as little use as can be of either the great men or clergy.’ many measures proposed by the Declaration of the settlement had a double consequence: those that were aimed at destabilizing the social and political leadership of Scotland often favoured the common folk

The Anglo-Scottish union of 1654 proved a false dawn and was swiftly rendered null and void by the returning Stuart regime. The restoration of Charles II dissipated all the measures Cromwell had inaugurated.

If the people lead, the leaders will follow

We are all leaders.

In 1916 in Everett, Washington state, USA, a passenger ferry loaded with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) free speech activists attempted to dock. On the dock, the local sheriff, along with armed deputies and armed guards hired by local businesses, attempted to block the ship from docking. According to lore, when the sheriff asked, “Who are your leaders?” the response from the ferry was a shout from everyone aboard, declaring, “We are all leaders here.”

The relation of "the party," to the masses plays a large part in contemporary Left discussion. The importance and indispensability of the vanguard party is taken as said. The militants who call themselves the vanguard believe that one or the myriad parties must direct the class struggle (or in the case of some syndicalists, the unions)

The Trotskyist/Leninist Left may remix the song over and over again all they want but the tune remains the same: leaders and the cadres of the vanguard can find the answer; the mass movements of the people cannot liberate themselves. The case for leadership is simple. Most working-class people are too busy to have opinions or engage in political action. There’s a need for someone to dedicate their time and energies to adequately represent working class people. Instead, we what really need is professional, full-time advocates for our interests. It’s only logical that the Trotskyist vanguard, understanding better the decision making processes of power, represent organised resistance on our behalf. Ensuring we have a united position is more important at this stage and what does solidarity mean if not getting in line behind strong leadership - even if that leadership isn’t always sure what it’s principles are? Too many people don't have the right political consciousness, and if we let them use too much democracy they will make counter-revolutionary decisions that sabotage the revolution. The "masses" just can't be trusted is the clear conclusion. If the masses don’t have an evolved enough political consciousness to be pro-revolution, then would elect people as their representatives who reflect their backwards political views.  If the masses don’t have advanced enough political consciousness, this is going to sabotage the revolution one whether through counter-revolutionary decisions being made via direct democracy via electing counter-revolutionary leaders via representative democracy. This would be the point where the vanguard party strategy would suspend even representative democracy. They attempt to solve the problem of widespread backwards consciousness by implementing a one-party dictatorship with the “representatives” chosen from within the party rather than freely elected by the masses. If most people don’t have a sufficiently advanced political consciousness, the revolution will fail whether a vanguard party is used or not. And if a totalitarian vanguard party succeeds in stealing power from the not-revolutionary-enough masses, the revolution will still fail – because tyranny in itself is counter-revolutionary.

The idea that someone with a job and kids can really understand the complex needs of the working class is farcical. Workers have nothing to gain and everything to lose by relying on leaders. Socialism means that people have taken their destiny into their own hands. Socialism can't be created by decree or by force by a minority. It can only be implemented by the majority of the people taking over the economy (taking over their workplaces, streets, and housing estates) and reorganising them as they see fit. But being against vanguards is not the same as being against organisation. A vanguard is a particular type of organisation, with specific aims and to reject vanguardism is not to reject organisation.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain do not see ourselves as yet another leadership, but merely as an instrument of the working class. We function to help generalise their experience of the class struggle, to make a total critique of their condition and of its causes, and to develop the mass revolutionary consciousness necessary if society is to be totally transformed. We reject an organisational role. What we want people to come to is the realisation that they should take over their workplaces, communities, and put themselves in a position to control all of the decisions that effect them directly, and to run things themselves. If we were to be a vanguard, in the sense of an enlightened minority seeking to gain power over others, we could never achieve this aim, because WE would have the power, rather than people having power over their own lives, collectively and individually. We would also be assuming the arrogance to think we have a monopoly of truth, rather than certain views which we debate with others including amongst ourselves, coming to a better viewpoint at the end of it. There is a big difference between an organisation that produces propaganda and so on, and helps promote the popular will where people accept decisions  because they have been convinced by the case and  have freely chosen to do so.and a vanguard in the common sense of the word, meaning a party seeking to gain power over the masses. Revolution will be a process of self-education. Without the active participation of the mass of the working class in the fight for a communist/stateless society cannot even be contemplated.

We favour majority decision making in face-to-face assemblies and where and when necessary by fully accountable re-callable delegates. A representative is someone who makes decisions for the other people. A delegate, in contrast, carries out a mandate they have been given by the people who delegated them. In other words, they don't act as they think best, they act as they are told.  How could it not? The whole premise of democratic centralism is that a central authority dictates policy to everyone else, so no matter how democratically chosen it is it has to enforce its line and stifle dissent that makes this too difficult, which, in a revolutionary situation, there is bound to be a lot of. Democratic centralism would exclude you from participation. So whilst it pays lip service to the idea of the vanguard as the most conscious sector of the proletariat in practical terms, the real vanguard is the central committee.

Anton Pancakes

Anton Pannekoek, an oft-neglected Marxist theorist (others being Paul Mattick and Karl Korsch), marginalised by the Left and dismissed by the Leninists, found it difficult to have his ideas disseminated and the Western Socialist, the journal of the World Socialist Party of the United States, companion party of the SPGB, published a number of his essays. The Socialist Party has also quite recently issued one of his earlier works, Marxism and Darwinism. Most of his writings can be read here 

Many anarchists are sympathetic to this Marxist and Council-Communist, particularly what they perceive as his anti-partyism and his arguement that the working class should organise into workers councils for the purpose of capturing power.
However, further reading demonstrates that Pannekoek was not so far apart from the SPGB as it might first seem. A May 1942 Socialist Standard article summarised Pannekoek's position:-

“Anton Pannekoek, the Dutch writer on Marxism, states his position in the bluntest of terms. Writing in an American magazine, Modern Socialism, he says: 'The belief in parties is the main reason for the impotence of the working-class . . . Because a party is an organisation that aims to lead and control the workers'.
Further on, however, he qualifies this statement:
'If . . . persons with the same fundamental conceptions (regarding Socialism) unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarification through discussion and propagandise their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of to-day'.
Here Pannekoek himself is not the model of clarity, but he points to a distinction which does exist.”

The article went on to say that it was not parties as such that had failed, but the form all parties (save the SPGB) had taken “as groups of persons seeking power above the worker” and continued:

“Only Socialism can guarantee the conditions of a life worth living for all. Because its establishment depends upon an understanding of the necessary social changes by a majority of the population, these changes cannot be left to parties acting apart from or above the workers. The workers cannot vote for Socialism as they do for reformist parties and then go home or go to work and carry on as usual. To put the matter in this way is to show its absurdity . . . The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its fellow parties therefore reject all comparison with other political parties. We do not ask for power; we help to educate the working-class itself into taking it”.

Pannekoek wished workers' political parties to be “organs of the self-enlightenment of the working class by means of which the workers find their way to freedom”and “means of propaganda and enlightenment”. 

Almost exactly the role and purpose of the Socialist Party.

Also to be commended is Anton Pannekoek's Lenin As Philosopher, reviewed here, analysis of Leninism as a non-Marxist theory, the ideology of the development of capitalism in Russia in the form of state-capitalism.

For a flavour of Pannekoek here is one of the articles he wrote for the Western Socialist , "Public Ownership and Common Ownership", where he differentiates between the two:-

"The acknowledged aim of socialism is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers. This aim is sometimes spoken of as public ownership, sometimes as common ownership of the production apparatus. There is, however, a marked and fundamental difference.

Public ownership is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body. The persons forming this body, the politicians, officials, leaders, secretaries, managers, are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work, including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.

Under public ownership the workers are not masters of their work; they may be better treated and their wages may be higher than under private ownership; but they are still exploited. Exploitation does not mean simply that the workers do not receive the full produce of their labor; a considerable part must always be spent on the production apparatus and for unproductive though necessary departments of society. Exploitation consists in that others, forming another class, dispose of the produce and its distribution; that they decide what part shall be assigned to the workers as wages, what part they retain for themselves and for other purposes. Under public ownership this belongs to the regulation of the process of production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. Thus in Russia bureaucracy as the ruling class is master of production and produce, and the Russian workers are an exploited class.

In Western countries we know only of public ownership (in some branches) of the capitalist State. Here we may quote the well-known English “socialist” writer G. D. H. Cole, for whom socialism is identical with public ownership. He wrote:-

“The whole people would be no more able than the whole body of shareholders in a great modern enterprise to manage an industry . . . It would be necessary, under socialism as much under large scale capitalism, to entrust the actual management of industrial enterprise to salaried experts, chosen for their specialized knowledge and ability in particular branches of work” (p. 674).

“There is no reason to suppose that socialisation of any industry would mean a great change in its managerial personnel” (p. 676 in An Outline of Modern Knowledge ed. By Dr W. Rose, 1931).

In other words: the structure of productive work remains as it is under capitalism; workers subservient to commanding directors. It clearly does not occur to the “socialist” author that “the whole people” chiefly consists of workers, who were quite able, being producing personnels, to manage the industry, that consists of their own work.

As a correction to State-managed production, sometimes workers’ control is demanded. Now, to ask control, supervision, from a superior indicates the submissive mood of helpless objects of exploitation. And then you can control another man’s business; what is your own business you do not want controlled, you do it. Productive work, social production, is the genuine business of the working class. It is the content of their life, their own activity. They themselves can take care if there is no police or State power to keep them off. They have the tools, the machines in their hands, they use and manage them. They do not need masters to command them, nor finances to control the masters.

Public ownership is the program of “friends” of the workers who for the hard exploitation of private capitalism wish to substitute a milder modernized exploitation. Common ownership is the program of the working class itself, fighting for self liberation.

We do not speak here, of course, of a socialist or communist society in a later stage of development, when production will be organized so far as to be no problem any more, when out of the abundance of produce everybody takes according to his wishes, and the entire concept of “ownership” has disappeared. We speak of the time that the working class has conquered political and social power, and stands before the task of organizing production and distribution under most difficult conditions. The class fight of the workers in the present days and the near future will be strongly determined by their ideas on the immediate aims, whether public or common ownership, to be realized at that time.

If the working class rejects public ownership with its servitude and exploitation, and demands common ownership with its freedom and self-rule, it cannot do so without fulfilling conditions and shouldering duties. Common ownership of the workers implies, first, that the entirety of producers is master of the means of production and works them in a well planned system of social production. It implies secondly that in all shops, factories, enterprises the personnel regulate their own collective work as part of the whole. So they have to create the organs by means of which they direct their own work, as personnel, as well as social production at large. The institute of State and government cannot serve for this purpose because it is essentially an organ of domination, and concentrates the general affairs in the hands of a group of rulers. But under Socialism the general affairs consist in social production; so they are the concern of all, of each personnel, of every worker, to be discussed and decided at every moment by themselves. Their organs must consist of delegates sent out as the bearers of their opinion, and will be continually returning and reporting on the results arrived at in the assemblies of delegates. By means of such delegates that at any moment can be changed and called back the connection of the working masses into smaller and larger groups can be established and organization of production secured.

Such bodies of delegates, for which the name of workers’ councils has come into use, form what may be called the political organization appropriate to a working class liberating itself from exploitation. They cannot be devised beforehand, they must be shaped by the practical activity of the workers themselves when they are needed. Such delegates are no parliamentarians, no rulers, no leaders, but mediators, expert messengers, forming the connection between the separate personnel of the enterprises, combining their separate opinions into one common resolution. Common ownership demands common management of the work as well as common productive activity; it can only be realized if all the workers take part in this self-management of what is the basis and content of social life; and if they go to create the organs that unite their separate wills into one common action.

Since such workers’ councils doubtlessly are to play a considerable role in the future organization of the workers’ fights and aims, they deserve keen attention and study from all who stand for uncompromising fight and freedom for the working class."

Western Socialist, November 1947