Scotland's life expectancy still stalled

Life expectancy growth continues to stall in Scotland

If you live in a deprived area you are likely to have a considerably shorter lifespan than those in more affluent areas – and the report shows East Dunbartonshire, with the relatively wealthy suburbs of Milngavie and Bearsden having the longest, yet Glasgow, its immediate neighbour and significantly poorer, has the shortest. Dundee has the second lowest life expectancy.

In Glasgow City, where males are expected to live to 73.6 years and females to 78.5. 

Life expectancy for females is highest in East Renfrewshire at 84.0 years and male life expectancy was highest in East Dunbartonshire at 80.5 years.”

The national life expectancy sits at 77.1 years for men and 81.1 years for women, however, this is still the lowest in western Europe. Scotland continues to have the lowest life expectancy at birth of all UK countries. Life expectancy at birth in the UK was 79.4 years for males and 83.1 years for females in 2017-2019.

The gap between the most and least deprived people’s life expectancy in Scotland is 13.3 years for men and 10 years for women

Social Solidarity

"Neither the crushing powers of the centralised state, nor the teachings of mutual hatred and  pitiless struggle which came adorned with the attributes of science, from obliging  philosophers and sociologists could weed out the feeling of human solidarity, deeply lodged  in men's understanding and heart, because it has been nurtured by all our preceding  evolution." - Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid,"

Among the many objections that have been levelled against socialism, the one concerning human nature strikes the writer as providing not only a lop-sided view of human nature, but at the same time an indictment of capitalist society unconsciously made by our opponents.

We are informed that "human nature being what it is, socialism is quite impossible," or, as it is sometimes put, "you will have to change human nature." We assert that present-day society is based upon the private ownership of the means of living by the capitalist class, with the consequent enslavement of the working class, by means of whose labour wealth is produced. It follows, then, that, as the capitalist class do not work, they must obtain their wealth from the workers; in other words, they steal it from the working class. Of course, the means, employed are not the same as those of the common thief or burglar, which are quite illegal, but by virtue of their "legal" ownership of the means of life, which is secured to them by their being in control of the political machinery, including the armed forces of the nation. 

 The objection of our opponents merely begs the following question: What is human nature? The answer, that, in the opinion of the present writer, covers the ground fairly well, is the one met somewhere in his reading as "the manifold activities of man in general." This definition should meet with the approval of our opponents, for when they use the phrase "human nature," they generally refer to the actions of certain persons as a proof of their position.

A glance at history will show that the activities of man have changed with every alteration in the form of society, for, just as there has been change within the domain of the biological world, so there has been changes in the forms of society. At a very early period of man's history cannibalism was very often resorted to as a means of food supply., and was thought no more objectionable than eating the flesh of an ox or a sheep. The sex relationship of primitive man, although being quite in conformity with the current morality of the age, would shock the civilised person, and if anybody proposed their revival in modern society, either a prison cell or a lunatic asylum would greet their efforts. But, while there is a vast difference between the primitive savage and civilised man, the distinction lies in the fact that, while the former had but crude implements at his disposal to obtain the means of sustenance, the latter has inherited the results of the accumulated experiences of man's long and painful journey from savagery through barbarism to civilisation.

But, while the outlook and surroundings of modern man are different from those of his primitive ancestor, nevertheless, as far as the qualities that make up human nature are concerned, there is a similarity between both.

For instance, we eat when we are hungry, and roar when we are angry. We seek the greatest amount of pleasure, and avoid pain and discomfort as much as possible, and the same qualities characterise the savage. The difference lies in the means employed to procure the food and the kind of pleasure sought; consequently, viewing human nature from this angle, we say that there is a sense in which human nature changes and a sense in which it is always the same. The change of conditions, whether it be a change in the form of society or a change in the conditions of existing society, does not change the man, they only direct his natural qualities of adaptation into a different path. To illustrate this, we may take war. Here we find the "peaceful citizen," who, while he shudders at the mention of a social revolution, because to him it means bloodshed, was converted from a man of peace into a man of war, and the greater the amount of blood of his opponents he shed, the more his conduct was commended.

The worker may notice how, when one of his mates has fallen upon more evil times, the helping hand of the shop-mates has been extended towards the victim. In the most poverty-stricken slum the same factor of mutual aid can be observed. As we have already indicated, human nature is a complexity of qualities that can either be expressed harmfully or beneficially; it depends upon the conditions of its existence; and, as we have shown, that, with the change of conditions, there takes place a corresponding change in man's activities, we assert that with the change from capitalism to socialism, those various qualities which go to make up human nature, will be directed into different paths, and the workers, free from capitalist bondage, will thus enjoy the fruits of their labour and live a life of security and happiness.

Our Objective - Agitate, Educate, Organise!

I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. --- Crazy Horse

Men and women stand side by side and demand full economic and social freedom, and the establishment in the near future of a co-operative commonwealth. What are we out for? Nothing less than a social revolution, a complete transformation of human society from its base. That is no little thing. It is about the biggest task that any body of men and women have ever set their hands to. And what are the means at our disposal, the material with which we have to work? We have no other material than people like ourselves and no other means. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves. There is no other way. We need all the help we can get. They cannot be emancipated against their will, and so far we have not succeeded in inspiring them with that consciousness of their present enslaved condition, that passionate desire for their own emancipation. For that we have been frequently and constantly derided by candid friends and critics, nevertheless, we do not see that they have succeeded any better than we have. The Socialist Party admits its obvious failure to rally the workers to muster under its banner, but the failure of all other workers’ bodies which have attempted the task have not succeeded. 

The Socialist Party challenged the prevailing view in the social democracy that the class struggle was to be won in the capitalist legislatures. Step by step concessions were to be wrested from the state; the working class and the socialist parties were to engage our masters by means of “constructive” reform and social legislation; each concession would act as a rung in the ladder of social revolution, upon which the workers could climb step by step, until finally, the new day dawned where working  people awoke to find the cooperative commonwealth functioning without disorder, confusion, on the ruins of the capitalist state. But that did not happened and the Socialist Party said it wouldn’t. The reformist organisations competed for votes, on the basis of social reforms, with the capitalist political parties. And they catered to the ignorance and prejudices of the workers, trading promises of immediate reforms for votes. We do not make a bible of Marx, but the left-reformists through intellectual gymnastics, evasions, misquotations, and citing sentences and phrases from their context, make Marx and Engels sponsors for their corrupted version of socialism. They have only achieved to make socialism more hazy and less definite. The reformists have failed to organise a working-class socialist party, independent of, and hostile to, all capitalist parties, as an instrument for the political, economic and social emancipation of the working-class.

It is in the direction of building up a class-conscious working-class Socialist Party that we bend our efforts with renewed energy. Agitate, Educate, Organise! Our goal is to win recruits to the Red Flag and to bring together all comrades and friends into a united socialist party for the emancipation of humanity! Socialism does not come to destroy but to fulfil the ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality. Socialism comes not as a remedy for the evils of existing society, but for a new society, a coherent and free society. Socialism starts with the brotherhood and unity as a fact. It does not proclaim it as a sentiment, but recognises it as a scientific fact. Each for all and all for each is the only rational system to live in.

We are bound up together in this world and can only achieve our well-being together. We all in common depend upon the same common resources of nature. Since all people in common depend upon the sources and tools of production, there can be no individual liberty save these sources and tools belong to the people in common. No-one is free so long as the person is dependent upon another for the chance to earn a livelihood. If someone owns my bread, or owns that which I must have in order to get my bread, I am owned. Private ownership of the earth, of its productive machinery, means private ownership of the people who live on the earth. A person who sells his or her labour-power for wages sells oneself, for under capitalism labour-power is life. The wages system is merely another form of the slave-system, no fit system for free men and women. The labour of the world is essentially slave-labour. There can be no true freedom for mankind until there is not another hireling left under the sun. So long a few own that upon which all depend, we are alike enslaved, and robbed. Behind the economics of capitalism, this industrial system rests upon this power of private capital to legally appropriate the fruits of the labour of society. It is elementally wrong that some people should own that upon which all people depend; and the only elemental right is that the people in common should own that upon which the people in common depend; and the only just reward of labour is the whole produce of labour.

As history well witnesses, the concentration of the wealth into the hands of the few has been the poison. It has brought the decline or destruction of every nation, every civilisation. Concentrated wealth is not prosperity but disease. Socialism comes to remove the causes that prevent humanity from being sisters and brothers. Socialism strikes at the root of the chief cause of our social problems and proposes to abolish wage slavery and competition and capitalism, itself. The whole influence of capitalism is to war against liberty, and to make all that is noble and good in the world impossible to share.

World Socialism is Our Aim

 

The precondition for building real socialism – a global society of freely associated producers - is to capture the State machine peacefully if possible via the ballot box, forceably if democracy is denied to us. Watching Leftists succumb to the pull of the lesser evil sirens, reeking of smoky back-room deals and political patronage at the expense of democracy, does not offer us any joy. We retain our dedication to revolutionary change and socialism. We are revolutionary socialists who believe that capitalism — as a system centered on private accumulation and profit — is inherently a system of inequality, injustice, and war. We want a social system where social wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but is controlled by the people. We seek both economic and political democracy. We exist to organise for socialism. Human needs cannot replace profit as the driving force of society unless the people control their workplaces, their communities and neighborhoods. Under capitalism, a handful who own the factories, the mines, farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority of the people produce. It is this system that we are fighting.

Our enemy is capitalism. In order to fight the enemy and win, we have to understand the enemy. Capitalism organises globally. Blocs of capital compete intensely for growth and profits. Under capitalism you either destroy the competition, or are destroyed yourself. This drive sends the giant corporations around the world, seeking cheaper raw materials and corrupt local governments that will insure a "friendly investment climate." Capitalism continuously seeks cheaper labour costs. This is why we see so many plants closing down and “out-sourcing” and moving "offshore." We are told that this is a democracy, where the people rule. The capitalist class rules. It is “their” democracy. It is not just that it takes millions of dollars to run for high office. The state – the government and the legal system – were set up and developed to serve the interests of capitalism, to uphold the rights of property over of the people. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power.

The struggle for a liveable planet is a life-and-death issue. Corporate greed has polluted our air, poisoned our waters, and drenched our food with dangerous chemicals. Our survival necessitates democratic control of technology and production and the elimination of the blind consumerism that causes us to squander so many of the world's resources needlessly. As we develop a new vision of socialism, we will have to deepen our understanding of the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature. People will have to change how they live and how society is organised. The threat to the environment touches everyone. We believe in a socialism where fulfilment will be found in the relationships among people and not in the consumption of things. Only conscious socialist planning by all of society can make this a reality.

It is a paradox: The world and its people have never been so closely inter-connected than today, yet there are more fences and walls separating them than ever before. With almost 200 states that insist on their national sovereignty, effective international action and regulation are hard, if not impossible, to achieve. We are in the middle of a struggle between the forces of autocracy and nationalism on the one hand and democracy and global awareness on the other.

World unification is no longer a philosophical consideration. It is becoming a practicable possibility. The people of the world need a global democracy and a global administration that represents all citizens of the world. The advantages of capitalist globalisation and rising productivity disproportionately benefit the affluent. Intergovernmental organisations such as the UN or the WHO are only as effective as their member states allow them to be. Otherwise, their hands are tied. The UN does not represent humanity. It is an exclusive club of government executives whose job it is to pursue national interests.

Inequality is also growing across the world. Addressing this issue in a speech, UN chief Antonio Guterres said, "While we are all floating on the same sea, it's clear that some of us are in super yachts while others are clinging to the floating debris." 

According to the World Food Programme, 135 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger. There are currently close to 80 million displaced people who have fled war, persecution and instability. It is the worst humanitarian and refugee crisis in 70 years.

It is time that global institutions be equipped with the power they need to deal with global threats and manage global commons. If the people of the world unite behind this vision it can soon be at the top of the political agenda.

We stand for socialism

 Around the world humanity is saying "Enough" and is beginning to move. Though our lives and conditions be different; though we live in different parts of the world; though our struggles take different forms; ours is a common goal — an end to the oppression and exploitation of man by man. For most of us democracy remains a word without meaning. We are cut off from the ability to make decisions affecting our own lives. The global corporations determine all the key questions. Despite the relative quiescence of the working people, it is clear that their very life situation forces them to come repeatedly into conflict with the system. They find themselves in daily conflict with the employers in the struggle for decent wages and security. 

Capitalist parties have always told us that they could manage the problems of society by just a little oil there, a tightening of a screw here; no need to get rid of private property, the profit motive or the wages system. Far too sweeping they said; it may be alright for later on, but we must deal with this or that problem right now. These same parties go from door to door asking for votes. They will point to their glowing records of social service and endeavour, and promise to cure what they promised to cure at the last election and the one before that, and before that, and before that . . .Politicians who have been conspicuous by their absence from their community will turn up, enquiring about the needs of their electorate. They do these things because they need the workers’ votes to give them power to run capitalism as they think best. While the workers support capitalism, the problems of poverty, bad and short supply of housing, crime and unemployment will continue. In its struggles on the international field, capitalism will often produce a war of some sort or the other.

As socialists, we argue for workers’ revolution across the world and take as our primary duty the fight against the capitalists where we live. We must fight to build a labour movement that can link up with the working class across the world to make revolution against the capitalists.  We won't give up and we will always fight to make our words and our struggle, against all forms of oppression, visible. We are not in the front line with capitalists, we are in the front line to change society. Only solidarity and mutual aid will allow us to resist. We think that it’s time for a society satisfying the necessities of all, to care and protect nature to guarantee life. We can end this system, putting all production and distribution means into the hands of the people, replacing the market economy for a self-sustaining socialised economy.

For nearly 120 years, members of the Socialist Party have done everything in our power to illuminate the day-to-day fight of the exploited to create an understanding of our goal  - socialism. We are convinced and committed socialists because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of our own and the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people, sets one group against another, and acts violently against people at home and around the world when they resist. We sow the seeds of socialism as the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Capitalism today hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few. Socialists offer an alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age, a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. We advocate and work for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

The Socialist Party believes that the working class will drive the transformation of society because it is at once the most dehumanised and alienated class, yet potentially the most powerful, since the functioning of society depends upon it. We have to find new directions, new roads. We have to organize, and participate in the world-wide movement for the right to be human. In every country, people are escaping from the traditions of the past and are working against war, poverty and injustice. We live in a world torn by crises and wars. The great wealth of the world—the factories, farms and mines —are owned by a tiny minority. We live in a society which puts a price tag on everything. Increasingly disillusioned our fellow-workers are beginning to question every aspect of the society around them. We seek new paths forward. We strive for social change. The world can be changed. For humanity it must be changed. How can the world be changed? Certainly no elite will serve the task. We do not want to replace one group of masters with another. Nor do we want the patronising assistance of those whose real interests lie with the present system. We must look to those whose interests lie in change—to the working people, the people who work in the factories and offices of our society. They built the society—and they too are cut off from power and progress by the tiny minority that owns the wealth. The bosses need the working people—but the workers don’t need the bosses.

As socialists we believe in the great task of transforming this society and of building a new world. We stand for a world which can eliminate poverty and hunger and war; a world in which freedom is more than a word in a textbook; a world in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the producers themselves and the products of mankind are available to all. We stand with the oppressed, with all those who struggle for a better world. Only when we have economic democracy, when production is planned for use and not for profit, when the right of all to share in the abundance of our country is established - only then will democracy be truly established.

A new world has to be created — a world which will put people before profits, which will create a participatory democracy at every level. The potential of mankind virtually limitless, if it is freed from economic and social oppression. We have no illusions that the way will be easy, no visions of quick success. But the future belongs to humanity and socialism.

The revolutionary use of the vote

 The vote is a gain, a potential class weapon, a potential "instrument of emancipation" as Marx put it. Despite Lenin's distortions, Marx and Engels always held that the bourgeois democratic republic was the best political framework for the development and triumph of the socialist movement. This is another early socialist position we see no reason to abandon.

Certainly, political democracy under capitalism is not all that it is purported to be by many supporters of the system and it is severely limited, from the point of view of democratic theory, by the very nature of capitalism as an unequal, class-divided society. Certainly, "democracy" has become an ideology used to give capitalist rule a spurious legitimacy. But it is still sufficient to allow the working class to organise politically and economically without too much state interference and also, we would argue, to allow a future socialist majority to gain control of political power.

In a vote between lesser of two evils, "Vote Cholera or Vote for Typhoid", (btw, someone once said "Those who choose the lesser of two evils soon forget that what they chose is an evil".)

Not voting at all is valid, but casting blank ballots or some other form of actively announcing not voting is better .One or two spoilers/blank voters can be ignored, tens of thousands or even millions could not be - especially if backed by a vocal movement explaining the situation. (see the Argentinian example, for instance , http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1598855.stm ). In Britain, Canada and most of Europe, etc we don't think we've any fundamental objection to the electoral system; the provisions for voter registration, nomination of candidates, counting of votes, declaration of result,etc can be inherited by socialism and, with modifications, continue to be used. We also think, of course, that the present electoral mechanisms can be used to express and count, more or less fairly and accurately, a majority desire for socialism. So we've no interest in running down the system as such. The way to show that you accept the electoral system but reject the sham choice is to go and use it but not vote for any of the candidates.

There is nothing inherently elitist about the electoral approach. It is how you use that approach that makes it elitist. The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is not asking people to vote for them so they can solve the problems the electorate have to contend with. The WSM it is saying quite clearly that workers need to understand and support socialism themselves in order for it to come about It cannot be imposed from above. Furthermore, we constantly makes the point to workers in elections that if they dont understand or support socialism then they should not vote for the WSM. The WSM does not propose to come "into office", ie to form a government and so does not propose "to vote itself into office". Nor to we propose that other people should "vote us into office" either. What we do propose is that people should, amongst other things, use the vote in the course of the social revolution from capitalism to socialism; that they should, if you like, vote capitalism out of office. To do this they will need to stand recallable mandated delegates at elections but these will be just this: messenger boys and girls, not leaders or would-be government ministers, sent to formally take over and dismantle "the central State". 

The situation we envisage in which a majority vote in socialist delegates is one where the revolution, in respect of socialist ideas has already begun to accelerate. The vote is merely the legitimate stamp which will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the States and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy. It is the Achilles heel of capitalism and makes a non-violent revolution possible. What matters is a conscious socialist majority outside parliament, ready and organised to take over and run industry and society; electing a socialist majority in parliament is essentially just a reflection of this. It is not parliament that establishes socialism, but the socialist working-class majority outside parliament and they do this, not by their votes, but by their active participating beyond this in the transformation of society.

Basically, there are only three ways of winning control of the State: (a) armed insurrection; (b) more or less peaceful mass demonstrations and strikes; (c) using the electoral system.

The early members of the WSM adopted, in the light of then existing political conditions, for (c), but without ruling out (b) or even (a) should these conditions change (or in other parts of the world where conditions were different).

But this was never understood as simply putting an "X" on a ballot paper and letting the Socialist Party and its MPs establish socialism for workers. The assumption always was that there would be a "conscious" and active socialist majority outside Parliament, democratically organised both in a mass socialist political party and, at work, in ex-trade union type organisations ready to keep production going during and immediately after the winning of political control.
Having adopted (c), various other options follow.

Obviously, if there's a socialist candidate people who want socialism are urged to vote for that candidate. But what if there's no socialist candidate? Voting for any other candidate is against the principles. So what to do? The basic choice is/was between abstention and spoiling the ballot paper (by writing "socialism" across it). The policy adopted and confirmed ever since was the latter, ie a sort of write-in vote for socialism.

The first step towards taking over the means of production, therefore, must be to take over control of the state, and the easiest way to do this is via elections. But elections are merely a technique, a method. The most important precondition to taking political control out of the hands of the owning class is that the useful majority are no longer prepared to be ruled and exploited by a minority; they must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule-they must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control.

We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don't suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don't necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group such as ourselves, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is such a party that will take political control via the ballot box, but since it will in effect be the useful majority organised democratically and politically for socialism it is the useful majority, not the party as such as something separate from that majority, that carries out the socialist transformation of society.

They will neutralise the state and its repressive forces and as stated there is no question of forming a government , and then proceed to take over the means of production for which they will also have organised themselves at their places of work.

This done, the repressive state is disbanded and its remaining administrative and service features, reorganised on a democratic basis, are merged with the organisations which the useful majority will have formed to take over and run production, to form the democratic administrative structure of the state-free society of common ownership that socialism will be.

This is perhaps a less romantic idea of the socialist revolution but a thousand times more realistic. Which is why we think this is the way it will happen.

When the time comes the socialist majority will use the ballot box since it will be the obvious thing to do, and nobody will be able to prevent them or persuade them not to. At that time it will be the anti-electoralists who will be irrelevant. A real democracy is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of leadership. It is about all of us having a direct say in the decisions that affect us. Leadership means handing over the right to make those decisions to someone else. We have at our disposal today the very means, in the form of modern telecommunications, that could enable us to resuscitate the ancient model of Athenian democracy on a truly global level.