Green Lairds

 In Scotland, the average price of land, according to research by the estate agent Strutt & Parker, jumped by 87% in the last year. Some estates have seen a 333% price increase since 2018. 

Many of the landowners are colloquially and pejoratively titled “green lairds”, echoing the Highland clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

 In many cases, land is bought and trees are planted to “offset” the owner’s carbon emissions from elsewhere. The new Somerset-based venture Real Wild Estates recently said its business model was “making nature pay, by delivering sustainable business returns” for investors. The investment companies Aviva and Standard Life have also bought land to plant forests and restore peatland. The land bought for offsetting is often framed as derelict – an empty wilderness devoid of community. Rarely does corporate rewilding consider the displacement of communities living and working on the land. It is also having impacts on agriculture: threatening crofting in Scotland.

 Langholm Moor community buyout bought 5,300 acres of land to put back under communal ownership. Another inspiring initiative can be found on the Isle of Ulva, which was brought back into community ownership in 2018. In 2015, the population had fallen to just five people. Now they’re seeing the “repeopling” of the island.

 Rewilding should not be about profit and offsets, remote and alien from rural communities. The value of a real, democratic rewilding is that it doesn’t just to  sequester carbon dioxide – but for people too.

Rewilding, or just a greenwashed land grab? It all depends on who benefits | Eleanor Salter | The Guardian

A Message for Scottish Workers

 Let every socialist face the fact that ‘patriotism’ is not socialism, and that the achievement of independence nationality, even up to the highest professed ideals of patriotism, namely the complete political separation of Scotland from Britain, would not ‘free Scotland’ one iota in any sense satisfactory to the international socialist and absolutely demanded by socialist principles. This age-long struggle of  ‘patriots’ to ‘free Scotland’ is, therefore, from the Socialist Party's point of view, an utter chimera which, if it could be achieved, would be to the wretched wage-slaves of Scotland. The international socialist who happens to be a Scot can, and does feel profound sympathy for all the struggles of his or her countrymen and even their pathetic efforts to achieve the utter futility—from the strictly socialist point of view—of sovereignty, which can excite pity for their useless sufferings, even though he or she cannot take part in their misdirected exertions. 

In common with the rest of capitalism's half-baked left-wing. Nationalists  are utterly blind to the real problem. They see all evils only in the shape of private capitalism — the source of working class poverty is not to be found in the fact that we, as wage workers, are exploited by capital, but in the identity of capital's owners. Nationalists are concerned with the shadow of exploitation not its substance. Despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary, collected over the past century and more in every country in the world, they maintain that capital in the hands of the state performs the miraculous feat of transforming itself from the exploiter of wage labour into its servant.

Would the working class be worse or better off with independence? Would there be anything to choose between the two “solutions”? Surely, in both a sovereign Scotland  or a United Kingdom, the workers’ standard of living would be much the same. So would the slums, the unemployment and the other problems of capitalist society. And world socialism would remain the only solution to these problems. The only difference would be the colour of the flag that would fly over the government buildings in Edinburgh: Union Jack or Scottish Saltire?

The problems of the working class in Ireland were, and remain, the problems of the working class of the world and originate in the class stratification of capitalist society. Given capitalism, these problems were inevitable; they could not then, no more than they can now, be “planned” out of the system. They did not arise out of the “evil” intentions, nor the blundering or stupidity of governments, “home” or “foreign”, no more than they could be planned, prayed or fought away by brave, sincere or wise men. They were the facts of capitalism and would continue to exist for as long as the working class, the only class with an economic interest in bringing about a real change, accepted that system.

Our sincere urging to our fellow Scottish wage-slaves is, to let them use their remaining strength to shake off the leeches of capitalism, that are sucking their lifeblood, instead of hastening their destruction in a mad effort to set up Tweedledum in place of Tweedledee. 

What Is and What Could Be

 

The obvious barrier to the socialist transformation of society is the simple fact that most workers are not socialists and indeed most accept capitalism and believe it can’t be changed. Businesses are run for profit and society is divided into classes so it is believed these things are ‘natural’. Most view socialists as utopian idealists. Even successful struggles in the class war do not automatically lead to those involved drawing socialist conclusions even though it provides fertile ground for this to happen. For this reason, the  Socialist Party need to advance the vision of how society can be transformed even as they engage in common struggles. The history and traditions of the working class must be commemorated for a new generation. 

The ruling class controls the formation and promotion of ideas, owning the media and being in charge of education and political institutions.  As Marx put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’. The generally-held ideas of society reflect the way society is organised. 

If socialism cannot be created on behalf of workers as we hold and must be the act of the working class itself, how can this happen when the working class is so dominated by capitalist ideas? We accept that our fellow worker's  ideas clearly cannot simply be changed on a mass scale by any campaign by the Socialist Party. The socialist intellectual may  be a miner or factory workers or an academic university professor. The socialist intellectual must keep his or her eye on the main task, the formation and circulation of revolutionary ideas.

It is often assumed that the more people suffer, the more revolutionary their resistance grows. But if this were so, then the revolution would have happened long ago. In fact, it is not suffering, but the experience and lessons of struggling against exploitation and oppression that is the basis for the growth of socialist ideas.

the 

The central tenet of socialism is the assertion that the working class is the sole historical agency for the achievement of socialism, and that it is upon its conscious practice that the possibility of revolution depends. For the Socialist Party, the possibility of revolution rests upon the conscious and free acceptance of socialism by the working class. If workers’ struggle results largely in defeat, then workers – with little control over their own working lives – feel that society cannot be changed. But if victory follows victory, then workers’ confidence in their ability to change their own lives increases, and they become more able to see that alternatives to capitalism are possible and then socialist ideas can spread like wildfire. The Socialist Party seeks liberty, equality, and fraternity for workers’ all human beings, regardless of race, religion or origin. 

None of this means that the attempt by the Socialist Party to spread our ideas is not necessary. Socialist ideas have to be present to be picked up, and an organisation is required to inform, articulate and generalise from these worker’s experiences to prove their relevance and point the way forward. A working-class not guided by socialist theory can play into the hands of its class enemies. If workers do not believe the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class, then they will look for salvation from above, or, worse still, come to the conclusion that no emancipation is possible at all. The struggles of those who see beyond the limitations of reformism are bound to be difficult. But the development of capitalism, with its inexorable laws, provided the foundation upon which the ideas of socialism must survive, no matter how weakly or what the setbacks. People want to develop a political consciousness, a sense of fellowship, and a satisfaction of human and cultural needs, within the present society and within a radical social movement that is possible.

No choice but socialism

 

The Socialist Party can understand why many want Boris and the Tories out. They’re an arrogant lot who think they’ve got some divine right to rule while grinding down the poor and lining their own pockets. But it is better to act on the basis of reason rather than such a gut reaction.

The question to ask is: will their replacement by another group of politicians make any difference in our lives?

The argument that it will is based on the illusion that governments have with power to improve economic and social conditions which they don’t actually possess and that all that is needed is to replace one set of politicians who accept inequality by another set who claim that they don’t. Our argument is that what happens in the economic and social field is determined not by what governments want but by the blind workings of the economic laws of the profit system. In other words, it is not governments that control the way the economy works but the way the economy works that places limits on what governments can do and indeed, in the end, virtually dictates what they do. Governments exist to run the political side of the profit system but the profit system can only be run as a system in which priority has to be given to the profit-making. "Profits first” is a basic economic law that all governments must respect.

 

So any government, whatever its political colour or the promises and aspirations of its members, has to do this. This is why a Keir Starmer  government will be no different in practice from the Tory government that has just been voted out, not that the Labour Party is against the profit system even in words.

Maybe you are too young to remember the last Labour government but we can assure you that, if there is a need to maintain or increase profit levels, the new Starmer government will cut back spending on education and the NHS and will discourage trade-union action—just as the earlier Labour Party governments did. If you don’t believe us, just wait and see

 

The striking difference between our approach and the reformist approach is the contrast between our programme and campaigning and that of the various other parties calling themselves socialist. We advocated a fundamental change in the basis of society. They merely offered reforms. We stand for socialism and nothing else. We make no promises as to what “we” would do to make things better under capitalism. We simply say that capitalism can't be reformed to work in the interests of the majority and that the way-out is to get rid of the profit system and replace it by a system based on common ownership and democratic control geared to meeting needs not making profits.

In a bid to get as many votes as possible the Left promised the moon. In other words, they play the game of conventional electioneering politics to the full. However, all their promises are pie-in-the-sky in the sense that capitalism could not afford them. This does not stop these parties entering into great detail about what they would do if elected. The Left are jokers, insulting people’s intelligence. They just pluck figures out of the air to make what they consider attractive promises—but which most people consider ridiculous—without even checking that their various promises are compatible with each other. People are not stupid and clearly do not take these promises seriously. Do they take us for fools? The answer is, yes, they do. As Leninists, they believe that ordinary workers are only capable of acquiring what they call a "trade union consciousness" means which mean wanting more under capitalism. So that’s what they offer to provide for workers, knowing full well that capitalism will be unable to deliver, in the hope that they can get the workers with themselves as the leaders to overthrow capitalism.

People are quite capable of understanding the idea of socialism. What could be easier to understand than a society where productive resources belong to no one but are democratically controlled and used to produce goods and services directly to meet people’s needs and not for profit? People certainly understand very well when someone is just dangling bait before them.

What do we mean by socialism?

 

Most people’s ideas of what socialism would be like have been formed wither by the tyranny in the former Soviet Union or the experiences of the Labour Party or other ‘left-wing’ governments, a view that socialism is a one-party bureaucracy or a mishmash of palliative reforms. The Socialist Party, however, has as its task to educate the millions of our fellow workers on how society can be reorganised to put an end to poverty and injustice once and for all. Once socialism has been achieved and capitalism has been ended worldwide, the immense resources of our planet will be harnessed for the peoples’ needs. The State will wither away and a  new era of true freedom and a united humanity. We face two choices – either accept capitalism or set out to overturn this system. 

A great unanswered question with far-reaching implications and consequences for the world is why the socialist movement has not made substantial progress. Socialism is not a complicated idea even if not widely understood. It has not gained significant support from the working class. The socialist movement is weak and uninfluential. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue? But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs, since mankind makes its own history and chooses what to do. The Socialist Party does not tell us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, and what course lies open to us. It is not here dismissing the importance of achieving reforms or protecting civil liberties, but rather correcting the misconception that socialism can be won through improving or democratising part of the system without getting rid of the capitalist system in its entirety. Socialism is about working people being willing and able to fight for a society free of exploitation a. If socialism is not about creating a society without exploitation then it is merely another word for capitalism. And if working people are not willing or able to fight for such a society then, no matter what meaning we give the word, socialism is unattainable.

It is time to act and show the power of the workers. Time to prove we are not pawns in a deathly game of chess. We have the power of the vote. Our power also lies in the factories, in the trade unions and outside in our communities and streets. It is time to develop the will to use that power. Unity of purpose and action can develop power and a fighting force that no other power can destroy. We have to prove we are free men and women. Working people, united and determined, are strong enough by their own actions to banish capitalism and pave the path toward a new, free socialist way of life.

Being a socialist consists not merely in recognising the trend of social evolution from capitalism to socialism, and to hasten the day. It consists not merely holding the vision that life will be an improvement with socialism; that human behaviour, crippled in the class society, will assert itself and change for the better. Being a socialist consists in not waiting for its actual realisation, but in striving, here and now, insofar as the circumstances of class society permit, to live like a socialist under capitalism according to the higher standards of the socialist future.

The economic foundation of capitalist class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State and its substitution in which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for the people. Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution is the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal. The objective of socialists is the abolition of man’s exploitation by man. Socialism can only come about when the working class itself takes control of the means of producing wealth and uses this to transform society.

You cannot build an island of socialism in a sea of capitalism. Attempts by small groups to cut themselves off and lead their lives according to socialistic ideas always fail  in the long term – for a start, the economic and ideological pressures are always there.

 

SOCIALISTS AGAINST THE LABOUR PARTY

 

The Socialist Party remembers that the politicians of the world work hard to try to maintain a social system which operates directly against the interests of the overwhelming majority of those people. We know that the leaders will lie and betray to protect the interests of their own national ruling class and that, if capitalism demands it, they will have little trouble with their consciences in sending millions of workers to their deaths. Only a complete change in the basis of society can abolish the very material Hell that capitalism has brought us to.

The cynical, the pessimistic, the gloomy-minded, and the supporters of the present rotten foundation of society, observing these facts, are apt to jump to the conclusion that nothing  will be done to-day without having money and “status” held up as a prize to provide incentive for the courageous and the skilful. A careful examination of the facts, however, is rewarded by the gratifying information, so full of hope for the future, that the bulk of the important things done to-day, in every direction, for the benefit of humanity, are not done with the object of securing either place or pecuniary advantage , and often foreshadow to the doer social loss, poverty and misery. Of such things are the great industrial discoveries, the great works in literature and other forms of art. When the social organisation has been cleared of the cankerous influence of private ownership in the means of production, with the limitations such a state of affairs imposes upon human activity, everybody will be free to exert their capacities to the full in whatever way they like best, with the only condition that such activity shall not be to the hurt of the rest of the people.

Exploitation by the capitalist class, together with the evils that flow from it, spreads like a plague.

We are often told by supporters of the Labour Party that we are out of touch with the workers. That we do not participate in or encourage them in their daily struggles on the industrial field, nor support them in their efforts to gain legislative reforms.

To test the truth of this, it is necessary to examine the nature and constitution of the two parties: The Socialist Party and the Labour Party. The first is composed of working men and women who have realised the slave position of their class and are organising on carefully defined principles with a definite object clearly stated. The principles and objects are logically evolved from ascertained facts patent to everyone, but so clearly worded that they cannot be misunderstood. As it is a condition of membership that the worker shall understand and endorse the principles, every member is in a position to participate intelligently in a movement that is really democratic. In other words, the members control the activities of the party.

The Labour Party is the opposite of this in character and constitution. True, it is composed mainly of working-class men and women; but few of them understand how completely they are enslaved by the wages system ; or the necessity for its abolition. Beyond the understood practice of electing leaders to Parliament, and the non-Socialist objects of nationalising industries, nothing is clearly defined. This lack of principles and socialist objective, permits a wide freedom of action to ambitious schemers for power. The result is confusion, not only in the minds of the rank and file, but also among the leaders themselves.

Every question that is dragged to the front in Parliament and Press is responsible for differences among the Labour leaders. Right and Left Wings, and sometimes a centre as well, take up different attitudes, neither of which is in accord with an analysis of the case from the working-class viewpoint.

This confusion, as can readily be seen, is due to the absence of any clearly-defined basis, outlining the position and objective of the organisation.

The lack of unity among the leaders, however, does not prevent them from lecturing the workers on the need for unity among themselves. The contradictory and useless reforms advocated from time to time by innumerable leaders, and would-be leaders, form the basis of Labour action—a foundation of shifting sands on which the workers are exhorted to erect and maintain a united organisation.

Contrast this confusion with the attitude of the Socialist Party. Questions that agitate the public are always analysed from the standpoint that the workers are a slave-class—that there can be no identity of interests between them and the class that owns the means of life and enslaves them. If the questions involve capitalist interests only, we refuse to take up sides, but always point out their unimportance for the worker. The clearly-defined position laid down in the Party’s principles enables every member to analyse any question prominently before the public, or any reform advocated by politicians.

The Labour Party encourages the workers to struggle for reforms within the present system. The Socialist Party tells the workers that capitalism is the capitalists’ own system, and if the latter want it to last, it is their business to patch it up. Obviously they will endeavour to make working-class conditions more endurable in proportion as a genuine working-class party develops and threatens their system.

How far the leaders of the Labour Party are out of touch with the workers can easily be seen by a study of their activities in Parliament. Most of the debates in which they take part have no bearing on working-class conditions, and are not of the slightest interest to the workers. Parliament for the leaders is merely a hunting-ground for prominence and positions.

The pamphlets and periodicals of the Labour Party have never explained socialism to the workers other than a mixture of sentimentalism, hero-worship and quite orthodox comments on current capitalist politics. Its tone is of the intellectuals. Insignificant ideas magnified by ostentatious phraseology constitute one of its chief assets—its fantastic ideas of reform, and its ultra dignified philosophy on social questions carry no message which the average worker can understand; it would indeed be surprising if he or she could.