The Co-Op Cop Out

“We are private companies that work in the same market as everybody else. We are exposed to the same conditions as our competitors.” - Mondragón’s human-resources chief

Many regard the co-operative movement as being in some way linked up with socialism. Socialists have come to realise that co-operatives cannot be used as a means for establishing socialism and that they only flourish to the extent that they can be successfully accommodated within capitalism.

The idea of the workers’ co-operative has flourished since the early days of the labour movement and has been seen by many as a possible alternative to nationalisation. The originators of the co-operative movement saw it as a movement that would eventually out-compete and replace ordinary capitalist businesses, leading to the coming of “the Co-operative Commonwealth” (which is an alternative name for socialism occasionally used by both Karl Marx and the Socialist Party). The co-ops would constitute, as it were, little oases in the desert of capitalism. They anticipated that the movement would grow until finally the workers would have achieved their emancipation. Essentially, each community would own its own means and instruments of production and each member of a community would work to produce what had been agreed was needed and in return would be issued with a note certifying for how many hours he had worked; he could then use this note to obtain from the community's stock of consumer goods any product or products which had taken the same number of hours to produce. (G.D.H. Cole was another who proposed a variant, that he called “Guild Socialism”. Although Cole’s blueprint did provide for close links between consumers and producers which could be interpreted as “production directly for use”, it still envisaged the continuation of finance, prices and incomes. It was to come into being through the guilds eventually out-competing capitalist industries in the marketplace)

Because co-operatives have to compete with ordinary capitalist businesses on the same terms as them, so they are subject to the same competitive pressures, to keep costs down and to to maximise the difference between sales revenue and costs (called “profits” in ordinary businesses, but “surplus” by the co-op). The co-operative movement was out-competed and is now trying to survive on the margins as a niche for “ethical” consumers and savers, leaving the great bulk of production, distribution and banking in the hands of ordinary profit-seeking businesses. Co-operatives did not provide a real solution to the workers' situation as it was incapable of providing an answer in the interests of all workers. At no time did it question the capitalist production relationships - it questions only superficial features (monopolies, competition, etc.).
Whether or not a place of work takes the form of a workers’ co-operative can have no bearing whatsoever on the pressures which compel it to meet the economic conditions for its existence. Nor do the details of how it run its affairs matter. It can be a kibbutz or a co-operative taking decisions collectively; it can be a monastery producing fortified wine; it can be a conventional business; in whatever way they are internally structured, authoritarian or democratic, and in whatever scale they may operate, as a part of social production they can only operate within the pattern of capitalist buying and selling.

In what way does the ownership of the factory by the employees differ from ownership by a capitalist? A co-op has to buy its raw materials on the market, along with every other company. It does not get steel, oil, copper, coal, any cheaper because it is owned by its employees. In buying in its machinery, equipment, materials, premises, transport etc., and in paying its rates etc, any unit, including any workers’ co-operative, must pay all these costs. How could any imagined “socialistic” unit operate without power supplies? In its application of socialist principles in production and consumption, is it going to persuade the utility companies to provide supplies free?

In addition to this income, the individuals working in the unit must have income to cover personal living costs such as rent or mortgage repayments, food, clothes, leisure activities, and so on and on. This is inescapable. Regardless of their make-up, production or service co-ops can only continue their existence whilst they are economically viable; that is, where income exceeds expenditure. If expenditure exceeds income, then inevitably they disappear.

A co-op has to sell its products on the market, along with every other company. It does not get higher prices for its goods because it is owned by its employees. It has to compete with every other manufacturer in terms of price, delivery dates, quality etc. In order to compete over any length of time, a co-op will have to invest in new plant and equipment. To do this it will require a large amount of capital. If this is obtained by borrowing, then the co-op will have to convince the banks that it is a viable and profitable concern, run along good business lines. It will be under even greater pressure to prove that it is viable just because it is a different sort of enterprise. Of course, it may decide to raise the capital needed for investment out of the profits. Inside the factory, there are no owners other than the workers. But they buy goods at the same price as other capitalist concerns. They sell goods at the same price as other capitalist firms. They compete flat out with other capitalist firms. If they are to make enough surplus to re-invest, or to convince the banks they are good for a big loan, how are they to do it?They are in a trap. Either they sack some of their fellows; or they increase their own intensity of work; or they take a wage cut. Elected workers’ councils would be in exactly the same position of having to lay off staff, if there is no market for the goods they produce.

Whichever avenue they choose, their decision has two effects. Firstly they have attacked their own living standards. Secondly, they are acting as an unconscious argument in the hands of other bosses against their work-forces. If an employer in another factory is faced with a demand for, say, a wage rise, he will immediately reply that he can’t afford it and point to a worker co-operative and say: ‘they work for less than you are demanding. It seems a perfectly reasonable wage to them, with no boss, why are you demanding from me more?’ The capitalist has been provided with an excellent propaganda weapon against his own employee demands as a way of mitigating the class struggle and persuading workers that they have an interest in accepting ‘realistic’ (i.e. lower) wages. Co-ops exhibit the exact same vices as capitalist firms.
The logic of capitalism dooms the efforts of those who seek co-operatives. The co-operative movement cannot solve the basic economic problems of the workers as a whole, or even of the co-operative societies' own members. Where it was a success it was merely the success of essentially capitalist undertakings. There is a tendency for worker co-ops to resemble more and more over time the conventional capitalist business model and the case of Mondragon - the largest worker co-op conglomerate in the world - would seem to bear this out. It has grown and has departed more and more from its original egalitarian principles and Mondragon has been noted for employing heavy hand tactics against its own two-tier workforce.

Co-operatives can only ever involve a minority of workers, and the more they are integrated into the capitalist economy and its profit- seeking, the more their members will have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did - what is known as "self-managed exploitation". The fact is that there is no way out for workers within the capitalist system. At most co-operatives can only make their situation a little less unbearable. We cannot self-manage capitalism in our own interests and the only way we can really live without exploitation is by abolishing capitalism.

The worker cannot claim ownership and control of the mine or the factory because these are huge production organisations, part of a wider interlinked network and cannot be divided into separate pieces. This is the reason why socialists demand common ownership of the means of production – the land, factories, railway, etc. To suit collective work, collective property. The big issues are not decided “on the shop floor”, to use a militant phrase much loved by advocates of “self management”. There should be collective ownership and collective control of what is collectively produced.

Let us now bury capitalism

What Is Socialism? It is not nationalisation

“It was our lifelong dream coming true. It was a utopia. We were for it 100 per cent. What celebrations there were! The industry which had broken generations of miners was ours at last.”

On the 1st January 1947 miners took an unofficial holiday. The red flag was hoisted over the pits and the miners social clubs rang to choruses of the workers’ anthems of the Red Flag and the Internationale. The euphoria did not last.

Nationalisation (or in some cases municipalisation), is sometimes called “state socialism”, but more accurately it amounts to a form of state capitalism. The Post Office, would serve as an example of a “socialist” public service or the National Health Service. Or the BBC. But in the past we have had coal mines, the railways, the electricity and gas networks and tele-communications all owned by the state. Nationalisation has been wrongly equated with socialism. State ownership does not mean socialism. Nationalisation is a complete distortion of the idea of common ownership. The Labour Government has not only performed an essential service for British capitalism but at the same time has been able to hold in check the class aspirations of the British workers by representing such measure as the beginnings of socialism. So-called socialists demnding the re-nationalisation of the privatised industries and the new fresh nationalisations of key parts of the economy are committing an old fraud. Nationalisation does not facilitate the revolutionary task and are state-capitalist measures, not socialist ones.

At the dawn of capitalism, when the individual factory was usually quite small, it was normal for the capitalist to fill all three functions of ownership: he owned it, controlled it (in the sense of making all the operative decisions on the policy on the firm) and personally managed it. Today, in all the big corporations, ownership by shareholders is usually divorced from control by the big financial or and both are far removed from management which is exercised by (highly paid) salaried managerial employees. Private enterprise has become less private, less enterprising. Instead of the image of the self-confident businessman, owning his own factory, we now have the giant, impersonal monopolies, reliant on state contracts or subsidies. So what the form of ownership is not the decisive question; what matters are the interests in which industry is being run. Instead of individual ownership, the capitalist class as a whole owned the railways, the mines and energy producers.

Nationalised industries are said to be for the profit of the community but they are for the benefit the capitalist class and when they no longer serve that function, they are privatised. Certain industries, delivered up to the greed of private companies, become instruments for the exploitation of other sections of the capitalist class, and so powerful they grow that they disturb the whole bourgeois system. Capitalism is forced to make attempts to overcome its own anarchy of production if it is to continue to survive under modern conditions. The first attempts in this direction are represented by the organisation of cartels and trusts; later the direct intervention of the state become increasingly necessary. On the world market, state control is needed by the capitalist, in order to render the national industries better able to compete. While many saw nationalisation as a step towards the socialist planned economy it was merely the natural consequence of the modernisation of the out-of-date industries by the capitalist state in order to render British capitalist industry as a whole more able to compete. The whole reason for the nationalisation measures of the Labour Government 1945-51 was that the recovery of the whole economy would have been endangered without cheaper access to transport and fuel.

Naturally the whole process of state control over industry remains in the hands of the capitalist class and its representatives. In Britain the management of the nationalised industries stayed in the hands of much the same people who ran them previously—plus a number of loyal labour lieutenants of capitalism who were rewarded for services rendered with jobs. By December, 1949 of 131 names listed by Mr. Attlee on central nationalised boards, sixty-one also held directorships in private companies, twenty-three were knights, nine were lords, and three were generals. It may not be altogether unfair to suggest that their devotion to the socialist idea was not primary. In such a state-controlled economy the profit motive—the fundamental cause of capitalist crises—naturally remains untouched. In fact the control itself exists solely for the maintenance and the increase of profits.

In capitalist society a private industry only becomes a State service in order to better serve the interest of the bourgeoisie. We witnessed that with the state take-over of the failed banks of Northen Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland and the Halifax Bank of Scotland to preserve the integrity of the financial sector as a whole. Nationalising the banks have been instrumental in maintaining the class structure of British society. It was a nationalisation which feathered the bed of the capitalists and the banking oligarchs remained safe in their beds. The capitalist bank nationalisations is the clearest proof that capitalists are prepared to concede formal ownership of the means of production to the state provided that it is in what they call ’the national interest’ (i.e. in the interests of their class as a whole, as represented by their state). Ownership is a secondary matter; there are all kinds of private, collective and state forms of ownership - what is important is the class reality which lies behind these legal arrangements in that the capitalist class is still in power and in control of its capitalist state.

State employees, like workers in private employment, strike and engage in a struggle with the exploiters. Even if the new state owners desired to improve the lot of those employed would they be able to do so? The work-places of the state and municipality are prisons quite as bad as private workshops, if not worse. But those “revolutionaries” will have to mount guard over the general interests of society served by the socialised industries, and in particular over the interests of those directly engaged in them. The state ownership of the Post Office in this country since the 18th century has meant neither improved conditions for the post office workers, nor any advantage to the working class as a whole. We witnessed the same despotic rule and saw that those who worked most and hardest would still get the least remuneration.

There is no question of syndicalism or “guild socialism”: each factory and work-place will not be owned by its own workers. They will be “owned” by the working class collectively. Nor will the question of competition (and conflicts) between various factories arise through a system of “”market socialism.”

Surely, today, nobody believes that thanks to a British Rail or a National Coal Board, we will reach the New Jerusalem. We have learned from the political failures of the past just how disastrous the idea is that socialism can be established over time by a “working class government” through nationalisation and state control. Yet nationalisation under workers’ control is the now the cry being raised in some quarters but it is a call for the working class to undertake the management of their own exploitation.

Within this model wage labour would still function and it follows that so too would capital. Capital accumulation out of surplus value would be the overriding imperative of this system. At the end of the day what we have is just another class-based society parading as one in which the means of production are purportedly publically-owned but actually owned by the state-apparatus. It is the Left’s mistaken belief mistaken belief that “socialism” is simply a change in administration and so if nationalisation gives the appearence of worker-control it must be well down the road to socialism.

Although they left no detailed blueprint of a socialist society, the viewpoint of Marx and Engels, was that socialism would be a new mode of social production that would in essence be an “association of free and equal producers", not a system where the administrator of production and distribution would be the state, but rather the producers and consumers themselves to whom these functions of ownership and control would fall. The path to socialism is not through nationalisation, public corporations or even trade union control, but through a fundamental change in class relations. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx defined socialism. To-day there is no difficulty whatever in creating wealth far in excess of our requirements and the motto, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs,” now ceases to be utopian and becomes a reality.

On this Day

April 17 in 618 -- On this day fifty-three monks were burned alive in their refectory by a gang of armed women seeking revenge for being cheated out of their pasture rights, on the island of Eigg.

Dear Old London Town

The plight of the London homeless grows worse by the day with more and more families forced to get by in cramped bed and breakfast accommodation and yet a walk through the up-market sections of such districts as Belgravia, Kensington, Chelsea and Mayfair shows many desirable residences lying vacant with their owners living elsewhere. '"Belgravia is becoming a village with fewer and fewer people in it," said Alistair Boscawen, a local real estate agent. He works in "the nuts area" of London, as he puts it, "where the house prices are bonkers" - anywhere from $7.5 million to $75 million he said.' (New York Times, 1 April) Parts of dear old London town have become far too dear for the working class. RD

The Power of the Vote

An essential part of the right-wing criticism has been an attempt to prove that socialism is incompatible with democracy, that socialism cannot be but authoritarian. Marx has been presented as advocating violent revolution, totally opposed to the system of parliamentary elections. This has also been propagated by Leftists of various shades who claim that elections are a farce and the proletariat cannot come to power without the use of force. It was for this reason that they self-style themselves as ‘revolutionaries’ This picture is totally wrong. Marx actually looked upon the ballot box as a means of achieving the socialist revolution, after the democratic rights had been won.

As his co-thinker Engels wrote in the 1895 introduction to Marx’s The Class Struggles in France “The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat.” Engels also said that workers should "to convert the ballot box from a means of fraud into a means of liberation"

Nor was Marx an advocate of vanguard minorities seizing power in the name of the working class and on their behalf.

Engels in his 1890 Preface to the Communist Manifesto writes “For the ultimate triumph of the ideas set forth in the Manifesto,Marx relied solely and exclusively on the intellectual development of the working class, as it necessarily had to ensue from united action and discussion”

Marx did not intend his message for select disciples but directed it at the working class as a whole. To Marx, the workers when they become socialists do not become different from the rest of the working class. Their change in thought is an evidence of gradual transformation in the working-class movement. They remain a part of the workers, struggling along with them for emancipation.

The End of the State

Continuing to correct some misunderstandings about the ideas of Karl Marx.

Most of the misconceptions regarding socialism have been propagated by those who wish to emulate the Russian Revolution. It is unfortunate that when their so-called “marxism” became the official ideology of the ruling class in Russia the anti-state sentiments of Marx and Engels have been downplayed or downright distorted.


Workers State

“The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong - into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.” Engels

Neither Marx or Engels ever advocated a "worker's state". Both wanted to use the state's apparatus used to overthrow the bourgeoisie, at which point it would have served its purpose and would be dismantled.

Many on the Left are convinced that Russia was some sort of "workers state’ albeit some qualifying it as being deformed. A "Workers State" is not actually a state controlled by the workers, but a state controlled by a vanguard party in the name of the workers. The 'workers state’ meant governmental rule by a vanguard party, the Bolsheviks, and by adding control over the economy by nationalisation to the political control of the government, the totalitarian rule over all of society emerged in full.

“Workers State” is a contradiction in terms, but if it is to mean anything it would have to mean that the workers controlled the state; which could only be done through some democratic mechanism. But the workers never controlled the state in Russia. Within a few years of the Bolsheviks seizing power in November 1917 they had suppressed all other parties and established a one-party dictatorship.

Marx explains that although revolution the proletariat will be “raised to a governing class” this has nothing to do with creating a dictatorship of a political sect, but is rather a claim that the proletariat will use “general means of coercion” to remove the bourgeoisie’s power (by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, disbanding the standing army, and so forth). It is the entire proletariat that is to exercise this power. In reply to a question raised by the anarchist Bakunin, “Will all 40 million [German workers] be members of the government?” Marx responds, “Certainly! For the system starts with the self-government of the communities.”

The purpose of seeking political action and capturing the state-machine is not to take office and form a government but simply and solely to take state power out of the hands of the capitalist class since it is through controlling this organ that the capitalist class is able to maintain its possession of the means of production.

“ In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they [proletarians] must overthrow the State” German Ideology

A SENSE OF VALUES?

It speaks volumes for the media's sense of values when it can report the following fraud, but remain silent about a much greater con trick. 'A Florida billionaire, William Koch, 72, has won $380,000 (£247,000) compensation after 24 fakes were discovered among 2,6000 bottles of vintage Bordeaux wine that he bought for $3.7 million.' (Times, 13 April) The greater con is of course capitalist society itself which can have people starving whilst a useless parasite can spend millions of dollars. RD

Understanding Marx

David McLellan, formerly professor of political theory at the University of Kent wrote: “Marx’s writings have too often been reduced to ill-digested slogans… it is not surprising that Marx still remains so misunderstood.”

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

“No revolution can be made by a party, But by a nation [i.e. by everybody]” Karl Marx

The “dictatorship of the proletariat" is not a very useful term for socialists to use. It is unnecessary baggage for today’s socialists to carry. For a start when Marx was writing the term “dictatorship” didn't have the tyrannical connotations it does today. Marx didn't mean a dictatorship in the modern sense of the word. He meant a community in which the whole working class would set the political agenda and use the political machinery to act in it's interests. Writers like Hal Draper have addressed the authoritarian distortion of the term.

To-day it is loaded with prejudice and/or misunderstanding. Many now steer clear of employing the phrase because of the way it has been employed to justify despotism.

Marx writes in his Gotha critique “Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

So it is worth noting that he is not talking about an independent stage between capitalism and communism, but rather the period of revolutionary transformation of one into the other, rather than into some other system which is them transformed into communism. It is not yet socialism.

Perhaps the better term for socialists to use is “social democracy” which according to Rosa Luxemburg in Leninism or Marxism? pamphlet “begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party."

The dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule of the working class, not over the working class.
The Socialist Party does not seek the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', but the abolition of the proletariat!

A nice little nest-egg

Always the first to attack workers’ pensions rights, the capitalist class have one rule for us and another for themselves.
James Crosby and Andy Hornby – two of the three former HBOS chiefs damned by a parliamentary commission for “catastrophic failures of management” – were on pension schemes that accrued benefits at twice the rate of average workers.
The “executive section” of the HBOS pension scheme allowed them to pocket 1/30th of their final salary for each year they worked at the firm, compared with 1/60th for front-line staff.Hornby, eligible to start drawing down a £240,000-a-year HBOS pension when he turns 50 in four years time.

Ged Nichols, general-secretary of the Accord union, which represents HBOS staff, said the pension arrangements were “absolutely disgusting”. He said: “Even with James Crosby reducing his pension, for a front-line member of staff, they would still have to work for more than 20 years to get what Mr Crosby and some of the other former directors get as a pension for one year.”

Food for thought

Just in case you were waiting for the unions to bring about socialism, in Toronto the Labourers' union is suing the Carpenter's union alleging dirty tactics in the raiding wars going on in Toronto's construction industry. Obviously, do not expect a united front to end capitalism any time soon. Leave that to the World Socialist Movement!
Marx is often criticized for his statements relating to the growing immiseration of the working class because things have improved materially for workers in the northern hemisphere though not nearly as much as the capitalist class has improved its wealth. But the real evidence to corroborate Marx is that as soon as the way was paved for liberalizing capital, the owning class rushed into areas of weak laws to reproduce the conditions prevalent in the nineteenth century. Any description of third world working conditions could easily be included in M & E's descriptions of those times. The New York Times (March 3/ 2013) reports on the conditions of India's children working in the mines. Despite a landmark 2010 law mandating all children in India between the ages of 6 and 14 to be in school, some 28 million are working instead. One story tells of a seventeen-year-old who has worked in unbelievably unsafe conditions in the mines 'since he was a kid' and expects his four younger brothers to follow suit, and lives in a tarp-and-stick shaft near the mine without running water, toilet facilities, or heat. Where are those critics of Marx now ? What do they say? John Ayers

To a new world

Capitalism makes humanity suffer hunger, poverty and deprivation, bloody wars, oppression and state-approved torture. It destroys nature ruthlessly and our destiny should we not stop it on its this course, will be barbarism. A caring capitalism is like the unicorn: everyone's heard about it but nobody's seen one! Science and technology increases the slavery of mankind instead of emancipating it. The fetters of private and state property and the nation-state on the development of means of production have become unbearable. This situation means that the only way out before humanity’s actual existence becomes threatened is socialism. Enough is enough; we don't have to live this way.


The emancipation of humanity lies in socialism. Only the working class has the ability and the potential of putting an end to capitalism. "Ordinary" people hold enormous latent power in our hands. The ruling class are forever fearful of us discovering, and acting upon, that powerful truth. We do not have to put up with exploitation, discrimination, and oppression. We can look forward to the day working people - those of us who make society run - take political power in our own hands and run all of society! We can take our dreams of peace, equality and freedom and make them a reality. History is filled with examples of what people can achieve when they work together for the good of everyone. Our future is bright, and great struggles, with great outcomes are before us.

Food for thought

We've recently seen a massive outpouring of grief over the death of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, a man who, in the opinion of many, did an excellent job. Socialists can agree that he did indeed do an excellent job -- of muddying the waters. The improvements he made in nationalizing the country's largest private electric company and Telecommunications company and the steel making and cement industries were improvements made within capitalism, that are no improvements at all. It's largely forgotten that in 2002 he fired 18,000 workers in the state-run oil company for striking when he refused to agree to a non-binding referendum on his rule. Chavez was merely another leader to attempt to administer the running of capitalism and calling it socialism. If the minority own the tools of production, the land, and the resources, it's still capitalism. If the majority must work for wages in order to survive, it's still capitalism. And what is Chavez' legacy to the Venezuelan people? A deeply troubled and divided country with high unemployment and crime rate. The fewer "socialists" like Chavez, the better. John Ayers

Reading Notes

How the CIA was funded is revealed in Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes, History of the CIA". He writes, "The mechanics (of acquiring money) were surprisingly simple. After Congress approved the Marshall Plan, it appropriated about $13.7 billion over five years.
A nation that received aid from the plan had to set aside an equivalent sum in its own currency. Five per cent of those funds - $685 million all told -- was made available to the CIA through the overseas offices. It was a global money-laundering scheme that stayed secret until well after the cold war ended. Where the plan flourished in Europe and Asia, so would American spies." (page 32). Nothing to account for, no questions asked! The money allowed the cold war that wasted unbelievable amounts of social wealth that could have provided health care, education etc. to say nothing of the lives lost, to continue its destructive path for decades. Such is life under the madness of capitalism. John Ayers

Reforms and the Labour Party

Capitalism only continues to exist because people put up with it. Most people don’t see any alternative to working for wages, producing for profit and using money. They believe that it is capitalists, not workers by hand and by brain, who create wealth and that capitalists are doing us a favour by providing us with jobs. They believe that the world has always been divided into rich and poor, leaders and followers, rulers and ruled and that it always will be. These attitudes both reflect and sustain capitalism. And every time people get a chance to vote, most people support politicians who are committed to maintaining the capitalist system. So capitalism continues.
The ruling class are not a monolithic entity, all having exactly the same opinions. They do not all have the same ideas as to the best way of running the system from day to day, or year to year. All capitalists want to get the most out of their workers, obviously. But what is the best way of doing that? Some think they should rule largely by fear. Toe the line, accept long hours, low wages, and poor conditions, they say to their workers, or out you go. Alongside this “treat-’em-rough” school is the “pretend-to-be-nice” school who think that more humane methods are more profitable in the long run. Less primitive conditions in the workplace, a bit better treatment of families, somewhat less harsh handling of the unemployed, will all pay dividends, they think: be nice to your workers, and they will be nice to you.

Some reforms benefit workers. For instance, the 1948 NHS Act introduced free medical treatment. However, no reform is secure under capitalism. Since the end of the post-war boom, it has been downhill all the way. Successive governments, Labour as well as Tory, have cut back on their spending so as to leave more money for capitalist corporations to retain as profits. Things were by no means perfect pre-1970s but there were a lot more services provided, especially at local level, than there are today.

There was a time in the distant past when some in the Labour Party saw the introduction of free public services run by national or local government on a non-profit basis as stepping stones to socialism. Its 1945 manifesto declared that the Labour Party “is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain."  Hardly language which Labour’s leaders would use today. Though those Old Labourites were wrong in their belief that socialism can emerge gradually from a series of piecemeal reforms enacted under capitalism, they were right on one thing. In a socialist society education, housing, telecommunications, water, gas and electricity supply will be run as free public services on a non-profit basis, but as genuine services to people.

Now, the Labour Party has no vision beyond that of capitalism. Like every other Government it merely tries its hand at running capitalism. Their record of supporting wars, freezing wages, breaking strikes, and forming coalitions, with Tories and Liberals, should have been enough to finish them with the working class for keeps but the tragedy is that it didn’t and won’t.

Although from time to time a few members in the Labour “left-wing" still pay lip-service to an alternative society nothing they have ever said or done has advanced the workers cause one inch. While certain of their reforms might have helped the workers condition, in staving off unrest and discontent, they have also had the desired effect of giving the boss class a new lease of life. Socialists have no feeling whatever of gratitude toward the exploiters when they concede this or that reform. They usually take away with the left hand what they offer with the right that neutralises whatever good there may have been. Individual reforms may be to the advantage or disadvantage of the working class but capitalism reformed is still capitalism. No matter how beneficial or otherwise as is now usually the case individual reforms might be, the interest of the working class lies in overthrowing capitalism, not altering its workings. The fact is that, while workers can obtain some improvements, capitalism itself cannot be permanently reformed.
The working class’s support is needed for the ongoing existence of capitalism. Once we understand our real interest and begin to consciously organise to get it, no leader or deceiver in the Labour party is going to be able to deflect us from our course. Workers must first learn to distinguish between words and action. Until then the workers get the leaders and representatives they deserve and the system they choose.

Food for thought

On March 5^th, Ontario Tory leader, Tim Hudak, claimed unions and environmentalists are threatening Ontario's economic progress. We wonder what progress he's talking about. Hudak said, " I think it's just unfortunate that the NDP and Liberals seem to be so singularly focused on appeasing the public sector union bosses -- it's causing a province to go bankrupt and it's costing us jobs. Nobody is going to invest in a province that has huge debts. What the oil sands are to Alberta, what potash is to Saskatchewan, the Ring of Fire (northern resource exploitation) could be for the province of Ontario. It's too bad that the Liberals seem to be captured by radical environmental groups." Hudak's rant could be a case of trying to pit one group against another or it could be a case of he doesn't know what he's talking about. On average, the cost to the capitalist of wages is 7% of the total. Furthermore, if the effects of capitalism continue to wreck the environment, there won't be much left for Hudak to rant about. John Ayers

Rich Pickings For Some

The New York Times annually reports on the astonishing incomes enjoyed by the capitalist class, but they are not necessarily the richest packages out there. As they report they rely on filings required by the Securities and Exchange Commission for public companies. That means they are missing entire categories of businesses: privately held corporations, most hedge funds and many private equity firms, but nevertheless some of their figures are staggering. 'Consider Leon Black, C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, among the largest private equity firms with $2.86 billion in 2012 revenue. He took in more than $125 million last year. ........ Steve Schwarzman, founder and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, took in $8.4 million in compensation last year, and his distributions earned him an additional $204 million. ............The wealth of executives at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was harder to determine, because it disclosed only distribution payouts on common units and not on the convertible ownership units held by top executives. But even excluding those payouts, the two co-chiefs at K.K.R., Henry R. Kravis and George R. Roberts, made more than $35 million each in compensation.' (New York Times, 10 April) RD

Fair Shares?

Socialism is not concerned with managing capitalism better but about a different kind of society. Socialists do not call for population control, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. Socialists don't call for “fair” shares of land or money to be handed out equally.

The socialist’s “fair share” for a member of the socialist commonwealth is the right of access and the satisfaction of their needs from the common store-house.
All previous societies have been rationed societies, based on scarcity of food, clothing and shelter. The modern world is also a society of scarcity, but with a difference.Today’s shortages are unnecessary; today’s scarcity is artificial. More than that: scarcity achieved at the expense of strenuous effort, ingenious organisation and the most sophisticated planning.
The abolition of classes is the equality at which socialists aim and the equality of access to the means of living. Such an equality would mean no one would be in a position to buy the services of others in order to make a profit, just as no one would be in the position of having to sell their energies in order to obtain a bare subsistence.

The world is haunted by a spectre – the spectre of abundance. Socialists do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but a cornucopia of plenty. Even with the present resources of production, it would immediately increase the wealth available for the workers' enjoyment. It would also render possible a considerable expansion of those resources in order that the free development of every individual should be translated from a dream into a reality. People themselves will decide when enough is enough.

The price of the cuts

Cuts in a range of welfare payments – including child benefit, tax credits, housing benefit and disability living allowance – will see the average Edinburgh household losing £2170 by 2016.

Some of the biggest cuts will come about as a result of the so-called bedroom tax which will cut housing benefit payments to households with spare bedrooms.

Figures from 2011-12 show that 15,500 households in Edinburgh – 60 per cent of all applicants – required a one-bedroom home. The annual number of one-bedroom city properties available to rent is around 500.

The tragic fact is that with the passing of Thatcher, her legacy, ‘Thatcherism’, remains government policy where the poorest who struggle to survive are the easiest targets for the implementation of austerity cuts.

Five Million In The Big Freeze

More than five million families in Britain are facing the threat of having their heating cut off after falling behind with their energy bills, an alarming report warns today. The research said the number of households struggling to pay their bills has jumped by around one million people over the last year. 'On average, they typically owe £123 to their energy supplier, raising fears they face being cut off if they do not eventually find the money to clear their debts. The report, from the comparison website Uswtich.com, said the number of cash-strapped families has jumped sharply over the last year from a total of four to five million.' (Daily Mail, 9 April) This is life in Mr Cameron "Big Society" - more like a big freeze society. RD

Growing Old Disgracefully

Workers who imagine that once their working lives are over they might enjoy the remainder of their days in some sort of comfort and security should be alarmed by this statement from the charity Age UK. 'Soaring numbers of elderly people are being forced to rely on handouts from friends and family to stay in care homes near their loved ones. Councils facing squeezed budgets are increasingly looking to move residents to cheaper homes, which often means they are passed 'like parcels' to alternatives hundreds of miles away. A third of those who are entitled to state help with care home fees – perhaps because they have exhausted their life savings on such bills – are being forced to meet spiralling costs themselves, charity Age UK said.' (Daily Mail, 9 April) Even after a lifetime of toil and anxiety it doesn't get any easier for some workers. RD

The Resistance

It is sad to report but employers are winning the class war. They’ve increased their production demands. They’ve extended employees’ work hours making us work longer or they have reduced the hours, making many of us part-time. They have cut or abolished benefits such as pensions, bonuses, sick leave and paid vacations. They have done away with employment contracts turning many into temporary free-lance staff.
Companies run roughshod over their employees with ultimatums. They tell us it is a “buyers market” so take our job rules or go. Or they use the other variant, the re-location threat, accept new working conditions or we go.

Without resistance, workers have no power. Resistance is everything. It is about pushing back. Demonstrating the willingness to fight. Standing our ground. Only with combined organisation can we do this effectively. Without the unions, without collective action, bully-boy management will continue to prevail in the class-war.

Rejoice...rejoice

Thousands took to the streets to celebrate the death of Thatcher. Immediately this drew strong condemnation and were described as “tasteless”, “horrible”, and “beneath all human decency.”

A massive media machine went into action aimed at removing her from criticism. The political battle over someone's memory is a political battle over policy. In Thatcher's case, they gloss over her history of supporting tyrants, of attacks on the poor and vulnerable and her onslaught against the unions - the very same policies as now being followed by Cameron. A reminder that under capitalism, very little changes.


People praising Thatcher should show some respect for her victims. Let us respect those who suffered everyday because of her policies, and have chosen her passing to wipe away the tears of pain and sorrow so they could in her own words “Rejoice...rejoice”

And then let us organise to make sure that the history she was party to does not repeat itself.

Startling Statistics

In a review of Leo Hollis's book "Cities Are Good For You" the writer Tom Chesshyre reveals some startling statistics. 'He travels to fast-growing Mumbai, where he takes in the world's most expensive house, the 27-storey, $1 billion home of a leading business man; with living spaces for 60 servants, parking for 160 cars and three helipads. He is damning of the growth of the global super-rich, pointing out that 90 per cent of the world's wealth belongs to the richest 1 per cent.' (Times, 8 April) He also mentions that in London the richest 10 per cent have 273 times more wealth than the bottom 10 per cent. RD

Capitaclysm

The rich wage wars to gain power, acquire plunder, and they leave behind death and destruction. The rich pursue economic policies that exploit the natural bounty of the world and leave behind a wasteland in their wake. While the capitalist class hoard the wealth of the world we, the working class, hoard resentments generally misplaced and misdirected upon those equally as deprived and bereft of power as we are. We fall easy prey to peddlers of false hope and propagandists. Human beings have proved so easy to control. We believe the fictions spinned regarding our identity and our interactions with the world. But you cannot force truth upon the deceived. They must see through the lies and fraud for themselves. We can't have a revolution unless we make it for ourselves


Class is seen as having three main tiers: upper, middle and lower and within these tiers, then there are usually two or three others added, dividing each “class” itself into upper, middle, and lower sections. So, instead of the concrete conception of class based on how people relate to the means of production, we have a pedantic strata of “upper middles” and “lower uppers” to distract us from the core antagonism in society: the contradiction between capitalist and worker. The so-called “middle class” don’t own their own means of production and have to work for a living like any other worker, even though they may make higher wages and salaries.

At the capitalism’s core lies conflict. The class struggle lies at the heart of capitalism. The conflict varies from hidden to open and from mild to violent. On one side, bosses pursue ever more profits that is produced by their workers. On the other side, workers seek ever more wages and better working conditions that reduce the profits available to employers. Thus a class struggle emerges. The interests of capital and labour are irreconcilable. For a member of the working class, it is the money they take home and the amount of work that they must do to earn it that is foremost in their mind, and – let’s not hide from the reality – it is to get the most for doing the least. However, for management, it is the entire opposite. They endeavour to extract the most work out of its workforce at the most minimum of cost. The inevitable class struggle, in other words. Reformism is the belief whereby this class conflict can be resolved amicably and it is a policy of class collaboration. History has shown that one group always exploits the other in order to keep its privilege.

Every day capitalism is becoming more interlaced and interwoven. Human communities come second place in capitalism time after time. Financial crises, like that recently experienced have far-reaching and disastrous effects upon the markets of the world, just as the disease of one human organ effects the whole body. The contagion of capitalism cannot be kept and confined within national boundaries but it spreads over the globe.

Socialism is international. For years we have affirmed it and argued it. History shows how the various countries develop along similar lines and how industrial conditions fashion the thoughts of men and drive their energies into the same channels irrespective of difference of nationality. We have examples to-day of the struggles which are going on in India, in Egypt and throughout Asia. In every country under the domination of capital the simple facts of the situation are driving the workers to see the cause of the trouble, and are forcing them to an understanding of the remedy. Wherever capitalism is, socialism accompanies it, much to the dismay of the ruling class. The conditions of life and the education of the world’s workers being almost identical and becoming ever more so, their capacity for understanding socialism and their progress towards it will be at about the same rate in every country under the highly centralised thraldom of capital. This furnishes the answer to those who prophesy that because of "uneven development" one country will be ready for the change before the others. The idea of establishing socialism in a hole and corner fashion is one which does not bear investigation. Ideas travel in human boots, and social evolution does not proceed spontaneously, nor is it philanthropically bestowed by governments. It rather takes shape partly through the natural agency of economic and political phenomena and partly through the pressures of the worker's mind itself which struggles for the realisation of its revolutionary aims.

The Socialist Party welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But unlike animals, we are endowed with rational thought and capable of long-term planning, and we must also seek to stop these skirmishes by winning the class war outright, and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. Socialism is no mere utopian dream.

Capitalism is: “From each whatever you can get — to each whatever you can grab.”

Socialism is: “From each according to his ability—to each according to his needs.”

Welcome to Hell, Baroness Margaret

Socialist Courier has not much to say on Thatcher's passing away. All the other blogs have said most of it already. We will however add this.

Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!.....Deid! Deid! Deid!

Food for thought

For the last few years, Alberta's economy hasn't been as badly hit as the rest of Canada, mainly due to the demand for oil by China and the US...now things are not so rosy. The break-even price at which extraction is profitable varies from $65 to $100 a barrel. In recent months it has dropped considerably due to lack of pipe-line capacity to get oil to market, new sources of cheaper shale oil from fracking, and China's demand falling off. None of this bodes well for the Canadian economy. Under crapitalism it's the same old story -- great today, lousy tomorrow.
We have all heard enough about the pope but the Toronto Star reported that among the high and mighty Catholics to attend the papal installation was Robert Mugabe, undoubtedly embarrassing the Vatican given that he will likely stand trial one day at The Hague for crimes against humanity. The same article also carries a quote from the 'red bishop' Camara of Brazil, " If I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
The same paper reported that that the largest religious group is those who come under the heading 'Atheism, Agnosticism, or no religious affiliation (if you divide the Christians into Catholics and others). We have to remember that a very large percentage of the so-called religious are not, do not attend their church, and likely only put down a religion to hedge their bets just in case! Probably Canada's most religious province, Quebec up to the 1960s, went
through the Quiet revolution, i.e. took charge of their lives from the Catholic Church and dropped church attendance from 90% down to 5%. Religion really is an anachronism and most people realize that today.
The same issue detailed the sorry economic run of Latvia. After its economy tanked in 2008 -- twenty per cent contraction -- it received a seven billion euro loan from the International Monetary Fund. The usual set of accompanying austerity measures produced praise from IMF managing Director, Christine Lagarde, " You have pulled through...you have returned to strong growth...you have lowered budget deficits and kept government debt ratios to some of the lowest in the EU..blah, blah, blah. The reality for the average Latvian worker does not match the praise for the economy. As of 2010, 31% are classified as 'severely materially deprived', 300 000 people have left Latvia since 2000 looking elsewhere for jobs, and in 2012 the City of Riga served 759,250 hot meals for those with government vouchers. I wonder if Lagarde is cheering those figures! John Ayers

Same Poison, Different Bottle

We have a regrettable tendency to see what we want to see and rationalise what we already want to do. Scottish nationalists attribute Scotland’s ills to the constitutional link to England. Both Left and Right see independence as a panacea. Those on the Scottish Left who have added their voices to the campaign for independence have succumbed to ideas incompatible with the socialist transformation of society.

The Left has long subscribed to the principle of “self-determination” that small nations ought by right – assuming the support of its people – be given the right to cede from larger states and claim autonomy over their affairs but over the decades socialists have seen the divisive character of such nationalist campaigns. No serious socialist can be a committed to nationalism.

 “Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so." the historian Eric Hobsbawm has said.

Nationalism is the ideology of always putting one's nation first, often at the expense of other nations. It is not necessary to be a wealthy and powerful nation to carry out nationalistic policies and practices. Governments and corporations of every stripe engage in nationalistic practices in the name of patriotism.

The Left who support independence believe that once it has been achieved, the real fight for the future of Scotland will commence. To-day’s Left take Scotland’s radicalism for granted but go back just fifty years and a majority of Scots voted Conservative and sectarian prejudice still divided many working class communities. Go back a further fifty years or so, we find that left-wingers like Keir Hardie had to move to England to get elected.
Pre-union Scotland had its own feudal monarchy and its own pro-capitalist Protestant revolution and after 1707 its capitalist landlords, merchants and mill-owners continued to use the separate Scottish systems of law, religion and education to exploit their own people. The union with England made the Scottish ruling class a junior partner in securing the profits of colonial empire.

And today the Scottish capitalist class continue to parasitically feed off workers blood sweat and tears through the hedge funds and financial institutions of the City of London’s Square Mile and its satellite Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square. Scottish employers as a class draws on the support of the British State and does so jointly with employers in England and Wales. The economic power does not lie in Scotland. It still lies at a UK level, in Europe and around the rest of the world. Its top 20 companies are dominated by energy, particularly oil and gas multinationals and financial services corporations. With the exception of the drinks giant William Grant & Sons which is family owned, and Scottish Water which is state-owned, all the rest are public limited companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The most recent figures show that amongst larger enterprises (defined as those employing 250 people or more) 64% of employment and 78% of turnover is in enterprises where ultimate ownership and control is outside Scotland. Amongst larger firms in the manufacturing sector alone the results are even starker with 72% of employment and as much as 87% of turnover in companies owned outside of Scotland. These figures are based on Scottish registered companies only. They do not include big supermarket chains like Tesco and Asda, or military industrial companies like Rolls Royce and BAE Systems which have a huge turnover, and are major employers in Scotland but do not separately register here. The once familiar old South of Scotland Electricity Board (the SSEB) is now owned by the Spanish corporation Iberdrola and the French corporation EDF. A separate Scotland does not weaken finance capital.

Business is global. Capital flows are global. The capitalist’s first loyalty is to acquiring and expanding wealth. By the nature of their business and their lives today capitalists are inevitably pulled into a globalized world. They have much less connection and fewer ties to their national community. And their rewards are in the global world. As we witness in the recent exposures of Amazon and Starbucks and a host of other multi-nationals, Big Business has slipped the leash of national government and are no longer captive of a nation state.

In a world of globalisation, where countries are so interdependent it is near impossible to see how Scotland could be genuinely independent. Profits would most definitely continue to be being exported to London, Paris, Madrid or wherever and commercial decision will be made in these cities. Businessmen “sell out” their nation to other businessmen from abroad simply because they have more in common, in every practical sense, with other members of their class rather than the workers of their particular nationality.

The Socialist Party support neither an independent Scotland nor the status quo. Instead of wanting to separate Scottish workers from the English working class and elsewhere, recognising our shared class interests, we seek to join with working people across the world in creating a socialist alternative. Socialism, like capitalism, should know no boundaries and should look to the day when workers of all countries would become one great organisation. The answer to all the problems facing working men and women is not a flag, or a border or if powers lies in Edinburgh or London; it is the weight of the labour and trade union movement, united behind a commitment to make the politics of class, not nationality, its driving force. The priority for socialists should be common class interests not an exclusive nationalism. Independence will be the same poison but drunk from a different bottle.

The Socialist Party can certainly ascribe to James Connolly’s words when he said “For our demands most moderate are. We only want the earth.”

We're All In This Together

The recent budget with its welfare cuts and austere forecasts for the economic future must have depressed the Deputy Prime Minister and probably prompted him to take a break. 'Three days earlier, he sat stern-faced through the Coalition's latest 'we're all in it together' Budget. But with a flatlining economy and the row raging over benefits cuts, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg knew exactly where he needed to be – at his family's £7million, 20-room, Swiss ski chalet. Leaving the stress of austerity Britain behind, he jetted out with his family for an Easter getaway at the luxury villa nestling between fashionable Klosters and the resort of Davos.' (Daily Mail, 5 April) Clegg's family ski chalet has 20 rooms and is worth £7million and he has been skiing there since infancy. We don't suppose there is a problem about bedroom tax there. RD

Saudi justice

24-year-old Ali al-Khawahir will be deliberately paralysis for stabbing his friend in the back 10 years ago unless he pays his victim 1m Saudi riyals (£177,000) in compensation. diyya, blood money is paid instead of the implementation of qisas – legal retribution. Originally, the religious prescription to seek diyya in lieu of punishment was seen as a way of preventing bad blood fomenting between communities and encouraging compromise. In the modern age it commodifies justice, where the price of crime is arbitrarily determined by the state. An eye for an eye … unless you can afford to be spared. In an another case in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, a father sexually molested and murdered his five-year-old daughter, but avoided jail by paying money to her mother. It has become a way for the rich and the powerful to purchase impunity.


JEREMY PAXMAN:
You called (Saudi Arabia) a friend of the civilised world.

TONY BLAIR:
It is. In my view, what it is doing in respect of the Middle East now...

JEREMY PAXMAN:
It chops people's arms off. It tortures people.

TONY BLAIR:
They have their culture, their way of life."

 And we have larned never to bite the hand that feeds us!

Salmond - apologist for organised crime

Speaking during his New York trip, Alex Salmond said HSBC "in many ways is the most Scottish bank in the world now. Founded by Scots, run by Scots, on the principles of Scottish banking. Hence one reason why it's survived the winds better than other institutions"


With the Scottish-based HBOS and RBS exposed as incompetent and failed banking institutions Salmond was required to look further afield for a positive example. But the HSBC?

This was the bank fined £1.2 billion for money laundering in the United States and Mexico, and embroiled in a fresh scandal with Argentine authorities accusing it of laundering $100 million. In India, in November 2012, anti-corruption crusaders Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan alleged that the bank was involved in black money and hawala transactions. They said that in July 2011, the Indian Government had received a list of about 700 people having bank accounts in HSBC, Geneva, in 2006. The Bank also was fined $1.4 billion by the U.K. for improper selling of its financial products, including interest-rate swaps to corporate customers.

According to the Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development and Global Financial Integrity, HSBC Mexico’s Cayman Islands branch opened as many as $50,000-denominated accounts without adequate attention to customer identification. HSBC USA opened 2000 accounts with untraceable bearer share corporations as owner over the past decade. Between 2001 and 2007, it allowed 28,000 transactions involving countries, groups, or individuals against which the US had imposed financial sanctions. These include sale of $1billion of US banknotes to Al Rajhi, a Saudi bank with owners having ties to terrorist organisations, including al-Qaeda. Transactions amounting to $881 million were routed on behalf of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel and Colombian Norte del Valle cartel. Then, wire transfers totalling $670 billion between HSBC Mexico and HSBC USA were unmonitored. Another $200 trillion went through HSBC USA without anti-money laundering controls or monitoring.

The bank became “the preferred financial institution of drug cartels and money launderers” and as Alex Salmond says, it successfully weathered the recession seemingly by being the bag-man for drug-dealers, terrorists and tax evaders. Proud Scottish banking principles for Salmond to preach?

Food for thought

A survey conducted in twenty-two countries by Globescan Radar, found that few people considered problems such as air and water pollution, species loss, auto emissions, water shortages, and climate change, to be very serious. As John Smol, chairman of Research into Environmental Change at Queen's University, put it. Concern for the environment has always been in competition with the economy. When economic times are bad, people's priorities shift. We have seen this before. When the economy falters, almost always the environment is asked to pay a price." This is mainly because the loss of one's job, or the fear of it happening, seem more immediate than the destruction of the environment, despite the fact that the latter certainly affects the former and, despite the fact that the latter is becoming closer to an immediate problem, both should be viewed as matters to be dealt with now and this can only be done with the establishment of socialism. John Ayers

Remembering our history

The SNP would allow American bases on Scottish soil after independence – as long as they were non-nuclear. And just who would be doing an inventory check in a military escalation and crisis?

Salmond said the SNP’s support for entry into Nato was “to send a signal to our friends and partners that we wanted to assume responsibility as a responsible friend and partner.” Whats that about who sups with the Devil sups should have a long spoon? Salmond wants him in our back-yard.

On his visit to the United States Salmond spoke at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, a New York-based group set up in memory of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (see here and here for this despicable man's history), and said: “Both the Declaration of Arbroath, with its search for a Scottish legitimacy, and the Declaration of Independence, with its affirmation of popular sovereignty, were sealed in the force of arms and struggle."

All nationalism is based on mythical history and nations have to create their ideologies from whatever scraps come to hand. Scotland is no exception and is perhaps luckier than most with its many tales of romance. The 6th April marks the anniversary of the signing of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath.


"Yet if he should give up what he has begun, seeking to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own right and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself." - Declaration of Arbroath or properly titled "Letter of Barons of Scotland to Pope John XXII".

Stirring patriotic stuff. That it had ever existed was soon entirely forgotten and it was only rediscovered when a version of it was published by Sir George Mackenzie in 1680. It then becomes influential, but not really as an expression of nationalism but as support for those who wished to curtail royal power. It was only later that the Declaration of Arbroath came to be seen in purely nationalistic terms.

Scotland in 1320 was a very different country to the Scotland we know today therefore we should not ahistorically give to a medieval mind-set the sensibilities of a later, modern age. So we should what did the signatories of the document actually mean by "we" and "freedom"? The "we" who attached their seals to the document were all noblemen. And it was their freedom that it concerned. The authors of the Arbroath declaration most likely used the word "people" to mean "people like us". There you have it. The “people” of Scotland were the nobles, the majority of whom at that time were still fairly much culturally Anglo-Norman, despite inter-marriage within the indigenous Scoto-Gaelic ruling families and their further integration in terms of land holding and property ownership. As for the common-folk of Scotland; they had no say in the matter. Or in anything for that matter. The idea that the peasant in the fields or labourer in the towns had any type of say is laughable. The Declaration signatories certainly had no concept of popular sovereignty.

Those medieval signatories to the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath were merely feudal barons asserting their claim to rule and lord it over their own tenants and serfs, not leading any "liberation struggle". In fact, John de Menteith, who turned William Wallace over to Edward of England put his seal to the Declaration of Arbroath.

The claims that the Declaration challenged the traditional belief in the Divine Right of Kings and promoting in its place the notion that the nation itself was foremost and the monarch merely its steward, is argued solely to justify Bruce usurping the rightful king John Balliol, who it should be remembered Wallace acted as Guardian for. The section of the Declaration reading “if this prince [Bruce] shall leave these principles he hath so nobly pursued, and consent that we or our kingdom be subjected to the king or people of England, we will immediately endeavour to expel him, as our enemy and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and we will make another king, who will defend our liberties” should be read as a cautionary warning and a veiled threat to Robert the Bruce himself for he had switched his allegence several times in previous years.

In a propaganda war, the Scots were at a disadvantage . The Pope in Rome had excommunicated Bruce who had decided to hell being just an English lord, I’d rather be a Scottish king and to achieve that goal murdered his chief rival in a church. He sent three letters to the Pope. The first was a letter from himself, the second from the Scots clergy, and the third from the nobles of Scotland that became known as the Declaration of Arbroath.

The lesser-known earlier 1310 Declaration of the Clergy (the clergy being usually the younger sons of the nobles) proclaimed the Kingship of Robert. It begins by stating that John Balliol was made King of Scots by Edward Longshanks of England, but goes on to criticise Balliol’s status, because an English King does not have any authority to determine who will be the King of Scots. Such authority rests with the Scots themselves and alone, ignoring the fact that the Scottish nobles had given up that right in negotiations with Edward over twenty years beforehand.

The Declaration stated: “The people, therefore, and commons of the foresaid Kingdom of Scotland, ...agreed upon the said Lord Robert, the King who now is, in whom the rights of his father and grandfather to the foresaid kingdom, in the judgement of the people, still exist and flourish entire; and with the concurrence and consent of the said people he was chosen to be King, that he might reform the deformities of the kingdom, correct what required correction, and direct what needed direction; and having been by their authority set over the kingdom, he was solemnly made King of Scots... And if any one on the contrary claim right to the foresaid kingdom in virtue of letters of time past, sealed and containing the consent of the people and the commons, know ye that all this took place in fact by force and violence which could not at the time be resisted.”
Like a lot of such grandiose statements we've seen down through the ages, the Clergy's declaration was nothing more than misleading propaganda, which sought to disguise the facts of history.

A more modern myth connects the Declaration of Arbroath with the American Declaration of Independence because both enshrined in their declarations the principle that sovereignty rests with the people. Firstly, as noted already it was not a "declaration" in the sense of the American Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man but a plea to the Pope. The Act of Abjuration (1581), where the Dutch deposed their Spanish ruler for having violated the social contract with his subjects could be just as easily cited as the influence on the American Declaration of Independence. Or even the English Declaration of Rights, which deposed King James II and brought to power William and Mary of Orange can be said to have had an influence on the Founding Fathers.
Nor should we over-look that although the Declaration of Arbroath says that the King of Scotland can be deposed if he abuses his power one hundred and five years earlier than the Declaration of Arbroath, at Runnymede, King John was forced to sign Magna Carta, giving his English subjects rights including the right to establish a monarchs rule. Nor should it be forgotten that between 1320 and 1603, Scotland had 11 monarchs. 3 of those (James I, James III, and Mary) were removed through assassination, civil war or deposition. In the same period, England had 18 monarchs. Of which no fewer than 7 (Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, and Jane) were removed through civil war or deposition. So who, exactly, had the richer tradition of overthrowing monarchical power?

If heroes are required then instead of Wallace or Bruce, the Scottish workers should look to the likes of Wat Tyler and John Ball, commoners, who in the 1381 Peasants' Revolt took London and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury. The true history of the exploited is about the resistnce of the Levellers and Diggers and the Chartists not the winners and losers of aristocratic family feuds for the throne of Scotland.

The Real Artfull Dodgers

In an effort to balance their books the British owning class have had their subservient government slash all sorts of welfare benefits. Putting limits on government employees wages and introducing the bedroom tax are just a couple of the measures they have dreamt up. There is one benefit recipient they seem unable to deal with though - the tax-dodging rich. Millions of internal records have leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world. 'The leak of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (£21tn) stashed in overseas havens.' (Guardian, 3 April) We don't suppose these millionaires have to worry too much about trivialities like bedroom tax. RD

Not So Glamorous

Behind the High Street glamour of the fashion house Zara lurks the horror of slave labour in Bolivia. Kate Middleton is seen regularly shopping in the chain's branches and every Zara dress she has worn has sold out within hours. Both Kate and her sister Pippa stepped out in the Zara outfits the morning after the royal wedding, but the source of their trendy outfits is less than glamorous. 'High-street fashion store Zara is under investigation over the use of slave labour at factories in Argentina, it was reported today. Immigrant workers, including children, were discovered producing clothes for the label in 'degrading' sweatshop conditions, investigators said. The mostly Bolivian labourers claimed they were made to work more than 13-hour days and were prevented from leaving the factories without permission.' (Daily Mail, 3 April) Authorities moved in on the sweatshops in the outlying Mataderos, Liniers and Floresta districts of the Argentine capital after a tip-off from workers' rights NGO La Alameda. The charity's spokesman Gustavo Vera said people at the factory were made to start at 7am and work without a break until 11pm, from Monday to Saturday. He said: 'Their workplaces were also their homes, families were forced to share cramped quarters in a mess of sewing machines, needles, threads and children.'The places were dark without proper lighting to sew and no ventilation. RD

The Banksters

Fred Goodwin had his knightship removed. Shall we see the same for Sir James Crosby and Lord Stevenson being stripped of their honours.
The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards concluded the three men, who have since moved on to new positions, should never be allowed to work in the financial sector again. The report identified bad lending (when someone cannot repay a loan), inadequate liquidity (not enough ready cash) and a lack of risk management as the key factors behind HBOS’s fall

The report said: “The primary responsibility for the downfall of HBOS should rest with Sir James Crosby, architect of the strategy that set the course for disaster, with Andy Hornby, who proved unable or unwilling to change course, and Lord Stevenson, who presided over the bank’s board from its birth to its death...Lord Stevenson, in particular, has shown himself incapable of facing the realities of what placed the bank in jeopardy.” It said the former HBOS bosses had failed to admit their mistakes and should apologise for their “incompetent and reckless board strategy”. commission member, Lord Turnbull, pointed out that when Bank of Scotland and Halifax merged to create HBOS, the organisation had a market capitalisation of £30bn. “Just seven years later, all that value had been destroyed”

Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, the chairman of the commission, said: “The HBOS story is one of catastrophic failures of management, governance and regulatory oversight. Primary responsibility for these failures should lie with the former chairman of HBOS and its former chief executives Sir James Crosby and Andy Hornby.”

The report explained that “The lending approach of the corporate division would have been bad lending in any market. The crisis in financial markets was merely the catalyst to expose it.”

To illustrate the scale of the risks being taken on, the report said that in the corporate bank in 2001 the biggest exposure to one single borrower was less than £1m. By 2008 there were nine customers who had each been lent £1bn. One borrower had been advanced £3bn.

Crosby is now working in the City as a member of the European advisory board at private equity firm Bridgepoint. He was knighted for services to finance. He remains on the board at Compass.
Hornby is now chief executive of gaming group Gala Coral.
Stevenson, Baron Stevenson of Coddenham, has gone on to hold a number of non-executive board positions since leaving HBOS including Western Union and The Economist magazine.

The report added: "We are shocked and surprised that, even after the ship has run aground, so many of those who were on the bridge still seem so keen to congratulate themselves on their collective navigational skills."
Socialist Courier isn’t. It par for the course for the capitalist class.

More Nonsense About Class

There is more nonsense written about class than almost any other subject. Here is the latest contribution to that nonsense. 'People in the UK now fit into seven social classes, a major survey conducted by the BBC suggests. It says the traditional categories of working, middle and upper class are outdated, fitting 39% of people. It found a new model of seven social classes ranging from the elite at the top to a "precariat" - the poor, precarious proletariat - at the bottom.' (BBC News, 3 April) In fact in modern developed capitalism there are only two classes. The working class - all those who own little or nothing and are forced to work for a wage or a salary in order to live, and the owning class - the tiny minority who own and control all the means of production and distribution and therefore do not need to work but can live of the surplus value produced by the working class. RD

The Regal Con Game

Times are hard in British capitalism today so our rulers have had to cut costs. Slash welfare benefits, cap government workers wages and introduce a bedroom tax. There are some things of course that are sacrosanct. 'The Queen has received a £5m boost in the funds she receives from the taxpayer to carry out her official duties. The sovereign grant, which covers the running costs of the Queen's household, has been set at £36.1m for the 2013-14 financial year.' (Guardian, 2 April) Keep the workers thinking they are one nation and give them spectacular royal events. Essential to disguise their exploitation. Money well spent. RD

Bad News

A study in America found that over a three-year period, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN aired just 141 stories in which unions and the labor movement were either the primary or secondary topic. That's out of an estimated 16,000 news stories aired on the four networks, so less than 0.3 percent of all news stories. Not only were just the unions not getting much attention in the news their view was being ignored. CBS did not use even one union source in 24 percent of its stories on labor; NBC omitted union voices from 19 percent of the stories.
The pattern of portrayal of unions was negative, with workers critical of unions more likely to be heard. The report found that news about labor and unions related to the field of education and the automobile industry included more governmental sources than labor sources. “The news treatment thus presents the government as the organized party willing to provide solutions, but not the labor/union negotiators”.

These findings resemble those of past studies, such as the Glasgow Media Group which have found that media coverage is often slanted against collective economic action and toward business and elite interests. Unions are portrayed as hurting competitiveness, and thus costing jobs. The media serve their masters well. It has turned worker against worker, and particularly against the unions.

We Are all In This Together

One of the fond notions that supporters of capitalism like to espouse is that times may be hard, but we are all in this together. Indeed Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has insisted he knows what it is like to "live on the breadline". 'The comment comes after 250,000 people signed a petition urging Mr Duncan Smith to try living on £53 a week. He dismissed this as a "complete stunt", telling the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian he had been unemployed twice in his life. .......... Mr Duncan Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday, the day the changes came into force, that he could survive on £53 a week.' (BBC News, 2 April) This was the amount another speaker on the show - market trader David Bennett - said he would be left with.' Dom Arvesano, who was behind the petition commented: '"This would mean a 97% reduction in his current income, which is £1,581.02 a week or £225 a day after tax." This is a gigantic fall in his present standard of living and we note despite his courageous boast of how he could survive on £53 a week he has declined the petitioners challenge to live for a year in such penury. RD

Ghost Town

37% of people buying property in the most expensive neighbourhoods of central London did not intend them to be primary residences.
"Belgravia is becoming a village with fewer people in it," said Alistair Boscawen, a local real estate agent. He works in "the nuts area" of London, as he put it, "where the house prices are bonkers" — anywhere from $7.5 million to $75 million. The buyers are super-wealthy foreigners. London is not the only city where the world's richest people leave their expensive properties vacant while they stay in their expensive properties someplace else; the same is true in parts of Manhattan.
Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour opposition in Westminster Council, said the situation had reached a tipping point. "They may live here for a fortnight in the summer, but for the rest of the year they're contributing nothing to the local economy. The spectre of new buildings where there are no lights on is a real problem."
One Hyde Park, an opulent $1.7 billion apartment building in Knightsbridge. It is rare to see anyone coming to or going from the complex.

Ending World Poverty

World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim called for a global drive to wipe out extreme poverty by 2030, acknowledging that reaching the goal will require extraordinary efforts. “A world free of poverty is within our grasp. It is time to help everyone across the globe secure a one-way ticket out of poverty and stay on the path toward prosperity,” Kim said
Not a very difficult goal nor a paticularly ambitious one to achieve if you happen to a member of the world’s super-rich capitalists.
Last year, the world's billionaires added $800 billion dollars to their wealth. According to the latest issue of Forbes, when all the money is counted, the 1,426 billionaires have a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion. That means the average billionaire is worth about $3.8 billion. Of those billionaires in the U.S. -- 442 of them -- the average net worth is about $4.2 billion.

That's a whole lot of money and according to the OECD, the total amount of aid given by the wealthy nations of the world to the developing countries was only 3% of the total wealth of the world's billionaires.
There are 1.1 billion people without access to clean drinking water, according to the World Health Organization, and as a result 1.6 million people die of cholera and other diarrhea-related diseases every year. World Vision provides clean drinking water to about 1 million people every year, and we do it for a rough average of $50 per person, depending on the country and other factors. Theoretically, for about $50 billion clean water could be brought to every person on the planet thereby saving 1.6 million lives every year. That would cost just 1% of the total wealth possessed by the mega-rich.
Lack of nutrition contributes to the deaths of 2.6 million school children. The World Food Program estimates that $3.2 billion is all it would take to make sure children stay alive and grow up fully nourished. For less than measly 0.6% of the wealth of the world's billionaires could end childhood deaths from hunger -- saving 4.2 million lives.
Socialist Courier is not suggesting that philanthropy will solve these problems, just putting the situation into perspective. Capitalism is the root cause of why the poor needlessly suffer and die. The world has the technical solutions and all the field-tested programs to end hunger and most disease. Advances in health, agriculture, education and technology has given the world the tools needed to make changes. These all exist and can be deployed by a rational society that declares peoples needs should be satisfied instead of being only resources employed to make profits for the few.

Life's good for some

Edinburgh-based Standard Life’s saw its top three directors share close to £10 million in bonuses in 2012 with the chief executive of the insurance giant, David Nish, nearly doubling his remuneration to £5m.


Keith Skeoch saw his pay rise to £4.3m from £2.6m, thanks mainly to a bonus from his role as head of Standard Life Investments (SLI), while finance director Jackie Hunt saw her overall pay rise to £2.5m from £1.4m.

65 per cent growth in operating profit before tax to £900m and 61 per cent growth in share price over the year.

What recession?

Who Are The Work-Shy?

Some sections of the media are fond of portraying the British working class as a feckless, work-shy bunch of state benefit scroungers but recent events expose that as complete nonsense. 'An astonishing 4,000 people braved the bitter cold to queue for work at a new £84million shopping centre. Long lines of desperate job seekers started to build up two hours before the jobs fair opened and the turnout was so big that organisers had to introduce a one-in one-out policy. The Whiteley Shopping Centre in Hampshire is set to open in May and will be home to 56 shops.' (Daily Express, 29 March) Feckless? Work-shy? That is an apt description of the British owning class. RD