Who are the revolutionaries?

Maximising profit and maintaining social control are the two priority tasks of the ruling class. Centuries of struggle and sacrifice were required to wrest the vote from the clutches of the landed gentry and the big business bosses and to place it in the hands of workers. It has now become fashionable amongst so-called socialists to denounce democracy, parliamentarism and democratic forms of government as obsolete. All manner of schemes for the“reform” of the democratic machine has been devised to not simply supplement but instead to supersede Parliament. Yet it has been the abuse and not the use of its power that has been responsible for the faults of parliamentarianism. The political ignorance of working men and women forged their own chains and they have been the unconscious authors of their own misery.


Workers fall victim of the false promises of the capitalist parties and their campaign publicists and lobbyists who snare the votes of deluded and unthinking workers. Professional politicians of whatever party are very much alike and they all serve the interests of their masters. Their stock in trade is the credulity of the masses. Capitalist parties stand for the capitalist system, and such differences as there are amongst them involve no principle but are just the outcome of the differing interests and policies of the various large and small capitalists.The politicians play one section of society off against the other and playing upon prejudice is the rule that governs their campaigns for votes among the workers. The competition for the votes of the wage-workers is the distinguishing feature of every election campaign. The supposed party of the “common people”, the Labour Party, long ago adopted policies that served employers and not the employee. There are no longer any distinctly different political parties. These have all merged in the same party and it is the Capitalist Party, by whatever name it may be known.

 At each and every election members of the working class are voting in their enemies. The mainstream political parties reek with corruption in their servility to the capitalist class, torn with strife in their mad scramble for the spoils of office. Political schemers and opportunists will turn parties to their personal ends to satisfy their egotistical lust to be hero-worshipped. Political posers will stand upon the shoulders of workers imagining their towering position is the result of their innate ability as they call to the rest of us to see what great men they are. A mistaken belief in the need for leaders emasculates the workers own confidence in themselves.

Election platforms and programmes are filled with empty platitudes and meaningless phrases, but they are discreetly silent about the millions of unemployed, about the starvation wages of factory slaves, about the women and children who are crushed, debased and slowly tormented to death by capitalism, about the bitter poverty of people and their hopeless future, and about every other vital question which is worthy of an instant's consideration by any intelligent human being. The capitalist parties are without principles and without ideals. Wage-slavery, the legalised robbery of workers, is never mentioned, much less acted upon.

Socialism is not reform, it is a revolution. When the word “revolution” is spoken people think of violence and of bloodshed. Therefore to use the term without explanation is to risk getting seriously misunderstood. The Socialist Party would regard it a calamity to the socialist cause, as well as to humanity, to have a violent upheaval in society. The campaign of the Socialist Party is essentially educational; an appeal to intelligence and reason. It may well happen that in the future we could see violence and civil war, but if such should be the case it would not be the result of the socialists, but rather the result of the refusal of the ruling class to accept socialism. For socialism offers a possible peaceful solution by a willing majority. .

Whoever holds firmly to the necessity of the organisation of the working class into an independent political party, distinct from and opposed to all pro-capitalist parties to capture the powers of government” in order to carry out the principles of socialism is a revolutionary.

“Those who repudiate political revolution as the principle means of social transformation, or wish to confine this to such measures as have been granted by the ruling class are social reformers, no matter how much their social ideas may antagonise existing social forms. ” - Karl Kautsky, The Social Revolution:

Empty Rhetoric

Tremendous press coverage always follows parliamentary debates and legislation. Politicians always emphasise its importance and of course their own importance. 'The Child Poverty Act of 2010 holds the government accountable for reducing child poverty. On Wednesday, new figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that not only are they failing to do so, the numbers of children living in poverty will actually rise, from 2.4 million to 3.4 million by 2020 – the date that was set for the elimination of child poverty in the UK.' (Guardian, 8 May) So after all that pompous talk and so-called erudition what is the result? More kids are living in poverty than before the brilliant legislation. RD

Understanding class

There are two classes in society - the one possessing wealth and owning the means of its production, the other making the wealth by using those tools and technology but only with the permission and only for the benefit of the possessors. These two classes are necessarily in opposition to one another. We have before us today, in capitalist society, masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited but to put it more bluntly, robbers and the robbed. Two economic forces whose interests ceaselessly clash, are pitted against each other. These two classes can never be reconciled and it is this that we call the class struggle. Workers, be they “white” or “blue” collar, skilled or unskilled, because they are workers, cannot survive except by selling their labouring power. Yet were it not for the working class, the whole social fabric would collapse in an instant. It is they who do the useful work. It is they who produce the wealth.

UCS - A Brave Defence

“We don't only build ships on the Clyde, we build men. They have taken on the wrong people and we will fight." - Jimmy Reid


Occupations and sit-ins in Britain have been primarily used as a defensive method in union struggles as a means to oppose redundancies in a more determined manner. Occupying work-places are seen as a tactical improvement on conventional striking. After all, It’s warmer sitting-in, rather than standing outside picketing .

The Upper Clyde Shipyards Shipyards (UCS) work-in of 1971–72 posed, implicitly if not explicitly, the question of workers’ control of industry. Sit-in strikes challenges property rights and no matter how temporary, it does represent a seizure of ‘company property’ which is held ransom until the workers’ demands are hopefully met. No employer likes the idea of having their property seized, or having their plant used as bargaining power. But if the occupation is peaceful and unlikely to spread, why risk confrontation by management instigated evictions? In Glasgow, Chief Constable David McNee warned he would need 5000 additional policemen to keep control of the city if the yards closed

“The problem facing the leaders of the UCS workers was to devise a new technique of struggle which would achieve their objective, to prevent redundancies and closures, in what was bound to be a tough struggle. A strike could play into the hands of the employers when they were set on closure anyway. A sit-in would have been difficult to maintain for long enough. It would have also given the employers a good excuse to attack the workers by arguing that the sit-in made it impossible to fulfil any contract and aggravated the bankrupt situation. This could have helped the Tories to alienate public opinion from support of the UCS workers.” - UCS – The Fight for the Right to Work by A. Murray, Communist Party.

Strike action is inappropriate so instead overtime bans, go-slows were the order of the day. Trade Union officials, far from leading any fight against redundancies, often actively involved themselves in negotiations of phased sackings. The demands ‘last in, first out’, ‘voluntary retirement’, ‘natural wastage’ reflected the defensive nature of trade unions.

The UCS workers wanted to complete the partly-built ships and launch them (and even start on new ships already designed and commissioned). The employers and the state wanted to close down the yards.

The support for the UCS work-in was high within the working class, particularly in Scotland, expressed in two regional general strikes. The work-in also generated wide support beyond the organised labour movement. John Foster and Charles Woolfson in British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics, Vol 2 wrote:
“The ploy of ‘working-in’, which forced the government to accept the continuance of the yards as a going concern, immediately ranged behind the workers the 700 creditor firms which stood to lose all they were owed as well as the custom they depended on for the future. It forced local authorities, even the Conservative controlled Glasgow Council to confront the dilemma of supporting ‘their communities’ or the government. It took leadership of the dispute out of the hands of the official movement and temporarily neutralised a Scottish press which tended towards the Conservative Party (Herald and Scottish Daily Express) or right-wing Labour (Record) This response, of seeking to work upon and include the specific interests of local business and the professions in the regional economy, was based precisely on what [Jimmy] Reid reported to the C[ommunist]P[arty] national executive; an analysis of the specific contradictions of monopoly capitalism."

Despite all this, the movement came nowhere near bringing about a social overturn. But the work-in did force major concessions out of the government. In July 1971, the 8,000 took possession of the shipyards and held them for 15 months. As the authors point out:
“By October 1972 when the sit-in ended they had forced the Conservative government to abandon almost all its original objectives. Most of the 8000 jobs remained. Four yards were in operation. Worse still for the government, it had been pushed into a much wider reversal of regional policy. Its original intention in ending credits to the publicly-owned Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) had been to demonstrate its determination to stop support for all ailing industries. Now it had to reverse its entire regional policy and pay for a massive refloatment on the Clyde."

The UCS struggle continued for 16 months until October 1972. In the end the Tory government was forced into a U-turn and had to come up with £35 million in public money, plus millions more in credit, to maintain 8,000 jobs at UCS, in conjunction with a US company.

“Not a yard will close - Not a man down the road". Sadly, Socialist Courier has to note that years later the jobs and the yards saved no longer exist. But nevertheless 8,000 workers were kept in employment for longer than they would have been.

Trotskyist critics attacked the Communist Party leadership of the work-in for selling out and betrayal because they limited the struggle. They did not press for the extension of work-ins and workers’ control. These criticisms were unjustified. Reid and Fairlie cannot be criticised for settling for what was possible, given the relationship of forces and the general level of consciousness and organisation of the labour movement at the time, instead of indulging in ‘revolutionary’ gestures doomed to failure.

The UCS work-in demonstrated that closures and redundancy need not be passively accepted and that alternatives existed. The UCS work-in raised the expectations of thousands and captured the imagination of many more. A solidarity march from George Square to Glasgow Green saw 80,000 strong protest. 200,000 took part in what was effectively a partial general strike.

In the months and years that followed the commencement of the work-in, the idea of resistance spread. Workers at Plesseys of Alexandria, at the Scottish Daily Express with the publication of the Scottish Daily News and later Henry Robbs of Leith tried the same tactics. Capitalism in the end always prevailed.

Barriers To Socialism

There are many barriers to the ideas of socialism but at least one of them seems to be weakening. 'One in four people no longer believes in any religion, official analysis of national census returns found yesterday. It revealed Christianity is in decline and Christians are increasingly likely to be older or retired people. Many young people, young men in particular, appear to be rejecting religious belief altogether. Nearly one in three under-25s – 32 per cent – say they do not have a religion.' (Daily Mail, 17 May) Now we have to get rid of some of the other barriers - patriotism, racialism, sexism before we can get rid of the worst ism. Capitalism! RD

The Real Union Question

Have no illusions about the role of governments, the police or the law - the defence of capitalism and exploitation is the main function of the capitalist state.

Both Marx and Engels advised the workers to unite in trade unions and fight for improved wages and shorter hours. In these struggles, victories would be won. The workers could wring concessions out of the capitalists. “Now and then”, the Communist Manifesto explained “the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers.”

The hand-to-mouth existence of the workers has never made it easy to strike for higher wages and better working conditions. The employers can recuperate lost profits, the workers’ lost wages cannot. As long as the capitalist system exists, the bosses will always try to take back what they have been forced to concede. They will continually try to step up the exploitation of the working class in order to boost their profits.

Young and without a future

A report for the Scotland Institute – The Changing Face Of Youth Unemployment In Scotland 1992 To 2012 – found that over the past two decades, youth employment has gone from being characterised as consisting of stable, relatively well-paid work with career prospects to short-term, part-time, poorly paid work with limited long-term prospects.


Report author Dr Roger Cook, the research director at the institute, said: “Twenty years of sustained removal of employment protection and the casualisation of work has created a situation where young people are becoming trapped in low-paid work with limited longer-term opportunities... This is the conscious outcome of an approach to the labour market over 20 years that has stressed flexibility and ignored the impact of this on people’s working lives or standard of living. Those who are relatively well educated are finding jobs but those jobs are less likely to offer a career, progression, security or a decent wage than was the case even in the depths of recession under the 1992-1997 government. Stagnation of wages and loss of security has wider implications than just inflicting hardship on individuals.”

Cricket And Capitalism

Capitalism distorts everything it touches including sport. 'Legendary Indian batsman Rahul Dravid has spoken of his anguish after three players from the team he captains in the Indian Premier league were arrested over allegations of spot-fixing. The Rajasthan Royals captain said he was "shocked" at S. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila's arrests. On Thursday, a court sent the players into police custody for five days.' (BBC News, 17 May)Dravid may well be in anquish but he can't be that surprised, for last year Indian cricket officials suspended five players after a sting by undercover TV reporters purported to show cricketers agreeing to bowl no-balls and spot-fix matches. And in 2011, three top Pakistani players - Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir - were banned after they were found guilty of involvement in a betting scam. RD

Two Different Worlds

Socialism is a society wherein every human being capable of it works according to their ability and in return takes according to their needs. Capitalism is a society wherein a small minority own the means of production and distribution and where the majority must work for a wage or a salary and produce a surplus value enjoyed by the small minority. So how is capitalism faring today? 'The unemployment rate in Britain has risen for the third successive quarter, with 15,000 more people jobless and looking for work in the three months to March. The total rose to 2.75 million, pushing the official unemployment rate up to 7.8 per cent of the workforce.' (Times, 16 May) Nearly 3 million people are stopped from producing wealth today in Britain. Think of a world socialist society and how much more productive it could be than a production for profit society like capitalism. RD

La Belle Sansculotte

LA BELLE SANSCULOTTE


She is coming, O my masters, she is coming in her might,
With the red flag o’er her legions and her sword sharp, clean and bright;
She is breaking through your dungeons, she is tearing off your chain,
She is coming to take vengeance without mercy once again!

She is coming, O my masters, with a new might in her arms,
Her vision clear, unclouded by a dying Satan’s charms;
She is coming in hate’s beauty, with love’s fierceness in her eye,
Like a maddened mother hast’ning where your tortured child-slaves die!

She is coming, O my masters, with her strong, steel-muscled hands,
She is reaching for your factories, your gardens and your lands;
She is calling to her standard all the sons of grief and toil,
She is promising your soldiers all your stolen wealth for spoil.

She is coming, O my masters! ’Neath her red, triumphal arch,
Lo! the guards that now surround you in her rebel ranks shall march!
She is coming as forever and forever she has come,
Arm in arm with Hope and Freedom, to the long roll of Right’s drum!

She is coming, O my masters! Soon her troops shall rest their feet
In the limpid waters flowing through your bowers, cool and sweet;
Soon her hungered hosts shall gather in your gold-roofed banquet hall,
And to ecstatic music hold high revel o’er your fall!

She is coming, O my masters, she is coming in her might,
With the red flag o’er her legions and her sword sharp, clean and bright!
She is coming in hate’s beauty, with love’s fierceness in her eye,
Like a maddened mother hast’ning where your tortured child-slaves die!

By Covington Hall
Oldtime Industrial Unionist

Our Benevolent Masters

The owning class and all their "experts" are always trying to improve the health of the working class, so the following report should come as no surprise to anyone. 'Research by the the Institute of Economic Affairs found that both mental and physical health can suffer, and that the Government should help people work longer and raise the state pension ages. The study - Work Longer, Live Healthier: The Relationship Between Economic Activity, Health And Government Policy - shows there is a small boost in health immediately after retirement but that, over the longer term, there is a significant deterioration. It suggests retirement increases the likelihood of suffering from clinical depression by 40 per cent and the chance of having at least one diagnosed physical condition by about 60 per cent.' (Daily Telegraph, 16 May) Despite this touching concern for the health of the working class the owning class seem to live long and healthy lives without the added benefits of anything remotely resembling hard work. RD

Life Is Cheap In Capitalism

The recent loss of over 1,000 worker's lives in a Bangladesh factory is not peculiar to that country. 'Cambodian clothing industry workers have been killed in the partial collapse of the shoe factory where they worked, adding to the loss of life in the Asian industry of making garments for the west. ...........Authorities told the Associated Press that two bodies had been pulled from the wreckage and at least seven people were injured, while a union official speaking to the Reuters news agency put the death toll at six or more. There were estimates of up to 50 people trapped in the wreckage.' (Guardian, 16 May) Reports say it is unclear how many people remain trapped. Capitalism in its drive for greater and greater profits roves the world and Asia is an attractive source of cheap unprotected labour. The garment industry is Cambodia's biggest export earner. In 2012 more than $4bn worth of products were shipped to the United States and Europe. RD

Man from the Pru

Chief executive Tidjane Thiam remuneration for last year totalled £7.8 million.

He was censured by the Financial Services Authority in March after Prudential was fined £30m for two regulatory breaches relating to its aborted £23 billion acquisition of Asia-based AIA three years ago.

Shareholder Ian Michel told Prudential's annual shareholder meeting in London: "It seems to me that the executive pay is very high. I have no doubt everybody works very hard but the word 'greedy' is not entirely removed from my mind."


Another described Mr Thiam's pay as "obscene".

Steve O'Donnell, a representative of staff union Unite at Prudential UK, which has a large site at Craigforth, Stirling, questioned the bonus payout to Mr Thiam in light of the FSA fine.

The fight for houses

"Ever since the Highland Clearances in the 18th Century, ordinary Scottish folk have been pushed around according to the whims of property owners and their servants the politicians."

This pamphlet by the now defunct group Solidarity, although dated now, makes interesting reading.

http://libcom.org/library/housing-rents-tenants-struggle-scotland

State ownership or common ownership

The term “State capitalism” (sometimes misleadingly designated as State Socialism) is an economic form in which the state performs the role of the capitalist employer, for instance the Post Office(at least for the moment). Under State ownership or State control of industry, the exploitation of wage workers continues. Surplus-values are appropriated by the capitalist class just the same. The government now functions as the exploiting agent of the capitalists who receive their incomes in the form of interest on government bonds or on loans to the government. Although the exploitation may be less direct, the profits go to the capitalists as formerly. The workers are not any better off. That is what Engels meant when he said, “State ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces.” Millions of employees are now in the State sector and the capitalist class are just as rich while the working class are just as insecure and just as poor, as before. But state property is not socialism for the workers are still not the masters of their labour conditions and remain separated from the production process.


“State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution... [in Marx and Engels’ view, for] neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital... The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme.” (Anti-Dühring)

The Madness Of Capotalism

We are constantly being told that we are living in a time of economic recession and must learn to tighten our belts. That advice is not paid much attention to by the owning class.'An enormous Gerhard Richter painting of Milan's Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) that was commissioned to cheer up the offices of the electronics conglomerate Siemens sold for $37m (£24m) on Tuesday, setting a new auction record for a living artist. .........It was bought by a Napa Valley vineyard owner, Donald Bryant, who punched his fist in the air after successfully buying the Richter at Sotheby's big contemporary art sale in New York.' (Guardian, 15 May) In case you think the owning class are mad to pay such prices for a painting it should be pointed out that the Milan painting was sold by the Hyatt hotel group achieving a price 10 times higher than they paid for it in 1998. It is not the art buyers that are mad - it is the capitalist system. RD

Transcending the trade union struggle

The working class are as our Chartist forefathers were not afraid to call it, a class of wages slaves. Yet today we are less preoccupied with the abolition of the wages system than ever. Reformists attempt to mollify inhuman social relations whilst preserving them intact. The old cry for a fair day’s pay echoes repeatedly time and time again. The essence of working-class enslavement is not impoverishment. Whether a worker’s wages be high or low his existence is imposed. It is necessary to abolish the basic condition of modern exploitation, wage slavery.


The old conceptions in the labour movement have become faulty and inadequate and working class organisations offer indecision and confusion, and are reduced to impotence.

Karl Marx counseled the working class many years ago that “they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘abolition of the wages system.’ ”

When we fight for a demand like a wage increase, we are merely fighting against the effects of capitalism. Not merely that. We are demanding it from the capitalists. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. That is why they degenerate to pure and simple reformism and, in the end, bolster up capitalism.

Every wage increase that is won by the workers is eventually offset by the employers by more intensive work. So, usually, the workers are back to from where they started.

What all workers should understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it by socialism. This is the limitation of trade union struggles. However, we should not oppose trade union struggles. It is essential to organise workers and help them to realise the value of their labour power in the fight for their day to day demands. And it is also in the course of these fights, that the workers can learn about the system of capitalist exploitation and the need to abolish it. They will not only discover how to fight for wage increases but also how to abolish the wage system itself.
The objective of the Socialist Party is nothing less than the socialist reconstruction of society, the abolition of the wages system. We press the workers to transform the economic struggle into a political struggle for the seizure of power by the working class. Otherwise we will sink into the morass of never-ending reformism.

The poor once again pay the rich

The Duke of Roxburghe could net £1.5 million a year from a wind farm on the Lammermuir Hills. The Earl of Moray is estimated to receive £2 million a year from a wind farm near Stirling. The Earl of Glasgow could be earning upwards of £300,000 a year from turbines on his Kelburn estate. These hang-overs from our feudal past earn large sums by renting their land to wind-turbine energy firms whose wind farms are in turn subsidised by extra levies on ordinary electricity consumers.


Alison Elliot, chair of the Land Reform Review Group (LRRG), said the issue would be investigated amid concerns that aristocrats are benefiting from the renewables revolution while the poor grapple with fuel­poverty. Dr Elliot told Sir Robert Clerk of Penicuik, a consultant for Smith Gore and a landowner at the centre of a storm over plans for wind turbines on his estate: “Land is implicated in providing food, space for housing and in overcoming fuel poverty.“We are an energy rich country so why do we have fuel poverty?”

The Church of Scotland said such figures represented a “significant transfer of income from domestic electricity consumers, including those living in fuel poverty, to landowners...The Church is concerned this redistribution of income is tending to promote inequality. The ownership of land in Scotland remains deeply inequitable and the new landed income from wind power entrenches that inequality.” It added: “A paradox of life in rural Scotland is that the rapid growth of renewable energy is matched by a growth in fuel poverty… This is unacceptable and if landowners are gaining financial rewards from renewables while a growing number of households are living in fuel poverty, then the strong case for re-examining land reform to ensure the financial benefits of renewables are shared more equitably is strengthened further.”

A taxing question

Amazon paid less in UK corporation tax last year than it received in government grants, its official company accounts show.
Its corporation tax bill was just £2.44m – less than the £2.5m it received from the Scottish Government in inducements to build a new distribution warehouse in Dunfermline.

Its corporation tax bill was just £2.44m – less than the £2.5m it received from the Scottish Government in inducements to build a new distribution warehouse in Dunfermline.

Alex Salmond has previously spoken of what he described as an “historic” deal that saw Amazon set up a distribution centre in Dunfermline, alongside its customer call centre in Edinburgh.
Peter Walsh, Scottish spokesman for union Unite, warned the latest Amazon tax payments were a “drop in the ocean” compared to its vast UK sales figures. “We desperately need to look at tax reform and how to achieve tax justice,” he said. “The taxes they pay, combined with the fact they are a low-wage, low-skills employer, poses the question as to what benefit they bring to Scotland and to the UK. We have put significant public funds into luring this employer here and this is what we get back.”

Sunday Morning Hypocrisy

On a Sunday morning throughout England the man of God in the pulpit will attack those who place reliance on material gains. 'Thirst not after the material things of life. Blessed are the poor.' he will declaim. That's all very well for lecturing his gullible flock but in real life the church is less unworldly. 'The Church of England will announce some of its best financial results in recent years today, with a 9.7 per cent return on investments for 2012. ........... The Church commissioners manage £5.5 billion in assets for the Church of England. (Times, 15 May) RD

who owns the north pole - part 58

China, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore have been permanent observer status on the Arctic Council.


The Arctic Council has until now been an organisation for the environmental sectors of government but you are moving into real politics and that's a different game explained Leiv Lunde , a former special envoy on energy and climate change at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Socialism = Communism

The Socialist Party repudiates any differentiation between socialism and communism. Socialism is communism, and vice versa. The words socialism and communism have the same meaning. Both entail the total abolition of money, buying and selling, and the wages system, a complete breach, both in practice and in ideas, with capitalism. They indicate a condition of society in which the wealth of the community: the land and the means of production and distribution are held in common, production being for use and not for profit. The community will ascertain what are the requirements of the people in food, clothing, housing, transport, educational and cultural facilities. Food, clothing, housing, transport, sanitation — these come first. Then will follow the luxuries.


It means the community must set itself the task of providing rather more than the people can use of all the things that the people need and desire, and of supplying these when and as the people require them. Socialism shall satisfy material needs without stint or measure from the common storehouse, according to individual and social desires. Private property, beyond that which is in actual personal use, will disappear. Everyone will be able to have what he or she desires in food, in clothing, education and travel. The abundant technology now possible removes any need for rationing or limiting of consumption. None will desire to hoard commodities not in use, since a fresh supply may be obtained at will.
In socialism, people will be free to co-operate, producing, inventing, studying, not under the compulsion of law, or poverty, or the incentive of individual gain, but from deliberate choice and with a zest for achievement. Socialism will provide the material and spiritual conditions which will make voluntary co-operative labour possible.

Marx and Engels on the power of the vote

It's often pointed out that our political system is completely corrupted by money yet history teaches that people's influence on their governments is much more powerful than we usually imagine. It's weakened primarily by people's failure to do anything and the mistaken belief that we don't have the power to shape the world as we wish it to be.


Marx and Engels strongly supported political action in the sense of participating in elections. They stressed the importance of the vote. Engels explains that universal suffrage "in an England two-thirds of whose inhabitants are industrial proletarians means the exclusive political rule of the working class with all the revolutionary changes in social conditions which are inseparable from it." Marx argued along the same lines, for example, in 1855, he stated that "universal suffrage . . . implies the assumption of political power as means of satisfying [the workers'] social means" and, in Britain, "revolution is the direct content of universal suffrage."

In 1852 Marx wrote, concerning the Chartists:

“But universal suffrage is the equivalent of political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but only landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the continent. Its inevitable result, here is the political supremacy of the working class.” [Marx emphasis]
His meaning is clear - a working class majority in Parliament, backed by a majority of the population, can bring about the real transfer of power.

The Revolutionary Vote

If they won't vote for socialism, they won't die for it

The capitalist system fails to supply the needs of the vast majority of people and it must be overthrown before the workers can have freedom. The ruling class is never going to solve its problems through the capitalist system, therefore, the objective conditions for revolution are going to crop up over and over again. But there is considerable difference of opinions as to the means by which this can be accomplished. Some advocate the ballot, or parliamentary action; some armed insurrection, or military action; and some the general strike, or industrial action.

Armed insurrection to have any reasonable chance of success the workers would need to have as large and well equipped an army as the capitalists. Yet the working class are unarmed and most unskilled in the use of weapons. They have no military organisation. They have no means of securing arms. An untrained, undisciplined and badly equipped army of workers going forth to overthrow the system might as well be committing suicide. As long as the means necessary to equip, supply, and transport armies remains in control of the capitalists, it is impossible for the workers to gain military power. The revolutionary army would be slaughtered like sheep. The best tactics on the part of the workers is to avoid armed insurrection unless it is actually forced upon them andworkers should beware of those who urge them to armed insurrection.

Food for thought

There has been an uproar in Canada during the last two weeks over the hiring of cheap foreign workers. The super rich Royal Bank got caught with its pants down when an employee blew the whistle when he and many others were told to train these imported workers who would then replace the bank's workers for half the price. The government, properly outraged, has moved to stop this egregious use of their program that 'was never intended to put Canadians out of work'. Really! Who made up the rules in the first place? Meanwhile in the US, people and politicians constantly gripe about the Latinos in their country but they are quite happy to employ them at cut rates in their homes and businesses and the politicians who rage against illegals and want the border sealed, are strangely silent about enacting laws making it illegal to hire them. (Haroon Siddiqui), Toronto Star, 28/04/13). John Ayers.

Balls !!

The Royal Caledonian Ball is the oldest charity ball in the world. It is when Scotland’s elite high society descend on London for dinner, drinks and some traditional Scottish country-dancing, full of pomp and ceremony.

It was inaugurated in the Victorian era by the Duke and Duchess of Atholl first held in 1848. Since 1930 the ball has been held at Grosvenor House on Park Lane, the ­hotel with the biggest, grandest ballroom in London. Tickets cost between £135 and £225. There is a strict dress code. Gentlemen are expected to wear Highland evening dress, evening tails with white tie, or mess kit. Dinner jackets are verboten. Ladies should wear floor-length evening dress; tiaras are very much encouraged and tartan sashes are optional but encouraged.


Later, following the start of the grouse season, there will come a string of balls in Scotland – among them Oban, Skye, Angus, Perth, Lochaber and the Northern Meeting.

From here

Learning about schools and education

Children as such are not usually included among the oppressed. Yet they necessarily compose one of the weakest, most dependent and defenseless sections of the population. Each generation of children is not only helped but hindered and hurt by the elders who exercise direct control over them. Children are normally unaware of the social causes of their misfortunes and miseries and even the grown-ups may not know about them. Most parents cannot be held individually responsible for such misdeeds for they, too, have been shaped by the society around them and are obliged to follow certain ways out of necessity.


The class structure quickly impresses its stamp upon the personality, conditioning and regulating the relations between the sexes, the rich and the poor. This determines both the characteristics of the educational system and of the children tutored and trained under it.
Children soak up knowledge and retain it for use. The child learns best through direct personal experience. In the primary stage of education these experiences should revolve around games. They progress fastest in learning, not through being drilled by rota, but by doing work and experimenting with things. Occasionally children need to be alone and on their own. But in the main they will learn more by doing things together. By choosing what their group would like to do, planning their work, helping one another do it, trying out various ways and means of performing the tasks, involved and discovering what will forward the project, comparing and appraising the results, the youngsters would best develop their latent powers, their skill, understanding, self-reliance and cooperative habits. Participation in meaningful projects, learning by doing, encouraging problems and solving them, not only facilitates the acquisition and retention of knowledge but fosters the right character traits: unselfishness, helpfulness, critical intelligence, individual initiative.

As most people know free education and free schools were one of the first and most insistent demands of the working class in the last century. The bourgeoisie made this concession partly because it could afford to and mostly because it fitted in with its own interests.

However, history shows how subservience was bred and enforced in the schools. Business, big or little, directly or indirectly, has the economic, political and propaganda power to exercise a veto over the whole realm of education. The capitalists know what they want: schools which serve their profit system. Schools are institutions where children are indoctrinated with bourgeois ideology. They create an outlook that is warped and make apologists for the system, not careful investigators. The ideological submission of the working class is the most powerful shackle preventing it from taking power, and our education system is one of the factors in achieving this.

The way in which the class struggle is fought out within the educational system is as clearly apparent as the direct confrontation of classes on the factory shop-floor. Those involved in the struggle for better schools must face the fact that the functions of education in a class society is to give the working-class child only enough skills to enable him to be exploited in the work place and not to emancipate him from social drudgery. An illiterate work-force are of little usef to the modern employer. The class function of the school is to fit the working-class kid for the factory floor or the office desk – to exploit him and not to emancipate him. The educational process is deformed by the pressure of class interests. Education under capitalism must be conducted primarily in the interests of the ruling class.

One day we will have the power to make changes. Every movement that desires to change the social order must go to the people. An equalitarian society, functioning, not under authority and economic pressure, but by the common consent, can never flourish except by the active willing co-operation of the mass of people. There can be no socialism until the the majority desire socialism. An educational revolution is needed; is in fact overdue. The world will one day be ours, so let’s start fighting for it.

Artfull Dodgers

Workers are constantly being reprimanded by politicians and journalists for being "benefit fraudsters" but in fact whatever dodges they may get up to its as nothing compared to the tax evasion of the owning class. 'More than 100 of Britain's richest people have been caught hiding billions of pounds in secretive offshore havens, sparking an unprecedented global tax evasion investigation. George Osborne, the chancellor, warned the alleged tax evaders, and a further 200 accountants and advisers accused of helping them cheat the taxman: "The message is simple: if you evade tax, we're coming after you."' (Guardian, 9 May) Despite Osborne's threat this is a constant running battle between the government and the owning class's armies of accountants and financial adviser devising new and better methods of evasion. RD

The wealthy students

Research shows that of Edinburgh University’s ultra-rich graduates – those worth at least £20m – more than a quarter get their money from family fortunes. Edinburgh’s 80 ultra-rich graduates were worth around £52million each, but 26% of them sourced their money from inheritance. Japan’s Princess Mako is to study at the university. German aristocrat Prince Albert II, who can trace his noble lineage back to the Holy Roman Empire and has been described as the world’s youngest billionaire, studied economics and theology at the university. Other royalty to study at the university include Romania’s Princess Margareta and Princess Raiyah of Jordan.
And among Glasgow University’s wealthiest former students, almost a fifth rely on inherited cash, according to the study. At Glasgow University 18% of the 80 ultra-rich graduates sourced their money from inheritance.

Peter Murray McDouall (1814-54)

Jenny Wormald in her biography “Mary Queen of Scots. A Study in Failure” describes a Scottish monarch who lacked an interest in Scotland and who posessed an obsession in aquiring the English throne. In 1548, at the age of just five, Mary left Scotland for France. She returned to Scotland in 1561 following the death of her husband and continued to still own and manage considerable French estates, the legacy of the dowry settled upon her as a consequence of her brief marriage to the the French king. In Scotland, and even during her long imprisonment in England, Mary maintained a predominantly French household and a pronounced interest in French affairs. French was to remain her first language.

The Marie Stuart Society have now begun a campaign to raise about £100,000 for a full-size bronze statue of Mary.

However, Socialist Courier is always surprised, although we shouldn’t be, by our own forgotten Scottish working class history. The Chartist activist and friend of Marx and Engels, George Julian Harney was to recall, “no man in the Chartist movement was better known than Dr McDouall”.

Growing Old Disgracefully

Readers of the popular press are probably well aware of world hunger as a pressing problem, but they are probably unaware that this is not just a problem that affects people abroad. 'Most people think of the condition as a "third world problem", but one in ten older people in the UK are malnourished, the British Dietetic Association and the Malnutrition Task Force said. ..........."For far too long, malnutrition and dehydration has been thought of as a third world problem," said Helen Davidson, honorary chair of the British Dietetic Association - the professional body for UK dieticians. "The reality is, malnutrition and dehydration is a very big problem here in the UK."' (Daily Express, 9 May) Malnutrition Task Force task force chair Dianne Jeffrey claimed that one in ten older people are malnourished and estimates put the figure at about three million. That is capitalism for you, even in an advanced country like the UK old folk are malnourished. RD

Food Fact of the Day

The world loses 12 million hectares of productive agricultural land each year to factors such as desertification, land degradation and urbanisation.

If this land stayed productive it could have made 20 million tonnes of grain.

"It's only human nature , isn't it?"

Sooner or later a socialist will be faced with the question “What about human nature? Socialism is against human nature" as the reason to why the struggle for socialism is doomed and why socialism itself will not work. Rarely, if ever, is the question phrased “What aspect of human nature do we feel we should encourage to achieve socialism?”

Human nature has always been invoked every time there has been any question of social progress. The slave-holders said some people were born to be slaves. The slave was a possession of the slave owner and only lived and worked for his benefit. The master had full control of the life and family of the slave. The owner was everything, the slave nothing. It was the natural order of things.

Capitalism has been responsible for a great deal of human suffering. Concentration of wealth and property, exploitation of labour, the abuse of nature for profit, the violent suppression of opposition, the manipulation of democracy and control of information, surpluses of food and medicine for the rich while millions of the poorest die of malnutrition and disease. Supporters of capitalism, however, insist that “human nature” creates the ills associated with the present system – greed, competition, war, inequality. Socialists declare it is not “human nature” that is the cause of the problems people face today. It is the way society is organised

Opponents of socialism say that we are not being practical: that we are dreamers and utopians. Our opponents confront us again with human nature and say; “You want to change society to ensure happiness to all and give everyone equality. You forget human nature! Man is by nature selfish and evil. You will never be able to change people.”

Socialists do not believe that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. Socialists are never tempted to assume that "human nature" is identical with that particular expression of human nature prevalent in their own society. Socialists do not accept that there was a fixed, eternal "human nature". In human society nothing is unchangeable. Everything is variable. Human nature is strongly shaped by the society it exists in and does in fact vary from one society to another. Through history classes and social systems have succeeded each other and differed from each other. It is a mistake to maintain that human nature does not change. Everything changes in Nature and in life. Everything is in a process of transformation. Movement is the universal law of everything that exists. We never meet the same person twice because during the interval they have grown older, their constitution and character changed; they is no longer the same. If everything changes, is subject to transformation and modification, how is it possible to believe for a moment that the present system of property will always remain the same? That would be, indeed, contrary to nature.

The satisfaction of human needs is impossible for an isolated individual. Only by taking part in the collective production process, working alongside everyone else to produce what we all require, can an individual become truly human. It has also been said that if men do not have the spur of hunger and want and of the desire to make profit they will become lazy. To argue this is to forget the necessity for clothing, feeding and sheltering oneself. Who does not work neither will they eat. It is to forget too, that idleness is not the characteristic of a sane person.

Laziness is a social malady, spawned by our system, which is in itself a stimulus to laziness. It assures all riches, all the pleasures of life to those who work the least possible - the idle rich parasites. Laziness also develops from the intolerable conditions of forced and excessive labour in unhealthy factories. How can people work with enthusiasm when they know that their work will go to the enrichment of others? When the producers know that the products of their work will belong to them they will throw overboard the old repugnance which forced drudgery engenders in them. Work well regulated and fairly apportioned will become attractive. It will become a joy and a pleasure, and this is because work is necessary for the physical and mental well-being of the individual. Altruism/co-operation/communism, call it as you will, is basically the "we" and the "us" versus the egotistical bourgeois, "I" and the "me". "All against all" would properly express capitalist values.

Socialism does not depend on some miraculous change in human nature. Thirsty men will fight tooth and nail for a drink of water in a desert. But if they are up to their waist in water they may have a thousand differences among themselves, but they will not even dream of fighting for a drink. A dozen men in a prison cell with only one tiny window may trample over each other in the fight to get to that tiny source of fresh air. But outside, who ever thinks of fighting for air to breathe, or for more air than the next man? Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first. But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line, no race, no conflict; nobody would try to hoard an extra loaf in order to make sure of eating the next day. If society could assure everyone of as ample and constant a supply of bread as there is of air, why would anyone need or want a greater right to buy bread than his neighbor? Bread is used here only as the simplest illustration. But the same applies to all other foods, to clothing, to shelter, to transport.

Capitalism cannot exist without the working-class. It is the working-class which sets in motion the machine. As soon as the proletariat becomes conscious of this fact it will begin to revolt against a state of things. Socialism is very simple. A small minority of rich people exploit the mass of poor people, those who produced the wealth of the world. If we, the vast majority, got ourselves organised, we can take the wealth into our hands, along with the means to produce it. Then with rational planning all major problems of social life can be resolved to the satisfaction of all.

More Food for thought

At the other end of the spectrum ( the highest paid lackeys ) we have those on welfare. The Provincial Liberal government is bringing down a budget and looking to decrease its deficit. As usual, it is targeting the most vulnerable in our society. It has proposed that anyone on welfare will experience clawbacks of their allowance if they earn more than $200 per month. They also propose to scrap the special diet allowance for those with chronic illnesses that require special foods. The program costs $230 million a year, not a small amount but piddling in the total budget. How mean can you get? How about getting someone to donate his/her hedge fund salary for a year (at that rate, how many years of earning do you really need?) and keep the food program going for another four years. Maybe the high earners can rotate! Of course, this nonsense will go on as long as we, the ninety-nine percent let the one percent do as they bloody well like.
But wait! We have a saviour. Justin Trudeau, son of former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, has been elected new leader of the federal Liberal party to contest the stagnating Tories. David Olive of the Toronto Star exhorts Trudeau to 'craft a bold agenda'. Olive points out that middle-class incomes have not only been stagnating but actually plummeting and the only thing saving them is the second bread-winner in the family and the credit card. Also for Captain Trudeau to address is the fact that 1.4 million are out of work and almost 900,000 Canadians, 38% of them children, use food banks *every week*, a 31% increase since 2008. Still, we are being told to wait for miracles from our leaders. Only when we all own the system and we have no leaders will this nonsense end! John Ayers

Food for thought

We are all aware that the highest paid lackeys of capitalism receive extraordinary salaries, often in the millions when one can say that by the mid-morning of the second day of the year they have earned as much as the average worker will earn in a whole year. However, the New York Times reported (Sunday, April 21) that hedge fund titans make much more than this. In fact the four top earners cited earned, $900 million, $1.7 billion, $1.1 billion, and $1.4 billion! Please
explain to me how anyone can earn $500 000 per hour! That means that these hard workers earn the average worker's salary in about five minutes! Just how crazy can this get? John Ayers

Gerald Massey - the Chartist Poet

"KINGS ARE BUT GIANTS BECAUSE WE KNEEL"

Good People, put no faith in Kings, nor merchant-princes trust,
Who grind your hearts in Mammon's press—your faces in the
dust—
Trust to your own true thought! to break the Tyrant's dark dark
ban;
If yet one spark of freedom lives, let man be true to man.
We'll never fight again, Boys! with the Yankee, Pole, or Russ.
We love the French as Brothers, and the fervid French love us!
We'll league to crush the fiends who kill, all love and liberty,
They are but Giants because we kneel, one leap, and up go we!

Trust not the Priests, their tears are lies, their hearts are hard and
cold—
The welcomest of all their flock, are fierce wolves fleeced with gold;
Rogues all! for hire they prop the laws, that make us poor men
sin.
Ay! tho' their robes are black without, they've blacker souls
within.
The Church and State are linkt, and sworn to desolate the land—
Good People, twixt these foxes tails, we'll fling a fiery brand!
Who fears the worst that they can wreak, that loveth liberty?
They are but Giants because we kneel, one leap and up go we!

"Back tramplers of the many! death and danger ambusht lie?
"Beware ye! or the blood may run! respect a nation's cry.
"Ah, shut not out the light of Hope! the People blind, may dash
"Like Sampson in his strong death-grope, and whelm ye in the
crash.
"Think how they taxt the People mad, that old regime of
France,
"Whose heads, like poppies from Death's sythe, fell in a bloody
dance.
Ye plead in vain! ye bleed in vain! ah! Blind, when will ye see,
They are but Giants because we kneel! one leap, and up go we?

We've fought and bled, while Fortune's darlings slunk in
splendid lair,
With souls that crept like worms in buried Beauty's golden hair!
A tale of lives wrung out in tears, their grandeur-garb reveals,
And the last sobs of breaking hearts, sound in their chariot wheels.
But they're quaking now! and shaking now! who've wrought the
hurtling sorrow:
To-day the Desolators, but the desolate To-morrow!
Loud o'er their murderous menace, wakes the watchword of the
Free.
Kings are but Giants because we kneel! one leap, and up go we!

Some brave and patriots hearts, are gone, to break beyond the
wave,
And some who gave their lives for love, have found a prison-
grave,
Some, have grown grey with weeping! some have fainted by the
way,
But youth still nouritures* within the hope of a better day.
O! Blessings on world-conquering youth! God's with the shining
band!
Their spirits breathe of Paradise! they're freshest from his hand!
And looking on the People's might, who doubts they shall be
free?
Kings are but Giants because we kneel ! one leap, and up go we!
* Nurtures.

GERALD MASSEY
(1828 - 1907)

Born in a hovel in Tring, on 29th May 1828, (Thomas) Gerald Massey was the eldest son of an impoverished and illiterate canal-boatman. Massey said of himself that “he had no childhood,” for on reaching the age of eight he was put to work in the Town’s silk mill where his twelve-hour days spent labouring in grim conditions added between nine pence and one shilling and three pence to his father's meagre earnings. He later worked in Tring’s then-thriving straw plaiting industry producing braid for the straw hat trade in nearby Luton and Dunstable. Thanks to his mother, Mary, Massey received a scant education at a “penny school”. Despite these tough beginnings, he learned to read and write using the Bible, Bunyan, Robinson Crusoe and Wesleyan tracts left at the family home.

Lots To Smile About

Accompanying a photograph of the two billionaires smiling broadly at a Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders meeting in the USA was the following piece of information. 'Super-rich Bill Gates and Warren Buffett obviously know how to take it easy. It can't be too hard when Microsoft chairman Gates, 57, is worth $67 billion and Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Buffett, 82, has been valued at $53.5 billion.' (Sunday Express, 5 May) RD

Another Promise Bites The Dust

When the government closed Remploy factories that employed disabled workers their boast was that the closures would lead to more of them getting jobs in mainstream employment. Like most government promises this turned out to be untrue. 'Up to two thirds of the disabled workers who lost their jobs when the nationwide network of Remploy factories began to be shut down last autumn are still out of work.' (Sunday Express, 5 May) Being unemployed is tough but being unemployed and disabled must be hellish. RD

Scottish Wage Slavery

Although Scots speak of Scotland as “our” country and millions of Scotsmen have died or have been mutilated over the centuries in defence of what they called “their” country, as a matter of fact Scotland does not belong to the whole of the Scottish people, but to a comparative few. How many Scots can point to a particular part of the map of Scotland and say “this is mine”? The greatest portion of Scotland is divided among a few great landlords.


Scotland is spoken of as a wealthy country by proponents of nationalism. Does that mean that the Scottish people as a whole are well off? By no means. Some are immensely rich, most merely get by with a bare living, and large number are degradingly poor. The land, factories and transport, all the means of producing the nation’s wealth, are owned by the landlord/capitalist class. In capitalist Scotland, production is carried on not for the purpose of supplying the needs of the people but for the purpose of sale in order to realise a profit. Only those who have something to sell can get a living.

The working class have nothing to sell but their labour power. They sell their labour power to an employer for a price, that is, wages. Since one cannot separate labour power from one’s body it comes down to this, that a workers actually sells themselves like a slave. Socialists describe it as wage-slavery. In Scotland the average a worker is not more than a few weeks removed from penury. The Scottish worker know that year of honest sweat and persistent toil and bring them nothing worth holding on to, nothing worth fighting for. Yet, deep down in their foolish hearts they believe they have a country. Oh, the blind vanity of slaves!

What does Scottish capitalism offer the worker? A life of toil, and a bare subsistence. Always the fear of unemployment. A drab, colourless existence and, when unable to earn our keep any longer, to be thrown on the scrap-heap. In an independent Scotland , nationalists say “there will be change” and that “things will be different”. But capitalism will remains in existence, the worker will still remain subject to the capitalist. There will still be riches and leisure for the few yet drudgery and poverty for the many. Mansions for the idle rich, slum housing for the workers. An independent Scotland can offer its workers nothing but wage slavery. Independence does not make a wage-slave free . There has neverexisted a truly free and democratic nation in the world.

No master ever had any respect for his slave. The capitalist for whom you work doesn’t have to go out and look for you; you have to seek out him, and you belong to him just as completely as if he had legal title to your body; as if you were his chattel slave. He doesn’t own you under law, but he does under the fact. Why? Because he owns the means by which you work and if you don’t work you don’t eat. He is your boss; he owns your job, takes your product and controls your destiny. You have wants. You have necessities. You cannot satisfy them except by your labour. In a barbarous competitive struggle workers are fighting each other to sell themselves into slavery.

After the American Civil War, the ex-Confederacy plantation owners looked upon the loss of their slaves as a severe blow, but they soon began to see what the North had long since known, that the ownership of land and capital meant the virtual ownership of those who must have access to those instruments or starve. The slaves had been freed but as this freedom did not include freedom of access to the means of livelihood they were still as dependent as ever. Being unable to employ themselves they were compelled to seek employment, or the use of land upon which to live, at the hands of the very class from whom they had been liberated. In either case they were only able to retain barely enough of the product to keep body and soul together. The competition among the newly emancipated for an opportunity to secure a livelihood was so great that their labour-power could be bought for a mere existence wage. The labour-power of the slave thus became a commodity, and like all commodities, its price was determined by its cost of production. The cost of producing labour-power is the cost of the labourer’s keep. The master class were able to secure the necessary labour-power to carry on their industries for merely a subsistence wage for no more than it cost them when they owned the slaves as chattels. Indeed, slavery is not yet abolished. So long as the worker is deprived of property in the instruments of production, so long as his labour-power is a commodity which he is obliged to sell to another, he is not a free being, be he white or black. He is simply a slave to a master and from morning until night is as much a bondsman as any black ever was below Mason and Dixon’s line before the civil war. Slaves are cheaper now and do more work than at any time in the world’s history.

A shopkeeper in order to live must sell his wares for what he can get, but a worker in order to live must sell a part of his life, nine, ten, or twelve hours per day, as the case may be. The shopkeeper, if lucky, may get the value of his goods, but the worker cannot get under the capitalist system the value of his labour; he must accept whatever wage those who are unemployed are willing to accept at his job. This is what is called wage-slavery, because under it the worker is a slave who sells himself for a wage with which to buy his rations, which is the only difference between this system and chattel slavery where the master bought the rations and fed the slave himself. There is only one remedy for this slavery of the working class, and that remedy is socialism a system of society in which the land, factories, workshops, and everything necessary for work shall be owned and operated as common property

Today there is nothing so easily produced as wealth. The whole earth consists of raw materials and with solar, wind and water power, by the touch of a button from the merest child, these can be set into operation to transform these raw materials into wealth, the finished products, in all their multiplied forms and in opulent abundance for all, wealth enough for a community. There is no excuse for poverty today yet it is a scourge for most living in a chronic state of poverty. Workers can change this by making up their minds that it shall be changed.

There is one way to attain that end, and that way is for the working class to establish a political party of its own, resolved to use all the power of the workers against their oppressors.

Colonial Hypocrisy

For many years the British ruling class have painted a picture of their government always behaving in an honourable fashion. This fallacy has now been exposed as nonsense. The British government is negotiating payments to thousands of Kenyans who were detained and severely mistreated during the 1950s Mau Mau insurgency . 'In a development that could pave the way for many other claims from around the world, government lawyers embarked upon the historic talks after suffering a series of defeats in their attempts to prevent elderly survivors of the prison camps from seeking redress through the British courts. Those defeats followed the discovery of a vast archive of colonial-era documents which the Foreign Office (FCO) had kept hidden for decades, and which shed new and stark light on the dying days of British rule, not only in Kenya but around the empire.' (Guardian, 5 May) In the case of the Mau Mau conflict, the secret papers showed that senior colonial officials authorised appalling abuses of inmates held at the prison camps established during the bloody conflict, and that ministers and officials in London were aware of a brutal detention regime in which men and women were tortured and killed. RD

Not So Shocking

Workers often have to borrow in order to get by from day to day, but now we learn many have to do so just to get something to eat. 'One in five UK households borrowed money or used savings to cover food costs in April, a Which? survey says. It suggests the equivalent of five million households used credit cards, overdrafts or savings to buy food. The consumer group tracks the spending habits and behaviours of 2,000 people every month. Which? boss Richard Lloyd described the findings as "shocking". (BBC News, 5 May) Mr Lloyd may be shocked, but socialists find it no surprise. RD

The General Strike Weapon

The possibility of a general strike keep cropping up within the trade union movement. There have been many different types of general strikes in the history of the working class internationally. A general strike is a practical tactic or a token gesture, useful or detrimental, according to the conditions under which it takes place, the method it employs and the end it proposes. When we speak of the general strike we are not concerned with the general strike of a single trade union but of all workers. The movement is no longer, a trade union movement but has become a class movement.

For the general strike to succeed, the working-class must be convinced of the importance of the aim for which it is declared. It must be demonstrated that the purpose is legitimate and victory is realisable. The general strike must not be a disguise for revolution, but simply the right to strike on a wider scale and with a more clearly marked class character. The Socialist Party dismisses the idea that the general strike is the panacea of the proletariat. If the weapon of the general strike is to be used, then the organisation must be so built up that this weapon will stand ready for instant use. For the certainty of success in a general strike lies in its suddenness.

The Socialist Party oppose those who think that a general strike would be enough to bring on the social revolution and the fall of the whole capitalist system. The Socialist Party call for for participation in elections, as a means of propaganda, organisation, and struggle. The class vote has as its goal the self-emancipation of the working class. Yet, despite those who like to claim otherwise, we have never subordinated the taking of political power by the workers – which is necessary for the emancipation of labour and society – to a socialist majority in parliament. But we are also obliged to reject as a mirage the general strike as the only way to achieve socialism. We argue that the working class can vote for itself, for its own candidates and against the candidates of the exploiting class, with little need for the social disruption required to make a general strike as effective tool.

There are some who desire to transform the proposed general strike against austerity into a political general strike, using the opposition to the cuts as the slogans to mobilise around. They expect that because of a sustained general strike the normal economic life of the country will be suspended, rail and roads would be deserted, container ships unable to dock. Everywhere there would be a stoppage in distribution and in production. Naturally, this great discomfort would arise since workers would be depriving themselves, and therefore would be forced to adopt more forceful methods in order to live. They would seize food and other provisions wherever they could lay hands on them. The privileged classes, threatened, would respond in kind with repression and so the general strike is envisioned to escalate into a revolutionary character. That is the idea of the “revolutionary socialists".

This sort of strategy is a trick to delude the working-classes. It proposes to drag them far beyond what was proposed. By the attraction of certain concrete, definite and immediate reforms they are to be led to believe from the general strike they will be conveyed almost automatically to the Revolution. To imagining that a social revolution can result from misleading workers in such a manner is nonsense.
The idea of carrying through a social revolution by means of a folded arms policy is romantic. A stoppage of production and transportation is not enough to bring about the overthrow of a society. Strikers will stand outside the gates of the factories, and even if the workers occupy and take possession of the factory, it is a pointless exercise for the factories cannot function while the economy is suspended and production is stopped by the universal strike. The general strike is centred upon the economic and does not supply the working-class forces with a broader but more central aim by which they can unite. So long as a class does not own and control the whole social machine, it can seize all the factories and yards it wants to, but it really possesses nothing.

The general strike, although, quite powerless as a revolutionary means, is none the less important. It is a warning to the privileged classes, rather than a method of liberation for the exploited classes. It tells the governing class if they are mad enough to threaten or attack universal suffrage, if by the persecution of employers and the police they made the right to unite in trade unions and the right to strike empty forms, then a forceful general strike would be certainly the form that a labour revolt would take. It would be an act of desperation, more as a means of damaging the enemy to save ourselves than a means of liberation.

The cost of cancer

Allan Cowie, general manager for Macmillan Cancer Support in Scotland, has revealed that after fear of pain, money worry is patients’ greatest cause of stress. And demeaning work assessments ruling people are fit to work are also causing unnecessary suffering.


Many Scots, according to the charity boss, have been left with the fear of being labelled scroungers, meaning vital benefits go unclaimed. Cowie said:

“ We worry the stigmatisation of those on benefits may mean patients with cancer are too ashamed to claim. We have encountered cases of terrible poverty. We have heard of instances where people only worry about benefits when they face losing their home. Up until that point, they are more concerned with the dreadful worry of if they will live or die. We have also heard of cases where people have no food in their homes because they have channelled all their money into keeping a roof over their heads. This is not acceptable in this day and age.”

Cancer sufferers face additional costs of a staggering £470 a month – the same as many mortgage payments.

He said: “This is the average cost associated with a cancer diagnosis in Scotland. It accounts not only for heating bills and travel costs for appointments, and dietary needs, but also the reduction in their income. People often can’t work during treatment or rehabilitation. Cancer mounts a two-pronged attack on people’s finances.”

Starvation Amidst Plenty

Everything that is produced in capitalism is for sale in order to make a profit and that includes food. So we can have a situation where people starve whilst food is destroyed. 'More than a quarter of a million people died in the Somali famine in 2011, a study by the UN and the US-funded Famine Early Warning System found. The figure was twice previous estimates and more than half the victims were under 5.' (Times, 3 May) We live in a society that technically could produce enough food to feed the world but because of the profit motive it condemns children to starve. RD

A Grim Forecast

Politicians and media "experts" are always telling us that although times may prove economically fraught at the moment the future will prove much better. Occasionally however the truth leaks out. 'Recession in the eurozone will be deeper than expected this year, the European Commission said yesterday in spring forecasts that predicted continuing record unemployment and a sluggish economic rebound next year.' (Times, 4 May). Capitalism by its very nature is based on booms and slumps and no "expert" has ever managed to solve that basic flaw of the system. RD

Why Vote SPGB?

We should not over-emphasise the counting of noses at election time but it does serve as a barometer of the maturity of the working class. All the votes of the people would do the Socialist Party no good if we ceased to be a revolutionary party by modifying our principles for the sake of capturing a higher vote. Some Left parties have sought to make their propaganda so attractive that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means of education. The SPGB rejects such an electoral strategy judging the votes thus secured do not properly belong to us and does an injustice to our party as well as to those who cast them. These votes do not express a wish for socialism and in the next election they can equally be cast for another party. The Socialist Party has no interest in swinging these type of votes to its favour. It is better that these sort of votes are not cast for the Socialist Party, for they will only misrepresent the degree of progress the party and indicate a political position the party is unable to sustain by obtaining what is a fictitious vote. We seek only the actual vote for socialism, no more and no less. Of course, we want the support of the workers, but only of those who desire socialism and are ready to vote and work with us for the overthrow of capitalism. We make it clear that the Socialist Party wants the votes only of those who want socialism, and that, above all, it discourages vote-seeking for the sake of votes and holds in contempt office-seeking for the sake of office.

In our propaganda we state our principles clearly to convince and win workers to our cause through an intelligent understanding of our object. We make no coalition with those who we disagree. No possible good can come from any kind of a political alliance.

Voting for socialism is not socialism any more than a menu is a meal. Socialists must be organised to achieve it. With the workers bound together by the common tie of their enlightened self-interest, they will express their solidarity in political terms and cast a united vote for the party of their class. The Socialist Party scorns any compromise and wants no votes that can be bought nor any support gained by false pretense. What other parties can say the same? The Socialist Party stands upon its principles and relies wholly upon combination of the forces of social progress and the eduction of the working class.

The Socialist Party is to the working class politically what the trade-unions is to them industrially; the former is the party of class, while the latter is the union of their occupation. The difference between them is that while the trades-union is confined to his or her occupation, the Socialist Party embraces the entire working class, and while the union is limited to bettering conditions under the wage system, the party is organized to conquer the political power to wipe out the wages system and make the workers the masters of the Earth.

Leaders and intellectuals offer themselves up as the wise men and shepherds to lead us out of the wilderness into the land of milk and honey. They would have us believe that if we had no “intellectuals” to lead, we would have no movement. They would have the workers’ party controlled by party-bosses as the other capitalist political parties are controlled. The working class are no unthinking flock of sheep.

When we vote together on election day and act together on the industrial field we shall conquer state power and take possession of all the means of production and distribution then we will have an industrial democracy of and by and for the people. By voting into power the enemies of the labour movement many of the working class are responsible for the crimes perpetrated upon their fellow workers and sooner or later they will have to suffer the consequences of their miserable act.

Poor Scotland

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has revealed that 344,000 households in Scotland fall below the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) which is set by asking members of the public what they think people need as a minimum in order to have the choices and opportunities to participate fully in society. Goods and services included by the public are then assigned a price in order to produce figures for how much different households need to earn to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living.

For a couple with two children the MIS is currently £685 a week, which includes rent and childcare. For a single person it is £262 a week.

In March, a report into poverty and social exclusion in Scotland found that almost 1 in 20 Scots were unable to afford an adequate diet, and that 1 in 6 children lives in a home that is either damp or not adequately heated. It also found that 24 per cent of Scottish adults cannot afford one or more basic household appliances, such as a washing machine, a phone, curtains or blinds or table and chairs.

During 2010-11, there were 780,000 individuals living in relative poverty in Scotland, 160,000 of which were pensioners.

Judith Robertson, head of Oxfam Scotland, said: “The poorest people in Scotland are facing a perfect storm of rising living costs, falling incomes and government cuts. They are struggling and the gap between them and the richest people has grown massively over the years."

Who owns Scotland

Buy your little piece of it - for just £2.5million.


800 acre Tanera Mor, the largest and only inhabited island in the Summer Isles archipelago, 1.5 miles off the north-west coast of Scotland is up for sale. It has nine residential properties, a cafe, post office and three jetties.

Food for thought

In the wake of the horrendous factory collapse in Bangladesh, companies identified as having work done there are scrambling to minimize damage to their brand. Loblaws, a giant food store in Canada that sells clothes as well, has publicly stated that they are having an emergency board meeting to address the sorry state of affairs. The really sad thing is that they and the others have made conscious decisions to use Third World factories to avoid unionized workers and any country that has labour and safety laws that are in any way enforced. The other point is that these companies are doing the right thing as far as profit is concerned. Although individuals in the companies may deplore the conditions and pay of the workers, capital demands that they show excellent numbers on the balance sheet considering the competition is doing the same thing. The coercive laws of capitalist competition demand it. Doesn't it make sense to end a system that makes this type of situation necessary? John Ayers.

No God-given right to a country

The Church of Scotland denies any special privilege for the Jewish people in the land of Israel. In fact it went further and declared "Christians should not be supporting any claims by Jews, or any other people, to an exclusive or even privileged divine right to possess particular territory." [our emphasis]
In its report the Church of Scotland refutes claims that scripture offers any peoples a privileged claim for possession of a particular territory. Promises about the land of Israel were never intended to be taken literally, or as applying to a defined geographical territory. The ‘promised land’ in the Bible is not a place, so much as a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This ‘promised land’ can be found – or built – anywhere.

The Socialists' Message

The word “socialism” is commonly used as a political trick. Various Labour Parties are called “socialist” and it is suggested that countries with large welfare state systems are socialist and that nationalised industries are socialist. There has been a persistent tendency to define the idea of socialism to as a mere legal alteration of the property system and the introduction of some sort of planned economy.


When production is for the requirements of the community and when production is for use and not for profit of a minority, this is the basis of socialism. This socialist commonwealth liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression and provides for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind. Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution it dissolves the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good.

Capitalism is a social system that stands condemned. Its usefulness of the past is now long over. If it is allowed to continue, the world will only plunge deeper into suffering, degradation, destruction. Revolution does not mean that we would “demand” that a government do this or that. It means that we, the working class, make the decisions ourselves.