We are All One

Capitalism is as much to blame for the death of migrants as human traffickers. Were the  fortification of borders not a priority, the value of the service offered by migrant traffickers would plummet along with their ability to detrimentally affect individual fates.

The New York Times notes: "European Commission officials expressed sadness about the Lampedusa accident and blamed criminal syndicates and human smugglers for exploiting desperate people. They called for a crackdown on the smugglers”

Yet in 2011 the Guardian's reported on a  'left-to-die' boat in 2011, in which 61 migrants were left to slowly perish  at sea, despite distress calls being sounded and their vessel's position being made known to European authorities and NATO ships".

Human Rights Watch researcher Judith Sunderland explains: "'What we really don't see is a presumption of saving lives; what we get instead is every effort to shut down borders, said Sunderland, who pointed out that security crackdowns on land crossings such as the Greece-Turkey border only displaced migrant flows and often forced more boats into the sea."

Disturbingly, many [white] Europeans view themselves as the real victims of the migration process, egged on in this perception by the xenophobic rhetoric of politicians.

Italy's recurring affliction, Silvio Berlusconi, for example, once complained that, "It is unacceptable that sometimes in certain parts of Milan there is such a presence of non-Italians that instead of thinking you are in an Italian or European city, you think you are in an African city."  The then-Prime Minister went on “Some people want a multi-coloured and multi-ethnic society. We do not share this opinion."

The Guardian reported: "In August the Italian authorities ordered two commercial ships to rescue a migrant boat in the sea and then demanded the ship's captains transport the migrants back to Libya, a move that experts believe could discourage commercial captains from attempting rescues at all and may be in breach of international law."

Marine Le Pen, president of the French far-right National Front party,  claims that, "No country in the world ... would accept to go through the fast and sizeable immigration of people who, without a doubt, have a different religion and culture."

The condemnation of Europe-bound human movement also conveniently overlooks the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and attendant discord and economic oppression in determining migration patterns.

In an essay "The Case for Open Borders", J A Myerson discusses the reality of globalisation: "Multinational free trade agreements, supranational financial institutions, and transnational corporations ensure that capital can float between nations with all the ease of a monarch butterfly. Labour, on the other hand, remains under the jurisdiction of border-obsessed states." hE argues that "The emphasis on 'strengthening the border' should be tempered by an understanding of the political and economic decisions that have altered that border's characteristics", Myerson focuses on another global entity known for wildly erecting anti-migrant barricades: the US, where immigration was given a considerable boost by NAFTA's destruction of - among other things - the livelihoods of over a million farm workers in Mexico.  Myerson reasons: "When post-national North American capital created the conditions that made mass migration inevitable, it entered into an ethical contract with the migrant victims of its wealth accumulation scheme."

 According to Myerson, the establishment of "universal human rights" requires "globalising labour" and "eliminating borders", which merely convey arbitrary rights. Among the many "problems with defining rights with respect to the nation-state", he notes, is the fact that "most people consider rights more eternal than laws, which are merely expressions of momentary social attitudes. Wouldn't we say that enslaved black Americans had a right to freedom even before legal emancipation?"

Taken from here

 About 100 "high value" foreign executives will be invited to join the new club, to ensure their immigration checks are completed "swiftly and smoothly". They will be offered personal support in navigating the immigration system, including their own "account manager". Theresa May said it would enable the UK to maintain a "competitive visa system that can innovate in order to serve the ever-changing needs of business and ensure Britain succeeds in the global race". "We will continue to listen and respond to the needs of high-value and high-priority businesses so that we can provide them with a service that supports economic growth. The number of countries benefiting from a priority visa service - which enables eligible applicants to have their applications fast-tracked on paying a fee - will rise from 67 to 90 by next April. plans to impose visa restrictions on Brazilians were put on hold earlier this year amid concerns that it would damage commercial links with Brazil's fast-growing economy.

Business rights trumps human rights. 

Real Workers' Power

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

How can a social change be brought about?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain  has never relied on some sort of mystic faith in the inevitability of socialism to make things turn out all right in the end, so long as we repeat the right phrases. They will turn out all right in the end only if people make it happen.

Armed revolution is no longer practical. Non-violent resistance is a more effective method for bringing about desirable social change in the modern world than violence.  We are not primarily interested in maintaining that non-violence is morally preferable to violence, but that non-violence is superior as an instrument to bring about social change.  Socialists are against the sporadic, meaningless and inevitably self-defeating violence that suffering and resentment are always likely to provoke. Riots and violence alone will not achieve socialism. It is easy to understand the hatred of so many whose bodies are tormented and rent asunder by society: however, as soon as the hell in which they live is lit up by an ideal, hatred disappears and a burning desire of fighting for the good of all takes over. We are we are aiming at a better, a more human world but socialists will deal with the society that confronts them, not with hopes. The wrongs of society do not depend on the wickedness of one master or the other but rather on masters and governments as institutions; therefore, the remedy does not lie in changing the individual rulers, instead it is necessary to demolish the principle itself by which men dominate over men.

The owning, employing class are the ruling class because it controls the government. The government protects the capitalist class by protecting the source of its economic strength - private property. It is the will of the capitalist class that the rights of private property be protected. It uses its control of government to write down its will and call it the law of the land. It uses its control of government to enforce its will, the law. The law is the voice of the ruling class.

The process by which the capitalist class rules is called a democratic form of government. Democracy literally means “rule of the people”. We, however, live in a class society in which one class maintains its favourable economic position because it controls the rule by the people. True enough, the majority of people support the present system and therefore the capitalist class controls the government only as long as the majority of the voters permit them to.

Those who read the Leftist websites and journals will be well accustomed to their demands. “Public control of Banking and Finance ”, “the immediate re-nationalisation of the mines and railways” We should be asking ourselves who is the public? Who the “nation”? The outside observer will notice that the  Left makes “socialism” and “public ownership” or “nationalisation” synonymous terms.  Socialism which leaves the working class as a subject class is not socialism. The sooner this is grasped the sooner will it be realised that “workers’ control” as promised by the Bolsheviks continued to  subordinate the workers to the “Workers’ State”. The  path to socialism is not through state-capitalism.

Nor let there be any ambiguity about the use of the word socialisation. The Socialist Party mean by it, and so does every socialist worthy of the name, common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. As socialists we base our political policy on the class struggle of the workers, because we know that the self-interest of the workers lies our way. That the self-interest may sometimes go awry does not affect the correctness of our position. 

Food for thought

A report issued by the United Nations-sponsored International Panel on Climate Change said that much of global warming is irreversible and even if we stop greenhouse gas emissions immediately, the warming process will continue for centuries. Global warming is a chilling thought. Only a socialist system not tied to capital and profit can tackle such a world- wide problem. John Ayers.

Doom and Gloom Again

CHANGE THE SYSTEM NOT THE CLIMATE

Poverty, hunger, sickness and violence will worsen as man-made global warming continues in the coming years, according to a leaked  report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

 Climate scientist Chris Field from the Carnegie Institution said the world has seen a lot of climate change effects and more will be noticeable in the future.

 Climate scientist Chris Field from the Carnegie Institution, who also heads the climate change report, said cities will be the most vulnerable along with the world's poor. The impact of climate change will affect economic growth, food security and poverty. Global warming is seen to worsen poverty in low and lower-middle income countries while new poverty-stricken areas will emerge in upper-middle to high-income countries. The leaked report uses the word "exacerbate" to describe the worsening effect of global warming on key areas of human life. The report suggests that climate change indirectly promotes the formation of civil war, protests and other forms of group violence. Long-term risks for specific countries were also cited in the report. North America may have the highest risks due to flooding, heat waves and wildfires.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist from the Pennsylvania State University said the leaked report only confirms what many scientists and researchers have known. He said climate change threatens human health, food and water security.

Field said he was not "depressed" about the report because he knows the world can still do something about the situation. If the “something” is not socialist revolution, Socialist Courier can only describe Field’s belief in capitalism’s capacity to change for the better as naive.

Merry Christmas, Kids.

More than 80,000 children in Britain will spend their Christmas living in temporary accommodations, the homeless charity Shelter has warned.

“Parents and children sharing beds, children forced to eat on the floor and being threatened with violence in the place they live: this shouldn't be happening in the 21st century Britain,” said Campbell Robb, chief executive of the charity.

The Children’s Society charity revealed that more than half of British children in poverty are living in cold, damp homes.  According to the study, 76 percent of British children are "often worried" about how much money the family had.

 In 2011-12, 2.3 million or 17 percent of UK children were recorded as “living in homes with substantially lower than average income.”  The new figure, however, rises to 3.5 million or 27 percent when housing costs are deducted from incomes. 

Every man a king, every woman a queen.

END WAGE-SLAVERY

Any system by which the buying and selling system is retained means the employment of vast sections of the population in unproductive work. It leaves the productive work to be done by one portion of the people whilst the other portion is spending its energies from shop cashiers to bank tellers. Given the money system, the wage system is inevitable. If things needed and desired are obtainable only by payment those who do the work must be paid in order that they may obtain the means of life. So long as the money system remains, each productive enterprise must be run on a paying basis. Therefore it will tend to aim at employing as few workers as possible, in order to spend less on wages. The existence of a wage system almost inevitably leads to unequal wages. “Buying and selling is the nursery of cheaters.” wrote the Leveller, Gerrald Winstanley.

Socialism is social production for social use; that is, the production of all the means of social existence – including all the necessaries and comforts of life – carried on by the organised community for its own use collectively and individually. To-day production is carried out purely in the interest and for the profit of the class which owns the instruments of production - the machinery and factories. Socialism does not mean  government ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class;  and State-owned businesses are run for profit just as other businesses are; and the government, as the agent of the possessing class, has, in the interests of its employers, to treat the employees just as other employees are treated. When society is organised socialistically, production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied class to make a profit. Under capitalism the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. This ownership enables the capitalists to control the product and keep the workers dependent upon them. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers, and are but mere commodities. The economic interests of the capitalist class dominate our entire social system; the lives of the working class are recklessly sacrificed for profit

 The social revolution can only be accomplished by men and women with a clear understanding of the economics of capitalism. The work of the socialist revolution depends in the last analysis upon the growth of class-consciousness amongst the working class, that therefore, makes the chief task of a Socialist Party to educate. Socialism will not make us angels upon Earth; it will help nurture our better qualities instead of fostering our baser faults, as is done by capitalism today. And that itself would be worth a revolution to realise.

 The Socialist Party of Great Britain seeks to organise the workers, irrespective of creed or race, into one great party of labour. Our method will be political organisation at the ballot box to secure the election of delegates of socialist principles to all the elective governing public bodies of the country. We therefore appeal to all workers to pledge themselves to pursue, unfalteringly and undeviatingly the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth. We affirm that all land, factories and transport shall become the communal property of the people. We come to explain to our fellow workers to tell them of the principles for which we work and fight. We draw the attention of the trade unionists to the fact that the class struggle may result in lessening the exploitation of labour, it can never abolish that exploitation. The exploitation of labour will only come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production for the benefit of all the people. We call upon every trade unionist to realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to join the Socialist Party and assist in building upon a strong political movement of the wage-working class.

These are the principles of the Socialist Party. Vote for their candidates, work alongside us to apply these principles. Vote and work for the building of the world anew. Let our slogan be, the common ownership of the means of life, our weapon the vote.

A SICK SOCIETY

Politicians are forever arguing about the National Health Service. Some claiming there should be more private investment and some arguing for less, but they all miss an important feature about health. 'Cliff Mann, president of the College of Emergency Doctors, which represents A&E medics, said recent NHS England figures for waiting times were a "cause for grave concern". The figures show the number of patients waiting more than four hours in emergency rooms has jumped by 43 per cent since September 2011 and the number of "trolley waits" of four to 12 hours is up 89 per cent since then.' (Independent, 3 November) Health like everything else in capitalism is largely determined by wealth. If you are a member of the capitalist class you can afford the best that money can buy in food, housing, education and health. Members of the working class are the ones left to suffer a 12 hour wait on an hospital trolley. RD

QUEUING FOR HAND-OUTS

Academics were commissioned by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to carry out  an evaluation of the evidence on the use of food banks and soup kitchens in England. 'The study, by a team based at Warwick University, was completed in March. It is understood to show a surge in food bank use with twice as many people turning to them for free food in 2012 as in 2011. The report is expected to blame the soaring cost of food; prices have risen by an average of 30% in the past five years, while average incomes have remained frozen.' (Sunday Times, 3 November) Users of these facilities are typically given three day's worth of nutritionally balance, non-perishable food. They must be referred by doctors, social workers or some other officials. This is the plight of a growing number of workers. Cap in hand, begging for food in a so-called advanced economy. Capitalism stinks! RD

Nasty Nationalism

Myanmar's Muslim minority, demonised and persecuted for decades, is facing a fresh wave of violence amid media silence. Rohingya Muslims  number 1.3 million out of the country's 60 million people.

 The Oxford-educated, daughter of a General,  Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi,  characterises the waves of organised violence and  hate campaigns currently being committed by her fellow Buddhists - monks and non-monks alike - as violence of two equal sides, claims that Burmese Buddhists live in the perceived fear of the rise of great Muslim power worldwide.

The Rohingya and other Muslims make up more than 90 percent of the victims of violence, which has displaced more than 140,000 in Rakhine State. Anti-Muslim violence spread to 11 different towns elsewhere in the country, resulting in 100 Muslim deaths, displacing 12,000 Muslims, and destroying 1,300 Muslim homes and 37 Mosques. Since the 1990s, Rohingya Muslims of northern Arakan state have been confined within a web of security grids where they are subject to extreme restrictions of movement, preventing them from accessing adequate healthcare, education and jobs. Summary executions, rape, extortions, forced labour and other human rights atrocities, mostly at the hands of state security forces, are rampant. Restrictions on marriages and births have resulted in over 60,000 Rohingya children who are not registered or recognised by the Burmese government, in violation of the Rights of Child, hence depriving them of access to basic schooling. In a country that has one of the highest adult literacy rates in Asia, a staggering 80 percent of Rohingya adults are illiterate. The doctor-patient ratio among the Rohingya Muslims is 1 to 75,000 and 1 to 83,000 in the two major ancestral pockets of the Rohingya respectively, as compared with the national average of 1 to 375.

 Human Rights Watch has called it "ethnic cleansing" and "crimes against humanity." Suu Kyi's denial and silence on the racially-motivated violence against a Muslim minority, that only makes up about 4 percent of the total population, has led to a growing chorus of international criticism.

The Rohingya and other Burmese Muslims are confronted with threats to their very existence. They pose no existential threat to the Buddhist way of life, national security or sovereignty.Governments such as the US and the UK have chosen, out of their own strategic needs and commercial pursuits, to embrace the military leadership that has tacitly backed the Islamophobic perpetrators and hate-preachers.

 From here

For Democratic Revolution

Socialism and democracy are one and indivisible. In socialism the people in a well-organised administration , will be the direct masters over the process of production. The workers under capitalist democracy may choose their masters, but they are not themselves masters. The Socialist Party is democratic, with its structure and practices visible and accessible to all members.Our tactics in the struggle for radical democratic change reflect our ultimate goal of a society. Socialists participate in the electoral process to present the socialist alternative. The building of socialism requires widespread understanding and participation, and will not be achieved by an elite working “on behalf of” the people. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is frequently derided for its argument that we regard Parliament as a means to revolutionise the minds.

Socialism can only succeed as a social movement and that the Socialist idea and workers organised and united into a class party must go together. The Socialist Party is neither legalists or insurrectionist. We do not seek the method of force , neither do we exclude it, if the necessity arises. Our methods calls not for rebellion but revolution.

Socialism is not government ownership, a welfare state, or an all-encompassing  bureaucracy. Socialism is a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighborhoods. The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. Socialism produces a sustainable and constantly renewing future by not plundering the Earth. A socialist society carefully plans its way of life and technology to be a harmonious part of our natural environment. The clean up of the polluted environment will be among the first tasks of a socialist society.

In a socialist system the people collectively own and democratically control the means of production and distribution. Planning takes place at the local, district, regional, and global levels

 The capitalist system forces workers to sell their abilities and skills to the few who own the workplaces, profit from these workers’ labour, and use the government to maintain their privileged position. People across the world need to cast off the systems which oppress them, and build a new world fit for all humanity. Democratic revolutions are needed to dissolve the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government.

A PATHETIC EXISTENCE

The number of people who are paid less than a "living wage" has leapt by more than 400,000 in a year to over 5.2 million, amid mounting evidence that the so-called economic recovery is failing to help millions of working families. 'A report for the international tax and auditing firm KPMG also shows that nearly three-quarters of 18-to-21-year-olds now earn below this level - a voluntary rate of pay regarded as the minimum to meet the cost of living in the UK. ....... According to the report, women are disproportionately stuck on pay below the living wage rate, currently £8.55 in London and £7.45 elsewhere. Some 27% of women are not paid the living wage, compared with 16% of men. Part-time workers are also far more likely to receive low pay than full-time workers, with 43% paid below living-wage rates compared with 12% of full-timers.' (Observer, 3 November) This so-called "living wage" condemns millions to a pathetic existence inside capitalist society. RD

MILLION DOLLAR ART

Socialists like everyone else love beautiful music and beautiful paintings but we detest the way that beauty inside capitalism is used as a piece of property to be bought and sold. 'On Nov. 12, during the second of the two big auction weeks that start in New York on Monday night, Christie's is offering one painting - a Francis Bacon triptych - that is expected to bring $85 million. Its archerival, Sotheby's, has a 1963 Warhol that it anticipates will sell for $60 million to $80 million. ' (New York Times, 31 October) Inside a socialist society wherein we are all free to enjoy the beauty of human creations we will not need some member of the capitalist class's hired wage slave employee to determine what is worthy of our admiration. Beauty will have no price. RD

THE NEED FOR SOCIALISM

For the best part of 50 years Christia Freeland worked at the Financial Times and Reuters, so when she writes a book entitled "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich" she has a fair idea of the subject. According to a book review by John Arlidge she has some revealing facts about the rich. 'These people have become richer. Not just a bit richer. But profanely richer. The top 10% of Americans, for instance receive half the nation's income. Freeland shows that inequality in Europe is rising sharply too, and points out how the rules of the economic game have been rigged to favour the rich.' (Sunday Times, 27 October) The reviewer points out the book is stronger on the whos, hows and whys of the rise of the new global super-rich than it is on whether we should (or can) do anything about this inequality. From a socialist perspective we can, we should and we will do something. We will abolish it! RD

Singing about revolution

Capitalism is not the way

The chief strength of capitalism lies not in the amount of wealth accumulated, not in the large
military at its command but its long history and experience in exploitation. Capitalist power rests  upon convincing the working class that there is no choice but the treadmill. Socialists indict capitalism at the barrier to progress. The capitalist regime is but a passing phase of civilization. Capitalism is founded upon production for profit. Socialism is based upon production for use. Capitalism has become an obsolete oppressive system that ought to be got rid off.

The truth of the matter is that this is a rich person’s world. The State is there to act on behalf of capital and to protect its interests against the people. The government is the executive committee of business. The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor. The government, its laws, its agencies: it’s military the police, the courts, the jails, — all are there to effect the exploitation and oppression of you and millions like you. The State may change its appearance. It may use the parliamentary system, with a limited freedom of speech to opponents — as long as this opposition is not too dangerous. It tightens the screws and tries to silence the opposition when the situation becomes disturbing for big capital. The forms change. The language differs according to time and place. The essence remains. The essence of the capitalist State is service in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism.

We know many deny they are “exploited” and “oppressed.” You have been taught to refuse to admit that you are exploited rather than refusing to be exploited. A relatively small group are consciously anti-capitalist, but themajority continue trying to satisfy their needs within the system rather than by overthrowing it. So there is no real possibility of overthrowing the system and attempts to do so degenerate into futile reformism and/or terrorism, whatever the “revolutionary” rhetoric.

In boom conditions, capitalism develops the productive forces at its maximum rate. Openings and opportunities for  people who want to better their own situation are available. Most workers can expect better jobs, with a higher standard of living and better conditions. Capitalists can find markets  for profitable investment. International trade grows and although the different nations, classes and sectional interests are fighting over their share of an expanding “cake” there is always room for compromise about who benefits more, when nobody is actually asked to accept being worse off than they are already. Reforms may be fought bitterly, but there is scope for reform without shaking the whole system apart.

When the bubble bursts and the recession arrives s all this is put into reverse. The share of cake is shrinking  and the fight is over who is to bear the greater loss. Among capitalists the fight is one of dog-eat-dog over who is to survive and who is to eaten . Between capitalists and workers there is no room for any more compromise or concessions. Reforms become impossible and even past achievements are be rolled back.  Within the working class too, there is less unity as people find themselves in “hard times” where it is “everyone for themselves”. The “social fabric” unravels.  Capitalist society stands revealed as based on sharply antagonistic interests.

A future society to deserve the name socialism has to exclude the capitalist relationship, wage slavery. We are also  talking about the workers making the revolution themselves and not just about some self-appointed vanguard seizing the State and then guiding the proles to the classless society. Indeed, we grant that workers would need to change dramatically in order to become fit to take political power. They will need to develop a lot of collective confidence, organisational habits, and political skill, grow in many senses, increase what has been referred to as their "class consciousness" to assault  ruling class power. Socialists appeal to the world’s  workers upon the lines of their class interests. The Socialist Party  make no pretense of attempting to serve both employers  and employees. We leave that type of  political sophistry to the propagandists of capitalism. Socialists count among the world’s workers all those who labor with hand or brain in the production of life’s necessities and luxuries - white collar or blue caller, suits or overalls.

These days people are rightly cynical about the “policies” and “programmes” of political parties, whether “revolutionary” or not. Leninist ideas are widely discredited by the sterility of their apparent supporters who have employed and repeated Marxist concepts that once  summed up important truths so often they now sound like banalities. One hesitates therefore to use the word  “socialist party”, for fear of being taken for yet another leftist  with pat simplistic answers.  Reformists will make half-baked proposals as to how the present political parties should deal with problems. So-called revolutionaries will make proposals about a “workers’ state” or “dictatorship of the proletariat”. The real alternative is to change to a system that is based on satisfying our needs. That is truly a revolutionary demand.

THE PRODUCT OF CAPITALISM

An example of how awful capitalist production is can be grasped from a recent example from China. School was cancelled, traffic was nearly paralyzed and the airport was shut down in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin on Monday as off-the-charts pollution dropped visibility to less than 10 meters in parts of the provincial capital. A dark, grey cloud that the local weather bureau described as "heavy fog" has shrouded the city of 10 million since Thursday, but the smoke thickened significantly on Sunday, soon after the government turned on the coal-powered municipal heating system for the winter. "You can't see your own fingers in front of you, the city's official news site explained helpfully. In the same vein, a resident of Harbin on Sina Weibo, the popular microblog platform, "You can hear the person you are talking to, but not see him." (New York Times, 21 October) Awful? Yes, but as long as the profits come rolling in - who cares? RD

FUTURE PROSPECTS

FUTURE PROSPECTS                                     

Youth unemployment in the UK and throughout Europe is a "public health time bomb waiting to explode" the World Health Organisation has warned. In the wake of the economic downturn, the UK also lags behind many of its European neighbours for key health indicators according to the findings of a major two-year review led by the public health expert Professor Sir Michael Marmot. 'Despite a tentative economic recovery, youth unemployment in the UK remains high, with more than one million 16 to 24-year-olds still classified as Neets - not in employment, education or training. The problem is even more severe elsewhere in Europe. Spain has a youth unemployment rate of 56 per cent and in Greece the figure is closer to 65 per cent. Poverty associated with high unemployment is closely associated with a higher likelihood of poor diet, smoking and long-term health problems like obesity. Prof Marmot said that poor health at such a crucial time of life was saving up problems for later generations.' (Independent, 30 October) Millions of young workers condemned to unemployment and ill-health. Isn't capitalism a wonderful social system? RD

PRINCES, POVERTY AND PENSIONS

The future king of Britain Prince Charles can always be relied upon to come up with some stupid comment about society and he has done it again. Addressing the annual conference of the National Association of Pension Funds he decried their short term attitude and said something would have to be done about providing adequate pensions. "It falls to you. I'm afraid, to help shape a system designed for the 21st and not 19th century. Make that innovative and imaginary leap that the world so badly needs, otherwise your grandchildren, and mine for that matter, will be consigned to an exceptionally miserable future," he said.' (Times, 17 October) Prince Charles's grandchildren living in penury? Only a bombastic , useless parasite like him could come up with such drivel. RD

Talking Revolution

There are few ideas that has been so contentious as that of revolution. Every socialist strives for social revolution and yet there are “socialists” who disclaim revolution and declare society will only be transformed through gradual reform. Socialism is not a reform, it is a revolution. The demands put forward by reformists are very limited ones: a wage rise, a shortening of the working week, an increase of social security benefits. These demands are perfectly legitimate and justified, but also perfectly compatible with the continued rule of the wealthy.

 Socialists want a revolution, i.e., a complete and fundamental change in the relation of the classes. Socialists want to end capitalism. We do not seek a violent bloody revolution.  But we may well answer any possible violence from the capitalist class if the circumstances demand it. Workers cannot be led, lured, or driven into socialism. Socialism has come to build not to demolish. Our job now is to discredit  every political tendency which acts  to bolster the illusions of the working class. But no revolutionary movement was ever yet caused by propaganda alone. Conditions make revolutions. Conditions have caused, and are causing, an tremendous change in the attitude of the labour movement.

There are indications that the spirit of revolution is again rising and the apathy is disappearing. It is perhaps just possible, or, at least, imaginable, that  capitalism may voluntarily decide to grant more tolerable conditions of life to the workers in order to stave off or prevent a social revolution; but, in all probability, before that day arrives the glaring contrasts between luxury and abject poverty, the increased exploitation of the workers by the capitalists,  will have produced such a revolutionary working class as will not so readily be satisfied by the few extra crumbs thrown to them by the capitalist class.  If and when the working class as a whole itself takes up the call for revolution (and puts flesh and blood on its bones) there will be a challenge to capitalist society, a challenge it will no longer be able to contain.

 War or civil war is still the perpetual nightmare of capitalism. The Socialist Party knows that no amount of moralising will avert war, if it is in the interest and in the power of the governing class to make it, who for their own profit are ready to provoke all the horrors of war. But war also tears away the veils which hides the capitalist world from us . War destroys the appearance which leads us to believe in peaceful social evolution and in the stability of political conditions under  the conscious direction of politics of  statesmen. War unleashes – at the same time as the reactionary forces of the capitalist world – the re-generative forces of social revolution.

Today even the most pressing immediate problems of the workers cannot be solved except through the social revolution, for the ravages of the capitalist crisis cancel whatever gains may be made by the working class.

The Balladeer of Revolution

The current issue of the Socialist Standard has a sympathetic review of a Dick Gaughan gig. So Socialist Courier thought a clip of Dick singing about the major topic of the media since Russell Brand's Paxman interview and a subject that this blog has had several posts about - a song about revolution. 

The Socialist Calling

WORLD FOR THE WORKERS

The aim of the World Socialist Movement is to unite the workers of the world.  It demands the abolition of the wage system and the elimination of all capitalists. Marxists develop their strategy and tactics based on a materialist analysis of objective reality, and not from a projection of their own preferences onto reality. Capitalism, even in its liberal democratic forms, remains a system of domination and exploitation.

While trade unionists have waged some of the fiercest struggles, their motto has still remained "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work," and not for the "abolition of the wage system." The socialists in the WSM  advocate the accomplishnent of their purpose through the ballot. We are opposed to association with other groups not committed to socialism.

Times are hard, and are bound to get harder. With the employers riding high, the austerity offensive will accelerate. Can a revival of the workers movement be far behind? After all, where there is recession, there is resistance. A united, class-conscious working class may respond to employers attacks with an offensive of its own.  But the situation today is different. The ruling class finds the working class badly divided and lacking the self-conscious purpose. Social crisis throws different sectors of the working class into sharper competition with each other. Unable to transcend this effect of capitalist social relations, the poor often struggle against each other as much as against the rich. The fact remains that many people have only variants of our rulers ideology with which to express their anger against the system.

 We reject the view that capitalist crises automatically bring on a socialist revolution. Whether the crisis grows into a revolutionary situation cannot now be foreseen. Given the lack of an independent labour movement  and the political insignificance of the socialist movement, our work towards that goal will not be easy.  How do we go about convincing more and more people that there are socialist solutions to the shortcomings of capitalism? What are the means which will enable socialists to spread socialist ideas? There are many people  today who strongly feel the need of a party free of the baggage of history which have burdened the socialist movement.  Seasoned socialists are stymied by the thought of past failures and disappointments. But it is perfectly possible to envisage the coming into being of new socialist formations. We need to impress on the naturally cautious worker that the socialist project is more than a utopian vision.  The social movements against sexual and race oppression, and for ecology and peace have enriched the meaning of socialism and such movements are now an essential part of the coalition of forces on which a socialist movement must depend. However, no such movements can obviate the need for a socialist party (or parties). Nor can they replace organised labour (the wealth producers) as the main force on which a socialism must rely. The task of a socialist party is to unite and inevitably fragmented and divided class , and to do so without artificially imposing it with some sort of  ‘monolithic’ unity.

We are well aware that nothing which has been said here provides a blueprint for the solution of the many practical problems that socialists have to resolve if they are to make headway with the socialist project. What is needed and badly needed, is a reaffirmation of the principles and values which make up the socialist objective and yet again make clear that there are radical, rational and feasible alternatives to the way of life dictated by a capitalist system, whose own needs conflict with human needs.

Only one socialism is possible. A socialism based upon understanding. A socialism that expresses the needs of the people.

Quote of the Day

“Self-determination under capitalism is therefore an impossibility, and demands for its realisation a preceding social revolution. Such a fundamental change of the internal structure of society liberates the social aspirations of the peoples of the world, shatters the exploiting factions, and rising from the age-long struggles free citizens of the world combine.” - Arthur Macmanus, Red Clydesider, 1918

The Lesson from INEOS

 “abolition of the wages system.”

There is a post-mortem taking place amongst the labour movement and the Left parties about the developments at Grangemouth. The Trotskyist group Socialist Party of England and Wales/Socialist Party Scotland have followed their usual party line. The UNITE leadership were at fault for not staging an occupation and calling for nationalisation. The old leaders should be  substituted by them as new leaders who would defy the law and go down fighting rather than capitulation without a fight. Bantam-weights should square up to heavy-weights. It is all about the perfidy of union bureaucrats. Others accuse the unions of being the enforcers and the agents of capital.

The point is that the context of the struggle at Grangemouth was not shaped by Unite but they were instead simply reacting and responding to factors beyond their control i.e. victims of the ebb and flow of the demand for world fuel and how corporations finance themselves under global capitalism.

The union itself is an inadequate form when the entire working class has to be mobilised because the employers are already fully mobilised. A union - even an industrial union - only acts for its members interests. It is the reason for the socialist part. A socialist political party exists for the class. It's about how to advance a class struggle from the industrial field to the political battle. The trade unions can bargain with the capitalists over wages and conditions, but they cannot bargain away the wages system. A socialist's task is not to fight for better terms in the sale of labour-power - we rightly leave that to those better positioned ie the employees and their representatives themselves, but it is to fight for the abolition of the capitalist system.

We live in times of mass de-politicisation when class consciousness is arguably at an all time low and any level of work-place organising is minimal and undeveloped. The trade union movement has contributed  to this current situation and should take responsibility, as the first step towards fixing it. Yet while the unions are indeed weak and often compromise with employers, the idea that unions are some kind of class enemy, out to hoodwink the workers, is wide of the mark. Yes, trade unionism has an mediation role within capitalism but our priority has to be how we organise in the workplace at this point in time. It is necessary to still work within unions until we are in a position to replace them with something better (workers councils?). How we get from where we are now to how we'd like it to be, especially given the current levels of organisation and class consciousness, is important and there are no easy answers.

"The working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects ... that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady." - Marx

We Want Revolution

“The history of all societies to date has been the history of class struggle.” - Marx

Britain is no stranger to revolutionary working class activity and some claim it has been to the very brink of revolution. In 1919, at Milford Haven, the crew of  HMS Kilbride hauled down the Royal Navy ensign down and hoisted the red flag.

Socialists agree upon one thing, and that is that they constitute a revolutionary party, the champions of the class interests of the workers. But unfortunately the idea of revolution is many-sided, and conceptions of the revolution differ very greatly.

The working class has many names, proletariat, labouring classes, labourers, waged workers. There are people who are clearly members of the working class who are not producers of real wealth, that is, who do not produce surplus value. But in a much broader sense it includes the families of workers, that is, their wives, their children, single parents, students, the unemployed and the retired and the infirm.

Revolution does not simply happen. Revolution is made by people who consciously and collectively assume control over their lives, their surroundings, and the society in which they live. They can only do so on the basis of their experience. No class can ever be reduced to its economic function alone to the extent that its not the simple result of the conditions of its existence but  its conditions of existence require of it a continuous struggle for transformation. Does the worker link his fate to all levels of his social existence and, consciously or not, to that of his class? Too often abstract phrases - class consciousness or class solidarity - overlooks the fact the worker is not only a member of his class, but an individual within a community and conscious of only being able to go beyond that by acting collectively. Seeing the worker only as victim would be a mistake. Although the working class is overwhelmingly fragmented by divisions of sex, ethnicity, and race, a by the division of labour,  job status and hierarchy, our can be unity is surprising strong.

Many wonder how workers will acquire consciousness of their situation and assume their role in the management of Humanity. Marx argues that capitalism has transformed the worker into a machine and robbed him/her  of “every human physical and moral characteristic” and that capitalism has removed from work all semblance of “individual interaction.” The result has been a “loss of humanity.” However, according to Marx, because it is totally alienated, the workers’ revolt against their fate can emancipate all of humanity. It requires “a class…for which humanity is entirely lost and which can only reconquer itself by conquering all of humanity” or “the proletariat of the present day alone, totally excluded from all personal activity, is able to realize its total personal activity and no longer recognize limits on the appropriation of the totality of collective forces.” (German Ideology).

 But how could the working class successfully make a socialist society?

One response could be: the working class undergoes a metamorphosis through revolution. But even if there is an acceleration of historical processes in a revolutionary period, one that upsets existing relations amongst men and establishes communication that links each to society as a whole, it would be over-optimistic to see the class as born of revolution. Its maturation is only possible due to prior experience that it interprets and puts into a positive practice.

 The working class is crucial to the socialist revolution for essentially two reasons. One is that the process of production, the production and transportation of food, clothing, shelter, etc., is fundamental to any society and the section of society which can gain control of that process can gain control of the society as a whole. For example, a strike of teachers may have a  political impact but it doesn’t bring the economy to  stop. But workers in a steel plant or car factory, can affect the economy far beyond their own specific workplace.  The second reason for the centrality of the working class is that the socialist revolution must involve the transformation of work and the workplace or it is not a social revolution at all. If the workers do not gain possession of the means of production, then governments may have been overthrown, but society has not been transformed. Class, is the product of capitalist relations of production; we are working class because our labour is alienated. Clearly, the working class will disappear when alienated production is obliterated. The anti-capitalist movement’s a dream of freedom and liberation is yet  to be realised but the power to  make the revolution, still lies with the working class.

However, the union movement is not a force for revolutionary change and the future outbursts of social discontent that are still to come will likely  have the appearance of new revolutionary forms, organisations that are not simply organs of struggle but organs for control of production.  The fact that society forces them to struggle begins to transform the working class.

The great lesson of history that the working class must be organised independent of, and in uncompromising opposition to the capitalist class can be forgotten only at the cost of continued  defeats. So long as workers resist alienation and oppression they will revolt. And these revolts will emerge, as they always have, with remarkable power and suddenness. It would be a pleasant change from past experience if, for once, it was not the revolutionaries who are caught unawares and unprepared, by the revolt of workers. Working class struggle can return but will we be ready.  Too many seem convinced that the idea that revolution is no longer possible yet the  struggles against capitalism continues unabated. The real workings of the capitalist system  has been exposed. We must see to it that the working-class tactics against capitalism in future are determined solely by the circumstances of the moment, and the possibilities of success, and not by any stale, crusty formulas.

What we should guard against are those Leninists and Trotskyist parties that aim to break our legs so it can provide the crutches.

There will be a revolution one day. Even now conditions are beginning to ripen for it. But this ripening will not take place overnight, and conditions for revolution are far from being ripe today. The majority of working people are just beginning to wake up, to fight, to take interest in politics. A successful revolution cannot be made by a minority. A revolution must be made by the masses of people. It has happened in past years that a small handful of self-styled revolutionaries have imagined that by bold action, by taking up arms or whatever, they could “incite the masses to revolution. But they failed. They have failed because people are as ready for revolution as they imagine. They have failed because, as already stated, a revolution cannot be made with a minority of the people. If we trust in the workers, we will never settle for a few reforms and we will never settle for a few crumbs.

Essentially, capitalism is the result of the exploitation of the labour power of the workers by the employer class, sole owner of the means of production.We live in a world where war and the threat of war characterise the relations between countries, peoples. Hunger, poverty, unemployment,racial and sexual discrimination are the lot of the majority of the earth’s inhabitants.

The mission and goal of the working class is  not only to replace the rule of one class with that of another, as has happened previously in other revolutions, but  to liberate all of humanity from the chains of exploitation and oppression by the abolition of classes themselves.  The divisions between the city and countryside, and between mental and manual labour will also be abolished, and a society without a State will be created, since the State is nothing other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the others. The emancipation of the workers will be accomplished by the workers themselves and will be achieved through socialist revolution.

The bosses with most sincere conviction.
say there’s nothing wrong with the system,
It just needs a little fixin’.
But socialists around the world, 
we have the solution:
We want Revolution!

Fact of the Day

A new Scottish Government report shows boys living in Scotland's most deprived communities can now expect to live to just 46 before their health starts to deteriorate.

Being poor means poor intelligence

Economic health disparities are a reality. In two separate studies, researchers found that experiencing poverty in early childhood is linked to smaller brain size and less efficient processing of certain sensory information. Exposure to early life adversity should be considered no less toxic than exposure to lead, alcohol or cocaine. Exposure to poverty in early childhood negatively affects brain development, but good-quality caregiving may help offset this effect.

In one study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, children who grew up in impoverished households showed smaller white and grey matter in their brains compared with those who had more means — these make up the density of nerve connections between different parts of the brain. The less wealthy kids also developed smaller hippocampus and amygdala regions, which are involved in regulating attention, memory and emotions.

According to the researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the smaller brain regions may be due to the increased stress and anxiety that these children experience growing up in families where finances are tight, and therefore parental support and interaction with children suffers.  Researchers found poor parents reacted with less patience and were “less able to nurture the children.”
"Parents can be less emotionally responsive for a whole host of reasons. They may work two jobs or regularly find themselves trying to scrounge together money for food," explained Luby. "Perhaps they live in an unsafe environment. They may be facing many stresses, and some don't have the capacity to invest in supportive parenting as much as parents who don't have to live in the midst of those adverse circumstances."

Only half the children living in poverty reach what is defined as "a good level of development" by the time they are five, compared with two-thirds of the others. "Good quality early-years provision can help improve outcomes, especially for the most disadvantaged," a report says. "However,childcare is expensive in the UK, and many people cannot afford to utilise it or go back to work after having children.

In the second study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, scientists at Northwestern University, in Illinois, connected lower maternal education, a common symptom of poverty, to poor processing of sound in the brains of children raised in lower-resource environments. The researchers found that adolescents whose mothers had less education were more likely to register more varied and noisier nerve responses when hearing speech than those whose mothers had more schooling. That response, according to previous work, could translate into poor reading skills. The scientific team suspects that the lack of constant verbal interaction between mother and child could be one factor in the noisier brain responses to speech, since such back-and-forth can prime a still-developing brain to isolate and recognize speech more efficiently. Other data established that children in higher-income families are exposed to 30 million more words than those in lower-income families where parents have less education.

The good news, however, is that the effects may be reversible. Families don’t chose poverty, but changes in care-giving, especially during early childhood, could avoid some of the physical changes the scientists measured. Socialism can expect a lot more bright children.

THE NEED FOR SOCIALISM

For the best part of 50 years Christia Freeland worked at the Financial Times and Reuters, so when she writes a book entitled "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich" she has a fair idea of the subject. According to a book review by John Arlidge she has some revealing facts about the rich. 'These people have become richer. Not just a bit richer. But profanely richer. The top 10% of Americans, for instance receive half the nation's income. Freeland shows that inequality in Europe is rising sharply too, and points out how the rules of the economic game have been rigged to favour the rich.' (Sunday Times, 27 October) The reviewer points out the book is stronger on the whos, hows and whys of the rise of the new global super-rich than it is on whether we should (or can) do anything about this inequality. From a socialist perspective we can, we should and we will do something. We will abolish it! RD

GRIM FIGURES

More than half of all poor children in the UK are living in homes that are too cold, and around a quarter said their home suffered from damp or mould, a survey published by the Children's Society indicates. 'Of those children surveyed who said their family was "not well off at all", 76% said they "often worried" about how much money the family had. More than 53% said their home was too cold last winter and 24% said it was "much colder" than they would have liked, while 26% said their home suffered from damp or mould. There are over three million children living in poverty in the UK, a figure that is predicted to rise.' (Guardian, 29 October) Behind these grim statistics lie the awful realities of this crazy system that condemn working class children to endure these conditions.

Does capitalism work?

“How stupid and shortsighted the ruling class really is! Cupidity is stone blind. It has no vision. The greedy, profit-seeking exploiter cannot see beyond the end of his nose. He can see a chance for an "opening"; he is cunning enough to know what graft is and where it is, and how it can be secured, but vision he has none — not the slightest. He knows nothing of the great throbbing world that spreads out in all directions. He has no capacity for literature; no appreciation of art; no soul for beauty. That is the penalty the parasites pay for the violation of the laws of life.” - Eugene V. Debs

 Socialists argue that it does a disservice to people's needs and their democracy. Supporters of the system claim that capitalism empowers individuals. Capitalism has actually pushed individual enterprise to the fringes of economies. No more than ten percent of populations are self-employed. In Canada and the U.S. ninety percent depend on wage and salary work. Although capitalism gives individual capitalists title to means of livelihood—title that is bought and sold for private profit—wage and salary workers are actually engaged in cooperative, coordinated social labor yet are bound by wage-slavery. Capitalism is neither democratic nor egalitarian. Those with the most shares have the most votes. Less than one in four own any shares. Most  shares are owned by less than five per cent of populations. Major shareholders and top executives, who combined are less than 0.1 percent of populations, control most corporations.The twenty largest transnational corporations have more revenues than most governments. Capitalists dominate political agendas manipulate the media to determine the outcome of elections.

The profit system won’t save us because there is an irreconcilable conflict between capitalist economic growth and the survival of the planet as we know it. Capitalists who fail to obtain a return on their investments lose money. Capitalists as capitalists focus on maximising profits. Growth and capital accumulation is the relentless imperative of the capitalist. In the face of the scientific consensus and worsening natural disasters, capitalism responds by investing billions in fracking, tar sands, deep sea petroleum development, and expanding pipelines. Under capitalism,   Big Business can now deforest entire continents, level mountains, dam major rivers, deplete mineral reserves, and fish sea life to extinction. While, private property title allows corporations to give priority to profits it also permits them to externalize environmental costs, to pass these on to communities and future generations.

The capitalist class will continue destroying the planet. People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped by us. The Socialist Party accepts that working for reforms is not unimportant but no form of capitalism can prevent the ruination of the biosphere. Too many environmental activists fail to acknowledge this basic truth. Isolated individual action has little impact. Class power can change the system.

The capitalists have intellectuals of all categories to exalt their function. The wage-worker has few friends and defenders among the intellectuals. Hardly anyone but Marxists nowadays retain hope in the anti-capitalist strivings and sentiments of the working people or believe that they can in time participate in a mighty movement oriented toward socialist objectives. For adhering to these convictions and being guided by them, we are looked upon as ideological freaks and political fossils, relics of a bygone era, dogmatists who cling to outworn views. Our convictions are not an affirmation of religious-like faith. They are derived from a reasoned analysis and an understanding of capitalist development and the key role of the working class in history. All over the world industrialisation and urbanisation is causing the wage-working class, defined as those who sell their own labour power to the owners of capital to grow in size and gain in economic, social, and political importance. The capitalist today have an arrogant faith in the longevity of their system. They firmly believe that the empire of the almighty dollar shall always rule.

Labour  is undergoing marked changes in all industrial countries. Profit-making and the accumulation of capital depend upon the consumption of large quantities of labour power which creates value in the form of commodities. Although this or that segment or individual may be squeezed out of jobs temporarily or permanently, the industrial work force as such is not expendable, no matter how fast or how far automation proceeds under capitalist auspices. Workers are far from obsolescent and cannot be conjured away. Indeed, the inherent limitations upon its introduction and extension under capitalism, the inability of the profiteers fully to utilize the immense potential of the new science and technology for reducing the working day and rationalizing production, provide further reasons for breaking their hold upon industry. 

Capitalism isn't fit for purpose

In the most deprived communities, men and women can expect to spend 22.7 years and 26.1 years respectively in "not good" health.

That compares to just 11.9 years and 12 years for men and women in most affluent parts of Scotland.

 Cancer and heart attack rates remain higher among those living in deprived areas.

Since 2008 "the admissions rate in the most deprived areas has increased at a faster rate than in the least deprived areas", leading to an increase in both relative and absolute inequality.

Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of the BMA in Scotland explained "... "for those people living in the most deprived communities the inequalities in health have never been more apparent. We cannot simply continue to argue that public health policies are working to improve the lives of Scots when the differences between rich and poor are so apparent...whilst doctors can do all they can to treat these illnesses, they will not reduce the drivers of inequality in society."

One for your book-shelf

Now out is the World Socialist Review, an anthology (224 pages) of socialist writings from the archives of the World Socialist Party of the United States.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Socialist-Review-1-10-1986-1993/dp/1291473750

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Socialist-Review-1-10-1986-1993/dp/1291473750

Available USA $9.05
UK £6.60

We

The text of the Socialist Party's identity leaflet.

Somebody once remarked that the most important word in the  political vocabulary is “we”. It was a shrewd observation, since to get someone to use “we” in relation to some group of people is to  get them to identify their interest as the interest of that group.

In the battle for “we”, socialists are trying to get all those excluded from ownership and control of means of production to recognise the fact of their common interest as one  class within capitalist society, to regard themselves as “we” and to use “our” and “us”  only in relation to that class and its interests.

Those who control one or other of the two hundred or so armed states into which the  world is divided have to try to prevent this practice emerging, and deliberately seek to  undermine it, in the interest of the other main class in capitalist society – those who do  own and control means of production and who derive a privileged income from this. They seek to convince the people they rule over that the “we” they should identify with is  “the nation” as the nation part of what they call the “nation-state” they rule.

Immigration causes a problem for them since immigrants, having been brought up  under some other state, have not gone through the same process of brainwashing and  conditioning as have the “native” population. Those born and brought up in Britain have  been taught, through what’s been drummed into them in school and through what they  continuously read in the papers or hear on the radio or television, to regard themselves  as British. In school they are taught the history of the kings and queens of England, and  of the wars in which the British ruling class has been involved in over the centuries, and  of the evolution of the British state. The media reinforce this by reporting news from  an almost exclusively British angle and encourage identifi cation with “the nation” via  identification with “our” sports teams and performers.

It therefore comes almost as a reflexaction for people born and brought up in Britain to use “we” in relation to the British state and to regard themselves as part of a British  “nation”. So people spontaneously say such things as “we beat the French at Waterloo”  or “we won the Second World War” or “we got fi ve gold medals at the Olympics”. Even  opponents of particular policies pursued by the British state, yesterday as well as today, fall into the same trap and say such things as “we should never have conquered India”  or “we shouldn’t join the euro”. Such usage is music to the ears of the ruling class as they know it means they are on  top in the battle for “we”. They have succeeded in getting their subjects to identify with  them and their interests. Wage and salary workers, instead of seeing “we” as their class,  have come to see it as “the nation”.

Nation-building

It wasn’t always so easy. Historians have demonstrated that a nation is not a natural existed first and then proceeded to impose on those it ruled over the idea that they  formed a “nation”. The longest-standing states of Western Europe – England, France  and Spain – emerged at the end of the feudal era and then had to create a national  feeling amongst the population living within their frontiers. These frontiers were accidental and had been determined by a number of key battles amongst dynastic rulers  in feudal times. Had the outcome of these battles been different, then southern Britain  might have been part of the same state as northern France, while northern Britain might have been part of a state with Scandinavia, and southern France part of a state with Catalonia and northern Italy. That’s not how things turned out, but the point is that they  could have done. States pre-existed and in a very real sense created nations. Nations  are groups of people ruled by a state or a would-be state.

States that have been formed more recently – and most of the world’s states today  were only formed in the last 80 or so years, i. e., have only been going for two or three  generations – have had, and some still have, a serious problem in convincing all those  they rule over that they form part of a single nation with a common interest. It is why  their nationalism tends to be more shrill and authoritarian. It has to be, to overcome  the tendency of some of their subjects, especially those speaking a minority language  within their state, to identify themselves with some other nationalism particularly that of a  neighbouring state.

Even a long-established state such as Britain has not solved this problem entirely, as  witness Northern Ireland, where a considerable proportion of the population use “we”  not in relation to Britain but in relation to the Irish State and the “nation” it fosters. On the mainland the British state’s problem in this respect has been amongst the immigrants  from its former Empire, many of whom, notoriously to Norman Tebbitt’s annoyance, refuse to support the English cricket team and continue to support that of their country  of origin or that of their parents. More seriously, the ruling class were shocked by the  number of immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants who supported the Taliban  in the most recent of the Afghan Wars.

Until recently the dominant opinion amongst those in charge of the British state about how to deal with this was to make a virtue of necessity and pursue a policy of  “multiculturalism”. It didn’t work. In fact, it has encouraged division, by getting people  to identify with their “culture” rather than with the British “nation”. (Socialists, too, see “multiculturalism” as divisive but for the different reason that it gets workers to identify  with some other group over and above their class.) Now a change of policy is under  way, a swing towards “assimilationism”.

The fi rst to experience this change of policy are new applicants for British nationality.  They have to be able to show some knowledge of the British state, its institutions and  the history of its rulers, before being accepted into the British “nation”. The expectation  is that they will say “we beat the French at Waterloo” and “we should/should not join the  euro” as readily as any true-born Briton. Perhaps too they will support England in test  matches.

Feudal relic

They are also now required to publicly pledge allegiance to the queen in ceremonies akin  to the patriotic flag-worshipping that applicants for US citizenship have to go through.  This is a farcical revival of feudal times, but it brings out the importance of the royal family  to the British ruling class. The royal family’s role is to act as a focus for loyalty to the  British state. The 19th century Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, is credited with first  having thought this up.

The royal family may be a relic from feudalism but it is easier to  get people to identify with it than with some abstraction like the constitution. Nor is any superannuated politician dubbed “the president” ever going to be able to act as such a  focus. It is also less hypocritical, because members of the British “nation” are called what they  really are – “subjects”, people subjected to the rule of a ruling class. Tony Benn finds this abhorrent. He wants us to be called “citizens” not “subjects”, as people are in France. But  the people of France are no less subjects of the French ruling class and its state for being called citizens. Let a spade continue to be called a spade.

 What we should object to is  not to being called subjects, but to being subjects Republicanism and “citizenship” could become a useful alternative way of ensuring loyalty  to the British capitalist state if ever the royal family becomes too unpopular, but even  though royalty is much less popular than it was even 25 years ago, it is still an asset that  the British ruling class want to hold on to and use to the full. It serves to get wage and salary workers to be loyal to the British state and to use “we” in relation to the interests of  its ruling class.


The “we” that socialists say that all those, wherever they were born, wherever they live  or wherever they come from, who are not members of the privileged ruling class should  identify with is people in a similar position throughout the world. “We” are all members of  a world-wide excluded class of wage-working wealth producers – the world working class  – who have a common interest in coming together to abolish so-called “nation-states” and  establish a frontierless world community in which all the natural and industrial resources  of the Earth will have become the common heritage of all Humanity, to be used for the  benefit of all instead of, as to today, to make profits for the few. Then we would all really be members of the Human Race, citizens of the World - Earth-people.

A HEARTLESS SOCIETY

With  gas and electricity prices rising a survey for Age UK found that 28 per cent of pensioners said their main concern for the coming cold months was ensuring they could heat their homes. 'The charity said the figures suggested the problems could affect as many as three million older people across the UK. Age UK also raised the alarm over the health dangers to the elderly people, warning that cold weather and poorly heated homes increased the risk not only of influenza but also of heart attack and stroke. There are about 24,000 excess deaths in a typical British winter, many of them preventable.' (Independent, 28 October) Britain is one of the most developed countries in the world yet it condemns millions of old workers to this health hazard. RD

Nazi Huns

No Surrender? No Comment

Home Truths

The sequel book, Crap Towns Returns, describes Kilmarnock as Scotland’s least desirable place to live. In 2010 Kilmarnock gained UK-wide notoriety when BBC documentary The Scheme featured graphic scenes of drug abuse, violence and ­anti-social behaviour in the Onthank ­estate.

 “Once an industrial powerhouse, famed internationally for its carpets, Kilmarnock is now a post-industrial wasteland, with much of its once handsome town centre bulldozed. The main shopping drag is a grim, litter-strewn wind tunnel with nary an outlet that isn’t a pound shop or a pawnbroker. The town is ringed by a growth of dirty-grey, pebble-dashed flats of unspeakable misery.

One contributor described the community as: “A truly crap town… where heroin addicts and stabbings, as well as football violence and pound shops, are aplenty.”

Broxburn in West Lothian and Galloway's Newton Stewart are also listed among the top 50 most undesirable British communities.

 Broxburn’s main distinguishing features are “religious bigotry, alcoholism, drug guzzling, fighting and hopelessness”.

Newton Stewart is labelled “the town that God forgot”, while the residents are described as “desperate to escape” and “deranged looking”.

In the first edition of the book Cumbernauld was named  the second worst place to live in the UK.

Isn’t it time to build a world and communities that are fit to live in?