Capitalism Must Be Abolished!

Few can deny that the world today is in upheaval. That is reflected in the widespread  turmoil and conflict not only in the developed industrial nations but also in developing nations throughout the globe. The Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated, is the capitalist system that does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority.

Socialists are agreed upon their object, that object being social and economic freedom and equality for all, and the realisation of the highest individual development and liberty for all, through the social ownership and control of all the material means of production. Many say they are socialists  but only those who believe in the object as here defined can be properly so described. Those who do not so accept it are not socialists, despite what they may say to the contrary. The goal of socialism as the classless society has its starting point in the propertyless condition of the working class. The Socialist’s goal represents the consummation of the struggle of the working class—its emancipation from the system which gives rise to that struggle.

Socialism is the name given to that form of society in which there is no such thing as a propertyless class, but in which the whole community has become a working community owning the means of production—the land, factories, mills, mines, transport and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. Socialism is also the name given to a body of scientific and philosophic thought which explains why the socialist form of society is now a necessity, the forces upon which its achievement depends, the conditions under which and the methods whereby it can be achieved. It will be obvious at once that the basic principles of Socialist society are diametrically opposite to those of Capitalist society in which we live. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private and state-owned property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class.

We can easily understand, therefore, why the, employers , financiers and the land-owners are opposed to socialism. Their very existence as the receivers of rent, interest and profit is at stake. They do not merely reject the theory of socialism, but bitterly fight every movement which is in any way associated with the struggle for socialism. The beneficiaries and defenders of this economic dictatorship never tire of declaring it the “best of all possible systems.” Yet, today, after decades of new deals, fair deals, wars on poverty, civil rights legislation, government regulations, deregulations and a host of other reform efforts, capitalism presents an obscene social picture. Millions who need and want jobs are unemployed, including many of whose jobs have been out-sourced. Others are underemployed, working only part-time or temporary jobs though they need and want full-time work. Millions aren’t earning enough to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families despite the fact that they are working. The malignant evil of racism and discrimination is pervasive. The health care system, despite heated debate for years, still fails to meet the needs of millions. Widespread pollution of our environment worsens. Crime and corruption are widespread at every level of capitalist society. Thanks to capitalism’s exploitation of workers poverty continues to grow. All of those problems still plague the working class—but have grown to even more monumental proportions.

These long-standing problems and the failure of seemingly unending reform efforts to solve or even alleviate them to any meaningful degree have imposed decades of misery and suffering on millions of workers and their families. Against this insane capitalist system the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organized on the same basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism.

 It is to the individual and social interest of the propertyless class to fight against the private property system and for socialism. They do it every day, though as yet only a minority do it consciously for socialism. When Trade Unionists fight the employers on wages questions and the conditions of labour they are really fighting against consequences of the private property system. The existence of the private ownership of the means of production means also the private ownership of the things produced and their sale as commodities in competition one with another. Labour also is a commodity and those who sell their labour power, the members of the working class, manual and brain-worker alike, also compete like other commodities.

Why then is it that all  trade unionists are not always socialists? People do not start their lives with fully developed theories about systems of society. Nor were trade unions formed to fight for socialism. The workers formed them to defend and improve their immediate conditions of employment, their wages, their hours of labour and so on. This is clearly revealed by the way in which the trade unions have grown.  The Socialist Party is not anti-trade union. On the contrary, we are ardent supporters of trade unionism. Socialists want their fellow trade unionists to recognise the cause of the struggle their unions are compelled to wage. Recognising the cause as rooted in the private ownership of the means of production and the propertyless conditions of the working class, socialists want all the struggles of the unions to be co-ordinated, so that behind every national or industry conflict there will be available the appropriate power of the working class. Socialists want sectionalism to be superseded by a united working class army. Trade unions should become transformed into industrial unions, i.e. one union for each industry. It means that the unions should recognise that all the efforts of the working class must be directed to the goal of the conquest of political power and their fight in the industrial field must be linked and  backed by the might of the working class, to achieve transfer the ownership of the means of production and distribution from private hands to social ownership. Divisions between workers are fatal and must be quickly overcome to develop solidarity of the working class in the struggle against Capitalism.And that solidarity is the basis of class action in politics.  No longer a movement of protesting wage slaves, they will become the means whereby the workers control the conditions and processes of industry.  A new basis of common ownership has given the transformed unions new functions of self-government and administration. Capable of assuming control and continuing to administer and operate the essential industries and social services, unions can exercise the power and provide the decisive leverage to “swing” the revolution. Moreover, they have the structure that provides the necessary foundation and structural framework for socialist society. It is the workers who will fill out the new social framework and make the people’s ownership, control and administration of the new social structure a reality.
Despite the many threats to workers’ lives, liberty and happiness today, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organizing, politically and industrially, for socialism.

But general agreement on the object, however, by no means presupposes universal agreement on policy and tactics. They are matters to discuss, to argue out, to confer about. It is for such purposes that our own party holds its annual conferences and  Autumn Delegate Conference, reaching a common agreement as to socialist policy and action in the present and immediate future. The Socialist Party calls upon all who realise and who may be increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on working-class principles. Join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilization. We may not presently be overwhelmed by members but let’s be optimistic - “We’ve got a lot of room to grow.”

Connolly the Anti-Nationalist

Billy Connolly has said he will not vote in the referendum on Scottish independence.

" I have never been a nationalist and I have never been a patriot. I have always remembered that I have a lot more in common with a welder from Liverpool than I do with someone from agriculture in the Highlands..."

Science and Ignorance

The USA is the most developed capitalist country in the world. It also happens to have the most developed scientists in the world, but that doesn't mean its population is the best informed. When asked the question does the earth orbit the sun how did they reply? 'The good news is that 74 per cent of Americans know the answer. The very bad news is that means 26 per cent really don't. ....... Other startling results from the survey included that only 39 per cent of Americans believe "the universe began with a huge explosion". And fewer than half of the people surveyed (48 per cent) agreed that "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier  species of animals". .... The study also demonstrated that a total of 42 per cent of Americans thought astrology was either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific". (Independent, 16 February) The survey, as reported by Agence France-Presse, is carried out every couple of years in order to analyse whether America is making educational progress. The owning class throughout the world need the best possible scientists but if the rest of the population know little of science it is of little concern to the owners. RD

Football and Fatalities

According to most dictionaries "sport" is usually depicted as " an enjoyable pursuit", but we live in capitalism - a society that distorts everything. 'More than 400 Nepalese migrant workers have died on World Cup building sites as the Gulf state Qatar prepares to host the event in 2022, a report will reveal this week. The grim statistic comes from the Pravasi Nepali Co-ordination Committee, a respected human rights organisation which compiles lists of the dead using  official sources in Doha.' (Observer, 16 February) In its relentless drive for bigger and bigger profits the health and safety and life itself means little to the owning class - to which 400 grieving families can now testify. RD

Neither Union or Separatism

NO PASSPORTS
JUST PEOPLES

 "I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family" - Rosika Schwimmer

How are we to explain this nationalism arising in an advanced capitalist country at this time?Since the 1707 Union Scotland has visibly progressed, not regressed, as part of the United Kingdom. Certainly, there are a number of features which spur national consciousness in Scotland: the legal and educational systems are separate from those in England and Wales and there is even the remnants of a ‘national’ language - gaelic. But to pretend that the Union is the cause of all the problems is to deliberately fool the people.

Nations that divide the world at present have not existed for all time. They are the by-products of fairly recent historical developments. Usually, they grew up as a particular ruling class sought to establish its dominance over the economic activities of the territory it inhabited. To do so successfully, it had to replace the various local traditions and dialects that characterised pre-capitalist society by new traditions and a uniform language and to fight to subordinate the state power to its own ‘national’ interests.  As well as serving the interests of capitalist progress, nationalism contained the concept of popular sovereignty—of a motherland which claims to represent the people as a whole, its vast majority, and which grants and defend their liberties and gives them a conscious stake in shaping its future.

The idea of an independent Scottish parliament has arisen among sections of the Scottish business class and it has also enticed the support of many workers. Independence is offred as  a panacea which will enable Scots to  rid themselves of the myriad of social problems thrown up by capitalism without having to fight to overthrow capitalism itself. North Sea oil is the new snake-oil cure. All that is needed is an Edinburgh sovereign parliament to demand a larger share of revenue from the global energy companies but this panacea simply ignores the realities of power under capitalism. Nationalism finds little expression among the Scottish businessmen which is firmly committed to its junior partner relationship with UK capitalism. While at the national level the bourgeoisie is divided, various elements within the ruling class, from one faction and the other, have been exhorting workers to abandon its own interests for the sake of the “nation”. Each faction is hoping to push the balance of power between the factions in its own favour, in order to profit to the hilt from the capitalist crisis which is shaking Scotland and the UK.

Nationalist calls for independence serves as an instrument of the capitalist class to mystify its rule, to delude the workers, to deter them from developing a class consciousness and organising along independent class lines. It has been used to pit them against one another.

Scottish nationalism and independence does not strengthen the real force for socialism but weakens and fragments a united, class-conscious working class. The Left nationalists contribute nothing but division and confusion. They ally with the little tartan-clad bosses. Marx and Engels, by saying that “the workers have no country” were stating fact. Since the workers do not own their a share of the country, they are without a country. You cannot take from them what they have not got. It is a truth that capitalist ruling classes are always seeking to camouflage. For the members of the ruling class in Scotland, to fight unemployment and the recession, English colonialism must first be fought so runs Salmond’s appeal  and it is a simplistic one. “Support me, I am the saviour of our country, forget about your exploitation and your misery for the time being...Help us get independence then you’ll get more jobs...later””

A worker’s  place of birth is accidental.  Nationalism groups men according to their land of origin, as decided by the vicissitudes of history. Socialism groups men, poor against rich, class against class, without taking into account the differences of race and language, and over and above the frontiers traced by history. Workers have no country. The differences which exist between the present countries are all superficial differences. The Socialist Party looks at the national question from the desire to find the best method of struggle for socialism.  We do not accept that the struggle for independence is more important than the struggle for socialism.

In a big company, there is always an owner or many shareholders that live off the work of others: these are the ones who really hold the power! The foremen and supervisors are only their watchdogs; they apply the rules the capitalist owners dictate; they “direct” the workers in such a way as to insure as much profit as possible, and when the industry is facing difficulties, they are charged with the laying-off, or they do the “pushing” to raise production; they also try to create division among the workers as they fight against their union or try to buy off their representatives. If a party does not want to abolish capitalist exploitation, it can only serve capitalism – its role is that of the foreman in the plant.

 If the Left nationalists truly have at heart the interests of the workers, why don’t they denounce the very essence of exploitation, the capitalists system? They call themselves “socialists,” but that doesn’t mean much – they are hollow words. One is not truly a socialist who does not want to abolish the private/state ownership of the means of production, who does not want to expropriate the capitalists. Left nationalists are pretend revolutionaries. They want to rally the working class behind the nationalist cause. But nationalism disarms the workers, an attempt to rally the working class behind the cause of our native ruling class seeking a better place in the sun. Nationalism does not oppose capitalism. There are no shortcuts to the socialist revolution, and those who enter the nationalist paths retard the coming of a popular revolutionary movement by chasing fake enemies.

Furthermore nationalism is used to divide the workers among themselves so they can ignore their real enemy. The workers (Scots and English, Scots and Europeans)  need to unite – their main interests lie in such unity. The separation of Scotland would divide the workers of Britain in two and draw Scottish workers nearer to the Scotland-based bourgeoisie. We must fight nationalism! The Left that supports independence serve the interests of “our” ascendent capitalists. The social revolution is an immense task and workers must have their own organisations.

A workers’ movement that fights for economic gains, yes!  A Socialist Party that fight for the emancipation of the working class, even better!

Five hundred factories came out on strike

The Asian garment industry is in the news again. This time it's Cambodia's turn as five hundred factories came out on strike for higher wages. The government replied predictably with police opening fire with their AK47s killing three workers. The industry, like Bangladesh and Viet Nam, is the country's largest exporter. The workers are asking for $160 per month (less than $1 per hour) and the government has offered $100. No wonder the greedy clothing retailers are licking their lips at the prospects of large profits in Asia! Toronto Star, 4/Jan/2014). John Ayers

If the power lines were buried underground.

As most of us are painfully aware, the ice storm that hit most of eastern North America, December 21/22, created havoc. Thirty hours of freezing rain meant downed power lines with loss of electricity, heat, and spoiled food in refrigerators and freezers. Public transit was at a standstill as was almost everything else. All of this could be avoided if the power lines were buried underground. however the simple fact is, as usual, it is too expensive and that, under capitalism, people's well-being comes second to shoveling profits in the direction of the owning class. John Ayers

Poverty and Health

Statisticians are often coming up with surprising findings, but the following should startle no one. " Wealthy octogenarians are healthier than poorer people in their 60s, according to official figures. A big health gap starts to open in middle-age, but even by their late 30s poorer men have a  level of health problems not seen by rich men until they reach their mid-60s , the Office for National Statistics says." (Times, 15 February) So not only do rich people live longer than poor people they live healthier lives too. Surprise, surprise! RD

Class Against Class

Humanity has reached a turning point in its history. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future that can already be foreseen, because the material conditions necessary for achieving them now exist. Socialism has been called the science of human association reduced to a practical programme, based upon a study of the social organism. It is an interpretation of the past, a diagnosis of the present, and a forecast of the future. It recognises that life in society as well as in the organic world, is constantly passing through a process of evolution. It is therefore founded upon an enduring basis of fact. Its practical programme declares that labour is the sole creator of value and that the laboring class is entitled to the full social value of the things they produce. It teaches that the only way to attain the just distribution of wealth to those who produce it is through the collective or social ownership, control, and operation of the means of production and distribution, such as lands, mines, factories, transport and communications etc., etc. It asserts that this production should be for use and not for sale or profit, thus doing away with all private monopoly of the means of subsistence, and all forms of the vast amount of unproductive labour and an immense number of
useless and harmful occupations.

Working people are becoming increasingly aware that this society can only’be achieved through  revolution. Only a social revolution can put an end to the capitalist relations of exploitation that are now the fundamental obstacle to further progress for mankind. The socialist revolution expropriates the capitalist class who now possess and control the means of the production and distribution of the world’s wealth. The precise way in which this is affected, whether by general strike, by street fighting, or by the ballot box or finally by a combination of all three methods, may be argued but does not affect the ultimate issue - the capitalists are to be eliminated. This is the meaning of the struggle for a society of abundance, of justice and of freedom: the communist/socialist society based on the free association of all individuals who work together to produce the goods necessary for their collective well-being. All will work according to their capacities and their needs will be fully satisfied.  Individuals will no longer be governed by the division of labour and all opposition between city and countryside and between manual and intellectual work will be eliminated.

Class society is characterized by the struggle between two main classes: the proletariat (the workers) and the bourgeoisie (the employers, aka the capitalists). The course of humanity is still determined by the struggle between these two classes. The employer’s power is rooted in the appropriation of new wealth produced by the labour of the working class. Workers are forced to exchange their labour-power for a wage that allows them to survive but that represents less value than that produced by their labour; this is the source of capital accumulation. In this way, the capitalists, the owners of the means of production, constantly deprive the workers of part of the fruits of their labour. Capitalists have only one raison d’etre – to accumulate more and more capital. They are therefore always looking for ways to increase the productivity of labour. This stimulates the development of science and technology and leads to an ever greater division of labour. It also results in very keen competition among capitalists themselves; many are reduced to bankruptcy, while a minority get richer and richer. The working class cannot free itself without freeing all of humanity at the same time, because the ultimate goal of its struggle is not to replace the power of one class with that of another but rather to abolish all classes. This is the only way to put an end to all the social divisions and inequalities that have characterized class societies thus far. The expropriation of the capitalists and the socialization of the means of production will lead directly to the abolition of society divided into classes with opposing interests. The abolition of classes will in turn lead to the withering away of the State and to its extinction for the State is not, and can never be, anything other than the instrument of dictatorship of one class over others.

The fundamental interests of the proletariat are the same throughout the world. The socialist revolution is inseparable from the world revolution. Socialism  is only possible in a world totally rid of capitalist exploitation. When the working class has captured political power it can build socialism. With power in the hands of the workers, the pathway to socialism is as clear as daylight and the working class can solve the economic and social problems of this planet and liberate billions of oppressed peoples so, for the first time in history, the great majority of the population, will have control over their daily lives and the power to build their future.

The mainstream parties—Tory, LibDems, Labour and various nationalists—appeal to you in the name of the “nation.” One Party—the Socialist Party—appeals to you in the name of the working class. No political party can serve two masters. No party can serve a “nation” divided into two warring classes—one which owns the wealth and one which produces the wealth and does not own it. No party can serve the robbers and the robbed at the same time.  The Socialist Party is thus the only party of the oppressed workers. The others are parties of the party of the landlords, the industrialists and financiers. The basis of their policies is upon the preservation and extension of the private ownership of all wealth and property. They wage a perpetual class war against the workers and call it “austerity” They wage war abroad and call it “humantarian intervention”. They speak of disarmament, but equip themselves with more deadly weapons. They are not against violence on behalf of the capitalists, but only against violence on behalf of the workers against the capitalists. In the current crisis the first line of attack was the characteristic attack upon the wages and conditions of the workers. This has been their first line of attack in their attempt to recover from the economic recession.

There can be no real democracy unless it is a workers’ democracy, a social democracy,  which  means the mass of the population being at once voters and administrators. This is only possible within some sort of a system of workers’ councils and neighbourhood communes.  Then all can stand on equal footing and collectively participate in the conduct of their own affairs, the running of industry and the organisation of social life. The power of the working class is the strength of its own organisation. It calls for the workers to leave the parties of capitalism, to rally to the party of the class struggle - a socialist party.

The Poverty of Capitalism

It remains the great and tragic paradox of our age – poverty in the midst of plenty.

One class—the capitalist class—owns and controls the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all institutions to its own interests. In its advent to power and supremacy the present economic master class succeeded another that had decayed in the process of evolution. The feudal lords had to surrender to the ascending capitalist class. We socialists have always contended that capitalism should be abolished because it mismanaged the means of production so that a very few – those who own the means of production – reaped great profits while the masses of the people were deprived of a secure standard of living. We would often prove this assertion by demonstrating the tremendous capacities which the modern industrial machine has; how it could satisfy the needs of everyone if it were run for that purpose; and how capitalism, instead, ran the industrial machine for profits. When the capitalists could not sell their products at a profit,  industrial capacity would lie idle because the capitalists despite the need for these products. We socialists would say, if only the people could run these industries themselves, they could produce enough to satisfy everyone’s needs.

The creators of all wealth, workers; obtain in wages only the minimum necessary to live and raise children so that capitalism has a steady supply of labour-power. All means of production, whether factories, machines or mines, are owned by the capitalist class. Workers possess only their own labour-power which they must sell in order to live. The system of capitalist relations of production leads to ever-more acute economic crises, bringing the miseries of unemployment and falling real wages on the working class. The class interest of the workers is to eliminate capitalism entirely and to build a socialist society, the classless society free from exploitation and from racial, sexual and all other forms of inequality.

The aim of the socialist movement is to replace world capitalist economy by a world system of socialism/communism. Socialist society is mankind’s only way out, for it alone can abolish the problems of the capitalist system which threaten to degrade and destroy the human race. Socialism will abolish the class division of society and simultaneously with the abolition of anarchy in production, it will abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a united commonwealth of labour. At the same time, the organs of class domination, and the State in the first place, will disappear also. The State, being the embodiment of class domination, will die out in so far as classes die out, and with it all measures of coercion will expire. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its energy to the development and strengthening of its own collective might.

After abolishing private and state ownership of the means of production and converting these means into social property, the world socialism will replace the elemental forces of the world market, competitive and blind processes of social production, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying rapidly growing social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of colossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society-there will be a planned utilisation of all material resources and a painless economic development on the basis of unrestricted, smooth and rapid development of productive forces. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy: instead of being merely a means of livelihood it will become a necessity of life: want and economic inequality, the misery of enslaved classes, and a wretched standard of life generally will disappear; the hierarchy created in the division of labour system will be abolished together with the antagonism between mental and manual labour; and the last vestige of the social inequality of the sexes will be removed.

With the disappearance of classes culture will become the acquirement of all and the class ideologies of the past will give place to scientific materialist philosophy. Hence, it will bury forever all mysticism, religion, prejudice and superstition and will give a powerful impetus to the development of all-conquering, scientific knowledge. Under such circumstances, the domination of man over man, in any form, becomes impossible, and a great field will be opened for the social selection and the harmonious development of all the talents inherent in humanity. Socialism will make it possible to raise the well-being of the whole of humanity and to reduce to a minimum the time devoted to material production and, consequently, will enable culture to flourish as never before in history.

 In socialism no social restrictions will be imposed upon the growth of the forces of production. Private ownership in the means of production, the selfish lust for profits, the artificial retention of the masses in a state of ignorance, poverty-which retards technical progress in capitalist society. The most expedient utilisation of the forces of nature and of the natural conditions of production in the various parts of the world, the removal of the antagonism between town and country, that under capitalism results from the low technical level of agriculture and its systematic lagging behind industry; the closest possible co-operation between science and technique, the utmost encouragement of research work and the practical application of its results on the widest possible social scale; planned organisation of scientific work; the application of the most perfect methods of statistical accounting and, planned regulation of economy; the rapid growth of social needs, which-is the most powerful internal driving force of the whole system-all these will secure the maximum productivity of social labour, which in turn will release human energy for the powerful development of science and art.

Capitalism is a wasteful and inefficient system. It cannot plan on either locally or a worldwide scale. It deprives the mass of the people of products. Socialism could plan better, provide the people with all necessities. In socialism there would be no shortages or unemployment created by the greed of a few owners of the means of production, because the people would collectively own the means of production. Socialism could take the vast resources devoted to war  and use them for constructive purposes. These are the real class interests of the working class. That is why socialism is the burning need of the hour. The capitalist class continuously tries to make the working class carry the burden of their economic crises.  The introduction  of more repressive legislation facilitates this, together with the attacks on the peoples’ living standards.

In opposition to all other parties—ConDem Coalition,  Labour or nationalist—the Socialist Party affirm that so long as one section of the community own and control the means of production, and the rest of the community are compelled to work for that section in order to obtain the means of life, there can be no peace between them.

Corrupt Capitalism

Sudhir Choudhrie, who has donated more than £500,000 to the Lib Dems via his family company since 2010, was named by India's Central Bureau of Investigation as one of 23 "unscrupulous persons" in 2012. The Indian-born businessman, who lives in a £5m apartment in Chelsea, was placed on the Indian list of "unscrupulous persons" following two formal investigations of alleged bribery in Choudhrie's work brokering arms deals. The "Undesirable Contactmen" list, which was prepared by the CBI and distributed to all Indian government departments, states politicians and officials should be "careful and cautious in dealings with unscrupulous contact men whose names are on these lists, to avoid associating with them socially and accepting hospitality and gifts from them. "Even official dealings with the UCM should be discouraged. Nefarious activities of these individuals should not be allowed and they should not be allowed sponsorship of Govt projects."

Choudhrie was investigated, and later cleared of allegations he accepted a $150,000 (£90,000) commission as part of an arms deal with the Israeli company Soltam in 2000. The Indian CBI also investigated claims that Choudhrie and his companies received "a number of suspected remittances to the tune of millions of dollars" from arms firm Israel Aircraft Industries over a deal to supply seven Barak missile systems and 200 missiles to the Indian navy. The CBI closed its seven-year investigation into the allegations on 24 December 2013 due to a lack of evidence.

Nick Clegg and his wife Miriam hosted an event in 2011 for Choudhrie's charity Path To Success in Lancaster House, London, an official government residence. Justice minister Simon Hughes received a £60,000 donation in November 2013. Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, used an official government trip to India to make a visit to the home of Choudhrie last year.

Choudhrie has developed strong links with the Lib Dems and was named by Nick Clegg as a potential future peer last year. Last autumn it was reported that he has since fallen off the prospective peer list following a damning official report into the state of hospitals and care homes he owns.

He and his son Bhanu were arrested and questioned for several hours by the Serious Fraud Office in connection with an investigation into allegations of multimillion pound bribery and corruption at Rolls-Royce, which supplies engines for military and civilian jets. It is understood that they were "fixers" who set up deals on the company's behalf.

The prime minister has praised Rolls-Royce as an enterprise "of which the whole country can be proud", and the Duke of Cambridge has described it as "one of the United Kingdom's great global companies" Rolls-Royce is alleged to have used middlemen to bribe Tommy Suharto, the son of Indonesia's former president General Suharto, with $20m (£13m) and a blue Rolls-Royce car.

 The allegations, which mostly date back to the 1980s and 1990s, were raised by former Rolls-Royce employee Dick Taylor. Taylor, who worked for Rolls-Royce for more than 30 years, including a stint in Indonesia, turned whistleblower after the company ignored concerns he raised internally. After taking early retirement, Taylor said he decided to "tell the truth". Taylor claims the Derby-based company paid bribes in order to persuade the national airline, Garuda, to order Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines.

Last year Mark King, head of Rolls-Royce's aerospace division, resigned just four months after being promoted to president of aerospace, the division beset by the allegations. The company has not explained the departure of King, a 27-year company veteran. It declined to state whether his departure was linked to the investigation, stating only that he was leaving for "personal reasons".

Lawyers for Suharto, who was convicted of ordering the murder of a judge who tried him on separate corruption charges in 2000, said: "He did not, and has never, received monies or a car from Rolls-Royce and nor did he recommend their engines to Garuda, as alleged."

The former Marks & Spencer’s boss appointed by Jeremy Hunt to advise on improving the NHS could “make a fortune” from hospital takeovers by private companies, the country’s biggest union has claimed. Sir Stuart Rose, who will lead a review of management in the NHS, is also paid to sit on the advisory board of Bridgepoint, an international private equity group, which is the major shareholder of private health firm Care UK. Care UK is in the running to take over the George Eliot NHS Hospital Trust – one of 14 hospital trusts in Sir Stuart’s review.

Rachael Maskell, national officer for health at the Unite union, said Stuart’s appointment represented a “gobsmacking conflict of interest” and called on him to confirm he would not profit personally from Care UK’s bid for the Warwickshire hospital.

Knightsbridge Bargain

While many workers scrimp and save in an effort to get together a deposit for a mortgage it is worthwhile looking at how the owning class live. 'An allotted space in an underground car park has gone on sale for £400,000. The space, near the Royal Albert Hall, Knightsbridge, is large enough for a Rolls-Royce Phantom and comes with metal lockable doors.' (Times, 13 February) You homeless workers will be glad to know that the agent Hobart Slater said "We've already had plenty of interest in the space." RD

Reformism and Deformism

The revolt against the ruling class was never so much alive as today. The ruthless march of capital is daily recruiting and making rebels out of both the young and old by grinding down wages to the point of bare subsistence. As a consequence workers are becoming more revolutionary than ever before. All over the world the ruling classes are busy devising measures to stem the rising tide. Even in the United States the “conspiracy of silence” has ended and socialism is once again being discussed from press and platform. Meanwhile the Socialist Party of Great Britain as an organisation and its companion parties in the World Socialist Movement has failed to make a corresponding growth. The Socialist Party of the future must find its strength.

Socialists concern themselves with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the collective ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. Socialism is not advanced necessarily in response to or because of great economic  distress. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem. Socialism is our immediate demand. The overthrow of capitalism is our only platform. The purpose for the Socialist Party is not that of a “uniting the whole of the workers,” but that of expressing the interests of the working class and encouraging its fighting class-conscious spirit.

 Reformist demands are like shopping lists and this isn’t surprising since political parties try to collect the maximum number of votes so as to get themselves elected to government. They’re a hodge-podge collection in which everybody can find something which pleases them, a package of electoral promises for one and all. To go out amongst the people and try to get them to vote for our candidates merely because we promise them some palliative amelioration is to enter into competition with the Labour Party and its left-wing on their own ground, for there is no earthly reason why the workers should prefer our brand of reforms to those of these others. We can offer no more and no better reforms than can any other party under capitalism and the workers would be entirely correct if, on the basis of an appeal for reforms, they would turn their backs to us and vote for the more electable parties. We distinguish ourselves fundamentally from all reformist groups by carrying on a campaign solely for socialism, which is not only correct but common sense. The Socialist Party refuses to have anything to do with dangling the hook and bait of immediate demands for acquiring votes. The Socialist Party declines to transform itself into a mere vote-catching machine.

 Concessions gained are by-products of the class struggle, not our aim, and gained only because of our strengthened position against, and over the opposition of the capitalist parties. If we fail to educate, to organise and to prepare the working class for a clear understanding of, and for the attainment of the socialist objective, temporary concessions gained can, instead of becoming partial victories on the way, be turned into retardation of the struggle. It is absolutely necessary to make clear our object and the limitations of immediate partial demands and not to arithmetically add new demands for every ill of the present situation appearing as solutions in themselves, such ends only in reformism pure and simple.

Day-to-day struggles must be subordinated by a socialist party to the realisation of the final goal. The pursuit of immediate objectives, reforms within the framework of the capitalist system supposedly means evolution from capitalism to socialism results in the strategy that the movement is everything, the final aim is nothing. The reformists set their demands as ends in themselves. They sow confusion in the minds of the workers.  The reformist platforms in practice cannot bring us closer to our revolutionary goal. It leads in another direction. It will not serve to develop class consciousness through struggle because the struggle, which it is conducting, is based on reformist premises.

If the socialist movement and the labour movement are ever to become one it will be necessary for socialism to be raised beyond an utopian aspiration. Workers require a concrete goal towards which to strive, which it comes nearer to with every battle. Every effort that preserves or increases the self-consciousness of the proletariat or its spirit of co-operation and discipline, is worth the making. Victory will not he born out of degradation, as many have believed.

Workers have a sense of realism and to put forth propositions outside of the realms of possible achievement under existing conditions then workers will give no serious support to an appeal for their backing on the basis of immediate demands that are manifestly unrealisable under the given conditions. Let us leave reformers to wrangle over reforms. Such a policy cannot mobilise the workers under the socialist banner but on the contrary helps to put new life into an otherwise rather feeble social reformism. Let us make our chief task to spread the propaganda of revolution.

There can be no peace and no unity between the exploiter and victim. There is no more unity between the employer and employee than there is between the robber and the robbed. There is a clash of interests. There is antagonism. The capitalist strives to secure for himself as much of the workers’ product as he can get by force or fraud or both; the workers, resisting exploitation, strive to get as big a share of their own product as they can force the boss to yield. That is fundamental. That is the law of capitalist society. It is the division of classes. It is the never ending class conflict as long as capitalism lasts. Capitalist society is a battle ground and the workers are an army on the march against the enemy. The State is not neutral, nor an ally it sometimes pretends to be.

There are many more struggles. Each day brings its own tasks. Each step the capitalists and their State demands new struggles of the workers. These struggles are not separated from each other. They are intertwined into a united whole. One struggle helps another. One victory makes others more easy. All of them strengthen the working class. All of them weaken the capitalist system. These struggles have not been invented. They are a necessity. They are an outcome of existing conditions. They are vital to the very existence of the workers. These struggles will be the more effective, the greater the masses that participate in them and the stronger their unity and will to fight. The Socialist Party is against the opportunism which concentrates the attention of the workers on immediate demands while posing socialism as some distant and ultimate goal.

Fact of the Day

14th February 1937 --  Emma Goldman speaks in Glasgow to an audience of 600 on "The Part of the CNT-FAI in the Spanish Revolution" in the afternoon; & in Paisley on "The CNT-FAI & Collectivisation" in the evening

Human Misery

Capitalism is a destructive society that causes intense suffering as figures from just one part of the world shows. 'More than 130,000 people have been killed in Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The U.N. has given up counting, saying it could no longer do so with any accuracy. 2.3 million Syrians have official refugee status and 6.5 million others are displaced within Syria out of a total population of 23 million.' (Associated Press, 25 January) These are just statistics but think of what it represents in real human suffering. RD

Our Goal is Socialism

Many people, especially Labour Party supporters, propagate the view that the Socialist Party is so concerned with the revolution that we do nothing to secure immediate reforms and that ignoring the needs of workers and by opposing reform we were preventing the workers from getting the immediate relief.  Socialism they contended is a long way off, the workers don’t want it, and consequently we utopians. The Socialist Party does not reject reforms but we do not view reforms as ends in themselves. It is the struggle for socialism which is all important. The Socialist Party has demonstrated that with the socialisation of the means of production there can be an increasing standard of life for all.

Socialism cannot be created by a minority. It can only function with the approval of an immense majority.  In the enormous task of social construction, the immense majority of the citizens must co-operate. We must never forget the object of the Socialist Revolution is the common good. In the socialist system, co-ordination of effort will not be maintained by the authority of one class over another, but will come as the result of the free will of associated members of society. How, then, can a system based on the free collaboration of all be instituted against the will, or even without the will, of the greater number? It can only succeed by the general and almost unanimous desire of the community. Destined for the benefit of all, it must be prepared and accepted by almost all; because the power behind an immense majority discourages the last efforts to resist its will.  Socialism is not the regime of a minority and it cannot be imposed by a minority. The socialist revolution will be brought about by the will and by the power of a majority. Democracy is the essential basis for building up a socialist system of production. Only under the influence of democracy does the proletariat attain that maturity which it needs to be able to bring about socialism, and democracy supplies the surest means for testing its maturity.

The State in a class-divided society can be nothing other than an instrument in the hands of the class owning the property and means of production in society. The talk of “reconciling class interests” is simple deceit. It is impossible to reconcile the interests of the slave owner and the slave, the exploiter and the exploited. Parliament grew out of feudalism and after the capitalist revolution developed as the natural custodian of the interests of capitalism. It was founded on private property foundations. Its laws are the laws of private property. The modifications that have taken place, the extension of the franchise and the growth of social legislation for the working-class are the reflection of the growing strength and power of the working-class. Parliament reflects the class struggle in its work, the more the capitalists attempt to use it as the means to regulate capitalist economy, the more they are impeded by the increasing claims of the workers. The “safety valve” thus becomes no longer “safe” for private property.

  For these reasons the Socialist Party oppose all efforts to stop the advance of the workers through Parliament. We call upon the workers to make the machine of Parliament effective for economic change. There lies the only chance of a transformation of capitalism into socialism without resorting to violence.Workers must use not only the weapon of mass organisation on the industrial field, but the weapon of parliamentary democracy, won in the past by reason of working class power. It must set itself, by using the machine of Parliament, by adapting it and changing it to serve new purposes, to win power so that it shall transfer into the hands of the exploited the means of production. It must wage the class struggle on the political arena if class domination is to end. A socialist and working-class movement fighting relentlessly for socialism and in that fight combating the day to day attacks of the employers is the only way to defeat capitalism. The wealth produced by the workers, for the first time in history, will become the common possession of all people, not just of a group of property owners.

The Socialist Party has since our inception as a party proclaimed the unity of interest of the workers the world over, and the antagonism of interest between the workers of the world and the master class. The principles which we had proclaimed and acted upon in “peace” were sufficient to guide us in war. Socialists in any country had only to stand faithfully by them to keep the name “socialist” free from reproach, and to retain the confidence of those who looked in hope toward our movement. In the face of the tricksters, the mis-leaders, and capitalist agents we declared the unity of interest of the world’s workers and proclaimed again the class struggle.

To-day the worker goes into the labour market as an article of merchandise with a price tag, that is, his or her wage. Herded together in slums, half starved and ill educated, the workers eke out a miserable existence. The evils with which we are confronted are not temporary or accidental, but are the necessary outcome of the system of society itself. As long as that system remains its results will become more and more pronounced, and its effects increasingly felt by the working class. Suffering from want and haunted by fear of want, life is a burden to the working class today.

Socialism – the only hope of the toiling masses – was proudly acclaimed as the beacon for the toilers of the globe in the struggles of the future. When anxious eyes search the horizon for some flickering beam to give them direction, and weary ears listen tensely for some encouraging sound to give them hope and the strength that comes with hope, they will discern the one and hear the other in the message that we sent out to the world in arms – that the workers of the world are one and the master class their enemies.

We in the Socialist Party are proud to declare before the people of the world that we are Marxian communists. We represent the conception of socialism of the future. We believe that the principles  for which we stand should end impoverishment and win the Earth. We seek a world in which the exploitation of man by man shall cease, when the evolution of human society to new and higher forms shall become possible to all mankind, when peace shall be enjoyed by all. Those who state that the Socialist Party extols catastrophe as a condition of the growth of socialist  influence, we say it is they produce the misery. It is the capitalist system which produces the disasters. We socialists do not need these conditions to develop our influence. We urge no pessimism, no sense of frustration. The future is ours. The Socialist Party has never been more optimistic, never more certain, never more determined to achieve the goal of socialism than we are on this day in the year 2014.

American Nightmare

The USA is often depicted as the embodiment of the virtues of modern capitalism but we are indebted to the American journalist  Paul Krugman for this expose of its less than perfect characteristics. 'What do we know about long-term unemployment in America? First, it's still at near-record levels. Historically, the long-term unemployed - those out of work for 27 weeks or more - have usually been between 10 and 20 per cent of total unemployment. Today the number is 35.8 per cent. Yet extended unemployment benefits, which went into effect in 2008, have now been allowed to lapse. As a result, few of the long-term unemployed are receiving any kind of support.' (New York Times, 9 February) Hardly the American dream is it? RD

Dying To Work

The owning class hate to see workers not working. After all they rely on them to produce the surplus value the owners live on. In addition the owning class have got to pay out sickness benefits. Last year they reckon it cost about £13 billion. The present government have appointed the company Atos to overhaul the benefits system. Its findings have not been without its critics though. 'One 39-year old woman from Livingston, near Edinburgh, was judged fit to work just weeks before she died. A heart and lung transplant patient from Essex died nine days after being declared well enough for employment.' (Sunday Times, 9 February) RD

Anarchy of the Market

 Socialism is not some happy Utopia, which we ought to establish but a future system which we MUST attain.  As the working class fights against its increasingly worsened position it comes to the realisation that the only way out is for it to collectively take what it has produced for itself. To take over the means of production, the mines, mills, factories, resources, utilities and run them for the benefit of everybody. Then we will have production for use and not for profit. Then we will end both despotism in the factory and chaos of the market. Then society will allocate its resources according to a social plan that will benefit all, a rational system of society.

 According to the prices on the market, men are employed or fired, millions made or lost, wealth produced or not, countries rise or fall. Competition between buyer and buyer, between buyer and seller, between seller and seller, between the capitalists and the workers, among the capitalists themselves and among the workers, all this transforms society into a veritable jungle where each is for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Charity, love, mercy, and such ideals find little realization in the market place. The whole world lives for exchange. In a thousand ways, the lives of the workers are worn out prematurely with a wantonness and criminal irresponsibility. Simultaneously the parasitic class increases in numbers, completely divorced from the process of production, interested only in the stocks and bonds they own. Under capitalist competition there is no order, no plan, no authority in the market to control it.

In this labour market buyer and seller do not occupy equal positions. The buyer is a capitalist with wealth and reserves. As a relatively small group, the capitalist may combine their forces against the laborers, sellers of labour power, and may make impossible those combinations of labor that can strengthen the bargaining power of the sellers. The capitalist buyers have at their disposal an army of well-paid henchmen, politicians, soldiers, police, lawyers, brain-washing intellectual leaders and such as those controlling the communication and education media, the church and religious leaders who preach of “turning the other cheek,” and similar. On the side of the workers are hunger, poverty, ignorance, disease, agents provocateurs, turncoats and stool pigeons, and a thousand similar handicaps.

Under the capitalist system, the unions could not play more than a subsidiary role. They could strike for higher wages, but wages depend upon profits and not vice versa. Should higher wages ruin the profits of an employer, he can sell out and enter another line of production; his capital takes flight to other fields of investment. What can an ordinary strike accomplish when the employer shuts down, sells out, or moves away? The only action left is to take over the factories. But this again is a political task. For it is an attack against private property, capitalist property, and property is a relation backed up by all the sanction and power of the State.

 Taking over all the technique prepared by capitalism, socialism begins where capitalism ends.Inside socialism, there are no longer a market, commodities, values, prices, wages.  The workers, through their representatives, guide their own destinies and organise themselves so that  production may be purposefully, planned, controlled and  managed. The allocation of material and workers to a particular industry is made, not according to the frenetic fluctuations of the market, through bankruptcy and booms, but by social analysis of the needs of man, of the productivity of the workers, and of how much strength is needed to fulfill these needs. For the first time, society rises from the domain of necessity into the realm of freedom. Goods are no longer sold for a market, but are produced for use. There being no class struggles, there is now no need for a State, and the State withers away. The armed services are not necessary. Police disappear. The basis for crime is gone, since labour is so productive that all the wants of life easily can be obtained. The criminal is treated as a sick person and is given careful hospitalisation until he or she becomes rehabilitated and made again into a social creature. Socialism lays the basis for a new type of family life, the ending of the misery and despotism that mark many family relations. A complete emancipation of women and for children, an entirely new upbringing. In the home, as in politics, the government over persons is transformed into the administration of things.

Society has become regenerated. The  precept, “from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.” prevails. The tremendously increased productivity of mankind will have reduced to a bare minimum the amount of time necessary for each to produce the wants of life. Elimination of all toil in work will enable the worker to become an artist, to find the greatest pleasure in the objective result of his labors, to fuse into one work and recreation, and to combine his constructive relations with nature with the construction and reconstruction of himself. If work becomes a pleasure, pleasure itself is work.

Lunching At The Food Bank

Things have reached a sorry pass when even  a  pillar of society like an archbishop can recognise the poverty of the working class. 'Millions of low-paid workers are trapped in an unbreakable cycle of poverty, and are even turning up at food banks in their lunch breaks asking for help to feed their families, the Archbishop of York warns. Dr John Sentamu, writing in The Independent, says low pay is a "scourge on our society" and challenges David Cameron to back up his "warm words" with action to boost the incomes of the working poor.' (Independent, 10 February) An independent commission chaired by the Archbishop says the economic recovery will make no difference to the lives of the five million lowest-paid workers unless they paid the so-called "living wage". The commission is mistaken in thinking that the pittance of a "living wage" is the answer to the problem. They should try "living" on a "living wage" - more like existing than living. RD

The Communist Con Trick

One of the greatest con tricks in history was that Russia and China were communist countries. It is doubtful if any one is naive enough to make that claim about Russia today and surely it is impossible to make that claim for China on learning of this news. China's elite, including the brother-in-law of President Xi Jinping, have used secretive offshore companies that helped hide wealth in tax havens, including the British Virgin Islands and Samoa, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington, D.C. 'The group, whose website is now blocked in China, worked with reporters from Europe, North America, and Asia, sifting through leaked files from two offshore funds, Singapore-based Portcullis TrustNet and Commonwealth Trust Limited in the British Virgin Islands. The documents, which are part of a larger cache of 2.5 million files obtained by ICIJ and analyzed with its media partners, provide information on nearly 22,000 offshore clients with addresses in Hong Kong and mainland China.' (Bloomberg Businessweek, 22 January) RD

A Personal Re-appraisal

WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

It may be advisable to take a look round upon the position of the Socialist movement in this country, to take stock as it were, and to consider where we are and where we are going. We are bound to admit that there are grounds for disappointment.  The fact that we emerge from elections having been unsuccessful in winning a substantial vote seems to have led some to the conclusion that our policy and our methods have been wrong, that our work has been wasted, that we have utterly failed, and that we should adopt some other policy, apply other methods, and work in other directions. We do not at all share that view. We have failed. That is true. But failed how? And in what?

What are we out for? Nothing less than a social revolution, a complete transformation of human society from its base. That is not a little thing. It is about the biggest job that any body of men and women have ever set as their task. And what are the means at our disposal? We have no other material than ourselves and no other means other than those limited resources at hand. Apart from the tremendous forces set in motion by the economic development - forces which are hastening the revolution more rapidly every day, and which make it, as we believe, inevitable - the revolutionary tool we have  forged is a socialist political party. So far, our efforts in this direction have not been favourable. Indeed, it is just here that we have failed. But what of it? Didn't we know, when we started, that that was the most difficult part of our challenge? Didn't we know it would take years and decades? Didn't we know that we would meet with disappointments and set-backs? Didn't we know that many of our members would go to their graves without a glimpse of that free co-operative commonwealth of which they were unquestioningly assured, and which, even in their lifetime, seemed so near?

How many years ago is it since William Morris wrote the words: "Only three little words to speak: We will it!"? And the people do not will it yet! But the numbers grow of those who do; and slow as is the work, it is none the less sure. And bitter as may be the failures, every one brings us nearer to the goal. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves. There is no other way. Even were it otherwise, a political or intellectual leadership cannot "let the people go," even if they desired to do so.  The socialist movement is fundamentally a movement for the emancipation of the working-class, they cannot be emancipated against their will, and so far we have not succeeded in inspiring them with that consciousness of their present wage-slave status, or inspire that passionate desire for their own emancipation, which is essential to a revolutionary movement. That is where we have failed.

 But is the failure due to our own fault, and should it cause us discouragement and despair? We think not.  If we saw others succeeding where we have failed we might conclude that the fault was indeed ours. We have been frequently and constantly derided by critics, who we do not see having faired any better than we have. Over the long decades of our existence our political rivals have endeavoured to show what a poor, hopeless lot of ineffectual cranks we of the Socialist Party were, and proceeded to map out a "better” way for the realisation of socialism. They have at times rallied activists and academics to their ranks but now many have now been forgotten, lost on the wayside of their 'shortcuts' to socialism. The SLP. The ILP. The CP. None mustered  the workers to any significant greater extent than ourselves, and only achieved better success in their recruitment of card-carriers because their 'socialism' was more hazy and less definite, the proverbial all things to all people. Then came the Trotskyists,  red flags fluttering, their banners and placards proclaiming 'follow the vanguard'  They tried and also failed to accomplish what earlier left-wingers had hoped to do, i.e., organise a working-class political party, independent of, and hostile to, all capitalist parties, as an instrument for the political, economic and social emancipation of the working-class preferring instead to hold on to the shirt tails of the Labour Party and other out-and -out reformists. They failed completely in rallying the general body of the workers  for socialist independent action, or even for militant rank and file labourism.

It is not pleasing to dwell upon these failures to organise a mass socialist political party, and it is not recalled in any spirit of exultation or feeling of schadenfreude. On the contrary, we as equally suffering members of the working class would have been delighted had any one of them succeeded. We could then have heartily joined with them in their work and rejoiced in their victories. But honesty expect us to refer them, however, as evidence that the cause of our failure must be sought for deeper down than in their own supposed errors or blunders, and because the present weakened position of the socialist movement is not a matter of the sole failure of the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s case to rally the workers into a class-conscious political party, but the failure of all bodies calling themselves 'socialist' which have took up the challenge.

That is not to say that there is no occasion for self-examination, or for review of our tactics or methods. We have no occasion for complacency.  But we do claim that the road we have marked out is the right road, and that no other political organisation  has, as yet, discovered a faster or more direct way towards our goal.  Whatever may be the sins of omission or commission with which we have to reproach ourselves, it is scarcely a fault to be laid at our feet if the working class to whom we appeal decline to take the road we indicate to them, and persist in continually marching up and down a blind alley, spurred on by short-sighted or blinkered leaders. This is the chief difficulty and cause of our non-success - the people themselves remain chained to the prevailing chains of capitalist ideas of what is and what is not possible. Our fellow workers are imbued with the bourgeois ideology that we can reform society in our interest, rather than re-form it into something new.

But we ought not despair. For we knew it all along. It is a quite common mistake on the part of enthusiastic recruits to our movement to imagine the working class are in a state of seething discontent and latent revolt, only waiting for an opportunity to spring into revolutionary action. Such ardent spirits soon, as a rule, become discouraged by disillusionment. But we know better - have always known better. We did not raise false hopes or make rash promises.

For it has not been all failure. Not by any manner of means. Capitalist dominated as still are the ideas of the working class,  they are, thanks to the irresistible pressure of the economic development, far ahead of what they were only a few years ago. Their universal outlook and standpoint has changed. The basic tenets of socialism are increasingly generally accepted or, at least, acquiesced in, by the working-class. The mass protests such as Occupy rejecting the leadership of the mainstream Left has grown in prevalence worldwide and if we cannot claim the change of attitude towards socialist theories and principles as the result of our agitation and campaigns, we can, at least, point to it as evidence that our teaching and position have been in line, and in accord with the trend. Where we have failed is in disseminating the conscious application of our ideas and conceptions.

Let us look to and eliminate the defects of our own organisation, for it is not free from them. The causes which have operate to prevent our success in rallying the whole working-class to our banner do not supply the reasons for the fact that so many sincere and active socialists are outside our party.  Let us look into these reasons and if possible remedy them. In some cases, doubtless, they are purely accidental, but this may not generally be the case. Are we, as is often alleged, too narrow, too sectarian, too intolerant? Are we too discourteous, not to our class enemies, but to would-be comrades and allies? Do we seek to antagonise people rather than to win them over? These are questions to which it may be worth while to give some consideration. We do not desire anyone inside our party who is not committed to our common cause of establishing socialism by mutually agreed tactics but there should be no heresy-hunting; no undue emphasis of non-essential points of difference but rather seeking the essential points of agreement. In things doubtful, liberty; in things essential, unity.

  Our immediate duty is to strengthen our organisation; to muster new recruits under our banner; to disarm hostility and to bring together all those sharing our viewpoints into a united Socialist Party, a live, active, vigorous instrument for the realisation of socialism - the emancipation of humanity. It behoves us not to yield to political pessimism and persist in the direction of building up our class-conscious working-class Socialist Party. Agitate! Educate! Organise!

AJJ

Selective Justice

Two fugitive owners of a Bangladesh garment factory turned themselves in to face homicide charges for the deaths of 112 workers in the country's worst factory fire, but of course the foreign firms that utilised the factory will face no charges. 'The owners of Tazreen Fashions, Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter, were sent to jail after being refused bail. They were among six fugitives wanted in connection with the November 24, 2012, fire on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka. Many of those who died in the multi-storey building perished because supervisors ordered workers back to their stations even as an alarm rang and smoke rose through an internal staircase.' (New York Times, 9 February) The $22 billion export industry, which supplies many Western brands, came under scrutiny when a building housing factories collapsed in April, five months after the Tazreen fire, killing more than 1,130 people. After the Tazreen blaze, both Wal-Mart Stores inc WMT.N and Sears Holdings Inc said that goods were being manufactured for them at the factory. RD

For A Socialist One World

WORLD SOCIALISM

Socialists are indifferent to the national interests of any particular country, our own included. The thing to which we are not indifferent to are the principles of socialism. Socialism involves internationalism*. The internationalism of socialism is other than the mere internationalism we hear so much of in the present day, the internationalism of particular interests, scientific, literary, or what not. This internationalism though undoubtedly itself a sign of the times, is an internationalism of expediency. The internationalism of socialism is an internationalism of principle. Socialist internationalism joins hands with that of anti-patriotism, with that of anti-nationalism. Our regret that all this heroism and devotion at the service of the modern nation-State is not always forthcoming when it is a question of fighting, not for the  independence of one nation, but for a new society for all peoples – for the socialist commonwealth. Would the time might come when the socialist ideal shall inspire men as much as nationality can do now.

We need the conviction that socialism is of more value than an independent national State. But let us not forget that the international workers’ solidarity can sap the importance of the nation-state, and thereby weaken the call of nationalism. The cause of the working class is lost if we allow ourselves to be caught in the net of patriotism, with all the vicious and false sentiment clinging to it, and liable to be evoked in a virulent form on the slightest occasion at the will of the dominant classes. Socialism adopts a policy of unrelenting antagonism toward nationalism. The hoax of “my country right or wrong” must be seen for the abomination that it is. Even if the country is committing a crime the blind patriot  wishes to see that crime succeed, or at least will not rejoice at the frustration of this crime by the defeat of his or her country. Patriotism is an objectionable belief since it means the placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above those of the rest of humanity. The Scot who wants to see his or her country great and strong invariably wants to see it so, if need be, at the expense of the welfare and interests of other countries.

Nationalism claims certain virtues as the peculiar, exclusive possession of certain nations. If individuals make such claims, they would be scorned and laughed at. Nationalism claims that the culture belonging to one nation is distinct from that belonging to any other. This may have been so in the past , but increased means of communication, the internet,  satellite tv, and air travel  have caused nations to exchange ideas and traditions until today there is no essential difference between any one of the countries of the world. Even the English language is tending to become universal. More people understand each other today than ever before. Governments are coming to resemble each other. Codes of ethics are becoming international. It is only by the most artificial kind of propaganda that nationalism is kept alive.

National struggles are a form of expression of the class struggle. The nation is the expression of a particular social and economic system and the class representing that system, today - capitalism and the capitalist class. In the coming decisive struggles against capitalism, socialism recognises and emphasises that the class struggle determines all our action – that the national ideology is a fetter upon the emancipation of the proletariat – and that the Social Revolution is international in scope and purpose. Divide and conquer has ever been a capitalist weapon against the working class.  Nothing could have been more dangerous for the ruling classes than that Scots and English workers should make common cause and instead of fighting each other join forces and fight our mutual employers. Working class internationalism, must replace the narrow isolationist nationalism.

A country’s flag is a commercial asset, its trademark, but this commercial asset only represents the economic and political interests of the capitalist classes.  The concept of the nation-state is based upon narrow class interests. It is common knowledge that the class interests of the employers are built on the foundation of capitalist exploitation. They seek profits and still more profits.  In their pursuit of profits, the capitalists not only unscrupulously exploit the workers; even within their own class the capitalists do not scruple to swallow up their rivals in competition - the big fish swallows the little fish, Big Business swallows the smaller businesses, one group squeezes out and swallows another group. The capitalist strives to possess the means of production and the market of his own country. And since his greed for profits knows no limits, the capitalist strives to expand beyond its own country, to seize foreign markets, sources of raw materials and areas for capital investment, thus subjugating other nations and exploiting them. At the same time it squeezes out the rival capitalists of other countries.

The exploitation of wage labour, competition, the s suppression of competitors among the capitalists themselves, the resorting to war and even world war, the utilisation of all means to secure a monopoly position in its own country and throughout the world - such is the inherent character of the profit-seeking employing class. This is the class basis of nationalism. At home, the capitalist subordinates the interests of the nation as a whole to its own class interests. It places its class interests or the interests of a certain top stratum of society above the interests of the whole people. Moreover, the bosses pose as the spokespersons of the nation and the defender of national interests in order to deceive the people. Abroad, at the same time, it counterposes the interests of its own nation (in essence, of its bourgeois top stratum) to the interests of other nations. The bourgeoisie strives to place its own nation above other nations and, whenever possible, to oppress and exploit other nations, completely disregarding their interests. Oppressor nations may become oppressed nations and vice versa.

The victorious working class will have neither to keep its ancient nationalities nor to constitute new ones, because by becoming free it will abolish classes: the world will be its father/mother/homeland. The peoples of the globe will fraternise and they will stretch out their hands to one another. Mankind will continue to set itself new tasks and their accomplishment will lead to a stage of cultural development which will not know national hatred, wars, religions strife and similar remnants of the past. It is the duty of the socialist party of every country to combat patriotism and nationalism at home, i.e., from within, at every turn.  In these times when the poisonous fumes of nationalism are corroding society, we have ought to do all in our power to keep alive the spirit of internationalism.

Rather than  the slogan “Workers of the World Unite!” Left nationalist separatists seek to  replaced it by: “Nations divide!” Nationalism is a curse. It leads to chauvinism and to national aggression. It leads to a patriotism for the soil, for the particular bit of the Earth’s surface on which a particular person has been born. It leads to bigotry, to national jealousy and petty pride. nationalism is the best of cloaks for the intrigues and
machinations of politicians and capitalists.

*Although the term internationalism has been used we should understand that we mean the worldwide (rather than international) character of socialism. Socialism can only be a united world community without frontiers and not the federation of countries suggested by the word ‘inter-national’.

Scots are Anti-Immigration

A decade ago Scotland had the fastest falling population in Europe, with the birth rate at an all-time low and more people leaving the country than were arriving from overseas. The population of Scotland was hovering just above five million at the end of 2003 after a decline of almost a quarter of a million in the previous 30 years. All the projections said the decline would continue but since 2004 there has been a dramatic change which has seen the Scottish population grow past its 1974 peak to its highest level ever.

Economists say Scotland's population needs to grow by 24,000 people a year just to keep pace with European economies.

The majority of immigrants to Scotland have traditionally been from Pakistan and India but over the past decade the number of people from Poland has risen from just a couple of thousand to about 60,000.

Despite the rise over the past decade Scotland still has a relatively small immigrant population relative to England, especially London. About 7% of Scots were born outside the UK, whereas the figure for the rest of the UK is almost 14%.

Robert Wright, professor of economics at the University of Strathclyde, says Scotland has not really been tested with mass immigration. "So the fact I think there is more tolerance here is because there has been less of it. That does not mean there will be tolerance in the future when there is more immigration, so this will be a hurdle we have to jump later."

Professor Christina Boswell, professor of politics at University of Edinburgh, says that tolerant immigration policies do not tend to be vote winners.  "It is really quite easy and quite tempting for political parties to tap into those political concerns about immigration and try to mobilise support on the basis of an anti-immigrant position, or at least of a less liberal position on immigration. You don't win votes by adopting a liberal progressive labour migration policy and, in fact, the Labour government in the UK has found that in the past few years and it has obviously had to backtrack on its more expansive policy of the early-2000s." Prof Boswell says there is much research to show that immigrants do not create high unemployment and generally do not create a high burden on the welfare state. However, she says: "Immigration is often used as a lightning rod for channeling a lot of anxieties about employment, about welfare, about social cohesion."

Prof Boswell adds: "It is much easier to sell the benefits of labour migration where an economy is facing very tangible acute shortages in particular sectors or regions. It is much easier as well to sell labour migration when it is about recruiting highly-skilled migrants. I think it is much more difficult for governments to make a case or sell the case for recruiting semi or low-skilled migrants. If it were to become a major issue of concern, for example with Romanian or Bulgarian immigration, then I would expect the SNP to water down its claims about a more liberal immigration policy, at least not to emphasise those in the election campaign because it clearly would not be a vote-winner."

58% of people in Scotland wanted to see immigration reduced a little or a lot.(The figure for England and Wales was 75%.)
45% of people thought an independent Scotland should be less welcoming to immigration. When asked if they thought Scotland would actually be less open to immigration just 22% said it would.
12% of Scots think of people coming from England as immigrants.

Food for Thought

The incessant drive for bigger and bigger profits ensure that the capitalist system continually strives in its efforts even when that means breaking the law.Scientists made a "disturbing" discovery that more than a third of foods sampled by a lab were either mislabelled or not what they claimed to be. 'Councils in West Yorkshire carried out tests on 900 food samples to unearth the concerning results. Problems included mozzarella that was less than 50 per cent cheese, ham on pizzas found to be made from poultry or "meat emulsion" and prawns that were 50 per cent water. Other worrying finds included beef mince which was found to contain pork and poultry, while a herbal "slimming" tea was found to be neither herbal or contain tea, instead containing high levels of a prescription slimming drug.' (Daily Express, 8 February) RD

We make the revolution

Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto "The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority".

Some only pay lip-service to this idea. Many do not take it seriously. A number even fail to understand its implications. ‘Self-conscious’ implies that the class itself must understand the full significance of its actions. 'Independent' implies that the class itself must decide the objectives and methods of its struggle.

It is reaffirmed by the First International declaration “The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". The working class cannot entrust its historical task to anyone else.

Even the lyric of the workers’ anthem, ‘The International’, states “no saviours from on high will deliver” socialism.

 In an official manifesto addressed to the National Labour Union of the US, Marx explains:
“On you, then, devolves the glorious task to prove to the world that now at last the working classes are bestriding the scene of history no longer as servile retainers, but as independent actors, conscious of their own responsibility . ..”

Trade unionism first arose in England, where industrial capitalism first developed. Trade unions first arose out of the battles of working people to defend themselves from the abuses and oppressive conditions imposed by the very system of wage labour. The rise of capitalism brought an increasingly greater concentration of industrial production in factories and mills, with ownership concentrated in the hands of a small class of capitalists. Stripped of any means of survival other than the sale of their labour power; workers were forced to compete against each other, thereby enabling profit-hungry capitalists to drive down wages and force long hours and inhuman conditions on the masses of people. In this situation workers were bound to resist. In the days of the industrial revolution, this resistance tended to take the form of smashing the very machines which seemed to be the immediate cause of their enslavement and impoverishment. In the course of these outbreaks and through their own experience, workers soon learned that their most effective weapon against the combined power of capital was to combine their own resources, to unite the working people in one craft or one factory so they could exact better conditions for work and also better terms for the sale of their labor power. Workers began to form various societies, organizations and common funds for mutual protection.

When the unions were in their early of development, carrying out guerrilla war against different employers, Karl Marx recognized the enormous potential of the unions far beyond the fight against day-to-day abuses. In “Wages, Price and Profit,” written in 1865, Marx warned that workers should not be “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerrilla fights.” The trade unions failed as centers of the working-class struggle, he noted, when they limited themselves to fighting only the effects of the capitalist system, “instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wage system.” In addition to their original tasks in defending workers, the trade unions, as Marx pointed out, “must learn how to act consciously as focal points for organizing the working class in the greater interests of its complete emancipation.” In supporting every social and political movement directed towards this aim, the unions “must convince the whole world that they are not fighting to further their narrow personal interests, but to free millions of oppressed people.”

Political parties are the product of the class struggle. In a classless society which has rid itself of the remnants of class interests and ideology there will be no political parties. They will be unnecessary. But we have not reached the classless society. We are in the midst of a society torn by class struggle, and the political parties of necessity express and reflect the interests of classes in conflict. The more fierce the class struggle becomes, the more society is divided into two camps marshalled for decisive struggle, the greater is the tendency for a fusion of parties in terms of the classes upon which they are based.

The simplistic critique against the Socialist Party is the belief that we declare that until the masses are educated in socialism by ourselves we can’t have socialism. If the changes in society from one social system to another lead waited upon the development of the individual and the education of each individual, then mankind would still not have progressed beyond  primitive society. But society has not waited in this way. The intellectual and moral transformation of society depends upon and follows in the tracks of economic change. This is described in the concept of the historic materialism. Man is the maker of history, but he makes that history with the tools and material at his disposal. His relationship to these instruments of production is a dialectical relationship changing the materials and the tools and himself in the process. At each successive stage when property relations became a fetter upon the development of the forces of production those property relations had to be changed. They were changed. But they were changed when the class which was primarily interested in their transformation developed the will to fight for the change and fought and conquered.

Revolution occur because of the objective conflict between the new forces of production and the old relations of production. In other words, the way this society is organized holds back the development of the material well-being of the society.  The vast resources and wealth of the world have gone to a handful of rich capitalists and corporations , while the masses of people struggle to even survive in the face of unemployment,  the threat of war, and hunger. The problem is not that there isn’t enough to go around, the problem is that what is there exists an abundance but it is hoarded by this small minority. The objective conditions for revolution fully exist. But the objective conditions alone are not sufficient to successfully make revolution. It is the relationship of the objective to the subjective conditions which determines the victory of the revolution. The level of class conscious struggle on the part of the working class is expressed in many ways, but the most important expression is the existence of the political party of .the working class, the socialist/communist party. It is the masses who make revolution, but it is the socialist party which must bring forth organisation.

Sanctioned Crime

It sounds like a wild TV or cinema plot. It has certainly grabbed international press headlines, but there is a more important issue at stake here. 'A woman who allegedly stole diamonds belonging to the Sultan of Brunei's ex-wife and replaced them with worthless replicas made a full confession to local police, a court heard on Friday. Fatimah Lim, 35, pocketed the gems while Madam Mariam Aziz's bodyguard and  jetted off to Geneva to see a diamond merchant for over $7m (£4.3m), it is claimed.' (Daily Telegraph, 7 February) Never mind the bodyguard's alleged crime. How does one individual inside the capitalist system like Aziz accumulate wealth of $7m? We are talking here of a much greater legally sanctioned crime. It is called exploitation of the working class. RD