Competition

Competition

From the January 1987 issue of theSocialist Standard

Some comedian once asked "If it's true that all the world loves a lover, why are there so many policemen in Hyde Park?" A good question but a better one for workers to ask themselves is "If competition is such a wonderful and desirable thing, why does every­body try so hard to avoid it?". For example, when solicitors lose their monopoly in house conveyancing, opticians lose theirs in selling spectacles, or shopkeepers hear that a super­market is to be built nearby, do they say "Good! Just what we need: the icy blast of competition"? They do not, instead they pro­test bitterly and do everything they can to preserve the status quo.

This dislike of competition is shared by all business, big and small. In 1980 the world's largest corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT and T) lost an anti-trust action brought against it by a much smaller rival, MCI, who were awarded 1,800 million dollars. AT and T have a near monopoly in the manufacture of vital equipment which MCI needed but they refused to sell them any. In Britain the giant British Oxy­gen Company, which had a turnover of £ 1,700 million in 1983, was exposed for try­ing to close down a small competitor whose turnover was only £150,000 - less than a third of the salary of BOC's chief executive. The competition of even such a minnow was more than BOC could tolerate.

The big three in the British drugs industry, ICI, Glaxo and Beecham's, are putting every obstacle in the way of small competitors who want to market half price, unbranded ver­sions of some of the big three's most profita­ble drugs. Although these drugs are patented the law provides for “licences of right” to be available to other companies but does not specify what royalties are to be paid. The big three use this loophole to ensure that would be competitors have to sell for little less than themselves.

The airline industry is notorious for ­eliminating competition. Remember how big Atlantic carriers, including British Airways, forced Freddie Laker out of business? Now they have a new target in their sights. Richard Branson's one-aircraft Virgin Atlantic airline. Branson's attempt to take over where Laker left off by providing cut-price fares between Britain and America was countered by BA, Pan-Am and TWA who all reduced their fares to equal Virgin's. Predictably Bran­son howled "unfair" but why should the game be played by his rules? If he really believes in free market competition then he cannot complain if the big airlines slash their fares too. Branson's problem is that his rivals have much greater resources than he has and can easily outlast him in a protracted fares battle.

Dislike of competition has also been shown by the cross channel ferry companies. They are trying to persuade the government and potential investors that the channel tunnel will be unsafe to use and unprofitable. If the tunnel scheme goes through then these champions of the free market want to remove competition between themselves by integrating their ser­vices in order to offset the expected loss of business. If this is not allowed then they will seek compensation from the government. Whatever happened to "standing on your own two feet"?

Although governments try to encourage competition within their own frontiers they assist their own industries to avoid it in inter­national trade by loading the dice in their favour. The governments of the EEC protect their own farmers from competition from abroad by erecting tariff barriers and sub­sidising their production. These subsidies produce such mountains of food that the EEC can sell it on world markets at rock-bottom prices­ – butter sales to Russia are an obvious case. The American government denounces these subsidies because they keep inefficient EEC farmers in business whereas American farming is extremely efficient and could easily undercut EEC farming if only it were given the chance. In 1983 the American government played the EEC at it’s own game by using subsidies to sell flour to Egypt which had been an EEC market. Did the EEC say “fair enough”? It did not, instead it threatened to retaliate by dumping farm produce in American markets in Latin America.

Does this mean that the United States is all for free trade? Only in those industries where it can win, such as farming. It is a different story when it comes to steel and textiles so they protect those industries with barriers against Imports. Most serious is the penetration by Japan of American home markets in cars, electronics and consumer goods. The United States’ trade deficit with Japan was over 50 billion dollars last year and members of Congress, business leaders and trade unions are demanding legislation aimed at reducing Japan’s exports to the United States.

Needless to say the Japanese are not in favour of this but they want to have it both ways - free trade for their exports but every obstacle placed in the way of imports from other countries. For example, Scotch whisky is subject to a level of taxation which makes it much more expensive than home produced spirits. Why don't these other coun­tries simply keep out Japan's exports? They are afraid that such a move would spark off worldwide tit-for-tat protectionism with the resulting collapse in world trade. The cure would be worse than the ailment and the Japanese government is taking advantage of this fear.

Groups of governments sometimes band together into a cartel or price-fixing ring to avoid competition among themselves. For years the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) shared out most of the world oil market. Each member-nation was allocated an agreed production quota of oil and no more. This year there has been a drastic fall in oil prices caused by the world slump, resulting in a sharp fall in demand, plus the entry of North Sea oil which is not controlled by OPEC. This fall in price has meant less income for OPEC members and some of them have been breading the agreement by increasing production to try make good the lost revenue.

This is what usually happens with governments or companies which organise themselves into a cartel. They are all for cartel when trade is booming and they can carve up the market but when trade is bad they will break ranks and look after themselves. OPEC has just reached a temporary agreement and the price of oil has started to rise again but no one knows what will happen in 1987.

Nevertheless, western governments do try to avoid monopolies within their own countries. As the executive committee of the national capitalist class a government must look after the interests of that class as a whole and not just one section of it. If a monopoly was allowed in an industry then the other capitalists will feel that they may be held to ransom when they purchase from the monopoly. But surely the soon-to-be­ privatised British Gas is a monopoly, the very thing the government wants to avoid? There are two reasons for this contradiction. The first is that the gas industry cannot really be split up into several competing companies for practical reasons, among them the cost of setting up alternative nationwide installa­tions. The second is the political factor which is that the government sees wide share ownership as a vote catcher at the next general election end the privatisation of British Gas gives it the opportunity to achieve this aim.

This episode has provided an example of the double standards used by politicians. Tory MP Michael Forsyth, a free market zealot. argued that privatised gas would not be a monopoly as it would have to compete with electricity, oil and nuclear power. This is like arguing that if some company owned the entire meat industry it wouldn't be a monopoly because it would have to compete with fish and chicken.

Both the American and British governments think they have a method of reversing what they see as the drift towards monopoly by stimulating competition. This is called de-regulation and is aimed at providing the incentive and opportunity for new companies to come into the market by removing whatever obstacles stand in their way. This has happened in the American airline indus­try since 1978 and the initial effect was an explosion of new, small companies and a drop in internal air fares. But the drift towards what is actually fewer and bigger economic units cannot be permanently reversed. Since 1978 sixty-three American airlines have gone bust and the big airlines are swallowing up the small fry in order to add the busy and profitable internal routes to their shakier international operations. The result is that air­fares in America are on the increase again. This is what happens with cut-throat com­petition. It cuts profits to the bone so that when business drops off companies get into trouble and the conditions are created for the very thing de-regulation is supposed to curb - mergers and the drive towards bigger and fewer companies.

Companies sometimes need to grow if they are to survive. How could a company meet its competitors if it merely stands still while they grow? This need partly explains the recent merger-mania which saw huge companies being taken over by others. Guin­ness, the British drinks giant, justified its plan to take over Distillers in order to meet the challenge of American and Japanese rivals like Seagram's and Suntory with full-page newspaper adverts which said "It will take our combined strength to defeat adversaries such as these."

This is also why Britain's biggest electronic engineering company, GEC, wants to take over its main British rival, Plessey. James Prior, GEC's chairman, explained that although GEC is Britain's biggest private employer with 180,000 workers, it is dwarfed by the likes of General Electric in America and Siemens in West Germany. Plessey rejected GEC's bid and instead offered to buy GEC's interest in the System X digital telephone exchange system. Their chairman pointed out that neither company had won any worthwhile export orders for the system and since 10 per cent of the world market is required to be profitable it would, he added, make sense to merge the two interests – under Plessey, naturally – to meet international competition.

How does this fact of life in capitalism square with the government's obsession with promoting small businesses and its frequent use of the Monopolies Commission to prevent the mega-mergers which are necessary to enable British capitalism to compete internationally? The simple truth is that many of those who are heavily into capitalism, like some of the free marketeers, don‘t under-­stand the basic laws of the system, one of which is that while small may be beautiful in business, big is infinitely more successful.

The supporters of competition claim that it is of benefit to society because it eliminates wastefulness. In fact it is the cause of massive waste of humanity's time and energy. For example, thanks to the elimination of their competitors, there are now only three makers of large jet aircraft engines in the world outside of the so-called communist bloc. They are Rolls-Royce and the two American companies, Pratt and Whitney and General Electric. All three employ numerous scientists and technicians in the competition to produce an engine for a particular type of aircraft. Of the three engines produced one may be a little cheaper in price, the second may use a little less fuel and the third may need a little less maintenance but really all three engines are practically identical. So true is this that the one which wins the orders is probably chosen more for political reasons than any other and this is why British Airways have recently chosen Rolls-Royce engines for its new aircraft.

And just look at the hordes of companies eagerly competing to supply us all with dou­ble glazing, fitted kitchens, and the like, with armies of salespeople chasing after the same order and all of them selling exactly the same product. This spectacle is repeated all over the world as millions of useful human beings engage in this wasteful duplication of effort. just how does this benefit society?

So competition isn't what it's cracked up to be. Even the capitalists and politicians only regard it as a necessary evil in the scramble for profit and avoid it whenever they can. Certainly it has nothing to offer the workers except the opportunity to become one another’ s enemies over their exploiters' quarrels and which have nothing to do with them. Socialists work for a society in which the watchword will be co-operation and where capitalism’s competition will seem as strange and awful as we regard cannibalism today.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Branch

Politicians Galore

Politicians galore From the June 1987 issue of theSocialist Standard Roll on 12 June! We won't see the politicians for another five years. The usual election issues of poverty, unemployment and crime won't disappear so easily though. For the moment we're going to hear a lot more from the politicians. They will be dumping their leaflets—with nice pictures of them and their families on the front and damn all else inside—on our doorsteps. They'll be stopping us in the street to shake our hand and blame the weather on their opponents. And they'll be on the TV ("And I think I can safely say that I speak for the whole of this great nation of ours when I say blah blah blah"). Some lucky voters are blessed with the attention of the politicians all year round. During the cold spell at the start of this year, Breakfast TV just happened to have a camera crew crammed into some OAP's kitchen when who should pop in for a friendly chat but Neil Kinnock and Michael Meacher, the Shadow Minister for Health! But they weren't there for some cheap publicity shot and some political point-scoring. No, they'd brought some draught excluders with them, which they proceeded to nail up for the benefit of the lucky OAP. As she was getting it done for free, the old lady was prepared to put up with all the guff for the cameras about Labour's plans for rate reform that the Labour leader just happened to have prepared. That's the sort of thing Neil Kinnock means when he, "speaks for the whole of the British people about the indignity of old age blah blah blah". Obviously, the best place to live in Britain is right next to Shepherds Bush or TV-am, if you are prepared to open your door to any political conman with a nice smile and a camera crew, some new carpets for you and some old policies for the viewer. Regardless of the gimmicks, or even the policies of the parties, there is one thing that all the party leaders are trying to get over, and that is unity. Unity within their party and, more importantly, unity under the leader. That, after all, is what a leader is there for—to rule, to dominate. We can laugh at them and their antics but support for a leader, means someone else taking decisions for you. Leaders and democracy do not mix. As the election looms and the ranks close, this becomes all the clearer. The Alliance when they disagree, have a split for a few weeks until it is glossed over; the Labour Party have a few expulsions behind closed doors; and the Tories? Well the Tories don't look like they need to worry too much on that count. The Scottish Tory Party Conference recently spent three days in what they call "debate". Of the 294 resolutions put to the conference only one was in any way critical of the government. The whole charade was stage-managed as the first unofficial party political broadcast of the election campaign. It's just a taste of things to come. Every night we'll get the gimmicks—here's the party leader shaking hands, here's the party leader out shopping, here's the party leader driving a tank. And while wars and world hunger get relegated to the last item on the news, we'll see the party leader being cheerful, the party leader being caring, the party leader being defiant. It's not just confined to the news programmes either—David Steel appeared onGame For A Laugh dressed as a policeman and Thatcher had a go at playing Prime Minister in a sketch from Yes Minister. Even Saturday mornings aren't free from the vote-catchers—the children's programme Saturday Superstore recently had each of the party leaders on in turn. Each party's image makers had obviously done their market research—here's the party leader with no jacket, no tie, but a trendy cardigan. "I think I can safely say that I speak for the whole of this great nation of ours when I say my favourite disco record of the moment is blah blah blah". OK, they're not kissing babies, but molesting children's minds was what it amounted to. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised at a quick change of clothes to suit a different audience (after all, policies are jettisoned just as quickly) but the victorious SDP candidate in the Greenwich bye-election, in February of this year, has turned it into a fine art. Part of her campaign strategy that helped the SDP win Greenwich and break the mould for the seventeenth time, involved wearing "cheerful jumpers and sensible dresses" while canvassing on council estates and "smart sludge-coloured two-piece suits" for Tory areas (Guardian, 12 February 1987). In stark contrast to such patronising tactics that are part and parcel of the politics of leadership, the Socialist Party has no leaders, no secret committees and no advertising agency. We've also got damn few candidates—at this election anyway. We won't be jumping in and out of OAP's homes for the benefit of the viewer. Nor will we be jumping in and out of sensible dresses and sludge-coloured suits for the benefit of the voter. Let's not look to leaders to do our thinking for us, at this election or at any time. Brian Gardner Glasgow Branch

The Solution is Socialism

There will always be some new source of socialist revolt that will spring up, arousing a new generation the anger of people. In this period of recession the gulf between the capitalist class and the working-class grows ever greater. Capitalism maintains its profits on the basis of lowering and worsening the standards of the workers. Since the recession, the fortunes and incomes of the capitalist class have actually risen and the wages of the workers have fallen.The battle between the workers’ needs and capitalism grows ever fiercer yet the old trade union methods of bargaining are no longer effective.  The attacks of capitalism, to maintain its profits, grow ever more sweeping and ferocious, ranging over every field, against both employed and unemployed workers, against wages and social services. Do not imagine that the crisis is only a crisis of British industry, to be solved by some form of reorganisation which would restore British competitive efficiency. Business-leaders and politicians appeal to the workers to make sacrifices. They imagine that if only British capitalist organisations and technology could be modernised and improved, all would be well. But all the so-called remedies not only fail to touch the root or the evil — the burdens of capitalist disorder and parasitism. The capitalists can only look for the solution in fiercer competition, in cheapening their own costs of production, in cutting wages against their competitors, in increasing their own competitive power, in fighting to enlarge their own share of the market.  But these same measures are pursued by the capitalists in every country. Although one set or another set may gain a temporary advantage for a short time, the net effect can only be to deepen the crisis. Every advance of technique, of every wage-cut, of every cheapening of costs and intensification of production, intensifies the world crisis. The crisis is not a crisis of natural scarcity or shortage. Harvests are abundant. Stocks of goods of all kinds are piled up, unsold. Millions of workers are willing and able to work; but existing society has no use for their labour. The crisis is a crisis of capitalism alone. The power of producing wealth is greater than ever. It has grown far more rapidly than population, thus disproving all the lies of those who talk of “over-population” as the cause of the crisis.

Only a socialist revolution can put an end to all forms of oppression. Socialism will be won and built by the millions of oppressed people. Socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialist society no longer proceeds in chaos, but according to the planned fulfillment of genuine human needs. The establishment of a socialist, planned economy, based on the needs of the people, will mean the end to the chaos of capitalist production with its lack of planning, repeated crises and criminal waste. As socialist production is built and the material reality of society changes, so will the ideological outlook of the masses of people. The  aim of the international workers’ movement is to replace the world capitalist system with world socialism, which will mark the end of classes and private property. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labor will be abolished and the guiding principle of labor will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally. With the abolition of classes, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away. Although capitalism does not use more than a portion of modern productive power, although it wastes most and deliberately cuts down and restricts production in order to increase profits, actual production has grown much faster than population.

More foodstuffs. More raw materials. More manufactures. More power. All increasing beyond the rate of increase of population. And the outcome? It would seem natural that the outcome should be greater abundance for all. But what is the result to-day under capitalism? The result is world crisis, stagnation and closing down of production, mass unemployment, mass impoverishment, lowering of standards. Why? Because capitalism cannot organise production for use; because the growing discord between ever-greater capitalist accumulation of wealth on one side and growing mass impoverishment on the other, makes impossible the use of more than a diminishing proportion of the rising productive power. Every advance of production only intensifies the crisis, intensifies the ferocity of capitalist competition for the market. Alongside the growth of productive power the impoverishment of the masses has grown throughout the world.

To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, workers must be clear on what the nature of the struggle is, who are its main enemies, and who are its friends.

 Many workers placed their hopes in the Labour Party to bring the solution. They have seen the need of basic social change; the Labour Party spoke of basic social change, of socialism. Since then, after each Labour government has been installed, swift disillusionment has followed. The condition of the workers has grown worse; there is no sign of the advance to socialism; the Labour Government has acted as a representative of capitalism against the workers. Workers who voted for the Labour Party have abstained and discontent is widespread. The whole system of reformist politics of the supposed “alternative” to revolution  stands exposed in the record of successive Labour governments.

The Labour Party could not act and cannot act otherwise than it has acted, does act and will continue to act, as the representative of capitalism — because its basis is capitalism. How so? Do they not profess the aim of socialism? Yes, they profess the aim of socialism as an ideal for the future.They profess to hope to reach their aim on a basis of co-operation with capitalism, on a basis of winning for the workers gradual gains within capitalism. Therefore their practice is based on capitalism, on acceptance of the capitalist State, on administering capitalism and helping to build up capitalism. This they term the “practical” policy for the workers.  reformism was able to win small gains for the workers, and on this basis to hold them from the socialist revolution, to hold the workers to capitalism. But this basis is ended. Capitalism to-day is no longer willing to grant concessions to the workers, on the contrary finds itself compelled to withdraw existing concessions, to make new attacks, to worsen conditions. And therefore the role of reformism, which is the servant of capitalism in the working-class, changes. The role of reformism inevitably becomes to assist capitalism to attack the workers, to enforce wage-cuts, to repress the workers’ revolt, to worsen conditions — all in the name of “practical” policy. Millions of workers are turning from the Labour Party and seeking a new direction. Where shall they turn?

The so-called “lefts” in the Labour Party hasten to proclaim their “opposition” to the Labour Party policy, to prepare even possibly their formal “separation” from the Labour Party, and to advocate so-called “socialist” alternatives. But on examination their policy will be found to be only the old policy of the Labour Party dressed up in new clothes. Although they speak roundly of “socialism” against “capitalism,” they do not propose the overthrow of capitalism, the working-class conquest of power, the expropriation of the capitalists; their basis is still the same basis of capitalism, of capitalist democracy, of the capitalist State, as with the Labour Party; and therefore the outcome can only be the same. Their only proposals are for the reorganisation of capitalism and the promise of a minimum wage.

 Many would-be left-wing reformers of capitalism urge that if only the capitalists would pay higher wages to the workers, enabling them to buy more of what they produce, there would be no crisis. This is utopian nonsense, which ignores the inevitable laws of capitalism — the drive for profits, and the drive of competition. The drive of capitalism is always to increase its profits by every possible means, to increase its surplus, not to decrease it. Individual capitalists may talk of the “gospel of high wages” in the hope of securing a larger market for their goods. But the actual drive of capitalism as a whole is the opposite. The force of competition compels every capitalist to cheapen costs of production, to extract more output per worker for less return, to cut wages. Conditions of labour are intensified. Heavier output is demanded from every worker for less return. Speeding up and rationalisation are the order of the day, leading directly to increased unemployment, to weakened health and physique, to an ever-rising rate of industrial accidents and occupational diseases. But the offensive sweeps wider than wages, hours and conditions. It extends to the unemployed, no less than the employed workers; it extends equally to all the social services.  All the social services — the bare and starveling expenditure on health, education, etc., grudgingly admitted by capitalism for the maintenance of its labour force — are now attacked by capitalism in its present reckless stage as an “extravagance” to be cut down.

Social commentators are at sixes and sevens about this “strange” paradox that increased production of every form of material wealth should lead to universal crisis, poverty and unemployment and call it “The curse of plenty”, the “resource curse”. Voices are now crying out to know how a cworld can produce so much food that people starve, and so many manufactured goods that people go without.  And capitalism cannot answer it. Capitalism has no solution. The most the capitalists can do is to wait amid the general misery until “demand” rises gain , beginning the new trade cycle, and leading to a new and probably greater crisis. But of any attempt to organise the growing productive power to meet human needs — the question does not even enter into their heads; it cannot arise within the conditions of capitalism. Capitalism has no policy to solve the crisis.  Within the conditions of capitalist anarchy there is no harmonious solution possible. Capitalism can only seek to prolong its life by throwing the burdens of the crisis on to the workers, by ever renewed attacks upon the workers’ standards. Only socialism can bring the solution.

Only Socialism can cut through the bonds of capitalist property rights and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for all. This is the aim of the working-class revolution. Only the organised working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, care drive the capitalists from possession, can organise social production. In the capitalist world the standards of the workers go steadily down. Real wages fall. Social services tare cut. Hours and conditions of labour are worsened. In socialism we shall have abolished the rule of class distinctions and privilege, and enjoy the first real democracy and freedom for all, the free and equal society.  It will end the present reign of inequality — inequality in respect of every elementary human need of food, clothing, shelter, conditions of labour health, education, etc., and bring the material conditions of real freedom and development to all. We are not speaking of some utopia, but only of what is immediately and practically realisable so soon as the workers are united to overthrow capitalism and enforce their will.

What are the alternatives before the workers. Economic and ecological collapse of the whole existing edifice, leading to conditions of famine and slow extinction for masses of the population — or the socialist revolution, leading to new life for all.  Workers can by the method of social revolution, and by the method of social revolution alone, can rapidly reconstruct and extend production  and win prosperity for all. The continuance of capitalism means hunger for many. Capitalism already grudges the bare subsistence. Under the conditions of capitalism, the spectre of mass-starvation draws ever closer.

Forward to the Social Revolution! There is little time to reverse global warning and climate change. The spirit of fight is rising in the working-class.  We are advancing to larger struggles, towards a new revolutionary stage. The issue of class-power, and the issue of capitalism or socialism draws close. We need to prepare the new forms of struggle. We need to build up a strong and co-ordinated army of the working-class. The fight to-day against the capitalist attacks is only a beginning. Let us go forward in the present struggles, to awaken and draw into the fight ever wider masses of workers, to build a mass party of socialists, determined to overthrow capitalism and realise the Socialist Revolution.

Of the people, by the people, for the people

The idea of socialism is simple. By socialism, the Socialist Party understands the realisation of a condition of an all-embracing true society. Present day society is that of the capitalist and wage-earner, of rich and poor. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class. The basic principles of socialist society are diametrically opposite to those of capitalist society in which we live. War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum.

We can easily understand, therefore, why the great majority of landlords, employers of labour, financiers and the like are opposed to socialism. Their very existence is at stake. They do not merely reject the theory of socialism, but actively and bitterly fight every movement which is in any way associated with the struggle for socialism. From this the socialist draws the conclusion, therefore, that the class primarily interested in the change from private property to social property is the working class.

People do not start their lives with fully developed theories about systems of society. It is impossible to provide more than a basic picture now, the general principles will depend in their particular details on the actual conditions at the time. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines

The socialist option is the only alternative. Its aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated.There will be an end to all class distinction and consequently an end to the class-war. All the members of society are at once and with equal title co-proprietors and co-producers. The State, in the oppressive sense of the word, will cease to exist, it being nothing more than a means of maintaining order by force. The government of men gives place to the administration of things.

Freedom and liberty, which so far have been but mere words for the great majority of mankind, will become a  living reality. Liberty provides the means of accomplishing our will and therefore of satisfying our wants.

Commercial production of exchange-values with an end to realising profit will disappear, and be replaced by the co-operative production of use-values for consumption with a view to satisfying social wants. In place of robbing and exploiting one another, we will all help one another.

Our goal is a socialist world based on common ownership of  resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of all peoples and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. The faults and flaws of the capitalist system  are too deep, the power of the corporations too great, the chasm separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed. The half-measures of reform- minded governments have buckled under pressure from the recession, and passed vicious legislation, slashing social services and trampling the basic rights of workers.  Welfare state policies won by hard struggles, are faltering. In these harsh economic times, corporations hold governments to ransom through their control of desperately needed investment. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. As socialists we believe society’s main problem is the capitalist system itself. While joining together with other progressive people to achieve common goals and we  uphold that the only real solution is socialism. Only in socialism do people have the means to collectively decide the direction their society will take and how they will participate in it.

Multinational corporate business empires, of a size unimaginable to previous generations, treat the entire planet as their domain. They are a law unto themselves, free to roam the globe in search of cheaper labour, more exploitable resources, more pliant governments and greater profits. They have distorted the economic development of the world so fundamentally—that the resources they waste , for instance, could eliminate hunger in the world. If harnessed to popular administration and planning, new technology could help us achieve an era of abundance for all, release us from monotonous toil and enrich our store of accessible knowledge.

The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. This wholesale reconstruction will be accomplished by democratising all levels of society. Great social changes that are called revolutions cannot, or rather can no longer, be accomplished by a minority. A revolutionary minority, no matter how intelligent and energetic, is not enough, in modern societies at least, to bring about a revolution. The co-operation and adhesion of a majority, and an immense majority, are needed. A society takes on a new form only when the immense majority of the individuals who compose it demand or accept a great change. The socialist revolution will not be accomplished by the action, or the sudden stroke of a bold minority, but by the defiant and harmonious will of the immense majority of the citizens. Whoever depends on physical force to bring about the revolution, and gives up the method of winning over the immense majority of the citizens to our ideas, will give up at the same time any possibility of transforming the social system. The socialist revolution, on the contrary must not rest content after it has abolished capitalism; it must create the new type under which production is to be carried on and the relations of property are to be regulated.

Suppose that to-morrow the whole capitalist system is abolished. Imagine that all capitalistic claims on production cease, all commercial profit, all dividends and industrial profits are abolished; if this destruction of capitalism were not instantly supplemented by Socialist organisation, if society did not know at once how and by whom labour was to be carried on,  if, society was not able to ensure the proper working of a new social system, the Revolution would be lost in one day. This new social system cannot be created and inspired by a minority. It can only function with the approval of an immense majority of the citizens. It is this majority that will  create from capitalistic chaos, the various types of social property, co-operative and communal. In this enormous task of social construction, the immense majority of the citizens must co-operate. We must never forget for the first time since the beginning of human history, a great upheaval will have for its aim, not the substitution of one class for another, but the destruction of classes, the inauguration of a universal humanity. The character and object of the socialist revolution is the common good. In the socialism, the 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 producers. 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 practically all. The  thing about Socialism is precisely that it is not the regime of a minority. It cannot, therefore, and ought not, to be imposed by a minority

The working class is beginning to awaken from its long slumber and we call on those who aspire to see a socialist sunrise to step forward and help sweep away the long dark night of capitalism.

William Morris and Socialism

The Socialist Party’s vision of a stateless, wageless, moneyless society is very close to anarchists like Peter Kropotkin in terms of both principles and practice, in the matter of how to organise and maintain a decentralised, collectivised, steady state, ecological society, in which both social responsibility and personal freedom are given equal emphasis, and guaranteed. It is also closely akin to the aspirations of William Morris.

The steady state economy forms a complete contrast to the capitalist economy in which, as Marx wrote, accumulation is Moses and all the prophets. The accumulative logic of capital ensures an endless ‘growth for growth’s sake’, turning finite needs into infinite wants to keep human beings trapped on a ceaseless treadmill. Once human needs are understood as finite, then the absurdity of the capital system is exposed.  In a steady-state economy, production is geared towards the satisfaction of needs rather than making profits through the inflation of wants. There is also the need to replace and repair the existing stock of means of production, both raw materials and instruments of production. The result is an economy which is geared to the satisfaction of people’s needs as opposed to blindly, endlessly accumulating more and more means of production in order to facilitate further accumulation. Such a system is a nihilism, endless, pointless – accumulation for the sake of further accumulation. A communist society would build thestock of means of production up to this level, and gear it towards the satisfaction of needs. At this point, accumulation, and even the further expansion of the stock of means of production, would cease and production levels stabilized. Economic growth – endless accumulation for the sake of accumulation – is unsustainable. Socialism is where economics and ecology are reunited,  based on a sustainable relationship of human society with the rest of nature, a life-affirming system of production which is in balance with the capacity of the biosphere to renew and replenish itself after supplying human with all they need.

“Free men … must lead simple lives and have simple pleasures: and if weshudder away from that necessity now, it is because we are not free men,and have in consequence wrapped up our lives in such a complexity of dependence that we have grown feeble and helpless." - William Morris,
The Society of the Future

The socialist society of the future will be characterised by simplicity but we should not confused simplicity with poverty or drabness for variety of life was as much an aim of socialism as equality. factories – ‘banded workshops’ as William Morris described them- may well be necessary, either to conserve energy through collective enterprise or to produce an article on a larger scale. In such collective workshops,individuals combine to work together to produce, for instance, metal (which needs smelting), and pottery and glass (which need large kilns) but the minerals will be extracted with as little pollution as possible with  widespread use both of wind and water power, and energy generated by renewable resources. Socialists envisages a free, unstratified distribution of goods. Whilst no-one is prevented from taking less than they desire, people learn to take no more than they need, since a scaling back of wants has redefined abundance beyond artificial scarcity.  Production for needs as against for profit thus produces a sufficiency which is able to satisfy the requirements of society, whilst also eliminating waste. Socialism as a society is able to lessen its deleterious impact on nature – and on human beings - by abolishing the production of waste, production geared to profit and false wants. By transforming the nature of work, the eco-socialist community of the future is able to reduce its use of energy and conserve natural resources, slowing down the rate at which productive human activity converts them from the ‘raw’ state to waste. The result is a changed relationship between individuals in society and between society and nature.

Socialism is a community of equals, in which each and all would have full and free access to the means of production, which would be used to produce useful things for the satisfaction of individual and collective needs of the community. In a socialist society, production for use would replace production geared towards buying and selling on a market with a view to making profits for a privileged owning class. In socialism  all associating and cooperating individuals are able to satisfy their needs, freely and fully; they do not have to pay for the useful things they need but take them from the stores according to a self-assessment of their own needs. It is a society which has abolished buying or selling as well as money, and  there is free access to goods and services according to self-defined needs. The means of production, owned by no individual or sectional group, but used by all according to need. An intrinsic feature of the socialist society is constituted by cooperative decision-making arrangements powered from the base upwards. In asocialist society, the coercive functions of a central state would no longer be required, whilst any administrative activities would be devolved to local communities, groups of producers and federation of local and industrial organisations. All men and women will have a share in the responsibility of the administration of things, whether in a commune, or a ward, or a parish, small scale units being desirable so that the greatest possible number of persons might be interested in public affairs. General assemblies  of all the members of the community would be the decision-making body in these communities and decisions would be based on consensus, with majority vote only required as a last resort. A participatory socialist democaracy society will be voluntary in the sense that all people will agree in its broad principles when it is fairly established, and will trust to it as affording mankind the best kind of life possible – i.e., due opportunity free to everyone for the satisfaction of his needs.  A local community could not be, or would want to be, self-sufficient, and will be inter-linked with other communities for specific purposes. These links would be established on a federal basis, so that the political power of centralised states would be dissolved into independent free communities living in  harmonious federation with each other, managing their own affairs by the free consent of their members. The regional bodies would be made up of delegates sent by the local communities. Just as the basic unit of political administration would be the local community, so the basic unit of the economy would be the local workers council. Those in the same trade or industry would organise themselves into abody for the purposes of controlling production in that particular branch. In like manner to the local communities in politics, these industrial bodies would federate on a national and a world basis. Production would be primarily for local use, supplemented as necessary by transfers of essential materials and products not available everywhere between regions arranged by co-ordinating centres at regional and world levels.

It is something of a misnomer to argue that socialism is based on the common ownership of the means of production. In truth, with socialism the means of production are owned by no one,neither individual nor group, and certainly not the state; socialist society is a system of non-ownership. The concept of property has given way to production solely for use, with property rights in the means of production being replaced by commonly agreed and adhered to social arrangements which allow free access to the means of production for use according to need

This concept of socialism is often labeled ‘utopian’  but if the definition of ‘utopian’ is the pursuit of an end or an ideal in abstraction from the means of its realisation, the Socialist Party deny the charge. Ours is not an ideal social system which is the product of the imagination, but  connected to the means of its realisation – the creative political agency of the working class. We are a political party that possesses a clear vision not only about the basic features of the future society - common ownership in place of private property, production and distribution according to need and use as against buying and selling for exchange value – but about the means of reaching that end. We advocate the class struggle in a class war against the plutocracy. Revolution is  a process whereby workers learn to organise themselves and develop the ability to administer their own affairs in their own collective interest. Part and parcel of the revolution is that, in struggling to change society, workers also change themselves. The socialist revolution does not arise simply when a sufficient number of workers have had their otherwise empty heads filled with socialist propaganda. Rather it is that, through their own experiences of struggle, first within capitalism and ultimately against capitalism,workers come to understand not only how to fight but also what it is that they are fighting for. Discontent is not enough, though it is natural and inevitable. The discontented must know what they are aiming at.

Through their possession of the means of production, capitalists compel the workers to sell their labour power for wages which are less than its true value, the surplus value being appropriated by capital. This exploitation is the basis of class struggle. We argue for human co-operation to replace the system of class exploitation and commercial competition but we are well aware that such co-operation was possible only on the basis of certain social relations. The prerequisite for human cooperation is the establishment of a classless society. Conflict is endemic to the capital system.  You cannot have profit-making without competition, individual, corporate, and national; but you may work for a livelihood without competing and you may combine instead of competing. A system of exploitation and domination is incapable of generating the conditions which promote the flourishing of human life. In such a system, labour ceases to be the creative means of human self-expression and merely becomes the means to making money and profits. The result is dehumanisation and degradation. The privilege enjoyed by the capitalist class has nothing to do with talent and ingenuity but is but the privilege of the robber by force of arms.

Attempts at social reform can end up ameliorating the workers’ condition at the expense of the workers freedom, independence and initiative. The workers remain workers within an oppressive, exploitative and alienated system. Political changes is  are done not for  the workers but by them. There is little point in the workers exchanging one form of class rule for another.regardless of how  rational and well-meaning it claims to be. The workers remain workers, with all that that entails with respect to the dehumanisation of labour.

William Morris summed up our task:
 “ The real business of Socialists is to impress on the workers the fact thatthey are a class, whereas they ought to be Society...The work that lies before us at present is to make Socialists, to cover the country with a network of associations composed of men who feel their antagonism to the dominant classes, and have no temptation to waste their time in the thousand follies of party politics...” (Socialism and Politics’, 1885)

“I say that our business is more than ever Education…It is too much to hope that the
whole working class can be educated in theaims of Socialism in due time, before other surprises take place. But we must hope that a strong party can be so educated. Educated in economics,in organisation, and in administration. To such a body of men all the aspirations and vague opinion of the oppressed multitudes would drift, little by little they would be educated by them, if the march of events would give us time…We must be no mere debating club, or philosophical society; we must take part in all really popular movements when we can make our own views on them unmistakeably clear; that is a most importantpart of the education in organisation.Education towards Revolution seems to me to express in three words whatour policy should be..”

Without an organised political party embodying a theoretical consciousness of socialism, any spontaneous revolt would dissipate its energies and fall to the counter-revolution. The task facing socialists is to aid the conscious attacks on the system by all those who feel themselves wronged by it. The real business of socialists is to instil the aim of the workers becoming the masters of their own destinies and of  their own lives. The socialist objective is to form a vast labour organisation of all the workers who have awoke to the fact that they are wage-slaves and the purpose  of this labour organisation is the overthrow of capitalism and the achievement of socialism, its weapons would be those of solidarity and cooperation; the strike and the boycott.

But Morris understood the limits of socialist agitation and once again emphasised that
 “Our business .. is the making of Socialists, i.e. convincing people that Socialism is good for them and is possible. When we have enough people of that way of thinking, they will find out what action is necessary for putting their principles in practice. Until we have that mass of opinion, action for a general change that will benefit the whole people is impossible. Have we that body of opinion or anything like it? Surely not… Though there are a great many who believe it possible to compel their masters .. to behave better to them, and though they are prepared to compel them … all but a very small minority are not prepared to do without masters. They do not believe in their own capacity to undertake the management of affairs, and to be responsible for their life in this world. When they are so prepared, then Socialism will be realised; but nothing can push it on a day in advance of that time.” (Commonweal, November 15th, 1890)

A socialist party has a twofold task, to provide the theory of the struggle in order to give direction to the spontaneous movement of the workers, and to participate alongside the workers in the class struggle, whatever form it takes.

Abridged and adapted from a paper by Peter Critchley that can be found here

Big Bucks for Big Bangs

The international capitalist class may lament a world-wide recession, but it does not curb their lavish military spending.'The U.S. Air Force is "holding tight" to a target of $550 million for each new long-range bomber in a fleet of up to 100 aircraft, excluding research and development costs, an Air Force official said on Tuesday. ...... The Air Force planned to spend nearly $12 billion on the bomber program over the next five years, said spokesman Ed Gulick.' (Reuter, 11 March) Some members of the capitalists class in US may regret the state spending on welfare or health programmes but their is not much reluctance when it comes to armament expenditure.

The Socialist Party Approach

The immediate goal of the Socialist Party is the social revolution: agitation and education are our principal means. We clearly separate ourselves from reformism. Socialists want to remove the cause of all iniquities, all exploitation, all poverty and crime and the root cause is private property. We know that all the promised reforms will not be realised, and that they mostly only ameliorate the lot of one group of workers usually at the expense of other workers. The new names with which socialism such as ‘21st Century’are being baptised merely serve as pretexts for reform within the framework of capitalism. Social reforms, no matter however profound they may be, are not enough for the building of socialism. When the workers demand improvements,wage rises, cuts in working hours, better working conditions; when they go on strike to defend their dignity or to affirm their solidarity with a companion fired or mistreated by bosses, we have to say to them that none of this resolves the real issue. We argue for the need for the revolution, for the abolition of private property and the State. We do everything possible to widen and generalise the movement.

What do we mean by social revolution? Some radicals who call themselves “revolutionaries”,  mean an insurrection that will carry them to power. The people will do the fighting but they will be the officers in charge. But the revolution and society we conceive of can only be made by and for the people from the bottom up, not from top down. This being understood, the revolution obviously can’t be the work of a party or even a coalition of parties. It demands the participation  of the majority of the working class. Without this it would a coup d’etat, a putsch, not a revolution. Workers have no need of leaders: they are quite capable of delegating one of their own with a particular specific task, as long as they are on their guard and ensure precautions are provided. Workers need to learn from each other, so to form and share common aspirations and create a community of ideas. It is only through this that workers unite, even if they don’t have the same organisation.  It is necessary that in each association there be a means of agitating the great social questions, that all ideas be discussed, that the workers be intellectually prepared for the task incumbent upon them: that of renewing society.

No revolution has ever been a carbon copy of another. At the same time, however, if the truth be told, all revolutions have been identical on one essential matter, and that is, the taking of power. A socialist revolution inevitably implies the taking of power, depriving the capitalist class of its property. How this is done, what methods are resorted to—such things of course will vary. The British worker may do it one way yet the Indian worker another; but that is a matter of form, not of essence. A real revolution is not something that goes on within the state or its institutions or among its politicians. It comes from below, from those who have always been forgotten; those who have been misled; those who leaders have considered merely an election fodder to garner votes. It succeeds when it puts an end to party politicking, and have organised themselves through their own decision-making and knowledge, whether or not they have read one syllable of Marxist writing.

 If the economic effects of strikes are partial, transitory, and often non-existent or disastrous, that doesn’t change the fact that every strike is an act of dignity, an act of  revolt, and serves to get workers used to thinking of the boss as an enemy. A striker is already no longer a slave unlike those who submit unquestioningly to his or employer. He or she is already on the path of revolution and our task is merely to point this out and hasten them along the road. We must demonstrate our principles in action. We must prove that socialism isn’t an abstract concept, a utopian dream, or a distant vision, but destined to renew the world and establishing it on foundations of fraternity and mutual aid. 

Who Needs Leaders

Originally posted at the Countercurrents website.

For Ourselves Alone

In 1916, in Everett, Washington State, USA, a ferry filled with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) free-speech activists attempted to dock and was met by the local sheriff, along with armed deputies. According to lore, when the sheriff asked, “Who are your leaders?” the response from the ferry was a shout from everyone aboard, declaring, “We are all leaders here.”

Visitors to the Countercurrents website will always come across interesting articles but they will also encounter many posts that call for correct leadership and make demands for better leaders. People tend to accept as true the things they hear over and over again. But repetition doesn't make things true. Because the truth and the facts often contradict "common knowledge", socialists have to show that "common knowledge" is wrong. 

Marx believed that, as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, it would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves. The emergence of socialist understanding out of the experience of the workers could thus be said to be "spontaneous" in the sense that it would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it about. Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary, but would come to be carried out by workers themselves, whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result would be an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism. As Marx and Engels put it in the Communist manifesto, “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” Like it or not, this is not the same analysis made by Lenin or Trotsky.

Leadership is one of those problematic words that needs qualifying. When we say "don’t follow leaders" we mean by this something very specific - a narrow political sense of the term - to denote the idea of surrendering power to an individual or group to change society on our behalf. We are not promoting the false idea that socialism is about "making everyone equal" in their endowments, abilities and so on. There will always exist those who will be better orators or write more lucidly than others. Writers or speakers are NOT leaders. Their function is to spread knowledge and understanding, as teachers. There is a big difference between those that produce propaganda and so on, and helps promote the popular will where people accept decisions because they have been convinced by the case and have freely chosen to do so and a vanguard in the common sense of the word, meaning a party seeking to gain power over the masses. Revolution will be a process of self-education. Without the active participation of the mass of the working class in the fight for a communist/stateless society cannot even be contemplated. It was Joseph Dietzgen, described by Marx as the workers philosopher, who declared:

 "If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself." 

This is quite a different concept from that one arguing that we must have leaders (great men) to direct their followers (blind supporters) into a socialist society. Socialists are catalytic agents, acting on our fellow workers and all others, the triggering agent that transforms majority ideas from bourgeois into revolutionary ones. 

Working class self-emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership. Even if it could be conceived of a leader-ridden working class displacing the capitalist class from power such an immature class would be helpless to undertake the responsibilities of democratic socialist society. Socialism can't be created by decree or by force by a minority and will not be established by good leaders but by thinking men and women.  If workers really were as incapable of understanding socialism as some maintain, then socialism would be impossible since, by its very nature as a society based on voluntary cooperation, it can only come into being and work with the conscious consent and participation of the majority. 

As the current recession within capitalism continues, squeezing and stamping down upon the working class ever more relentlessly, alongside the growing realisation of the failure of all forms of running the system; then there is definitely a growing POTENTIAL for the escalation of struggle towards the overthrow of the system. Nevertheless, how many times has the potential been there in past moments of escalated struggle and capitalist crisis only to disappear or to be channelled into reformist, pro-capitalist directions? Discontent over wages or conditions can be a catalyst for socialist understanding but so can many other things such as concern about the environment or war or bad housing or the just the general culture of capitalism. Many political organisations profess to exist only for the purpose of assisting the working class. They have drawn up hosts of programmes of social reforms which they guarantee would, if the workers would only trust them and vote for them; solve all the ills which afflict the working class. 

Justifying their claim of being "revolutionary leaders”, the cadres are forever taking credit for organising the workers. It is as though they were taking credit for the rising of the sun, forgetting their basic Marxism that it is not ideas that make material conditions, but material conditions that give rise to ideas. Their case for leadership is simple. Most working-class people are too busy to engage in political action and so there’s a need for someone to dedicate their time and energies to represent working class people: professional, full-time advocates. It’s only logical that the professional politician, understanding better the decision making processes of power, represent us on our behalf. Too many people don't have the right political consciousness, and if we let them use too much democracy they will make counter-revolutionary decisions that sabotage the revolution. The masses just can't be trusted and have not evolved enough political consciousness to be pro-revolution. To solve the problem of widespread backward consciousness the party will organise “representatives” chosen from within its own ranks rather than freely elected by the masses. 

This idea that someone with a job and family cannot really understand the needs of the working class is farcical. Workers have nothing to gain and everything to lose by relying on leaders. 

Some radicals despite their sincere and dedicated activism will blame the workers for their. Other radicals with the best of intentions claim impressive “successes” and “victories” in every field except one. History have proven beyond any shadow of doubt that they have not remotely convinced the workers of the need for socialism. From their activities carried on in the name of socialism, the one thing conspicuous by its absence has been any mention of the socialist case. 

 A truly revolutionary workers organisation will not see itself as yet another leadership, but merely as an instrument of the working class to help generalise their experience of the class struggle, to make a total critique of their condition and of its causes, and to develop the mass revolutionary consciousness necessary if society is to be totally transformed. They will reject an organisational role and instead urge people to come to the realisation that they should take over their workplaces, communities, and put themselves in a position to control all of the decisions that effect them directly, and to run things themselves. A vanguard, in the sense of an enlightened minority seeking to gain power over others, can never achieve this aim, because it would have the power, rather than people having power over their own lives, collectively and individually. They would also be assuming the arrogance to think they have a monopoly of truth, rather than certain views which face dispute and discussion with others. 

A democratic leader-less movement would seek majority decision-making in local face-to-face assemblies and, where and when necessary, by fully accountable re-callable delegates. A representative is someone who makes decisions for the other people while a delegate, in contrast, carries out a mandate they have been given by the people who delegated them. In other words, they don't act as they think best, they act as they are told. Accepting leaders means handing over the right to make decisions to someone else. We don’t vote for leaders to implement this or that decision; we vote according to our ideological inclinations to give them a “free hand” to make decisions. The point is that the very mechanism of decision-making we have today is a product of the social system we live under. The whole premise of democratic-centralism is that a central authority dictates policy to everyone else, so no matter how democratically chosen it is,  it has to enforce its line and stifle dissent that makes this too difficult, which, in a revolutionary situation, there is bound to be a lot of. Democratic-centralism would exclude you from participation. In practical terms, the real vanguard would be the central committee of the Party. 

Structure doesn't necessarily mean a leader. The best examples of organisation historically can be found in the trade union movement at its best. Take the structures of trade union branches, these are a product of a long tradition of members debating, agreeing and renewing clear, transparent written rules that create a framework of mutual accountability, self-discipline and individual responsibility. They are there on paper, the responsibility of every member, to be used, contested and, once agreed, followed. That is not to deny that apathy and inertia can set in; the rules become a barrier to creative thinking and change; officials become corrupt or complacent. Yet the rules and basic principles remain.

Eugene Debs an often overlooked socialist orator and union organiser once said:

“I am not a labor leader. I don’t want you to follow me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.”

These are not times for reform and tweaking the system. Capitalism is in the process of destroying the Earth. Forget about looking for leaders. What we need is a movement that rises from the people and empowers ourselves. People need to stop looking up, and start looking around. There is an old adage, if the people lead, the leaders will follow. People need organisations, and people need to come together. But by self-organisation from the root, you will find that you have got no leaders. 

Again to quote Debs:

“I never had much faith in leaders. I am willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a leader. I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week. If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and mis-representatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.”

Power to no one, and to every one!

Ourselves Alone

“Without the conscious will and the conscious action of the Proletariat there can be no socialism” - Rosa Luxemburg, November 1918, in Die Rote Fahne

There is an Eastern saying that a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step and for the workers that first step is socialist knowledge. Another ancient sage said do not put your trust in princes and today the Socialist Party extol our fellow workers to trust in yourself and your class, no matter what the “militant" self-appointed cadres may say to the contrary. We say study socialism for yourselves. Having acquired the requisite socialist understanding, the working class can emancipate themselves rather than rely on the befuddled humanitarian liberals and those leftist political clowns who claim the mantle of leaders over the people. Workers can be so easily fooled if they do not comprehend their class position in society because in  not understanding they fall for the lures and bait set to trap the unwary. People genuinely seek a way out of the mess of capitalism but possess little idea of the solution. Political opportunists set themselves up as “leaders” to mis-lead. This happens everywhere, everyday,  by placing faith in people whom they think know better than themselves and in doing so, workers hand over control of their political power to others. Nor is it a question of sincerity or good intentions. As Engels remarked “Honest opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all.”

 Trusting in political or labour leaders invariably leads to treachery and betrayal. Instead, the Socialist Party proposes class understanding, socialist knowledge and intelligent organisation with which the working class can win the class war we are all engaged in. Behind the veil of deceit and hypocrisy false messiahs know the game is up once workers have clear insight. So the intellectuals and academics ensure the language of socialism becomes so jargonised as to be incomprehensible to ordinary workers. They label the failures of capitalism as socialist experiments, and describe reformist projects of capitalism as socialistic. How many workers have grown weary and cynical with any kind of politics because they realised that “under socialism” they are badly off as ever before. Don’t be fooled by the window-dressing or duped by the description on the label.

The Socialist Party insists on working class understanding as the means to attain socialism. We cannot liberate you but we can provide the material for your education so that together we can work towards a better world. It is up to you, our fellow workers, to avail yourself of it. When the working class become conscious of the necessity to abolish the capitalist mode of production and establish a system of production and distribution where everything will be commonly owned and democratically controlled people will live as human beings and not exist for the profit of others. The world is ours. We presently live in a society where there is no community. We have only two opposing factions - exploiters and the exploited. The Socialist Party puts this proposition to our fellow workers: In the long run every worker will find him or herself faced with the inevitable conclusion that the day-to-day struggle can only be successful as far as the conditions of capitalism permit and behind this daily struggle lies the necessity for a change in social relations, with the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and its cardinal feature, the wages system.

Above all, realise how much depends upon you. A vote even for the Socialist Party is of no value unless it expresses a socialist consciousness. Understanding must precede action. Go to the polling station even if it is only to write “socialism” across the ballot paper, for if you cannot vote now for what you want, it is folly to vote for what you do not want. If the Socialist Party hopes to achieve socialism solely by our propaganda the outlook is not very bright. But we see workers discovering from their own experience that capitalism cannot solve its recurring crises or repeated armed conflicts. The Socialist Party task is simply to shorten the learning time.

  The more socialist knowledge you acquire the more you will know the hows and whys. You will hold the key to the door to leading to peace and plenty but it is a door that can only be opened when the majority of your fellow workers are also in possession of the same key.

“When the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle-cry: the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who say that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from above” - Marx and Engels , circular letter, 1879

Seven Million Die for Profit

In the desperate struggle to obtain bigger and bigger profits capitalism is polluting the atmosphere at an alarming rate. 'On Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced that air pollution, both indoors and outdoors, contributed to seven million deaths worldwide in 2012. More than one-third of those deaths occurred in fast-developing nations in Asia, including China and India.' (New York Times, 27 March) Seven million causalities and this is supposed to be peacetime! RD

The Rejectionists

Unlike other political parties we do not just want your vote but to gain your intelligent support for socialism. Knowledge is essential to political action. Socialists have a different way of looking at things.

The World Socialist Movement  rejects any conception of socialism which implies rule by an elite, a clique, a minority or a dictator. We reject any leader, good or bad. Leadership and hierarchies flourish only where there is ignorance.

The WSM rejects anything short of socialism - a classless, worldwide, fully democratic society based on common ownership of the means of production and distribution, with production for use and the principle of from each according to ability, to each according to need.

The WSM rejects the theory of the “lesser evil” or that “half a loaf is better than no bread” which leads to reformism and compromise.

The WSM rejects the idea that means and ends can be separated, that trickery and political scheming can be used to achieve socialism. Without mutual sincerity, without reciprocal trust among its members, it is impossible for a democratic party to conduct its affairs.

The WSM rejects any alliance or united fronts with other parties that work for the continuance of capitalism and rejects any tactic of boring from within pro-capitalist parties.

All that people want is the satisfaction of their needs. Socialism will not be the dull, dreary state-regulated regime that some would have us believe. But all the people, in free association, will control and administer the conditions of their life. People are essentially reasonable and where free to act reasonably, do so. When money is no longer required to access the necessities of living, when food clothing and shelter are free and no longer requires a person to sell his or her self-respect, no-one will be a thief, no one will be a tyrant. When all the avenues of happiness are open to everybody no-one can gain from corruption.

Most of us today think in terms of nations and countries. It is “your” country you think you are defending, it is “your” firm, “your”  job. Yet you don’t own the country. Your share in it would scarcely fill a flower-pot. This country is owned by those who own the factories, the real estate and the farms. The real owners are the small number of capitalists who hold shares and stock in  every industry but rarely ever see the factory they own. It is not your country - it is theirs.

We support the idea that after thousands of years of class rule and exploitation, productive labour can be changed to one of common co-operation for the use and benefit of all. Nothing less than the abolition of the wages system and the taking hold of the means of production will do. We therefore support any move to self-help and self-reliance of the working class towards that end. But we fully accept that the time for the socialist transformation comes only when a desire for socialist action has seeped deeply into the consciousness of workers and that there is no way of attaining the socialist goal if there is no self-activity of the working class. The vanguard theory of a group of enlightened minds possessed with a strong will is capable of marshalling workers towards freedom, (even behind their backs) has proved to be wrong road. The process of awakening the consciousness of our class cannot be speeded up by proclaiming radical slogans, passing revolutionary resolutions and proposing reformist platforms. Socialist understanding is a necessary requisite.

 Capitalism perverts and suppresses men’s and women’s social behaviour , labeling, categorising, and pigeon-holing every aspect of our individuality and every emotion, robbing life of all variety and colour . Society’s irrationality itself leads to mental illness and psychological disturbance in the population. We are deprived of everything but the barest necessities that are cheap and shoddy. Is it no wonder many seek various forms of escapism. For sure, socialism is not going to be some Earthly paradise flowing with milk and honey. Nor do we place any reliance on people becoming angels  but we do assume that people will live rational lives and are given an opportunity to live as human beings. Economic changes will produce changes in the moral, ethical, artistic and sexual ideas of society. The head-fixing industries, schools and universities, the media, the churches, make us feel it is a desirable trait to be humble, to submit to our “betters” and recognise our lowly inferiority as the natural order. They accuse socialists of advocating uniformity, mediocrity, and regimentation, but it is what is called psychological projection denying unpleasant home-truths and attributing them to others.

The Break-up of Scotland?

Lerwick, the capital of Shetland is 18 hours by road and boat from Edinburgh – more than double the journey time from the Scottish capital to Westminster. Now Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides demand independence referendums of their own if Scotland votes 'Yes'.

 A petition currently before the Scottish Parliament is seeking referendums to be held on all three islands exactly a week after the rest of the nation votes on the future of the union with Westminster. In the event it should get the go-ahead, the 70,000 inhabitants will be given the choice of either staying in Scotland or seeking independence of their own. A third question following a successful yes vote will offer the possibility of staying within the UK while seceding from control of Holyrood.

It is estimated that up to 67 per cent of Scotland’s oil and gas reserves lie within the waters off Shetland and Orkney. All the islands have lucrative off shore renewable energy potential.

Steve Heddle, Convenor of the Orkney Islands Council, and part of the non-partisan umbrella group "Our Islands, Our Future" said there was an urgent case for the communities to be given greater control over their destinies.

Shetland’s Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott said demands for referendums within the islands were “entirely understandable”.

“The SNP is holding a gun to the islanders’ heads and saying 'I will not do anything for you unless you vote yes'. It is like the proverbial English colonial governor telling the natives what to do. People in the islands are very independent minded and they do not like being treated like this,” he said.

Socialist Courier has, of course, previously drawn attention to this possibility of regions within an independent Scotland seeking their own independence  a number of occasions.

Another Working Class Tragedy

The way a woman was assessed for benefits led to her suicide less than a month later, according to a mental health watchdog. The woman had a history of depression and was on significant medication, but scored zero points in a Work Capability Assessment (WCA), carried out by Atos. 'A Mental Welfare Commission report said it could see no other factor "in her decision to end her life". The Department for Work and Pensions said correct procedures were followed.The woman, who is identified only as Miss DE, was in her early 50s and had been out of work for just under two years due to stress-related depression when she was assessed for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).' (BBC News, 26 March) When a welfare rights officer informed Miss DE that this would mean her £94.25 per week incapacity benefit would be reduced to a Jobseekers Allowance of £67.50 per week she became very upset and said she did not know how she was going to pay her mortgage. She took an overdose on New Year's Eve. A life lost for £26.75 and the Department for Work and Pensions reassures her family that "correct procedures were followed". What a hellish society. RD

Kilmarnock Discussion Group

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Venue:- 
7:00pm - 9:00pm
The Wheatsheaf Pub,
70 Portland Street,
 Kilmarnock 
(About three minutes walk from the rail station and five minutes from the bus station)

For more information contact: 
Paul Edwards.
Tel: 01563 541138

Upper Class Arrogance

In an effort to show that it is trendy and up-to-date the Times recently produced a property supplement entitled "30 most glamorous places to live". 'There are "bargain" one-bed flats for £1 million, up to luxury living at One Hyde Park, where a penthouse sold for £140 million. Knight Frank is selling a four-bed flat in Eaton Square for £24.5 million.' (Times, 24 March) It is yet another example of the arrogance of the owning class that such conspicuous consumption can be boasted about in a country where millions struggle to meet rent and mortgage payments and indeed many are homeless and strive to exist in pathetic bed and breakfast accommodation.

The Socialist Party for Revolution

WORLD FOR THE WORKERS

The capitalist system has lowered enormously the standard and quality of living of the world’s population. Nevertheless, the working class of the entire world remain content to better its condition, if it possibly can, within the capitalist system. This unbearable situation for the exploited classes can only be altered by the destruction of the capitalist system and the establishment of a socialist system of production and distribution.

The Socialist Party stands alone in this country as the standard-bearer of socialism. Other parties professing to be genuine workers’ parties make opportunistic vote-catching the key to their programme and platform, relegating socialism out of sight and out of mind. They have sacrificed   purpose, method and aim to secure the spoils of office or gain that ever elusive popularity. Whilst policies of social reform were once a necessity in past times to raise the condition of the working class, as a preparation for undertaking the final struggle for political and economic power, to-day reformist tactics are proved to be wholly illusory. To pursue them further will cause ever-increasing misery to the people.

We are frequently ridiculed for the few votes we receive whenever we stand for election from those who when they put their case to the test of the ballot perform little better. Too many look upon a socialist party as the ultimate end we are striving for and not the means to that end. The question of the number of votes or membership numbers are not the criteria to measure our party. Besides numbers, indeed, more important than numbers, is the purpose for which the Socialist Party exists. Our Party exists to express the interests of the working class and lay the foundation of the new society of socialism. These fundamental principles govern our actions even if the majority of the workers are thinking differently at the time but we’d be guilty of the grossest betrayal of our fellow workers if we acted otherwise. To-day, we are swimming against the stream, but to-morrow will be a new day.

Some people, a very few, live by owning the factories and mines and machinery, and other men and women, the majority, have to go to work on these machines which they don’t own. The employer tries to squeeze as much profit out of the worker as he can. The worker tries to extract as close to a living wage out of the employer as he or she can.  If workers stopped struggling, they’d just be exploited even more. That’s why there’s a class struggle. Workers want to end the class struggle yet we can only do it by getting rid of the profit system, and that exists only because there is a class of exploiters and a class of the exploited. So socialists are also out to abolish classes. By revolution, we mean the demolition of the existing society and the construction of a new one. The revolution simultaneously comprises both aspects. Either change or “All other life is living death; a land where none but phantoms dwell” as the saying goes.

The road to socialism program is the road of class war. This is the only road that can win better conditions of life, genuine democracy, peace and equality for all. This is the only road out of the recurring crises of capitalism, the only road out of exploitation and oppression, the only road that can prevent war. On with the class war.

A Polluted Society

In its relentless pursuit of profit capitalism not only exploits the working class it befouls the very air we breathe. 'According to new estimates from the World Health Organisation, seven million people around the world died in 2012 as a result of air pollution. "The evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we breathe, Maria Neira, of the WHO, said.' (Times, 25 March) Ms Neira is misguided in imagining that some sort of "concerted action" to deal with pollution is possible within capitalism.

Poverty Video on Scotland