Our Interests Alone

How often have we heard something like this,  “Marx was a splendid man for his time. But he is now out-of-date.” Karl must be turning in his grave.

The thoughts of people are much troubled about the future and many seem doubtful where the world is headed. It is impossible to look around and see that something is seriously amiss;  the inequalities, the wasted wealth and excessive luxury of the rich compared to the misery and deprivation of the poor. Political reforms have done very little for people. Periods of prosperity, speedily followed by recession. Private enterprise has been tried and found wanting and laissez-faire has had its day.

The creators of all wealth, we, the workers, obtain in wages only what isnecessary to live on and keep a family (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 is in sharp contradiction with the highly-developed means of production leading to economic crises, bringing the miseries of unemployment and falling wages on the working class.

The class interest of the proletariat 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. No party represents the class interests of the working class unless it strives to awaken the workers to a po1itical consciousness that will give them class power. Various political parties and trends claim to represent workers and working class interests. They attempt to win support among workers but their political ideas and aims are pro-capitalist.

The Labour Party, particularly its ‘left’ wing, claims to stand for the workers’ interests and for socialism.  Labour claims that socialism can be introduced gradually through a series of reforms. In the early years of the Labour Party many workers voted for Labour, believing that they could vote in socialism, but the experience of various Labour governments has brought disillusion. Today no-one believes that Labour will establish a new and better political and economic system. Even Labour politicians themselves ask for votes with the claim that they can make capitalism work better than the Tories. Certain industries could no longer be run at a profit by individual capitalists but were still necessary for the whole capitalist economy. Measures presented as ‘socialist’ such as ‘nationalisation’ were introduced but these industries remain controlled and run entirely in capitalism’s interests. Economic policies as advocated by Keynes, such as heavy state deficit financing, the payment of social security benefits and so, in order to keep spending going and the market for goods developing and to escape recession in the economy.  Such measures have been represented by Labour as the triumph of socialism and of the ‘welfare state’ . This is coupled with the line that capital and labour must unite behind the ’national interest’. But the ‘national interest’ is always capitalism’s interest. The Labour Party represents capitalism and no other class. The mass of the working–class no longer holds any illusion that the Labour Party represents its interests or will bring about any real change in the system. At best, the Labour Party is seen as a ‘lesser evil’ than the Conservative Party.  If so-called ‘Left revolutionaries’ support Labour in election campaigns, even as a ‘lesser evil’ or with all sorts of qualifications to their support, they are betraying the working class. This support amounts to an attempt to preserve, or re-establish, workers’ illusions that if Labour had a more left-wing, a more radicl leadership leadership things would be different. No party, no matter how ‘left’ its leadership, can effect important changes to the capitalist system. The Left spread the illusion that the Labour Party can be ‘pressurised’ more than the Conservatives, into making concessions to workers. In practice, efforts to shift the the Labour Party left-ward lead workers’ organisations into compromise and sell-out policies again and again. Today, to advocate support for Labour is to hinder and thwart the fundamental task of presenting the working class with a clear alternative to all pro-capitalist parties and to the whole system of capitalism.

The exploitation and oppression of the working class has never ceased, the need for socialism has never disappeared and the working class remains the revolutionary class. Under capitalism, the exploitation and oppression of the workers forces collective struggles to defend their standard of living to arise. Such struggles are necessary and arise, spontaneously. They are limited in their essential nature to defensive struggles, but are schools for the basic lessons of the collective strength of the working class. Only limited gains are possible even with victories in such defensive struggles.

With the present crisis, the problems of the workers are growing more intense. Dogmatists asserts that all our answers have already been given by Marx and Engels and that we simply have to parrot their words, no real effort at analysis or application of theory being required. Such attitudes repudiate the most fundamental essence of Marxism, its absolute dependence, in originating and testing ideas, on material reality. Our theory is drawn from the lessons of world history and the experience of mankind and the specific experience of class struggle. We certainly cannot neglect research, reading and discussing books, publishing our views and so on. All ideas emerge from practice, from material reality, and must be tested in practice. We certainly must draw on the practice of others. Political agitation is the struggle to raise class consciousness through commenting on specific issues or events. Through such specific issues, aspects of capitalist society can be exposed, the workers’ spirit of resistance sharpened and working class unity consolidated. Such agitation must be directed by a general understanding of capitalism and how to fight it. Unless such educational and agitational work is conducted, we shall not connect our ideas to the actual political and economic struggles going on around us. The socialist case will remain nothing but empty platitudes. To make people understand our main standpoint of anti-capitalist revolution is by linking up every discussion with it. Our party must constantly discuss and thoroughly comprehend the main issues about the political foundation and spirit of anti-capitalist revolution to overthrow the capitalists from political power, and not just give emotional speeches against oppression. Because in a general way the people have a realization about oppression and hunger and they want to fight against oppression. But he who wants to fight against capitalism, at the very next moment on another question he is seen to display an attitude of protecting capitalism. So we need to develop a spirit of all-out fight to destroy capitalism, we need the endeavour to build up a firm anti-capitalist bent of mind embracing the entire mental world, and accordingly prepare ourselves so that each of our discussions becomes effective.

Our task as a socialist party is to uphold our correct politics exposing the wrong politics, the opportunist politics of others, to dispel confusion; but is the work in running our party going the right way to serve this purpose? It is true that we are not in a position politically or organisationally to integrate trade union and community struggles with the world socialist movement. And it is also true that we are not indispensable to such struggles. However, while we can do much useful work, involvement in such struggles is more indispensable to us, to our development as socialists and to our struggle to build a mass socialist party. There is no organisational formula for party-building. However, it is useless unless there exists political unity. We believe also in the open,’frank, discussion. We are against unprincipled ‘take-overs’ of workers organisations and  attempts to claim a leading role in them.

Merely talking against capitalism, giving a list of the capitalist parties misdeeds is not enough.  We are obliged to show why it is necessary to overthrow capitalism by relating it with all the problems of workers. Today we know that our interests are identical as workers. We  hold that an organisation which maintains that the workers have interests in common with their employers—the parasites—is serving the masters’ interests, as opposed to the workers’ interests.

Fight for tomorrow's world today

Some people refuse to learn. Others refuse to remember. And yet others remember what they have learned only up to the moment when events call upon them to put it into practice, whereupon they begin to forget. Socialism is based upon the organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, and is the abolition of all classes.

 “It would be nice to have socialism but it cannot happen" runs the argument by many people. Socialism is not a utopian ideal, a blueprint for society that exists in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity. It is the direction that the masses of the people must take in order to save society from disintegration. To be a socialist, merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work for the realisation of the goal.

How is the goal of a socialist society to be realised? Is it really impossible to realise it? One of the consequences of capitalism is that production is already carried on socially. Labour has been socialised. The only important thing that has not been socialised is the ownership and the appropriation of the products of industry. They remain private or under state control. And therein lies the root of capitalist exploitation and oppression, of the anarchy of production, of crises and wars. The seeds of socialism, sown by capitalism itself, will bloom and flourish.

 Of all the people in society, the workers suffer most intensely from the rule of capitalism. Their interests are diametrically opposed to those of the capitalists. The workers cannot rid themselves of their sufferings without abolishing the domination that the machine has over them. They can do this only if they gain control of the machine itself. In doing so, they must destroy capitalism and proceed with the complete re-organisation of society. Man would no longer be the slave of the machine. The machine would be the slave of man. Every increase in productivity would bring with it two things: an increase in the things required for the need, comfort and even luxury of all; and an increase in everyone’s leisure time, to devote to the free cultural and intellectual development of humankind. Mankind will not live primarily to work, instead we will work primarily to live.

The abolition of private ownership would remove the last barrier to the development of production. Production would be organised and aimed at satisfying the needs of society. Once the profit barrier is removed, and the huge waste of capitalism eliminated, productivity and production would reach undreamed-of peaks. All the unnatural differences between town and country would be eliminated. Even today, with all the restrictions that capitalism places upon production, there are capitalist experts who declare that industry, properly organised, can produce the necessities of life for all in a working day of four hours or less. Organised on a socialist basis, even this figure could be cut down. The State would no longer exist and be the instrument of an exploiting minority for the domination of the exploited majority. The State itself will die out for lack of any social need or function. There will be the simple administration of things, but no longer the rule of man over man.

As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant, and the differences between physical and mental work, between town and country are eliminated – the last vestiges of inequality will disappear as a matter of course. This may seem incredible to a mind thoroughly poisoned with capitalist prejudices. But why should it be incredible? Thirsty men will fight tooth and nail for a drink at a desert oasis. But if they are up to their waist in water they may have a thousand differences among themselves, but they will not even dream of fighting for a drink. A dozen men in a prison cell with only one tiny window may trample over each other in the fight to get to that tiny source of light. But outside, who would ever think of fighting for more sunshine than the next man? Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first, and a policeman on hand to “keep order.” But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line, no race, no conflict; nobody would try to hoard an extra loaf in order to make sure of eating the next day; and there would be no need of a policeman to back up his orders by force. If society could assure everyone of as ample and constant a supply of bread as there is of air, why would anyone need or want a greater right to buy bread than his neighbor? Bread is used here only as the simplest illustration. But the same applies to all other foods, to clothing, to shelter, to means of transportation and so on.

Efficiently using our present technology we could easily assure abundance to all. In return, society could confidently expect every citizen to contribute his or her best voluntarily. Capitalism strictly enforces the principle, “Who does not work, shall not eat.” In the midst of abundance for all and of the high cultural development that will accompany it, there is no reason to believe that  this principle will still stand. Working  to the best of one’s ability will be as natural an act as breathing, eating, clothing and sheltering oneself. Under those circumstances, it would be an mental aberration to draw on the public storehouse without contributing. What need is there for compulsion, for a machinery of force? What will there be to steal in the midst of abundance? The important thing is that there will be no need of a public coercive force to maintain the power of one class over another, to protect the property of one from the assaults of the other, to assure the continuation of oppression and exploitation.

Where there is abundance for all, there will also be  ample opportunity for the intellectual development of all. Abundance for all? Freedom for all? A society without a state?
“Impossible! It can never happen. It is a utopian ideal.” our Doubting Thomases once again declare. A socialist society will show that abundance, freedom and equality are not only possible but the natural condition for the new history of the human race.

Suppose our sceptic does not join in the fight for socialism or organise and work for its victory. Will the society we live in remain just as it is, will it move forward, or will it slip backward?

 Every time the barrel weakens, a new hoop, or set of hoops, is desperately pressed around it. The capitalists complain bitterly, but actually they cannot do without this growing bureaucracy of government interference. If banking breaks down as it did in the last recession, it can no longer be restored by the “normal course of the market”; legislation and regulations are decreed. Alongside this parasitic bureaucracy grows regimentation of all sorts. The concentration of economic power has brought with it the concentration of political power. The concentration of political power is indispensable to the concentration of economic power in the hands of monopoly capitalism. Representative democratic government, even in the most democratic capitalist countries, has become more and more meaningless, more and more ineffectual. The sharper the crisis, the more urgent the problem, the less capitalism can wait for the government to intervene by the process of slow, lumbering deliberations in large representative assemblies like congress or the House of Commons or the Chamber of Deputies. In some countries, such democratic bodies never even existed. In other countries where they did exist, they are now tolerated only as formalities, their real rights and powers eliminated or reduced to zero, their actual powers being only “advisory to the executive.” In still other countries, they have been wiped out altogether. Hence, the rise of totalitarian government, of authoritarian government, of capitalist dictatorships everywhere. Hence, the decline of capitalist democracy and of democratic representative government. “Wait for Congress? Wait for parliament? No, it will be too late! The situation is urgent and desperate!” That is why we see, even in the most democratic capitalist governments, the decline in the power and activity of the representative assemblies and the rise in the power of the executive – the President or the Prime Minister; the decline of government by legislation and the rise of government by executive decree.

The growing regimentation and oppression, the violation and elimination of democratic rights and institutions affects the workers most heavily and adversely. The workers are simply reduced to the level of a new kind of slavery. In every country, the basic crisis of capitalism makes life harder for the workers to endure. The crisis therefore generates the workers’ resistance to the unendurable conditions of life. The greater this resistance, the more it disrupts the already precarious stability of capitalist production and capitalist rule. The capitalist state intervenes on the side of capitalism. To an increasing extent, wages and working conditions are determined by the government. Silent obedience to its decisions is made a “patriotic” duty not only in wartime but in peacetime.  The right to work has been converted into compulsory work under government orders or direction. The unemployed, “maintained” by the government, are at the government’s mercy; they are ordered to take any job, regardless of wages or working conditions. The unions’s power resembles Samson shorn of the long locks of his hair, weakened and impotent. By anti-union laws, government restricts  the most powerful weapon workers has in their possession, the right to strike. By all sorts of intimidation and blackmail,  the unions are induced to abandon the right to strike “voluntarily” through no-strike clauses in pay-rise or redundancy negotiations. Capitalism’s crises has reduced the wage worker to an even lower abysmal level of wage-slave.

Still the story of the alternative to socialism is not told.

Capitalism long ago took over a world divided between slaves and slave-owners. The race among the Big Powers for mastery devours more and more of the peoples and wealth of the world. The period of peace between wars becomes shorter every time. During the period of peace, to say nothing of the period of war itself, more and more of the energies, the wealth of every country are devoted to preparing for the outbreak of the coming war which capitalism makes inevitable. Capitalism devotes an ever-increasing part of its capacity to producing the means of destruction. Science and scientists are not allowed to perform the task of lightening the burdens of humanity and advancing the welfare of society; instead they are harnessed to the wagons of war. At the orders of the state, science develops weaponry that will destroy hundreds where one was killed before, bombs and missiles that will destroy whole cities where only a building was damaged before. The atomic bomb is the horrible symbol of capitalism and of what its further existence means to the existence of civilisation and humanity. Security is a memory. Peace is fleeting and war is an ever-present threat or an actual monstrous reality.

And still there remain those who say this is all inevitable. That it cannot be ended. That this is all there is to expect in life and from the future. The Socialist Party says this is not so. Things can be different. The people of the world have a viable feasible alternative to choose. Another world is indeed possible.

Our Purpose

We live in capitalism where the world has been divided and the working class is oppressed and exploited. There is no escape from the problems of our time. We cannot remain inactive about issues which affect our daily lives.

 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. Capitalist society is characterised by production for profit. Profit is derived from unpaid labour time. Workers’ labour power is purchased on the market by the owners of capital. Put to work on average in half the working week, it produces values sufficient to cover wages to maintain a worker and family. The value produced in the remainder of the working week constitutes surplus value, the source of profit. The commodities produced by workers’ socialised labour are privately appropriated by capitalists. They will continue to be produced so long as they can be sold for profit on the market. This factor is the cause of the alternating cycle of boom or crisis of capitalism.

Simply stated, the working class (or proletariat) is defined as all those who:
1) Do not own the means of production;
2) Have to sell their labour-power to the capitalist class to make a living;
3) Directly, or indirectly, create surplus value...

Which is expropriated by the capitalist class and this exploitation, or expropriation of surplus value, creates a struggle for supremacy. The working class is not a small, narrow class. They  constitute the majority of the population. The working class is composed of the industrial workers, agricultural workers, and non-production workers such as clerical, transportation and service workers.

It is inevitable that sooner or later these social conditions will impel people to organise to end the conflict between the socialised labour process and private ownership of the decisive means of production, the big factories, mines and corporate farms by the establishment of socialism. With socialism, production takes place for people’s use. The class interest of the workers is to eliminate capitalism entirely and to build a socialist society. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of mankind. Either we get rid of this decrepit system or it will devastate humanity.

The only viable way forward is  to achieve socialism, a classless and stateless society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create a socialist world it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through revolution and establish socialism, a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. It is essential to generate interest in this aim. It is through political action that we reach out with our message which is as Marx and Engels conceived: that the advent of classless society will be as the result of the real movement of self-organisation and self-emancipation of the vast majority. “The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class themselves; proletarians of all countries unite!”

The Labour Party is committed to make capitalism work indefinitely. The great majority of its leaders don’t believe socialism is coming and cling with blind faith to capitalism, hoping against hope that something is just round the corner waiting. “Let us not talk about the socialist revolution–the working class is not ready for socialism”. “Let us not act or talk in a manner that is revolutionary; above all, let us not provoke. Let us become respectable.” “Resurrect the Labour Party of 1945!” Labour leaders because they lack faith in their own cause spread their pessimism like a poison into the workers themselves. They do not see a revolutionary transformation of society as the way to solve the problems capitalism has shown itself incapable of solving. They do not want power to pass from the existing state to the workers to dispossess the capitalist class and create a classless society.

 Described in a variety of ways, the Labour politician advocates some form or other of “people’s capitalism” (before we were all share-holders, now we are stake-holders). With such reasoning accepted, the socialist struggle of the working class for the abolition of the capitalist system can be postponed until “tomorrow and tomorrow”. Yet, whatever version of “peoples capitalism" is on offer, capitalism remains essentially what it has been from birth: a system of exploitation of the many for the enrichment and aggrandisement of the few. The fact, also, is that the exploited and the oppressed have rebelled, are rebelling and will rebel against their unbearable conditions, whatever the politicians might think and predict about their chances of success. The duty of every socialist, of every man and woman who loves humanity, is to fight with them and try and increase to the utmost their lucidity and chances of success. Calls for unity of the Left ignores the fundamental conflict between capitalism and socialism, obscure the difference between reformist politics and class struggle and has led to abandonment of a Marxist standpoint as the price of winning recognition and becoming respectable.

A workers’ party is either a pro-capitalist party or it is a socialist party. It is the one or the other. It cannot be both. We all know that the division of society, and that today it consists mainly of two economic classes, the capitalist class upon the one hand and upon the other, the working class; and these two classes, whether you admit it or not, are pitted against each other. These two classes can never be permanently harmonized or reconciled. It is called the class struggle. Political parties are the product of the class struggle. In a classless society which has rid itself of the remnants of class interests  there will be no political parties. They will be unnecessary. But we have not yet reached the classless society.

If workers find it necessary to unite upon the industrial field, to unite and strike together, how can they consistently fight each other at the ballot box? Politics is simply the expression in political terms of the economic interests of certain groups or classes. The bosses realise this fact and they are in politics to protect their interests. They are deeply involved in the stinking depths of “practical” politics. The efforts of their retainers to appease and placate their pay-masters resulted in the main burden of the economic recession being placed upon the working class.

 The disillusioned and now often rebellious mass of the population had lost all faith in reforms but unfortunately have not so far progressed to call for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Nationalism or religion has instead been substituted for the united socialist struggle against the capitalist class. Rather than submit to the chauvinistic campaigns and seek scapegoats we shouldn’t view the world as a “have-not” world, but recognise the reality that natural resources and productive capacity flood the world with the products making it entirely self-sufficient. We shouldn’t accept racial prejudice and religious bigotry who scream about the menace of foreign immigration or the idle scroungers on welfare. In good times the capacity of reformist measures to give some relief to the miserable conditions of workers may have been  insufficient to solve the basic economic and social ills afflicting the great mass of the population but suffice to allay unrest and discontent. Accompanying a recession is the reduction of profits which prompts the political machines of the capitalist parties to withdraw patronage and protection and having made workers more vulnerable to their austerity policies, the blame has to be allotted elsewhere, those who are without an effective voice to protest and lack organisation to resist.

A Socialist Future

Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the society. Socialists did not invent human aspirations for a just, egalitarian and free society; men and women have cherished this dream for a very long time. The lash of hunger compels the poor to submit and in order to live we must sell - “voluntarily"- ourselves every day. To perpetuate this state of affairs is the aim of the ruling classes. Though seeking to gain advantage over the other by tricks of trade, cunning in speculation and competition  - but in opposition to the workers they stand united. The life of the poor is valued as nothing by the rich.

If the poor are unable to sell himself to an exploiter, then he or she is pilloried by the press as undeserving, a scrounger. And dare he or she steals, in order to live – our “betters” are filled with  moral indignation and repugnance, demanding punishment and prison and from that lesson some poor people learn that prison cells are healthier than the pest-holes they come from.

When the workers actually combine in trade unions to obtain a higher wage, shorter hours , or improved conditions, the employers immediately decry it as unfair competition which must be prevented. When the workers organise politically, they are denounced as defying tradition and custom.

When the worker is out of employment, he or she at the mercy of hordes of profiteers ready to pounce  to complete their ruin. Payday lenders advance small sums at high interest, their contracts so carefully written that they repayments terms can hardly be kept. Unfortunate out of work women with families to feed are driven into prostitution, shamelessly plundered by keepers of brothels disguised as massage parlours and saunas.

This is the lot of the poor from the cradle to the grave, surrounded by vampires and leeches thirsty for every drop of blood. Capitalism cannot be tamed, nor made useful to mankind.

Wealth is not only a generator of more wealth, it is also a political power. Under the present capitalist system rule is a mere matter of price which will buy over who may be of service, whether political leader or press baron. The “sovereignty of the people” turns to dust before the influence of these money magnates and they ensure the “voice of the people” is silenced. Whoever uses “free" speech will be accused of disturbing the peace or a threat to the security of the state by the government officials (Assange and Snowdon being prime examples).

Free society consists of autonomous, i.e., independent communities but networked into federations, the result of freely made social contracts, and not of authoritarian government. Common affairs are attended to in accordance with free deliberation and judgment by the interested communities or producers associations. The people, without distinction of sex, meet to decide from case to case in all matters touching public affairs, or for appointing individuals to execute their wishes, and hear their reports.  There is little doubt that the new communities will be entirely different from that of the present cities and villages. Traffic-filled streets have vanished, tenement are torn down, and spacious, well-fitted abodes surrounded by gardens and parks, erected in their places, with communal, civic  buildings  brought together by identical interests.

 In the country the people will be more connected. There will be agricultural commune with city conveniences. Interlinked farms will no longer be separate, sharing the general application and constant improvement of agricultural implements and fertilizers, with  the growing perfection of the means of communication and transportation simplifying the process of serving consumers. The former contrast between city and country disappears.

Private property exists no more. All wealth is held in common by the people themselves. Everybody, whether able to work or not can obtain from them such articles of necessity as he or she may desire. The sum total of necessities and comforts demanded regulates the quantity of production. Working hours for the individual is limited to a few hours a day, because all those able to work, regardless of sex, take part in production, because useless, injurious, or similar work will not be done, and because the technological means of production has grown highly developed and universally applied. By far the greater part of the day can be spent in the enjoyment of life. The highest gratification will be found in freely chosen intellectual employment. Some spend their leisure time in the service of their fellows, and are busy for the common weal. Others apply themselves to educational pursuits. Others again devote themselves to the exploration and experimentation of science. Academies of the arts will be available for the creators of literature,   painting, sculpture, or music. Theatres and concert halls will offer seats to all. Teaching will be done for the equal development of mind and body.

These are our aspirations and we hold that achieving them is a viable option and a feasible practicability for the world’s people. This is the re-organisation of society we espouse and it need not be an impossible task.  Those in the Socialist Party are not “believers”.  We do not bow down before Marx or Engels. We debate their ideas, we accept them when they are in accord with our experience and knowledge of the world, but we reject them when they don’t strike a chord within us. We are far from possessing blind faith, trusting in something just because someone said it had to be so and it would be too sacrilegious to dispute.

We want to replace private property system with socialism. We don’t claim that all men and women are equal, have the same brain, the same physical attributes. We know that there will always be the greatest diversity in mental and physical abilities. It is precisely this variety of capacities that will bring into being the production of all that is necessary for humanity, and we count on this as well to maintain emulation in a socialist society. There will be engineers and labourers: this is obvious. But one will not be considered superior to the other, since the work of the engineer is useless without the collaboration of the labourer, and vice versa.

Will everyone want to work? We answer yes and here is why.

Workers are kept busy in occupations that are absolutely useless to society, the armaments industry. Add to this a considerable number of able-bodied men and women who produce nothing.  Many are also unemployed. We can thus say, without being accused of exaggeration, that of a hundred capable of producing some kind of labour, only twenty furnish an effort truly useful to society. It is these twenty who produce all of society’s riches. From this flows the deduction that if everyone worked, instead of ten hours the workday would decrease to only two. We can draw the following conclusion: A society where all would work together, and which would be satisfied with productivity far beyond its consumer needs (the excess would constitute a small reserve) is feasible and would have to ask of each of its able-bodied members an effort of only two or three hours, perhaps less. Who would then refuse to give such a small quantity of work? Who would want to live with the shame of being held in contempt by all and being considered a parasite?

A seemingly better-founded objection is the following: If there is no more authority, how would we stop the criminals? Crimes committed today in two principal categories; crimes of interest and crimes of passion. The first group will disappear on its own, since there can be no attacks on property in a society which has done away with property. As for the second group, no law can stop them, as they are irrational acts.  A socialist lifestyle, however  would raise the level of humanity. Individuals will understand that they has no rights over another. Consequently crimes, in a future society, will become increasingly rare, until they disappear completely.

Many other questions arise, but they are of a secondary nature, the most important thing being to establish that the suppression of private property would not cause a cessation of production due to the development of laziness, and that socialism would know how to feed itself and satisfy all of its needs. All the other objections that can be raised will be easily refuted by taking inspiration from the idea that a socialist society would cause to grow in each of its members mutual solidarity. No more nationalisms and no more religions pitting one people against another. Science unmasking the charlatans and illuminating the truths. The free blossoming of humanity.

May Day School

Edinburgh and Glasgow Branches are holding a May Day School on the 10th May in the Maryhill Community Halls . Anyone interested in the subjects and speakers can click on to this link where all the times and arrangements can be read.

 

 

http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/photos/21306072/#353373792 

 

http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/photos/21306072/#353373812 

 

 

 

A Strange Recovery

It is popular amongst supporters of capitalism to claim that Britain has made a recovery from the recent economic crisis but the following statistics seem to contradict that view. 'A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before. The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors but that there was a "shocking" 51% rise in clients to established food banks. It said benefit payment delays were the main cause.' (BBC News, 16 April) Workers forced by economic necessity to rely on charity for food is hardly indicative of a recovery. RD

A Heartless System

A year after after the terrible tragedy in Bangladesh that led to  over 1,100 people dying and 2,500 injured the New York Times reviewed the circumstances of the Rana Plaza factory collapse and made an observant comment. 'While Americans are fond of low prices for clothing, some are possible only because workers in Bangladesh (among other countries) toil in sweatshops for meagre wages, in dangerous conditions.' (New York Times, 14 April)    They went on to remark that many well known brands like Joe Fresh, Mango, Walmart, J.C. Penney and The Children's Place that can be found in Manhattan stores are the products of such sweat shops. Capitalism is a heartless system when it comes to making a profit. RD

Free Ourselves Now

Marx began his political activity as a philosopher that became steadily more social in content. He came to view the right of private property, the right of a few to own and control the means by which all must live, the right of the owners of the means of production to utilise it to exploit the rest of the community in the interest of their personal profit, the right to determine what shall be produced and how, regardless of the misery and wretchedness of those who produce it as wage-slavery, the right to maintain the multitude in chains that a few masters might live in luxury. In the Middle Ages, a handful of nobles feasted and wallowed in idleness on the enforced labour of his serfs. In the 19th Century, the masses were herded into factories, to obtain the necessities to live, while the product of their labour was appropriated by the new lords - capitalists. The right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right to over-produce and cause crises, the right to compete, and cause wars became enscribed in the constitution. Marx diagnosed the cause of capitalist ills, and offered the basic answer.  The abolition of the right of private property, and, instead, its replacement by the common ownership of the means of production, so that all may enjoy the fruit of their labour. Marx offered a choice, a very simple choice between two worlds, a world of exploitation, social injustice, chronic insecurity, economic crisis, and recurring wars ... and a world of rational and  sustainable economic planning, control over your lives and a comfortable living standard,plus the end of nationalism and a durable peace. A choice where a tiny few rule and the vast mass are dispossessed or a cooperative commonwealth.

Since the manifesto of Marx and Engels, socialists have disdained to hide our aims. We want to see society changed. We want to see it transformed from a thing of wars and recessions, to a real brotherhood of mankind; but powerful, wealthy people don’t want it changed, because they have a vested interest in it, and the closer the inevitable change comes, the more desperate they become, and the more vicious their attacks on the most active in the labour movement which is going to change it.

 We live in a world rife with misery and oppression. Today the whole world is in the grip of a deep economic crisis of capitalism. Capitalism has become a fetter on production itself. So the destruction of surplus goods, goods that starving people need, the waste of human labour, the sabotaging of new inventions, the tipping of food into land-fills, the feeding of wheat to pigs – the whole productive system jammed, and the capitalists seek a way out in war.  In Asia, Africa and America general living standards are falling sharply and a growing proportion of the people of these countries are underfed and actually starving. It is an astonishing paradox that, in a world where science and technology have advanced to the stage where there could be plenty for all, there is a growing amount of want and hunger. People are reaching a point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity. Private ownership must go and social ownership must take its place. There is no other way. It is capitalism, with its economic crises and wars – or socialism, the only chance for economic freedom and peace.

Today the human species stands at a turning point: either we develop further by means of the  socialist transformation of society or we  are eventually destroyed by the increasingly antagonistic contradictions of capitalism and the environment. There is nothing inevitable about the further advancement of the human species. Truth be told , the only real, lasting way forward is socialism but whether or not this road is taken is a matter of decision for human beings and one class in particular: the working class. Only the working class has sufficient objective interest in the overthrow of capitalism and the strength to carry out this task. The working class has it within its power to overthrow decaying, crisis-ridden moribund capitalist society and in so doing to pave the way for the liberation of the whole of humanity. The Socialist Party shall do everything within our power to agitate for the working class to overthrow its capitalist masters. The Socialist Party support the concept of the rational, free and completely co-operative society.

Life always moves and always changes. Old traditions are forgotten. Accepted truths are challenged and repudiated. Ideas clash. People had been promised a new and everlasting prosperity, a new world, now millions hope merely for a job, any sort of job and any sort of income to ward off poverty. Millions must accept support, whether direct from the State or from  the “relief work” of charities and churches.  Aroused hopes have been cruelly dashed. Capitalist civilisation introduced want in the midst of abundance. The situation is idiotic. What has come of the colossal and wonderful development of science and technology? Has it made humanity stronger, healthier, happier? Has it given leisure to the producers? Has it brought comfort and contentment to the people? A few hours’ daily work would produce enough to satisfy the material and intellectual needs of all. Never has work been so prolonged, so exhausting, so injurious to people’s and deadens their intelligence. Men and women are under the yoke of the soulless machine world, alienation is their reward for working, poverty when they have no job.

The media has always sought to deny the claims of Marx but, nevertheless, it has been obliged over and over again to concede that wealth is actually concentrated in very few hands and that the vast majority is excluded from ownership.  Intent upon killing Marx, the pro-capitalist commentators  keep resurrecting his conclusions. When they report the research they are obliged to admit that this wealthy elite itself is the tiny Wall Street oligarchy that dominates the corporate wealth of the nation; that oligarchy is a still smaller group contained within this small segment of the population. Financial interest groups representing only a few dozens of individuals can and do dominate giant corporations or whole groups of such corporations.

Socialism is not a reform, it is a revolution. This is the position held by all  socialists.We are not reformers we are revolutionaries. Let it be understood everywhere that by revolution socialists do not mean violence or bloodshed. It is safe to say that every socialist in the world would regard it a calamity to our aim, as well as to humanity, to have a violent upheaval in society. Socialism offers a possible, a peaceful solution. We mean by “revolutionary socialism” the capture of the political powers of the nation by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class. This is the essence of revolutionary socialism. The social revolution is an international revolution. We are all cosmopolitans, endorsing in the fullest sense international socialism. Most of the objections to socialism offered by the reformists are simply subterfuges to distract from the real issues.

While it is clear that most workers are not yet won over to our overall revolutionary perspectives, we aim to convince our fellow workers based on the shared experience of coming struggles. We are socialists, wishful above all things to advance socialism, and by socialism we mean the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system, and the conducting of all industrial and trading relations on a co-operative basis.

In former times, famine appeared only when the harvests failed. In today’s capitalist society, famines happen when granaries  burst with the fruits of the earth, and when the market is gorged with the products of industry. The capitalists have not proved competent. It has seized the social wealth to enjoy it and failed to guarantee to their worker even a miserable livelihood.

After every economic depression the cry has gone up, “It can never happen again!” And it has. Cyclical crises  are inherent in capitalist production: a recession is as characteristic as prosperity and as frequent. Captains of industry and finance at no time really understand the movement of the economic forces they exploit yet after each recession the capitalists, as they once more scoop up the profits of industry and speculation, begin to believe that they are again the saviors of mankind. The government joins in, declaring there will be  no more hard times because of the  system of “ regulatory controls” instituted. The liberals and progressives while perharps acknowledging the continuation of  abuses, believe that capitalism, with all its shortcomings, is working toward the “larger good.” Always, in one form or another, capitalism creates an ideology to disguise and justify its predatory character. It is a necessary device of class domination. Always there exists a deceptive conception of capitalism, readily provided by its intellectuals-for-hire.

Capitalism has taken possession of our planet. It is time to free ourselves.

"The Fair Elections Act"?

The act with the Orwellian title of "The Fair Elections Act" is not fair at all, according to Canada's chief electoral officer. According to Marc Mayrand, we would be better off with no act at all as it disenfranchises those who show up to vote with only voter-information cards or with friends and family to vouch for them. It's estimated that about 120,000 voted this way in 2011. Of course, most of those are poorer people on the margins of society who probably won't vote Conservative. John Ayers.

Promises and Reality

The NHS faces a "financial crisis"next year as a budget freeze imposed by the Coalition risks pushing most hospital trusts into deficit, a leading think-tank has warned. 'In a grim message to all three major parties,  the King's Fund said that whoever wins next May's general election will need to find more funding for the NHS or face up to the reality of "significant cuts to services". ..... Two-thirds of NHS trust finance directors were concerned that their hospital would go into deficit in 2015-16.' (Independent, 15 April) In all the rosy promises of the next election we can well imagine none of the reformers will mention forthcoming NHS financial cuts. That's not what electioneering is about.  RD 

A New World

 Any person with a heart will agree when he or she looks at this world of misery, that our life is not happy. It is often heard said that the idea of socialism, fine and true in itself, is unfortunately unrealisable. Exploitation has  become more refined over the ages and has become more inhuman since nowadays the more we are forced to sell ourselves willingly. We cannot escape from this traffic in men and women. It is now universal. We peddle our ability to work for others  on the labour market. Money is the mark of slavery. Those who can be paid, those who buy and sell each other, are they anything but slaves? We are separated from each other, each one of us lives and works only for himself, yet none of us can for an instant do without each other.

Although Marx did not leave us with a detailed description of a socialist society, his viewpoint was  that this new mode of social production would in essence be an “association of free and equal producers”.  The State is not conceived as being the administrator of production and distribution, but rather it is the producers and consumers themselves to whom these functions would fall. Nationalisation has nothing at all to do with Marx’s conception of socialism, neither the gradualism of the social-democrat Labour Parties or the so-called peoples’ revolutions of the Communist Parties. Sadly, in the course of years his theory was completely turned upside down and many socialists have spent their years trying to put it upright again. In their texts Marx and Engels  used the terms “socialism” and “communism” more or less interchangeably. These terms are often deliberately confused.

The desire for socialism as a just social system runs deep among workers but, nevertheless whoever wishes to see an end to capitalism and state capitalism must replace these realities of social life with other realities and other economic organisations. That can be done only by the producers themselves. And they can do this only collectively, in and through their own organisations. Collectively in the factory, collectively in industry, etc. They must organise themselves in order to administer the means of production through their federated industrial organisations, and so organise the whole of economic life on an industrial and federal basis.

The call for socialism is a strongly held and very encouraging hope among the people. But it is a hope in rather vague terms. The way to achieve it is not yet clear. Sooner or later these questions will be solved by people, in whom there can be infinite confidence. They will be impelled by social necessity to find the correct way.

The people as a whole own the means of production (factories, mines, etc.). Production is for people’s use, not for private profit. The principle is “from each according to ability, to each according to needs”. Production is of such a high level that there are abundant commodities for every member of the community and each member helps himself according to his or her needs. This is the goal of the Socialist Party, the achievement of socialism, a new social system based on the elimination of all classes and class differences. Socialism is the most revolutionary and rational system in human history, a system without exploitation or oppression. The abolition of classes makes possible the enormous development of the productive forces and the production of abundant social wealth. This high level of development and the changes in  consciousness of the people enables each individual to work voluntarily according to the principle of free access to te world’s wealth. The state machine will have withered away. The working class will control and administer production and distribution inside socialism. It will replace the anarchy of capitalist production with planned socialist production, unleashing the great productive and creative capacity of the producers.

Whereas each person needs the production of the whole accessible human world, from China to North America, in order to live and act as a human, they are limited to their own isolated force to obtain all that they need. We  often hear the objection that much work is so hard, so repulsive and even so harmful to health that nobody would undertake it unless he was forced to do so by necessity. This remark which is thought to be the greatest objection to communism is rather the most conclusive argument in its favour. Consider, the high levels that technology has attained today and ask yourself if you can think of any work which men could not perform comfortably, provided that we really wanted to and would not shrink from any cost to make it so.

But suppose that despite all the resources of mechanics there should still remain work that was difficult for men, by what right would you impose the burden of this work on some and not on others? Rather, would not our right and our duty be to mutually lighten such tasks by undertaking them together? Have we then the right to treat as pariahs those who have the misfortune to have been born poor and to assure to others the privilege of an easy life? In a society for which the common welfare will be worth more than all the treasure of the world, in a society which will spare no cost to ensure that work is carried out in such a way that men can do it without harming their lives, in a society which will prefer not to have work done which is not justified from the overall human point of view, in such a society, such inhuman work as exists in our society based on robbery with murder, slavery, unreason and injustice will no longer exist. The more you find in our society such work which man only carries out through necessity, which in other words only a slave does, the more you ought to consider socialism, without which this work will neither be changed nor abolished, to be the indispensable condition for freedom, justice and humanity.

A Poverty -Stricken Society

Politicians are quick to assure workers that either we are experiencing an economic recovery or that good times are just around the corner, but a YouGov poll suggests otherwise.'Millions of families are in such a perilous financial state that they are just one pay cheque away from losing their home, research shows. Nearly four million families who pay rent or a mortgage have so few savings that it would take only a month's missed salary to lose their home, YouGov polling for Shelter reveals. Of these, 2.4 million have no savings whatsoever and would not be able to survive a full month.' (Independent, 14 April) Hardly an economic recovery, is it? RD

A Belligerent Society

Of all the millions of words that have spewed from the mass media about the centenary of the first world war it is probably those of the humorous writer of  the Horrible Histories Terry Deary that get nearest the truth. 'Soldiers on both sides were brainwashed  by propaganda. They were told to go out and kill for their country. All these arguments over who started it are pointless - they all joined in enthusiastically.' (Sunday Times, 13 April) The inevitable outcome of a social system based on economic competition is military violence. RD

A Better World

The basis of socialist society must be the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. The factory floor and the fields on the farm must be under the control of society as a whole, and not as at present under the control of individual capitalists or corporations.  What do we mean by 'society as a whole'? We mean that ownership and control is not the privilege of a class but of all the persons who make up society. No longer will one enterprise compete with another. The organisation of production shall be a cooperative organisation of all the members of society. Nationalisation or state ownership is where a small group controls everything; production has been organised, so that capitalist no longer competes with capitalist; conjointly they extract surplus value from the workers, who have been practically reduced to slavery. There may exist planned production against the anarchy of competition but also retained is the exploitation of one class by another.  There is a joint ownership of the means of production, but it is joint ownership by one class, an exploiting class that is in control of the State. Socialist society does not merely organise production; in addition, it frees people from oppression by others.

In socialism it is no longer the individual manufacturer who produces; the work of production is effected by the gigantic cooperative as a whole. In consequence of this change, we no longer have commodities, but only products. These products are not exchanged one for another; they are neither bought nor sold. They are simply stored in the communal warehouses, and are subsequently delivered to those who need them. In such conditions, money will no longer be required. There will be an ample quantity of all products, our present wounds will long since have been healed, and everyone will be able to get just as much as he needs. A person will take from the communal storehouse precisely as much as he or she needs, no more. No one will have any interest in taking more than he or she wants in order to sell the surplus to others, since all these others can satisfy their needs whenever they please. Money will then have no value. Some socialists suggest because of the history of capitalism and the shortages it has imposed upon vast numbers of people in the first days of socialist society, products will probably be distributed (rationed) in accordance with the amount of work done by the applicant but as a short half-way measure until manufacturing levels are suffice that all can be supplied according to the needs.

In a socialist society there will be no classes and as there will be no classes, this implies there will likewise be no State. The State is a class organisation of the rulers. The State is always directed by one class against the other. A capitalist  State is directed against the workers, whereas a ‘Workers’ State is directed against the capitalist. In the socialist society there are neither l capitalists, nor wage workers; there are simply people. If there are no classes, then there is no class war, and there are no class organisations. Consequently the State has ceased to exist. Since there is no class war, the State has become superfluous. There is no one to be held in restraint, and there is no one to impose restraint.

Administration and planning of production will be entrusted to various kinds of appointed and accountable committees. There will be no need for special ministers of State, for police and prisons, for laws and decrees - nothing of the sort. Just as in an orchestra all the performers watch the conductor's baton and act accordingly, so here all will consult the reports and will direct their work accordingly, or as sailors follow the advice of shipping forecasts and farmers heed the frost warnings of the meteorological offices. The State, therefore,  ceases to exist. There are no groups and there is no class standing above all other classes.

Moreover,  those working in these specialised co-ordination centres  one person will not be a  the permanent bureaucracy.

Socialism is organised throughout cooperatively. There will not be permanent strata of managers, nor will there be persons who do one and the same kind of work throughout their lives. Under capitalism, if a man is an assembly worker, he spends his whole life tending a machine; if he is the manager of a department, he spends his days in issuing orders and in administrative work; if he is a mere labourer, his whole life is spent in obeying orders. Nothing of this sort happens in communist society. With socialism people will enjoy a many-sided culture, and find themselves at home in various branches of production: one day in an administrative capacity, another  working on the shop-floor, One year perhaps in a hospital, tending the needs of the sick, another year in the forests planting saplings and chopping down trees. This will be possible when all the members of society have been suitably educated.

The class war now swallows up vast quantities of resources. In the new system this will be liberated and people will no longer struggle one with another.  How much, again, is lost to society through the competitive struggle of sellers one with another, of buyers one with another, and of sellers with buyers. How much futile destruction results from commercial crises. How much needless outlay results from the disorganization and confusion that prevail in production. The energy and the materials which now are wasted in wars will be saved. If we consider how much is squandered upon armaments alone, we shall realise that this amounts to an enormous quantity.

All these energies, which now run to waste, will be saved in socialism. The organisation of industry on a purposive plan will not merely save us from needless waste, in so far as large scale production is always more economical. In addition, it will be possible to improve production from the technical side. Under capitalism, there are definite limits to the introduction of new machinery. The capitalist only introduces new machinery when he cannot procure a sufficiency of cheap labour. If he can hire an abundance of cheap labour, the capitalist will never instal new machinery, since he can secure ample profit without this trouble. The capitalist finds machinery requisite only when it reduces his expenses for highly paid labour. Under capitalism, however, labour is usually cheap. The bad conditions that prevail among the working class become a hindrance to the improvement of manufacturing technique. This causal sequence is peculiarly obvious in agriculture. Here labour power has always been cheap, and for that reason, the introduction of machinery in agricultural work has been extremely slow. In communist society, our concern will not be for profit but for the workers. There every technical advance will be immediately adopted. The chains which capitalism imposed will no longer exist. Technical advances will continue to take place under communism, for all will now enjoy a good education, and those who under capitalism perished from want - mentally gifted workers, for instance - will be able to turn their capacities to full account.

Socialist production signifies the enormous development of productive forces. As a result, no worker in a socialist society will have to do as much work as of old. The working day will be  shorter, and as soon as mankind is enabled to spend less time upon feeding and clothing, it will be able to devote more time to the work of mental development. Human culture will climb to heights never attained before. It will no longer be a class culture, but will become a genuinely human culture. with the disappearance of man's tyranny over man, the tyranny of man over nature will likewise vanish. Men and women will for the first time be able to lead a life worthy of thinking beings instead of a lives of unthinking robots. “The needy man, burdened with cares, has no appreciation of the most beautiful spectacle.” said Marx. Socialism brings the sense of wonder and marvel to the minds of individuals

Socialists must never weary in our proofs and explanations, in order to convince our fellow workers that their hopes for a better life under capitalism are the outcome of fraud by others or are due to their own self-deception. We must patiently and clearly demonstrate that they ought unhesitatingly to enter the socialist party and despite all difficulties fight shoulder to shoulder with all those who work, to make common cause against the bosses.  The position of the worker  under capitalism is quite hopeless. We must tell people that as long as capitalism lasts there will always be a businessman riding on his or her back.  The Socialist Party must draw into our ranks all those who labour, all those to whom the new life is dear, all those who have learned to think and to fight.

Marxism is sometimes described as “the science of the working class movement”. Marxism is the doctrine of the class struggle. Marxism cannot be regarded as a system of abstract theories unrelated to real life but as a developed science verified and enriched by the acid test of experience. Marxism holds that the leading force in transforming society from capitalism to socialism is that class which is itself a product of capitalism, the working class or, as Marx more precisely defined it, the proletariat, i.e., wage workers who earn their livelihood through the sale of their labor power and have no other means of existence, all toilers and all working people working people is meant all who work for a livelihood and do not exploit the labor of others; a category which includes a large section of the farming population and of the middle class of the cities. Marxism constitutes a “guide to action” for the working class to follow in the struggle to achieve political power and to build socialism. Marxism maintains that the interests of the working class (the proletariat) and the interests of the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) are irreconcilable and that therefore, the interests of the working class can not be served through collaboration or alliance with the capitalists but in opposition to them. From these conflicting interests of the two basic classes, bourgeoisie and proletariat, capitalists and workers, arises an antagonism, a struggle, between the two classes: the class struggle. The class struggle is not an invention of the Marxists but something which has manifested its existence in all countries of the world without exception. What Marxism does do is recognize the class struggle as the motive force of history, as the means by which society moves forward and achieves higher forms of civilization. Consequently, the strategy and tactics of Marxism are also the strategy and tactics of the class struggle of the working class. To give direction and guidance to this struggle, which is essentially a political struggle, the working class must of necessity develop its own Marxist political party, apart from and independent of all other political parties. Without such a Party, free from opportunism, irreconcilable towards compromisers seeking conciliation, in opposition to the capitalist class and its state power, the interests of the working class under capitalism cannot be served nor socialism eventually realized.

War Is Not A Normal Condition Of Man

We are all aware of the mental illnesses leading to breakdown and suicide of soldiers who have been in combat. In fact nine Canadian soldiers have committed suicide in the last few months. Another, related problem has arisen – the silence of those who suffer with mental illness. They worry that by coming forward to seek help they may be declared medically unfit and discharged from the forces. 4,500 soldiers leave the army every year and about 1,700 of those are considered medically unfit. So here we have a situation of people with a genuine need of psychiatric help remaining silent through fear of unemployment. As we keep saying,war is not a normal condition of man and a system that demands such barbarity must be terminated as soon as possible. John Ayers

Understanding socialism

Socialists visualise machinery and technology, created by the genius of humanity, being used, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new system is to be built, raising production and ending all social division by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. This socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

 These days there is a tendency to reduce the meaning of socialism to the introduction of planned economy on the basis of a state-controlled life. The idea of socialism has been divorced from the idea of liberty. State capitalism has been regarded as a stage on the way to socialism and at present there prevails a great confusion of thought where various forms of state capitalism are referred to as socialism. The experiences of the Russian Revolution have revealed the grave innate dangers of state capitalism. State capitalism concentrates an overwhelming power in the hands of the State, and places the citizen completely at the mercy of the State. This State is not run by the working-class and its ruling class use their tremendous power to subjugate the people. Under State capitalism the government derives its income automatically from the economic enterprises of the State. The State becomes the universal employer, the universal landlord. It controls everything on which the fate and happiness of the individual citizen depend. The citizen is dependent on the State as regards employment, housing, supplies, amusement, educational and transport facilities. This enormous power of the State over the individual citizen must needs call forth or strengthen tendencies towards a dictatorship. Therein lies the chief danger of State capitalism. State capitalism does not yet solve any of the outstanding problems. It does not abolish crises, classes, the wage-system. Under State capitalism there is production of commodities for sale, not production for use. Between production and consumption there still remains the partition wall of prices.

 The scramble for profit has wasted and despoiled our world’s rich resources of soil, water, forest and minerals. A lack of social planning results in a waste of our human as well as our natural resources. Socialism offers the maximum opportunities for individual development and the satisfaction of human needs. Many call to “smash” the corporations, we socialists point it is not the  multinational monopolies but the capitalist system which is at fault.  The question for the workers is how to combine industrially and politically to got hold of these industrial giants and distribute their products throughout the whole community, according to the needs of those who have worked to produce.

What are we organised for? What is our chief bond of unity? What is our avowed object? The welfare of the working class and the abolition of capitalism.  We aim at a new society – the socialist commonwealth. Our aim is the commonwealth without State, without government, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all. Industrial slavery is as old as capitalism itself, and before that there were other forms of slavery for the workers. So long as the capitalist system exists, some men will be mking money out of the labour of others. All reforms of the present system of society simply fool the worker into believing that he isn’t being robbed as much as he was before. Class-conscious workers of the world must attack and destroy capitalism and root it out of the world. The State is used to defend and strengthen the power of the capitalists and to oppress the workers. In order to destroy capitalism the workers must first wrest the State power out of the hands of the capitalist class. They must not only seize this power, but abolish the state apparatus entirely. The capitalist State is built to serve capitalism, and that is all it can do, no matter who is running it. propose to overthrow the capitalist State and to establish in its place immediately the industrial commonwealth. Socialists are also opposed to the State and wish to abolish it – to substitute for the government of men the administration of things. The State can only exist as long as there is class struggle. The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the social property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals, not to sectional owners such as syndicalist unions or cooperatives. It must become the property of all in common. Industries, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the work-fore, in each industry, but of all in common, and must be administered for the benefit of all.

Much has been said and written about the new radicalisation yet for all the optimism it has not yet transmitted to a broader spectrum of the working class. What we are witnessing is indeed changing of attitudes, a shifting of beliefs, rejecting previously accepted ideas nd values. It is the response to the economic and social crises we re facing. This radicalisation is measured by the the search for new methods and new standards of social behavior, the desire for a complete change to something better. Who needs the “new” left today when it means trying to emulate the “old” left? What good is “participatory democracy” if it is only to lobby capitalist politicians?

Social forces do not arrive and marshal themselves in movements without some common factors being at work. There is no need to repeat the numerous issues and campaigns that have been conducted in current politics. People are seeing the  callousness of governments in subordinating the alleviation of poverty to the needs of capital accumulation. We have witnessed massive attacks on the working and the poor. People are angry at the attacks on their basic living conditions. A mass movement has never been more necessary but the left has not, except in isolated incidents, been able to rally masses of people. Protest groups in general have not been able to capitalise on the situation. The Left has failed to develop a significant political movement at a time when the need for such a movement is great. What has been the problem? Why has the Left failed?

When the crisis hit, the trade union movement responded in the same manner as it always had. That is, each union fought the cutbacks and layoffs on economic lines as any union would with its employer. This basic response is one of trying to win concessions and compromises. There is but one power which can bring freedom, happiness and peace to humanity. That power is the working class if well organised and determined to fight all who would oppose and prevent its complete emancipation. Socialism seeks to solve the  problem of human misery by revolution. We must always keep in mind that our goal is socialist revolution. Our agitation and propaganda is to help raise the level of class consciousness and understanding of what socialist revolution means. We must be above board and honest rather than manipulative.

Capitalism In Asia

Every day on the TV and press we are made aware of the appalling poverty that exists in Asian countries, but that is only part of the picture.'There are three times more Asian billionaires in Britain than there were five years ago while total wealth of the 101 richest Asians in the country has  risen 14pc to £51.5bn over the past 12 months alone.  The latest Asian Rich List is topped by the Hinduja brothers, Gopichand and Srichand, who have added £1bn to their wealth over the past year and now estimated to be worth £13.5bn.' (Daily Telegraph, 12 April) Millions starve in Asia but Asian billionaires increase their immense wealth - that is capitalism worldwide. RD

A Brutal Society

It is common for the media to depict the USA and its allies as always behaving in a humane fashion unlike its evil opponents who indulge in torture and other brutal tactics. Recent events seem to give the lie to such a notion. 'Senate committee found CIA interrogations and detentions to be 'brutal' and urges administration to release report as quickly as possible. A leak of the major findings of a landmark Senate inquiry into the CIA's post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees led, on Friday, to intensified pressure on the White House and the CIA to release the inquiry speedily and with a minimum of redactions.' (Guardian, 11 April) Capitalism is a brutal competitive society and all its governments reflect that brutality in their actions. RD

The Passion of Freedom

Socialists keep hoping for the spark that will set a wildfire of workers in motion.  Some believe the worse our situation gets—economically, politically, ecologically—the more we yearn for a vast movement to erupt and transform the landscape. Others argue that it is only in times of a boom that workers have the luxury and confidence of political activity for something new rather than struggling to survive. We have felt the embers still glowing from past class  conflagration. In our lifetimes, we see sparks—but we haven’t seen them spread. We’re more connected than ever before, able to witness each other’s struggles in real time via the internet, yet mostly, the sparks haven’t leapt from one workplace to another,  city to city , one country to another country. The Occupy movement and Arab Spring were possibly the exceptions. Perhaps they were the dress rehearsal for something greater and the foundation for the next battle.

 In our workplaces, our collective task in the unions is to go up against the bosses, getting in fights, and by losing some and by winning some of them, we learn and acquire more experience for the next fight. Every day we must challenge those holding the power: over the daily indignities of pay, hours, grievances and injustices. We should be involved in community issues like pollution of the neighbourhoods we live in . Struggle teaches us that we have our own power—and teaches us how to use it. We begin by working to convince fellow workers that we have each other’s backs against a common enemy. We share the education about who our enemies are and how they’ve held onto power all these years when we outnumber them. We need to break down the fear many of us have come to phold when confronted by the State and employers. People have to create and own the vision and the strategy for power. They have to be the agents and organisers, not the props for professional politicians.  People will participate for things that really matter—things that captures their passion. It will take an immense effort by immense numbers to reverse the giant mess capitalism has made of everything which has brought our planet to the verge of eco-catastrophe.

The Socialist Party is the party of the interests of the working class, and is the enemy of capitalism which brings it into a fundamental opposition to all pro-capitalist parties. Its aim is the establishment of a socialist society in which the means of production will not be the private property of the few, a society which will not be based upon profit but on peoples needs.

 The problem before society to-day is not a financial problem as can be so easily mistaken by the attention given solely to one section of the capitalist class - the bankers.  It is a property problem. The banks belong to the superstructure of capitalism. Private property is the foundation. The financial crises, credit crises and the like are nothing more than the reflections of the fundamental economic crisis arising from the fact that the private ownership of the means of production has become an anachronism in a society where social methods of production have superseded individual methods of production. No amount of financial fiscal regulation, no amount of money supply manipulation which leaves the question of property ownership untouched, can do anything else but aggravate the crisis of capitalism.

Social ownership, which must supersede the private ownership of the means of production, can only come about through the political victory of the class without property over the class with property. The socialist task is one of abolishing capitalism altogether and founding an economy  based on a cooperative commonwealth and by commonwealth, we mean not a form of government rule, but an independent community holding its resources in common.

 The Socialist Party does not seek bloody revolution. But we do want the social revolution, i.e., a complete and fundamental change in the relation of the classes. It is a change which is only possible when a number of historical conditions exist. One of those conditions is that the majority of the workers must be ready to make the change. We foresee the advent of social conditions under which everyone will be relieved of the burden of material difficulty and distress; and under which, in consequence, mankind will be able, because its economic existence is assured, to devote itself to new and higher tasks. In this society of the future, personal freedom and the well-being of all without exception will, for the first time in history, become realities, and the individual will, at the same time, be able to develop fully his personal aptitudes and capacities.

Capitalism In The USA

Official statistics show a US economy in recovery, but 1 in 5 people in a new poll still say that there have been times in the last 12 months when they didn't have enough money to buy food. 'Despite official signs of economic recovery in the US, more Americans struggled to afford food in 2013 than in 2012. Gallup asked a large sampling of US adults if there have been times in the past 12 months when they did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed. Some 18.9 per cent of poll respondents said they had struggled to afford food, a nationwide total that compares with 18.2 per cent in 2012 and 17.8 per cent in 2008 (the lowest rate recorded since Gallup began asking the question in that year). By that measure, hunger in America appears to be edging up rather than down.' (Christian Science Monitor, 21 March) The USA is the world's most developed capitalist country yet one one in five go hungry. RD

The Plain Brutal Fact.

For some years, the apologists of capitalism have touted Sweden as an example that capitalism with a small dash of socialism will work. They mean free enterprise and the welfare state wedded together, that has meant some prosperity, low unemployment and lack of abject poverty in the country. However, the population of Sweden, as elsewhere, lives under capitalism and nothing stands still, so prosperity doesn't last. The Toronto Star of February 22, reports that they now have shanty- towns in the suburbs of Stockholm. Growing unemployment in the last six years has caused at least twenty shanty-towns to spring up. That's in a country that has largely avoided Europe's debt and economic crisis but now has beggars on the streets. The plain, brutal fact is that no matter how good things may get, at times, under capitalism, it won't last. John Ayers.

Canaries in the Coalmine!

 UNICEF is making an unprecedented appeal for $2.2 billion to avert a crisis of 59 million children around the world at risk from war, hunger, exploitation, disease, and natural disasters. The report (Toronto Star, Feb 23) says the children are the canaries in the coalmine pointing to the state of the world and those who will soon inherit it. "Keep on rocking in the Free world" as Neil Young sang. Indeed! John Ayers.

Socialist Democracy

The Socialist Party will defend every democratic right won in the course of the long years of struggle. The Socialist Party will defend everything which will facilitate a peaceful revolution on the basis of popular consent to majority rule. Socialism is the rule (‘government’ if you so wish) of the people, by the people, for the people, based upon the social collective ownership of the means of production. By bringing men together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and material gain in place of humanity, capitalism has always been inherently alienating. A socialist transformation of society will return to mankind to its sense of humanity, no longer treated as a commodity. A socialist democracy implies man's control of his and her  immediate environment as well, and in any strategy for building socialism, community democracy is as vital as the struggle for electoral success.

To that end, socialists must strive for democracy at those levels that most directly affect us all — in our neighborhoods, our schools, and our places of work. Tenants' unions, consumers' and producers' cooperatives are examples of areas in which socialist must lead in efforts to involve people directly in the struggle to control their own destinies. The struggle to build a democratic socialist world must proceed at all levels of society. Democracy, the achievement of a struggle of generations, has to be safeguarded by the working class. But for the working class defence means extension. This enthusiasm of millions cannot be effectively roused merely of the defence of the status quo existing in democratic countries. The most effective defence of democracy is a clear fight for the improvement of conditions of the people, especially a struggle for the raising of the bottom from the sordid conditions of toil and misery under which he or she subsists.

Socialism is not some utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. In socialism, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Socialism will be a higher level of social development because the working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean state control. The exact features of socialism will emerge as our struggle against capitalism develops. Based upon study of society we can visualize some features.

The means of production – the factories, mines, mills, offices, farms, transportation , media and communications, medical facilities, big retailers, etc., will be transformed into public (common) property. Private ownership of the means of production will end. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximization. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible.

Rational scientific planning will replace the present anarchistic system of production. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies (local regional and worldwide) will aim at building an economy that will be stable and benefit the people. Capitalism has already developed an inter-linked economy, socialism’s main task will be to reorient this structure towards social needs. Capitalist planning is not the same thing as socialist planning. Although there may be a period of reorganisation after the revolution, we will not face the problem of building a modern economy. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and some experiment. There could be a combination of computer planning plus local coordination, depending on what will be appropriate to changing conditions. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of democratic common ownership, production for the people’s needs, and the elimination of exploitation, as well as the protection of the environment. Socialism will open the door to great many beneficial changes for people.  Workers will be cherished as the builders and masters of society as they assume administration of the economy, managing democratically their own work places through workers’ councils serve society’s interests as well as their own. There will be no overnight transformation of men and women in socialism, but the way will be cleared to achieve a decent, meaningful and productive life for all people so they can enjoy fuller and more complete lives.  People will no longer be viewed as simply dispensable means to accumulate profits. Cultural life, The arts, sports, education, popular entertainment and other forms of leisure will not be determined by worship of money.  Science, freed from patent law and intellectual property rights, would be devoted to spreading the frontiers of human knowledge and not expanding a corporation’s market share.

Only socialists are the true fighters for democracy. The struggle for socialism is in reality the struggle for democracy. Conversely, democracy is the champion of all generous-hearted efforts to attain general well-being and communal interest. The complete victory of democracy, would usher in socialism.

The Real Power Struggle

The Socialist Party endorses the principle of democracy, that is rule for and by the people. Organisation is another principle we stand by in the working class fight for emancipation, hence,  over-riding importance of democratic organisation. Political organisations have grown up, though not everywhere in exactly the same way, because the political conditions are different in different countries, nevertheless, a political party needs general principles for its propaganda; for its fight with other parties it wants a theory having definite views about the future of society.  Socialist parties have the special task of fighting by political means for the needs and interests of the workers.

A political party engaged in discussion of theory in the Marxian sense does not do it for the sake of agreeable mental exercise. It is not performed for scholastic academic purposes.  It is concerned with theory because it needs to know how to act and not act, and avoid a merely opportunistic or adventuristic basis. Elaboration of theory leads to practical application of political ideas.  We cannot abandon the conception of party democracy and workers democracy as did the old Communist Parties. They espoused a mystical un-Marxian belief that the Party could do no wrong and any amount of political trickery and chicanery could be justified to “capture” the trade unions or other political groups. The Socialist Party will does not advocate or employ such methods.

The might of the workers fails because it is not consciously directed against capitalism. The persistent reformist may brush aside this difficulty by admitting it. That we say is true, runs the argument.- “ conditions have changed. The present is better than the past." Those who spread these arguments are either themselves deceived or they plan to deceive others.

 In the thirties workers redeemed their temporary submission to capitalism with increasing challenges to the very foundations of capitalism. The sanctity of property they repudiate with sit-ins.  In response to assaults of police and militia they answered during strikes with whatever weapons at their disposal. The injunctions of judges they disregarded. The very necessities of existence compelled  them, in their economic struggles, to challenge capitalism or sink into submission and poverty.

The chasm that divides capitalists and workers nowadays yawns deeper and wider apart. This is once more filling up with discontent which, once directed and released, will roll like a torrent and shatter with its power capitalism. This is the present and this is the future which confronts capitalism and the capitalists.

 Capitalism must struggle to keep up profits. That is the life-blood of the system. That is the foundation for the dominance of the capitalists. Viewed from their angle, both capitalism and the political dominance of the capitalist class must be maintained even if workers and everyone except the narrowing circle of capitalists, are bent beneath the back-breaking burden of economic exploitation. The one question we pose is: How can they keep the swelling discontent from overthrowing them and their system?

The liberal capitalists think capitalism can best be served by keeping the people quiet with minor concessions. Other capitalists think that concessions that were minor during the period of expanding capitalism are major now because capitalism is in recession and since they cannot be granted discontent is sure to grow therefore coercive measures should be in place to contain any resistance. In the face of growing conflict, liberal capitalists and more authoritarian capitalists forget differences and unite for the maintenance of capitalism and the power of their class. This means dealing out blows against any workers movements that may arise. Occupy was doomed by its isolation from the rest of the labour movement. The class struggle, is a struggle for power. The class struggle itself is a form of war, social war, and class power decides the issue. The power of the feudal nobility lay in landed estates; that of the bourgeoisie in its capital and ownership of the industrial estates; the power of the proletariat lies in its massive numbers.