For a socialist party

Today the whole world is in the grip of a recession. Millions of workers are unemployed and being reduced to subsistence standards of living yet 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 with many under-fed and actually starving. Even those people who escape the worst excesses of deprivation often find that their lives are empty and meaningless; they experience severe alienation. Wherever one looks in the world, people are turned away from each other and thrown into all manner of antagonistic conflicts. The human species is even developing an antagonistic relationship with its environment. Slowly but surely by poisoning the atmosphere, polluting the oceans and ravaging the land, Nature is being turned against us. None of these things are isolated or accidental but all interconnected. At the root of all these problems is the exploitation of some people by other people, the capitalist class exploiting the working class, the oppressors against the oppressed. No lasting solution to any of these problems will be found while capitalism is allowed to survive in the world.

Today the human species stands at a turning point: either we develop further by means of the revolutionary socialist transformation of society or we are eventually destroyed. There is nothing inevitable about the further advancement of the human species. True, the only real, lasting way forward is socialism but whether or not this road is taken is a matter of decision for human beings whereby they decide to take their own fate into their own hands is there any possibility of progress. The working class has it within its power to overthrow capitalist society and in so doing to pave the way for the liberation of the whole of humankind. History never stands still: if we do not move forward then we may well regress backwards.

The relationship between capitalists and workers is unavoidably and inherently exploitive and oppressive because capitalist profits are derived from paying workers less than the value of what they produce. It follows that all the time a class-divided capitalist society exists there will be a continuous, never-ending class war between capitalists and workers. The main enemy of the working class, the target of the revolution, is the capitalist class. These are the really  industrialists and financiers, together with leading state functionaries. They dominate the economic, political and cultural life of this country. The  capitalists have a solid interest in perpetuating the rule of capital.

Experience has shown that while they find it necessary at times to make certain minor concessions to the working class and are willing to enter into alliances and accommodations with various groups outside their ranks, that even so the capitalists will never tolerate any fundamental challenge to their interests and rule.  A comparatively small group of capitalists at whose head stand the smaller group of billionaires compete with each other in the exploitation of the millions of propertyless workers. The workers compete with each other for a livelihood controlled by the owners of the means of production. While there are differences within this class on what is the best way of controlling the working class so as to perpetuate the rule of capital they stand united in their determination to uphold its reign. Any challenge to their rule is met with whatever measures are necessary to defeat it, including armed force. These people are the real rulers and the working class will never be free until we overthrow the capitalist class.

Violence is not revolution, for though violence may possibly in certain circumstances accompany a revolution it is not the revolution. There can be no social revolution without a fundamental change in the relation of the classes. It is the division of society into property owners and propertyless people which lies at the root of the crisis of the capitalist world. Talk of reconciling class interests is simple deceit. It is impossible to reconcile the interests of the slave owner and the slave, the exploiter and the exploited. The truth is that the employing class want the State  more firmly to fetter the exploited to their exploitation, to rivet class division securely by oppression.

Parliament grew out of feudalism and after the capitalist revolution. It was founded on private property foundations. Its laws are the laws of private property. Nevertheless, the modifications that have taken place, the extension of the franchise and the growth of social legislation for the working-class are the reflection of the growing strength and power of the working-class. The greater the crisis of capitalism the more Parliament reflects the class struggle in its work, because more the capitalists attempt to use it as the means to regulate capitalist economy and  the more they are impeded by the increasing claims of the workers who feel the full force of the crisis. This is seen in the protests against austerity cuts, against the attacks on benefits, against the lowering of the standard of life, against the crushing burdens and the pauperisation of the workers.

The unity of the working class can be made real in a socialist party, if that party becomes, in fact as well as in name, the fighting force of the whole working-class movement. Its avowed aim should be the reorganisation of the economic and social life on the economic foundation of socialism.  It must use not only the weapon of mass organisation on the industrial field, but the weapon of parliamentary democracy, won in the past by working class power. It must set itself, by using the machine of Parliament, by adapting it and changing it to serve new purposes, to win power so that it shall transfer into the hands of the exploited  the land and the industries. It must wage the class struggle if class domination is to end. A socialist and working-class movement fighting relentlessly for socialism and in that fight combating the day to day attacks of capitalism is the only way to defeat capitalism.

The Rich Get Richer

In last month's Socialist Standard we dealt with the French economist Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century and its many short-comings, but its publication and the many reviews it has produced in the mass media has thrown up some interesting aspects of modern capitalism. Here for instances is the journalist Philip Collins in his review of the book. 'Between 1977 and 2007 the richest 1 per cent of Americans took an astonishing 60 per cent of the growth in national income. Sixty per cent. The wealth of the richest 85 people in the world is greater than that of the 3.5 billion people who make up the bottom half of the world's population.' (Times, 2 May) Such statistics must give even the staunchest defenders of capitalism cause for concern. RD

Please Sir May I Have Some More

A group of 170 doctors and researchers have highlighted the plight of many badly-fed children and likened them to modern day Oliver Twists hungry for more. 'In an open letter published in The Lancet, they urge the Prime Minister to take action in the face of a "an overwhelming strain on household food budgets", saying that the rise of food banks is a sign that poor families are increasingly struggling to afford to eat  properly.' (Times, 2 May) It says much about progress in modern capitalism that medical experts can compare modern Britain with Dickensian times. RD

SPGB ELECTION BROADCAST

For a new world not a new nation

The task of socialists is to clearly speaking clearly for workers’ interests, ALL workers’ interests,  and support ‘internationalism’ against the ‘national interest’. We live in an upside-down world that protects the profits of a privileged few at the expense of the rest of us yet it is we, with our labour, our skills and our ingenuity that built this world and that keeps it running every day. And it is we who are overworked and underpaid. A socialist world is possible and worth fighting for.

The richest 10% of households in Scotland have 900 times the accumulated wealth of the poorest 10%, according to a new Scottish Government analysis. It confirms the old saying that money goes to money, with those who have a large slice of one form of wealth having other kinds too, while the poorest have little wealth of any sort, making it hugely difficult for them to accumulate some.

30% of Scotland's children live in households which between them own less than 2% of the nation's private worth.

 The wealthiest 30% of households had 76% of all private wealth in Scotland: 84% of pension wealth, 81% of financial wealth, 70% of property wealth, and 54% of physical wealth.

The poorest 30% of households accounted for just 11% of physical wealth and less than 1% of private pensions, property and financial wealth.

The middle 40% of households held 22% of total wealth, but 35% of physical wealth, 29% of property wealth, 18% of financial wealth and 15% of private pension wealth.

The most recent figures show total household wealth in Scotland was £811 billion, of which almost half - £402bn - was attributable to private pensions. Property accounted for £230bn (28%), financial wealth such as savings, stocks and shares covered £90bn, and physical wealth such as cars and jewellery £89bn (both accounting for 11%).

Research by the Green Party suggests that 43 chief executives of public bodies are earning six figure salaries, though the median salary in Scotland is £26,000. The chief executive of Scottish Water earned £350,000 to £400,000 in 2011-12, 27 times the salary of a water treatment operator. At NHS Lothian the chief executive earned £190,000-£195,000 in 2011-12, which is 13 times what a nursing assistant earns. The boss of Scottish Enterprise Lena Wilson earned £200,000 - £205,000 in 2011-12 and Barry White, head of the Scottish Futures Trust who was on £185,000.

There was little difference in the level of wealth inequality in Scotland compared with Great Britain as a whole. Independence for Scotland  has nothing to do with liberation and no section of the working class will benefit. The nationalists attack London’s mismanagement and promise Scots wealth beyond our wildest dreams. For whom? Scottish industrialists are well aware of the potential profits of separation.

Until we create our own class voice working people will remain locked out of political power. We need to declare our class independence and create a real alternative: a socialist one. Real change is never handed down by politicians. Real change is won by people standing together and building movements. Rallying workers to socialism is not a matter of clever tricks, skilful manipulation or stealthy infiltration. It is instead the demonstration of the correctness of the socialist case. Some deny this point of view and call for independence or appeal to stay in the UK union. In its fight against capitalism, socialists encounters various tendencies among the working class, which to a greater or less degree reflect the views and expresses a favourable attitude towards a particular section of the capitalist class. The working class requires to break through the obstacles placed in the path of independent political action. It must therefore, must propose its irreconcilable opposition to the capitalist class and the capitalist state. A socialist party cannot be an amorphous, all-inclusive party. We, socialists, refuse to join the reformists in leading the workers down the road into the camp of capitalism. The only road is the socialist road.

The Valley Of Despair

The source of much of the advanced technology of capitalism takes place in what has become known as Silicon Valley in the USA. Vast fortunes have been acquired by members of the owning class there but not everyone is doing so well in the area. 'Mark Zuckerberg's fortune grew by $10 billion last year, but not all the denizens of Silicon Valley are prospering. .... Silicon Valley has the fifth-largest homeless population in the US. ..... About 1,000 children and young adults are among the region's 7,000 homeless. Many live in an area known as "The Jungle" in San Jose, a squalid shantytown that is home to hundreds.' (Times, 2 May) That is how capitalism operates. Billions of dollars for the owning class and lives of penury for many of the working class. RD

So What's New?

No doubt the journalist Cheryl. K. Chumley seems to think that this piece of information is startling news. 'America is no longer a a democracy - never mind the democratic republic envisioned by founding Fathers. Rather it has taken a turn down Elitist Lane and become a country led by a small dominant class comprised of powerful members who exert total control over the general population - an Oligarchy, said a new study jointly conducted by Princeton and NothWestern Universities. One finding in the study: the US government now represents the rich and powerful, not the average citizen, United Press International reported.' (Washington Times, 21 April) Far from being a recent development of course, this situation of the owning class being in economic and political control has always existed in the USA.RD

All For Each And Each For All

The spectre of poverty and insecurity haunts every worker. For centuries we have lived as slaves.  Are we not all equal? Well then, we claim the right to live and die equal, the way we were born. And we’ll have this real equality, at whatever price. Gutless politicians have no more genius than they do good faith. None have had the courage to tell the whole truth. The selfish and the ambitious will tremble with rage and those who possess unjustly will cry out about injustice. Freedom for them is when one class can starve another with impunity. Equality is nothing but a vain phantom when the rich, through monopoly of ownership, exercise the right of life or death over the poor.

We seek the common good and the community of goods. We declare that we can no longer put up with the fact that the great majority work and sweat for the smallest of minorities. No more individual property in land: the land belongs to no one. We demand the common enjoyment of the fruits of the land that belong to all. Long enough, and for too long, the few have disposed of that which belongs to us all. The people want freedom and equality.

Let it at last end this great scandal of distinctions between rich and poor, great and small, masters and servants, rulers and ruled. Let there no longer be any difference between people. Since all have the same faculties and the same needs, let there then be for them but one education, but one food. They are satisfied with one sun and one air for all: why then would the same portion and the same quality of food not suffice for each of them? We tell you that we are organising for no other goal than to put an end to civil dissension and public misery. Never before has a vaster plan been conceived of or carried out than the organisation of real equality, the only one that responds to all needs, without causing any victims, without costing any sacrifice.

The day after this real revolution, we’ll say with astonishment: What? Happiness was so easy to obtain? All we had to do was want it? Why, oh why, didn’t we desire it sooner? Open your eyes and your hearts to the fulfilment of happiness: recognise and proclaim a society of equals and an emancipated world. A society of economic and social equals wherein class divisions, privileges and disabilities will for the first time in history be impossible; a system of social ownership of the means of production industrially administered by the workers on an organised and harmonious plan, ensuring from every person according to his or her capacity and to everyone according to his or her needs.

This Social Revolution is the objective of the World Socialist Movement, the goal which every step it takes heads towards It is time for the labour movement, too, to hearken to the call of the times to discard its futile reformism. It is time to recognise the nature of the fight and to unite all our forces in countering the enemy. We hold aloft the banner of World Socialism, when the class war shall have been for ever stamped out, when mankind shall no longer cower under the oppressor, when the necessaries and amenities of life, its comfort and culture shall be to those who toil and not them that exploits, a society where none shall be called master and none servant, but all shall be fellow workers in common.

Either we get rid of this capitalist system or it will devastate humanity. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. Our human resources are wasted through social and economic conditions which stunt human growth, through unemployment and through our failure to provide adequate education. We aim to replace  the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democracy based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people. What we seek is a proper collective organisation of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every person. The community must organise its resources to effect a reduction of the hours of work in accordance with technological development.

Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of bountiful abundance. Opportunities for enriching the standard of life are greater than ever. However, unless there is intelligent planning, the evils of the past will be multiplied in the future. The technological changes will produce even greater concentrations of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment and the displacement of populations.

 We do not believe in change by violence but that this social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action. As a social movement, we support all struggles against the injustices of capitalism. We cannot offer a blueprint to a better future but we offer an invitation to all workers to join us, as we join them, in our common efforts to eradicate a social system based on exploitation, discrimination, poverty and war. The capitalist system must be replaced by socialist democracy. That is the burning issue of our era.

 A free life on a free earth. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of working people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. That is the only hope of humanity.

Who Owns the North Pole (part 71)

...Not us if there is an oil spill !

Approximately 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and about 15 percent of its untapped oil lie in the Arctic. But the majority, 84 percent, of the estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and 47.3 trillion cubic meters of gas remain offshore. The five countries with territorial claims in the Arctic – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States – have stated intentions to develop these reserves, if they haven’t begun already. Three oil and gas companies – ConocoPhillips, Norwegian multinational Statoil, and Shell Oil – have received approval to explore the US Arctic territory.

A National Research Council’s new study – funded by US federal agencies and the leading trade group for the oil industry, the American Petroleum Institute – found that energy companies currently lack Arctic oil spill response plans, as it is their responsibility to address such an event.  The US government does not have infrastructure capabilities in place despite its rush to establish dominance in the region.

“The lack of infrastructure and oil spill response equipment in the U.S. Arctic is a significant liability in the event of a large oil spill,” the report states. “Building U.S. capabilities to support oil spill response will require significant investment in physical infrastructure and human capabilities, from communications and personnel to transportation systems and traffic monitoring.”

Adequate research into what awaits industry in the extreme cold of Arctic waters is also lacking, the report said. There is little understanding of how the low temperatures would affect both spilled oil and commonly-used techniques to reverse the effects of a spill, such as the spread of chemical dispersants. The report goes as far as suggesting that the only way to know is to conduct a controlled oil spill.

In an incident in 2012, involving a Shell oil-drilling rig, that has provided the starkest indication of what lies ahead for companies in the region. In a rush to avoid an upcoming tax liability about to go into effect, Shell decided to drag its top rig, the Kulluk, around 1,700 miles through frigid Arctic waters despite warnings from the tow ship’s captain. The Kulluk, reportedly carrying 150,000 gallons of fuel, eventually broke free from the towing ship floating off into an ecologically-sensitive area. The rig and its crew had to be rescued by the US Coast Guard, which recently released a report on the incident that slams Shell for “inadequate assessment and management of risks.”

“Vessels and the operations they conduct are growing more complex, and the risks that accompany these operations increase, whether in Alaskan waters or not,” wrote Joseph A. Servidio, a Coast Guard rear admiral, in the report. “The failure to adequately understand, respect, and not complacently assume past practice will address new risks, is critical both in practice and in company culture.”

These commercial interests worry advocates of ecologically-intelligent approaches to the Arctic.

“The Arctic Council should be a forum focused on protecting the Arctic environment, yet we see it more and more talking about protecting economic interests in the region,” John Deans, an Arctic campaigner with Greenpeace USA, told Mint Press. 

The Only Solution - Revolution

Capitalism has outlived its earlier progressive role. This is now the era of socialist revolution.  Capital must accumulate in order to survive. It grows by keeping for itself the surplus value produced by workers after they have reproduced the value of their labour power, their wages. Surplus value is the source of all profit. The unending search for surplus value, for profit, is the motive force of capitalist production. Capitalism can produce only for profit. In times of crisis the capitalists tell us to tighten our belts and slave harder for them, for “ the national interest”. They try to increase exploitation so as to get the huge profit needed to start capital expanding again. Economic expansion accompanied by widespread suffering and injustice is not desirable social progress. A society motivated by the drive for private gain and special privilege is basically immoral.

Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, shutdowns and neglect of health and safety. Unions, despite their courageous efforts, have encountered difficulties eliminating even the worst abuses of management power.

People live and work in a world dominated by multinationals and corporate monopolies. These far-flung business empires, of a scope and size unimaginable to previous generations, treat the entire planet as their domain. They are a law unto themselves, free to roam the globe in search of cheaper labour, more exploitable resources, more pliant governments and greater profits. They now hold the power of life and death over every region and industry. By their dictates, our resources have been plundered. Workers are their pawns in a global game of mergers, shutdowns, and relocations. These transnational conglomerates have robbed us of our wealth and of the very power to determine our own future. An world-wide unemployment and hunger are the legacy. These profiteering corporations, incapable of turning their technology and organisation to the needs of people, are collapsing under the weight of their hoarded wealth. They have distorted the economic development of the world so fundamentally, the resources they waste on war production, for instance, could eliminate hunger in the world. The computer revolution will only intensify massive permanent unemployment, tedious and stressful jobs for remaining workers, and terrifying concentrations of knowledge and social control in the hands of private internet businesses. If harnessed to popular administration and planning, new technology could help us achieve an era of abundance for all, release us from monotonous toil and enrich our store of accessible information. The socialist option is the only alternative. The flaws of capitalism are too basic, the power of the capitalist corporations too great, the chasm separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed.

The half-measures of government intervention such as tinkering with monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate investment and spending or legislative reforms, aimed at the most blatant abuses of corporate power has proven futile. Welfare state policies, though won by hard struggles, have done little to correct deep-seated structures of social inequality. In these harsh economic times of recession, corporations hold governments to ransom through their control of desperately needed investment. Even reform- minded governments have buckled under this pressure, and passed vicious legislation, slashing social services and trampling the basic rights of workers. Capitalism is failing, and so are the efforts to reform it. That failure puts a campaign for the socialist alternative on the immediate agenda. Socialists reaffirms their belief that our society must build a new relationship among men--a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality of opportunity. In such a society everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop his or her capacities to the full.

The task of the Socialist Party to shape the struggle of the working class into a conscious and unified one and to point out the inherent necessity of its goals. The interests of the working class are the same in all countries and with the expansion of global commerce the world market, the position of the worker in every country becomes increasingly dependent on the position of workers in other countries. The emancipation of the working class is thus a task in which the workers of all countries are equally involved. Recognising this, the Socialist Party declares itself to be at one with the class-conscious workers of all other countries. The Socialist Party fights for the abolition of class rule. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a united commonwealth of labour. The hungry, oppressed and underprivileged of the world must know social democracy not as a smug slogan but as a way which sees the world as one whole. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. It will be accomplished by democratizing all levels of society.

After abolishing private ownership of the means of production and converting these means into social property, the world system of socialism will replace the world market and its competitive and blind processes of social production, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society there will be a planned utilisation of all resources.

 The disappearance of classes will do away with the exploitation of man by man. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy: instead of being merely a means of livelihood it will become a desirable part of life. The want and inequality, the misery and a wretched standard of life of wage slaves will disappear.

Schools for Socialism?

There exists to-day, so many factions all claiming the course necessary to be taken by the working class towards its emancipation. The Socialist Party does not minimise the necessity and importance of the worker keeping up the struggle to maintain the wage-scale, resisting cuts. There are some signs however that general combativity is rising. Let's not forget that this is vital if our class is to develop some of the solidarity and self-confidence essential for the final abolition of wage slavery. Socialists recognise the necessity of workers' solidarity in the class struggle against the capitalist class, and rejoice in every victory for the workers to assert their economic power.

Trade unions are necessary, not to overthrow the present system, but to resist capitalist encroachment under the system. To struggle for higher wages and better conditions is not revolutionary in any fundamental sense of the word; and the essential weapons in this struggle are not revolutionary either. Industrial militancy is just that: militancy on the industrial field. Those who are most active in this do tend to have political views, generally of a left-wing nature, but it is not for these views that they are supported; it is for their negotiating skills and their ability to stand up to the bosses and express what their fellow workers feel about pay and working conditions. There have been numerous examples of shop stewards and works convenors who at work have been able to “mobilise” thousands of workers but who, when they have stood at elections for the Communist Party, have received only a few hundred votes. Industrial militancy does not lead to political militancy, but ebbs and flows as labour market conditions change – and industrial militants can in no way count on leading their supporters on or on to the political field. Most experienced industrial militants are well aware of this and wouldn’t dream of trying to.

To be sure, participation in the class struggle does not automatically make workers class conscious. Workers are not "reformist" because "the unions" make them so; rather the level of political consciousness within a union will be a reflection of the general consciousness of the working class at the time. If more militant members are losing the arguments then this reflects a wider passivity: something that is hardly surprising given the shattering defeats organised labour has suffered in Britain in recent decades. Trade unions can only be as militant and class conscious (and effective) as their memberships are, which must depend on the wider situation. (Though this isn't to take away from the damage done by servile union bosses) To create a dichotomy between "the unions" and "the workers" can only lead to a distorted analysis of the uses and limitations of union struggle. Ultimately the union and the workers are one and the same thing. If these workers have reformist outlook on life, i.e. believe that capitalism can be made to run in the interests of all, the unions must therefore have the same outlook; on the other hand if there were more revolutionary workers in the unions—and in society generally—then the unions would have a more revolutionary outlook, no longer harbouring any illusions about 'common national interests' . That would not in any way alter the essential nature and role of the trade unions as the defensive organisations of the working class; but it would make them far more effective fulfilling that role

Socialism demands the revolutionising of the workers themselves. This does not mean that workers should sit back and do nothing, the struggle over wages and conditions must go on. But once we have learned the hard lessons, it becomes clear that this is a secondary, defensive activity. The real struggle is to take the means of wealth production and distribution – the factories, farms, offices, mines etc. – into the common ownership and democratic control of the entire world community. Only by conscious and democratic action will such a socialist system of society be established. This means urging workers to want something more than what they once thought was "enough".

Socialists are accused of wanting "too much" because our aim is aim is a society in which the earth is the common property of all . The task of the Socialist Party is to show workers that it is a practical proposition which calls for their urgent attention in order to transform a picture of how we could live into a movement for how we shall live. To transform this desire into an immediancy for the working class. Democratic decisions will need to be made, not by leaders but by all interested people. That people are capable of organising their own affairs in common is one of the things that has clearly demonstrated. The socialist movement must be "the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority" (Communist Manifesto).

One school of thought in the working class political movement sees unofficial and wildcat strikes as bona fide rebellions, not only against the labour leaders, but against the capitalist system itself. This school views unofficial actions and wildcat strikes as the beginnings of a real rank and file movement which will eventually result in the workers throwing out the union bureaucrats, taking over the factories, establishing workers' councils and ultimately a "workers society" based on these councils. Often If one reads in leftist journals an impression that a tremendous political movement of the workers is under way. Yet these wildcats still remain purely economic struggles on the part of the workers. They have a grievance arising out of the conditions of their work, instinctively they bring to bear their only weapon, withdrawal of their labour. For a brief period the workers are aroused. They assail their union leaders in no uncertain terms. But they learn nothing of the role of these union leaders in support of capitalism because they do not understand the society under which they live. In a few days, after the wildcat is over, the workers return to their routine thinking.

Some believe these wildcat unofficial strikes can be used as a lever to push the workers along a political road, towards their "emancipation." How is this possible if the workers do not understand the political road, and are only engaging in economic struggles? The answer is that "leaders in-the-know" will direct the workers, much as a guide-dog leads a blind person. But more often than not these leaders will also try to lead the workers in the wrong direction, toward the wrong goals (nationalisation and state capitalism), as the workers later find out to their sorrow.

The socialist approach of education - rather than the non-socialist approach of leadership - is much better. Through education it can be pointed out to the workers that strikes arise out of the nature of capitalism, but that they are not the answer to the workers' problems. These economic struggles settle nothing decisively because in the end the workers still wear the chains of wage slavery. It is the political act of the entire working class to eliminate the exploitative relations between workers and capitalists which can furnish a final solution. The socialist teaches the nature of both capitalism and socialism, so that, armed with this understanding, the workers themselves can carry out the political act of their own emancipation. This is the lesson of all other outbursts of class struggle among the workers. These struggles can be used as a means of educating workers to the real political struggle - socialism. They should not be used as a means to gain leadership over the workers, or to lead them along a political path they do not understand.

May Day - We are on the March

May Day has for over a hundred years symbolised the common struggles of workers around the globe and over those years numerous Labour/Social Democratic Parties governments turned May Day to the purposes of State propaganda but they have now shed any trappings of socialism. The Communist Party regimes that shamefully paraded their military wares on the workers day have gone. Once more May Day now signifies the struggle for a future beyond capitalism rather than just a homage to the failed struggles of the past.

Activists have reclaimed what May Day should mean. It is an expression of the consciousness of the working class. May Day rallies in recent years reflect the growing anger all around the world against a capitalist class that is striving to force working people of the entire world to pay for the economic, social and environmental crises it has created. In their efforts to keep working people divided and weaken resistance to their attacks, the capitalists are using their  media and political parties to fuel racism,  to vilify the poor and to scapegoat immigrants.

But the momentum towards change and the creation of a system that puts the needs of people and the planet before profit cannot be stopped. May Day is when the workers show their loyalty to themselves, to their own interest, to their own class.

Meanwhile, May Day reminds us that the oppressive capitalist system is to be followed by socialism, just as the harshness of winter is followed by spring.

Even though, on this day the World Socialist Movement is too small to take to the streets, it represents the liberating ideas of the struggle for socialism.

For international working class solidarity!

"March Comrades"

Workers and farmers unite
You have nothing,to lose
But your chains
The world is to win
This is May Day! May!
Your armies are veining the earth!

Railways and highways have tied
Blood of farmland and town
And the chains
Speed wheat to machine
This is May Day! May!
The poor's armies veining the earth!

Hirers once fed by the harried
Cannot feed them their hire
Nor can chains
Hold the hungry in
This is May Day! May!
The poor are veining the earth!

Light lights in air blossoms red
Like nothing on earth
Now the chains
Drag graves to lie in
This is May Day! May!
The poor's armies are veining the earth!

March comrades in revolution
From hirer unchained
Till your gain
Be the freedom of all
The World's May Day! May!
May of the Freed of All the Earth!

Louis Zukofsky
New Masses, May, 1938.

Scotland or the World? - Your Choice.

The struggle in Scotland is not, as the nationalists would have us believe, the struggle for independence. The struggle in Scotland, as in the rest of the world, is a class struggle: the struggle between the workers and the employers.

 Scottish Chambers of Commerce found more than half of respondents rated the level of debate so far as "poor" or "dismal". Issues around currency, taxes and business rates were found to be the most important for firms. And should we be at all surprised by such concerns from the Scotland’s capitalist or aspiring capitalists?

 Over half of businesses polled saw potential opportunities from independence,  with Yes Scotland campaign declaring small and medium seized businesses appreciate the benefits that taking responsibility for managing our own affairs and economy present. The SNP tell us that independence from England and the control of our own budget will cure all our ails. What they purposefully neglect to tell us is that the problems they are going to try to solve are an integral part of the capitalist system and history has shown that within this system there is no satisfactory solution to these problems apart from socialism.

The SNP talk about a Scottish culture and a Scottish way of life. But in what way is the life of a Scottish wage-slave basically different from that of an English or, for that matter, a Russian wage- slave? There is little difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not end those for Scottish workers, because there will still be the wages labour and capital relationship. An independent Scottish government would still have to operate within the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level of profits as they could in other countries. In other words, it would still be subject to the same economic pressures as the existing London-based government to promote profits and restrict wages and benefits, just as it was for the government of Ireland, which broke away from the UK in 1922 and where things have never been any different.

Since it is this class-divided, profit-motivated society that is the cause of the problems workers face in Scotland, as in England and in the rest of the world, so these problems will continue, regardless of whether Scotland separates from or remains part of the UK.

Independence for Scotland therefore is a myth put about by the SNP and their fellow-travellers on the Left, which further confuses the Scottish section of the working class and blinds them from the real struggle - the class struggle.

The outcome of the class struggle is the abolition of capitalism and an end to deprivation, and alienation. Socialism is a sane and rational society, where the means of life will be owned in common by the whole of the world socialist community. By the means of life we mean the land, mines, factories, railways - in short, the means of production and distribution. In socialism the rule of life will be: from each according to his or her ability, to each to according to his or her need. There will be no need for buying and selling, just a free world for a free people.

The Socialist Party declares that to save humanity from the economic chaos, social injustice, and environmental destruction, it is necessary to abolish the capitalist system altogether and replace it with a humane, democratically-run socialist system. We are for the expropriation of the capitalist class and the abolition of capitalism. We are for its replacement by socialist production to satisfy human needs. It has become apparent that only a socialist revolution and a planned rational economy can make the changes in our production and use of energy and resources that are essential to prevent, or at least mitigate, catastrophic climate change and other environmental degradation.

For neither Scottish nor British capitalism but for world socialism

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what “socialism” means.  One misconception is socialism existed in Soviet Russia or in China. No totalitarian or autocratic system like the USSR or China can be considered socialist. Socialism is also a label affixed to the type of “social-democratic” capitalism that exists in Scandinavia and some other parts of Europe today. None of them conforms to the definition of socialism that we use.

The kind of democracy we envision is one in which the formal law-making bodies of capitalist democracy, such as parliaments, will be replaced by organs of direct democracy at the level of the workplace and community. These in turn will be coordinated at broader levels by democratically chosen delegates answerable to, and serving at the pleasure and at the discretion of, the local bodies that appointed them.

Socialism is an economic system under which all natural resources, as well as all means of producing goods and of organising the delivery of services, will  be owned and managed by various democratically-run committees for the benefit of the society as a whole that will take full responsibility for meeting everyone’s fundamental needs – food, clothing, shelter, health-care, education, transportation, while preserving a healthy ecosystem.

Rational planning, not competition for profit, will drive the allocation of resources, with the goal of meeting the needs of society as a whole. Under capitalism, advances in technology are used to replace workers, so that the wealthy owners of large enterprises can increase their profits, while the displaced workers are thrown out on the street and left to fend for themselves. Inside socialism, in contrast, advances in technology – environmentally sustainable – will be planned and implemented so as to reduce the level of human drudgery. Advances in productivity will result in reducing working hours and raising the standard of living for everyone, rather than enriching a privileged elite. Everyone will reap equal benefits from, and thus have an equal stake in, improving the way goods and services are created and delivered. Everyone will enjoy an  decent standard of living, and an opportunity to enjoy the richness of life.

As machines and technology replace more and more manual labour and perform routine chores, people will be freed to devote more time to leisure pursuits such as recreation, creative endeavours, and social relationships. Meanwhile, better education, improved technology, humanely and democratically operated workplaces, a shorter work week, and an emphasis on cooperation will all combine to make work a more rewarding, less stressful experience. Few (if any) will be reluctant to make their appropriate contribution to society. All workers will be motivated by a positive desire to help others, rather than by the need to avoid hunger and homelessness. Where jobs involving drudgery, danger, and difficult working conditions remain necessary, they will be filled on a voluntary and rotational basis. Those with unusual talents or skills will be encouraged to use them to the fullest extent, for the benefit of society. Extraordinary contributions will be rewarded through public recognition, allocation of resources for additional future projects, and the satisfaction inherent in the work itself, rather than through money or material privileges. Those who can create new or improved products, processes, and services will still have the incentive and the opportunity to do so, but the results will benefit the entire society, not just a privileged few. Goods whose scarcity is intrinsic and/or cannot be reproduced will be allocated fairly, by various appropriate methods, influenced various local customs such as by waiting list or lottery.

 It could be like that now, so why not do something about it? The world is ours for the taking. So why not take it?

The Value Of Our Participation!

The debate in Canada now is about the value of our participation in the Afghani war. 168 soldiers died in the twelve years of the war and many more injured or damaged through post- traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders. In the capital, Kabul, where one would expect the most security, the Toronto Star reports that business is conducted from behind blast barriers, razor wire, and thick steel doors. At the shopping centre, mall cops in camouflage carry AK-47s and even the grocery store is a bunker shielded behind steel doors thick enough to withstand a hit from a rocket-launched grenade and bag boys pack assault weapons. What a tragedy that Afghanistan and Iraq have been reduced to such horror only to make things worse. We all know that the real reason for the two wars was nothing to do with security or democracy but it is still a tragedy that need not have happened. John Ayers.

More People Have HIV Than Have Electricity!

Reading the World Section of the newspaper is always a horror story. On March 1 The Star reported, "In Malawi, more people have HIV than have electricity, and many of them are girls who are encouraged to have sex and marry when still barely adolescent. It means when life should be beginning, it is already ending." And, " North Korea: The Atrocity Guide – extermination, murder, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions…" Our critics on the Left will say how terrible, we need to eliminate this awful situation now, along with a thousand other awful situations and thus never get to solve one of them entirely. That's because they quite happily leave the cause of the problem, capitalism, in place. The bitter, ironic, truth is that if the working class want it, socialism could be established immediately and end this and most other 'ills' of the present system. John Ayers.

Peoples Power

 People feel the impact of the changing world on their daily lives and search for an answer to their problems. Socialism is not merely a means of improving the immediate conditions of people but has a greater object than that; it aims at controlling the means of wealth production on behalf of the workers. Socialism may be most quickly defined as the complete democratisation of society. There is a difference between hollow rhetoric about “ freedom and liberty” and real democracy. The fact is that Big Business and the giant corporations dictate policy to the government. By ending the political, economic and financial domination by the clique of millionaire CEOs, socialism, for the first time, creates the conditions for the free expression of the people’s will. The only “liberty” which Socialism ends is the liberty of the privileged class to own industry and amass wealth at the expense of the majority. Socialism ends the “freedom" to exploit and oppress the producers by a class of privileged parasites.

Social democracy must proceed from the bottom upward, whereas the democracy of the capitalist political society is organised from above downward. Socialism does not aim at domination of the individual by an all-powerful State. It has been customary for the wage-workers to be told that they must look to the State for salvation. As socialists  we have argued that State ownership takes all control away from the workers.  It is the concept of the management of capitalism and not its overthrow. What these policies seek to do is create the idea of a “people’s capitalism”.  The motive for production would remain profit and the relations of production would remain capitalist relations. It would remain a capitalist society, with all the features of the capitalism albeit with perhaps some measures designed to soften the impact of capitalism on working class interests. Nevertheless, the political State of capitalism has no place inside socialism; therefore, measures which aim to place industries in the hands of, or under the control of, such a political State are in no sense steps towards workers freedom.  Socialism will abolish the State and substitute the full direction of society into the hands of co-operatives producing for the benefit of all. Socialist teaching is all about collective property and collective involvement of the producing class, or citizens as a whole, in the process of production and political decision making. The reduction of this idea to Statism has no part in the authentic Marxist tradition.

The struggle for socialism is the struggle for socialist consciousness. There is not a socialist in the world today who can indicate with any degree of clearness how we can bring about the co-operative commonwealth except along the lines suggested by the Socialist Party. In Socialism, States, countries, or nations, provinces and territories will exist only as geographical expressions, and have no existence as sources of governmental power, though they may be seats of administrative bodies.

The solution for the ills of present-day society is the socialist ownership of the industries  and production for the common good, instead of profits for the few. The solution is to end the private ownership of the means of production and replace it with social ownership and production planned to meet the people’s needs, that is, socialism. To enjoy the wealth created by society will be  a right given to citizens at birth and, against that, what is required of them is to contribute to society as best as they can.  When you are born you have a right to live like everybody else and socialism assumes that you have the common sense to get up and contribute something to society according to your creative ability.  There must not be any economic or political connection between people's contributions to production and their enjoyments of its fruits.

It is socialism that is our goal, a future for humanity where classes and the state will have been completely eliminated. The Socialist Party’s primary role is to education and agitation, to orient the struggle of the entire class so that it brings an overall perspective to each branch of the workers’ movement, explaining the root causes, and unite all the isolated battles into one powerful revolutionary offensive. The Socialist Party turns the anger of the workers into a political voice that calls for an end to this criminal capitalist system.

Food for Thought

The Toronto Star reported (March 15 2014) that the cost to taxpayers of the 2008 financial collapse in the US was $12.6 TRILLION in the form of bailouts to prop up the financial sector. More than 8 million workers lost their jobs and as the malaise spread to Europe, the cost was in the high rates of unemployment – 10.2% in France, 12.9% in Italy, and almost Great Depression levels in Spain (26%) and Greece (27.5%). Last year, "The Dallas Federal Reserve estimated that, even assuming the US climbs out of the economic doldrums, the financial crisis will cost that country as much as $14 trillion – or about 90% of GDP – to cover increased spending on social assistance." The article speculates how many of the culprits will be prosecuted as the statute of limitations is fast running out. To date – none, because the relaxation of laws and controls was all part of the scheme to rake in big profits and that's what the system was designed to do.

In Montreal, a rally against police brutality was chased off the streets by riot police in helmets and batons, detaining 280 people and fining them $638 each. Contrast this with the criminals in the above paragraph. John Ayers.

 

 

Capitalism and Working Class Hero

Socialism

·         The planet earth and its resources are the common heritage of all humankind

·         Society is capable of producing an abundance of all the things we need so we need not be restricted by the  size of our wages

·         Capitalism has brought us to the threshold of a permanent golden age for our species, where the individual needs of each and every one of us can be met by existing technology   

·         We  have at our disposal the potential to live truly fulfilling lives according to our inclinations.

·         For the working class, in the present age of potential plenty, rationing by the money system is an outdated way of distributing goods.

·         In an age when we could produce for use without anyone going short, producing for sale and profit is an obstacle to the real satisfaction of human needs and desires.

·         Socialism would mean the earth and its resources owned in common by the entire global community.

·         With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs

·         Democracy in Socialism will mean  everybody having the right to participate, in deciding what is produced and how global resourceswill be used.

·         Productive activity will be chosen and undertaken voluntary  by human beings, with a view to producing the things they need in order to live and enjoy life, without any concern for capital investment, profit, wages,  stock market or share holders.

·         There will be no class of wage workers to produce profits for the minority

·         Everybody would have free access to the goods and services

·         Socialism will mean an end to buying, selling and money.

Don’t just break the link - Break the chains!

Many on the Left are deluded into thinking that the Labour Party could be the vehicle for revolutionary social change. The Socialist Party did not fall into the trap of portraying the Labour Party as in some way less capitalist than the Tories. We exposed the Labour Party as an essential part of a double act, as much as a theatrical performance as those of Laurel and Hardy. It works like this: The Tories try legislative means to curb incomes and conditions; this leads to confrontation, i.e. intensified class struggle. Labour then comes on the stage to bail out the Tories by securing trade union cooperation, thus bringing the country back from the brink. Cooperation with the unions, however, has its limits, as the union leadership, no matter how much they collaborate themselves, do not have limitless power over their members, so Labour in turn reaches a dead end. The Tories then have to return with their customary coercion again. This in turn leads back to confrontation, and so on ... This familiar cycle constitutes the ‘two-party system’. The Labour Party, then, cannot be said to ‘betray’ the working class, for it was not a working class or socialist party in the first place.

The Labour Party has not made any mistakes by not introducing socialism, for it was never created to do that in the first place. Some portray the Labour Party as containing a socialist membership ready at any time to burst free from the control of its leadership but a party’s class nature is determined not by who its members are, or who votes for it, but by its political line i.e. whose interests it actually serves. Just because many workers still vote for the Labour Party does not mean it a workers’ party any more than the Liberal Party was at the end of the last century when most working-class electors voted for it.

 It is common knowledge that whenever Labour has been in power it has worked in capitalism’s interests. To tell people that in voting Labour they can at the same time avoid succumbing to illusions is to shirk the first responsibility of socialists – to wean the masses away from reformism and win them to revolutionary politics. Socialists are duty-bound to expose the hollowness and hypocrisy of the Labour Party which is just as worthy of our profound feelings of class hatred as of the more obvious anti-working class parties.

Where do socialists go from here? The Labour Party long ago hauled down its tattered, torn, discredited red flag of socialism and instead raised the slogan of peaceful co-existence between capitalist and social ownership of the means of production. “Make capitalism work” is what Miliband now proclaims, echoing and parroting earlier Labour Party leaders. For years its leadership has been attempting to cut down the  role as opinion and policy making bodies of the trade unions and transform them into election machines. The “socialist” rank and file with their serious approach to ideas and principles stood in the way of this process. In what, however, has it been, a socialist party? No socialist could have seriously considered the current leadership capable of inspiring the workers in the class battles that lie ahead. Nothing in the Labour Party’s  policy programme is socialist. Yet the Left continue to support it.

The principle function of the socialist movement is to participate in the class struggle, which means to actually support any action of the working class against the capitalist class. we cannot expect results, unless the masses themselves get the understanding
and the spirit of organisation

The way to win workers to socialism is to tell them the truth, the plain unvarnished facts. The continued existence of capitalism will bring unemployment, wage cuts, poverty and insecurity to the majority of people. "Figures and facts, facts and figures!” as Mister Gradgrind in Dickens’s Hard Times would say.

We live with the paradox of poverty amid abundance. The productive capacity of the world, which could produce an abundant standard of living for all, is not being utilised. Industry is being run not for people’s needs, but for the private profit of the financial tycoons, the industrial magnates and the large landowners. It is this that is the cause of the crises which tears society apart.

The socialist movement seeks to establish a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of production. Socialism aims at the establishment of a system of social justice that holds no brief for charity or almsgiving. In the countries where universal suffrage is in operation, however imperfect the system may be, people must  apply themselves principally to returning socialists to the various elective assemblies. Socialists must work to  penetrate more and more the elective bodies, and this implies a constant propaganda.

 It is easy to criticise parliamentarism and to criticise it justly, but criticism does not prevent it from existing. Modify the machinery of democracy if you can, just as much as you. Nevertheless, we still ask, is it worthwhile to undertake special campaigns to secure improvements which, however valuable they would be in another situation, are none the less, at present, of secondary importance?

 What are we out for? Nothing less than a social revolution, a complete transformation of human society. The Social Revolution should not be an aspiration of the future but an immediate reality, and determine our immediate policy and tactics. Not something to wait for in some far-off future. The fight for socialism is now.

Full Circle

Capitalism has created a global race to the bottom of misery for workers.  A BBC business report sounded almost celebratory about the fact that Britain, the US and other Western countries were now said to be “cost competitive” with China and Brazil. The upshot is that many businesses and companies are now re-setting up in Western countries because of the “competitive” wages of workers, according to the BBC.  Workers in Western countries are now paid so badly that businesses are reportedly finding it profitable to return – having relocated to Asia in the first place to exploit cheap labour there.

The competitiveness, said the BBC, stemmed from workers’ wages in the West being “held steady” and because they have “become more productive”. This is Orwellian language to obscure the conditions of systematic poverty and exploitation that exist for many workers in Western countries – the scale of which is so appalling that companies are finding Western countries more profitable than other destinations that were formerly thought of as providing cheap labour. Such companies had previously closed down, or as the Orwellian language called it “downsized”, operations in the US, Britain and other Western countries to boost their profits by taking advantage of low wages in China. But several years with chronic unemployment driving down pay and government policy facilitating wage cuts, workers in the West have now been turned into a cheap labour army. Western governments are also using taxpayer money to give corporate tax breaks to entice them to return – in order to exploit the ordinary worker ever more intensively.

The value in terms of average wages in the US is less than what it was back in the 1960s – a half century ago. This has led to a huge rise in poverty and polarization of wealth into the hands of the tiny social elite. America’s top 400 rich individuals own more wealth than half the population of some 155 million people. A quarter of all American workers are officially classed as subsisting below the poverty line. The real figure may be as high as 50 per cent.

In Britain, for example, the average salary for a company executive is now 120 times that of an average worker, according to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. Twenty-five years ago, the difference was 49-fold.

The time has come for a genuine socialism in which the economy is organised and planned through public ownership and where production is driven by human needs, not private profit. Historically, capitalism has become redundant as an organizing social system. Not only redundant, capitalism has degenerated into the nemesis of the world, threatening its very survival. It is destroying human life through relentless exploitation. The system is irrational, iniquitous and unsustainable.  The insatiable lust for private profit is also driving geopolitical rivalry that inevitably manifests itself in war. War is not just good for capitalist business; it also distracts the public.

As Rosa Luxemburg once said, we face a stark choice between the present barbarism under capitalism or creating a new democratic, viable world of socialism. A first step would be for the public to begin talking and thinking openly about the destructive irrationality of capitalism. That is what politicians and the rich elite, including their media mouthpieces, are most in fear of. They fear that moment when the vast majority of people will start to shout out “the emperor has no clothes!”

From here 

Sham Returns

The National Retail Federation recently complained bitterly that many shoppers were ripping them off, especially in the area of returns. Sham returns involving stolen merchandise, items bought with fake money, and doctored E-receipts cost the industry $8.8 billion. Another trick was spending a minimum of $50 for a free gift then returning everything but the gift. Senior retail analyst, (now there's a job that will disappear in a socialist world!) Matthew Ong, said, " Consumers are savvier and smarter than they have ever been before. There's so much more information available. They're talking to hundreds, thousands of other people." So after years of legal theft, a section of the capitalist class is experiencing some illegal theft or, at least, some gray areas. Doesn't your heart bleed for them. Better a society where there is no theft of any kind. John Ayers.

Food for Thought

One effect of the Crimean crisis is the fear of the Russian elite. The Star reported that the country's nineteen richest people have lost $18.3 billion in the wake of the crisis…and we wonder why there is not enough money for health care! John Ayers

Euro Election Leaflet

Recession and Revolution

The Marxist theorist, Hal Draper remarked: "To engage in class struggle it is not necessary to 'believe in' the class struggle any more than it is necessary to believe in Newton to fall from an airplane. There is no evidence that workers like to struggle any more than anyone else; the evidence is that capitalism compels and accustoms them to do so."

How do we unite in a way where we keep the diversity of multiple movements but still work together in solidarity?  The answer is a common vision.

For socialists it is largely the question of whether we can engage the union at our workplaces and social movements in our communities to challenge capitalism. We have to be able to argue that capitalism is bad even when its working well, that capitalism is now a barrier to human development. We need people to recognise that we're fighting the capitalist system. What socialists have to offer is making connections between people across different workplaces, bringing in a class analysis so they see it’s not just them alone. Workers can never win if it’s just a few of us against the State. They have to see there’s actually a class involved.

A socialist party like ours offers some historical memory, so people see how workers did this (often in more difficult circumstances) in the past. Our journals and websites present comparative analyses of what’s going on in the rest of th world—how people there organise and resist. So a socialist party like our own can play a role in terms of bringing a class perspective, information resources, memory into the picture. It is to be a bridge—responding to practical and immediate things, but putting them in that kind of a larger context. Because without that kind of larger context we’re losing the battle of ideas and we’re going to continue to lose. What’s really abstract is pretending that these kinds of questions don’t matter.

Unions are important as defensive institutions but a socialist party has to go beyond sectionalism where unions represent only their members or even workers at one particular company when people decide things on the narrow basis of “does this help me individually, even if it disadvantages others?”, an attitude that disregards the future consequences in the long term. The problem is that isolated struggles by workers in the context of intense capitalist competition will give the capitalists more ability to off-load any gains made by one sector onto other workers. A generalisation of class struggle will make that harder for them to achieve this and can potentially push back the austerity measures across a wider front at least on a temporary basis.

 It may mean we have to develop  new form of working-class organisations, that would see workers joining and linking across traditional occupational lines so it isn’t just a union with a sectional interest, but it’s workers joining something because they see it as a class interest, and that it also expresses all the other dimensions of their lives. So it’s joined to the community as an organisation facing more than a particular employer.

Can crisis, in certain circumstances provide an accelerant to the class struggle? And what will motivate the working class to overthrow capitalism if not the crisis of the latter?

For decades self-proclaimed "Marxists" (especially Trotskyists) fetishised the word "crisis", and describe every economic downturn and political turn of events as the "crisis of capitalism" or even prophesising the "inevitable" end of capitalism. Its proposed that in a crisis, the closer we are to revolution. The worse conditions become - the more politicised and inclined to take direct action the population become. Some “communists” welcomed the economic crisis of capitalism and claim there is no perspective of revolution without it because for the working class things will not be able to continue as before. It is argued that without some form of crisis there's no reason at all for workers to revolt. It is argued that crises opens up the possibility of revolution, even if it doesn't guarantee it. But without crisis there is no possibility whatsoever. There unfortunately won't be a perspective of revolution with it, either.

As long as capitalism can offer us palliatives (or at least the illusions of them) to soothe our exploitation, the system will survive. The current economic crisis is driving capitalist governments and businesses towards some desperate measures to try and stabilise the system and restore (and where possible) increase real profit levels. But this is not to assume that particular  governments or companies are stuck with only one set of inflexible policies.

Genuine socialists prefer that working class living standards aren't severely cut. How do we agitate workers around this issue? "Cheers for the Recession"!! Most of the Left seems to be basing all of its activity around either recruiting workers into their particular party, or upon the vague hope that the working class will engage in some kind of spontaneous socialist revolution. Wishing the massive impacts of a massive economic crisis upon people's lives just in the hope that their fringe ideas will get picked up and perhaps adhered to by a handful of additional people, the contempt that it shows for humanity is disdainful. It also lays bare the complete and utter impotence of said movements in the first place. This overly optimistic wish-fulfilment mixed with its crude utopian determinism does no justice to Marx.

History does not show crises is capable of producing anything that is favourable to the process of implementing a sustainable social and economic system that could both eclipse and be more progressive than the current form of organising society. The track records of depressions are such that they have not produced a lasting positive effect on any attempts to eclipse the current method of organising society. We've seen countless crises since the birth of capitalism, all of which the effects of have been disproportionaly visited upon those who can least afford to bear those consequences, and none of which have ended up leaving the position of class struggle or even progressive social democratic politics in an enhanced position after the event, maybe for blips of time, but in the long run, crisis have been kinder to capitalism than they have to us - and those going into a crisis with power will invariably come out of the other end of it in a far better position than those who went into it with less power. Anyone who had a realistic view of the implications of the crisis relating to the environment, resources, food and population pressures would not be so gleeful in their wishing those effects upon an already downtrodden working class. Crisis in the main are useful to capitalism. Capitalism needs crisis to continually move onto the next stage and it is odd that those who are supposedly against capitalism wish for things that will help capitalism to reassert itself even wider and deeper than it currently is.

Socialists will not bring consciousness to the working class from the outside but it will be developed in its struggles to defend itself against the inevitable intensification of the attacks against it. There's nothing inevitable about this and if the working class cannot rise to the occasion overall it gets defeated. The economic crisis (like war, etc.) can provide a stimulus for class struggle, but this is not always the case. In some circumstances it can demoralise the class or, even if the class struggles it can be dragged onto bourgeois terrain like the strikers in France in the 30s who supported leftist governments and marched under the national flag. Despite the considerable militancy, the class struggle was contained. What can happen is that the working class could be beat down more than it already has been in the previous decades. The working class is mostly under the sway of bourgeois ideology, is not organised even into class fighting organisations, and therefore is presently unable to threaten the capitalists power. The Great Depression produced no revolutionary upsurge and the appalling conditions of workers in the 3rd world haven't automatically led to social revolution in those countries either. We can perhaps even expect to see reactionary ideology make a resurgence amongst the working class, in the midst of any coming crisis. If the working class is not already prepared it will be divided and defeated. That is not appealing prospect.

Economic crisis and increasing misery for the working class doesn't necessarily and inevitably lead to revolution. Relying upon the effects of the crisis seems to be the lazy way to try and approach social change, scrap all the groundwork and hope the crisis does it for you. While it is argued that downturns make people angry and more susceptible to revolutionary ideas, the opposite may be true. It may be downturns just lead to despair, fatalism, acceptance of misery and cynicism to things getting better. Upturns in the economy make revolution more likely because it is the human condition never to be satisfied and when you've got the job, house, wages, car and all the mod cons then you want more - security, control over your own life which can only be got by workers ownership and control of our own work, residents ownership of their own homes and individuals control over our lives, all of which can only be got by anarcho-communism by way of social revolution. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That is our basic function: to develop alternatives, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. The best we can hope for is to use this as an opportunity to re-group, in order to get the working class in a stronger position to start from when the boom returns. All we can do is to try to negotiate the best terms possible and try to resist as effectively as we can the increased downward pressures on wages and working conditions (for which we need collective organisation and action, even within the existing trade unions). As to what revolutionaries can do, at the moment being so small a minority, we can't do much more than keep on arguing that the only way-out is to replace capitalism by a system based on common ownership (instead of class ownership) and production solely for use (instead of production for profit) and to keep on urging workers to self-organise themselves democratically to bring this social revolution about

The whole point of class struggle is about winning gains, making our lives better, getting better conditions at work, at home and in society, things that the bulk of the population can easily measure in terms of the direct affect on their day to day lives. We are not going to get much support for our ideas if we come out with argument like "Your living standards may well have declined, you’re worse off now than when we started, and we havn't gained anything in terms of changing the incredibly unjust system of organising society, but just look at the enormous gains we've made in terms of the class struggle" - the whole point is to win real tangible gains that in turn can bolster people and show it can be done, thus allowing momentum to build, more people won over to a critical analysis of the society they live in, more ideas developed for such a time that when the crisis does come so that the right ideas are lying around, in sufficent depth and breadth, that they can be picked up and used, and some good made out of a crisis. But until that time comes it's just pissing against the wind. Struggles should be aimed towards achieving real gains for the sake of those gains or delivering 'an increased confidence, autonomy, initiative,participation, solidarity, egalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses', but all of these are a means to and end and that end should be measurable in terms of improvements in our lives. Workers benefit from their struggles in terms of learning how to organise, discovering their collective power, etc.

Like it or not but capitalism did deliver huge increases in the standards of living over various phases, take the post-war golden age for example, capitalism in the social democratic era brought about a flourishing of consumer capitalism.) The intention of this was not to increase conditions and the general living conditions of the working class, but it was a means to an end for capitalism to accumulate more, and as we know capital will do anything if it means being able to accumulate more, so from that point of view capitalism was happy to, and indeed was required to, deliver a vast increase in living standards and quality of life compared with previous periods of history. In order for it to do this it meant wreaking havoc in other areas and storing up problems for the future, but the bottom line was that the general conditions of the working class have improved under capitalism. You could argue however that conditions have just improved because time has moved on and those improvements would have been seen in any method of organising society, but that would be indulging in what-if's. A substantial amount of the demands of early reformists and the like have actually been delivered. It is it's galling to perhaps admit these things but it does help if you want change, to actually know where you are before embarking on any activity, practical or theoretical, aimed at bringing about that change.

Marx said in the Holy Family:
"Not in vain does it go through the stern but steeling school of labour. It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society today."

The liberation of our class will only come about when we, the class ourselves, for ourselves, do the hard work of organising, which needs that we class conscious workers doing the equally hard work of convincing our fellow workers. At the end of the day, as pro-revolutionaries, it is not in our interest to try and save capitalism but rather to destroy it and to encourage current struggles to develop on an independent, self-organised, class basis and extend accross national boundaries which may well give rise to an escalation of the social crisis and starts to challenge capitalism as a whole from a position of some class strength. Only the self-organisation of the proletariat contains the potential to defend its own interests both in the short-term economic and the longer term political. A working class that can't defend itself is also a working class that is incapable of making a revolution.

Consciousness is something that workers has to acquire, even if it does not want to as Hal Draper said.

Alexander Berkman, the author of the ABC of Anarchism , put it, "Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just". Until people see through it, capitalism will continue to stagger on from economic crisis to war to ecological crisis. To simply denounce finance capitalism as the main enemy is to side with industrial capital in the struggle between the two over how much each is to get of the wealth produced by the worker class. When we challenge capitalism, we challenge it all or we do not challenge it at all.

Marx wrote "Philosophers have only tried to understand the world. The point is to change it."

The Industrial Workers of the World slogan was "Don't moan, Organise!"