The Independence Referendum

The Executive Committee of the Socialist Party on the 2nd August adopted the following as a statement on the Scottish Breakaway Referendum on 18 September:

Most of us don’t own a single square inch of Scotland.

It doesn’t belong to us: we just live here and work for the people who do own it. In or out of the Union, that won’t change.

In Scotland, society is run in the interests of those who own the wealth. They argue among each other over billions of barrels of oil, GDP rates, profits and exports, because where the borders lie matters to them. Every border is an opportunity to wring cash out of other property owners. Scotland will remain dependent upon their whims and interests whatever the outcome of the referendum.

They’ll try to sway us one way or another with crumbs (or the promises of crumbs) but we’ll only get what they feel they can spare to protect their privilege and wealth. We will remain dependent upon their investments making a profit for them before we can get our needs and interests seen to

The only way to stop this dependency would be for us to take ownership and control of the wealth of the world into our own hands. We could, together, use the wealth of the world to meet our mutual needs and grant the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in free and voluntary association of equals.

Though the outcome of this referendum is irrelevant, it is an opportunity for us to tell our fellow workers that this is what we want. We don’t have to suffer in silence, we can go to the ballot stations and write “NEITHER YES NOR NO BUT WORLD SOCIALISM” across the voting paper. Then, join The Socialist Party to fight for an independent world."

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!

In these turbulent times people are more and more beginning to discuss alternative, more rational, saner ways of living. Throughout the world people have been coming together calling for change – calls that are maybe vague and  undefined, but heartfelt in sincerity. A few years ago the Occupy Movement urged change and encouraged an exploration of new ways of organising society, hoping to establish an economic system with sharing and cooperation at its core. For change to be sustainable it needs to carry the support of the majority and the participation of the many.

Socialism is the collective ownership by all the people of the factories, mills, mines, railways, land and all other instruments of production and distribution. Socialism means production to satisfy human needs, not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Socialism means direct control and management of the industries and social services by the workers through democratic administration and economic organisation. Such a system would make possible the fullest democracy and freedom.

Socialism means a classless society. Unlike under capitalism, where a tiny minority owns the vast majority of wealth and the means of producing it, everyone would share equally in the ownership of all the means of production, and everyone able to do so would work. There wouldn't be separate classes of owners and workers. The economy would be administered by the workers themselves through industrially based, democratic "associations of free and equal producers," as Marx described it.

For individuals, socialism means an end to economic insecurity and exploitation. It means workers cease to be commodities bought and sold on the labor market and forced to work as appendages to tools owned by someone else. It means a chance to develop all individual capacities and potentials within a free community of free individuals. Socialism does not mean government or state ownership. It does not mean a state bureaucracy as in the former Soviet Union or China, with the working class oppressed by a new bureaucratic class. It does not mean a closed party-run system without democratic rights. It does not mean nationalisation, or regulatory boards, or state ownership of any kind. It means a complete end to all capitalist social relations. On the contrary, it would give power not to the state, but to the people themselves, allowing collective control of their own economic future. Far from being a state-controlled society, socialism would be a society WITHOUT A STATE. Marx once said that "the existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery." Consonant with this truth, socialism would have a GOVERNMENT, but not a separate, coercive body standing above society itself -- a state. The people themselves, through the democratic associations of workers, would BE the government. In a socialist revolution, the industrially organized workers take possession of the means of production, abolish capitalist- class rule and supplant the state with an industrial government formed by "associations of free and equal producers." In the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions, an elite "vanguard" party seized control of the state and used the state to control the means of production. Instead of establishing a classless society, the party-state bureaucracy became a new ruling class. Far from being a bureaucratically controlled system, socialism would bring democracy -- the rule of the people -- to the most vital part of our lives, the economy.

To win the struggle for socialist freedom requires enormous efforts of organisational and educational work. It requires building a political party of socialism to contest the power of the capitalist class on the political field and to educate the majority of workers about the need for socialism. As Engels once described it, socialism would be a system in "which every member of society will be enabled to participate not only in the production but also in the distribution of social wealth." A socialist political party is needed to educate the working class and to recruit workers to the socialist cause.

The workers collectively would decide what they want produced and how they want it produced. They would control their own workplaces and make the decisions governing their particular industry. With the abolition of the capitalist expropriation of the lion's share of workers' product, all workers would receive, directly or indirectly, the full value of the products they create, minus only the deductions needed to maintain and improve society's facilities of production and distribution. Socialism can only be built in a developed, industrialized society with a working-class majority. Though partly inspired by Marxism, the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions weren't socialist in character. They occurred in pre-industrial societies. Without a majority working class and the ability to eliminate scarcity of needed goods and services, creation of a classless society was impossible. Material conditions there bred conflict and made the continuation of the class struggle inevitable in such countries.

In every plant, every office and every workplace in socialist society, the workers themselves will meet in democratic assembly to determine their own workplace policies and elect committees to administer and supervise production. To administer production at higher levels, the workers will also elect representatives to local and national councils of their respective industry, and to a central congress representing all the industries and services. This all-industry congress will ascertain what goods and services are wanted and will determine the resources needed to supply them. It will draw up the necessary plans to carry out production and allocate the resources. The congress will also arrange a just distribution of the output with the workers receiving the full social equivalent of the labor they contributed. All persons elected to posts in this economic administration, at whatever level, will be subject to rank-and-file control, and to removal whenever a majority of those who elected them find it desirable. Instead of economic despotism, socialism means economic democracy. Instead of production for sale and the profit of a few, socialism means production to satisfy the human needs and wants of all.

Socialism will allow for us to carry on production for use in the most modern production laboratories we can possibly create, utilizing the safest and most productive methods. The more we collectively produce, the more we shall collectively enjoy. All of us will be useful producers, working but a fraction of the time we are forced to work today. But we shall not only be useful producers, we shall all share equitably in the wealth we produce, and our compensation will literally dwarf anything we can imagine today.

In socialist society there will be neither involuntary unemployment nor poverty. The young will be educated not only to prepare them to participate in social production but also to enable them to expand their interests and develop their individual interests and talents. The aged will be cared for, and not by any such demeaning methods as are used today. We shall provide all their material needs and create a social atmosphere in which they can live lives that are culturally and intellectually satisfying. It will not be charity, but their rightful share as former contributors to production.

Under capitalism, improved methods and machinery of production kick workers out of jobs. Under socialism, such improvements will be blessings for the simple reason that they will increase the amount of wealth producible and make possible ever higher standards of living, while providing us with greater and greater leisure in which to enjoy them.

In socialism, we shall produce everything we need and want in abundance under conditions best suited to our welfare, aiming for the highest quality. We shall constantly strive to improve our methods and equipment in order to reduce the hours of work. We shall provide ourselves with the best of everything: the finest educational facilities, the most modern and scientific health facilities and adequate and varied recreational facilities. We shall constantly seek to improve our socialist society. Purposeful research, expansion of the arts and culture, preservation and replacement of our natural resources, all will receive the most serious attention. It will be a society in which everyone will have the fullest opportunity to develop his or her individuality without sacrificing the blessings of cooperation.

Freed from the compulsions of competition and the profit motive that presently throw capitalist nations into war, socialism will also be a society of peace. In short, socialist society will be a society of secure human beings, living in peace, in harmony and human brotherhood.

This all may sound too good to be true. Yet the world has the productive capacity to provide a high standard of living for all, to provide security and comfort for all, to create safe workplaces and clean industries, and to help other nations reach these same goals. The only thing keeping us from reaching these goals is that the workers don't own and control that productive capacity; it is owned and controlled by a few who use it solely to profit themselves. Organising to bring the industries under the ownership of all the people, to build a socialist society of peace, plenty and freedom, is the only real alternative workers have.

The capitalist economic system lies at the root of all of modern society's major social and economic problems. Socialism was born in response to the grave social problems generated by capitalism's uses of technology. Socialism grew out of the disruption of society capitalism caused. It was the pitiless and inhumane uses to which capitalism put the technology at its disposal to exploit human labor that made the socialist movement necessary. Socialism is not an idea that fell from the skies, but a natural response to the material conditions and social relations that took shape as the capitalist system of production developed.

At the same time, however, the socialist movement has always recognized the tremendous material possibilities technological advances offer for eliminating the poverty, misery and suffering it has engendered -- not of its own accord, but as a direct result of the capitalist system of private ownership of the productive forces created by human labor and ingenuity. The whole purpose of the socialist movement, therefore, is to solve the grave social problems resulting from the march of technology monopolised by a numerically insignificant capitalist class so that the magnificent possibilities modern advances in technology hold out may benefit all of humanity. Accordingly, the socialist movement also sees in so-called post-industrial technology the productive instrument for the attainment of its goal.
Whatever good there is in modern methods of production, whatever their potential for making the world a better place, for eliminating arduous toil, hunger and poverty, that potential is wiped out by a single, dominating fact. The one fact that overwhelms and nullifies the promise of all progress is private ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Socialists don't deny that the world is changing. They were the first to point out that capitalism cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. But the nature, pace and purpose of such changes are not determined by society: they are governed by the whims and needs of that tiny minority that owns and controls the means of producing and distributing wealth. That is one of the two constants in capitalist society, no matter how many changes come along. The other is that the majority -- the working class -- has no say in the process. Capitalists hire and fire to suit their needs. As long as that division exists class divisions will continue. As long as class divisions continue the class struggle will exist.

The Usual Situation

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is foaming at the mouth at Ontario Premier Wynn's proposal for the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP). They object that the plan, in which workers and employers would each contribute 1.9% of their annual earnings up to $90,000, would cut into profits of small businesses, forcing some into bankruptcy. It would also cut into take-home pay of workers so everybody loses something – the usual situation under capitalism. John Ayers.

Service Lost Company Gain

It is clear that Canada Post is intent on stopping deliveries directly to homes and will deliver to community mailboxes instead. (Another service lost). However, some businesses will receive delivery – need we expect anything different? The company says email is taking over from letters yet online shopping leads to an increase in parcel delivery. The bottom line is that 8,000 people will lose their jobs from a company reporting huge profits. Profits before people yet again. John Ayers.

Poverty In The USA

The USA is the most developed capitalist country in the world yet recent figures released by the 2012 Census Data on Poverty reveal startling information about the plight of the poor in that country. 'US poverty (less than $19,090 for a family of three): 46.5 million people, 15 per cent. Children in poverty: 16.4 million, 23 per cent of all children, including 39.6 per cent of African-American children and 33.7 per cent of Latino children. Children are the poorest age group in the US. Deep poverty (less than $11,510 for a family of four): 20.4 million people, 1 in 15 Americans, including 7.1 million children.' (Moyes & Co, 24 July) These figures have been published by Greg Kaufmann, Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and the former poverty correspondent for The Nation. RD

Educate, Agitate, Organise

The class struggle does not have to exist. The organisation of society could take on a different form, without any class antagonisms. There is no reason for fighting. The fundamental obstacle we face is the capitalist system. Everything that is not of commercial use, or does not serve to facilitate the existence and perpetuation of capitalist power, does not interest the ruling class. Socialism is not a continual fighting with the boss. A socialist community, a co-operative commonwealth, needs socialists for its realisation. The idea of a socialist future has to be re-launched. Socialism is the organisation of production by people who work and are in charge of work.

“To escape its wretched lot,” wrote Bakunin (‘God, and the State,’), “the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are drink and the church, the third is the social revolution.” 

Bakunin spent a large part of his life in premature attempts to “make” revolutions but, in old age,he had glimpses of a sounder method, the educational. The people would make the revolution, but to help on the birth of the revolution we must “first spread among the masses thoughts that correspond to the instincts of the masses.” He asks, in the ‘Memoir of the Jurassic Federation’:
 “What keeps, the salvation-bringing thought from going through the labouring masses with a rush? Their ignorance, and particularly the political and religious prejudices which, thanks to the exertions of the ruling classes, to this day obscure the labourer’s natural thought and healthy feelings .... Hence we must aim at making the worker completely conscious of what he wants and evoking in him the thought that corresponds to his impulses. If once the thoughts of the labouring masses have mounted to the level of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their power irresistible.”

 In other words what is required is socialist education. Capitalism does not survive as a social system by its own strength, but by its influence over the workers. The socialist movement will not advance again significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism. It requires a clean break with all the perversions and distortions of the real meaning of socialism and a return to the original formulations and definitions, an authentic socialist movement, as it was previously conceived. We have to go back to what socialism is and what it is not. All our socialist pioneers defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even the mis-named “workers’ state”. Nothing short of this will do. Present day socialists can improve very little on the classic statement of the Communist Manifesto:
“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.”

The Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. Marx and Engels also later stated that:
 “The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves" 

This is just another way of saying that the socialist reorganisation of society requires a workers’ revolution. and such a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class, which is itself the big majority of the population.

 Capitalism, under any kind of government is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists. Workers have a right to vote. They can exercise the right of free speech and free press. To be sure, this formal right of free speech and free press is outweighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the big presses, and of television and radio, and of all other means of media. But outside of all these and other difficulties and restrictions,  a little democracy is better than none. We socialists have never denied that. Throughout the century-long history of our movement, socialists have defended bourgeois democratic rights, limited as they were; and have used them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether.

We are not a party like other parties. The Socialist Party values every democratic provision for the protection of human rights and human dignity and is committed to fight for more democracy, not less. The socialist task is to expand it and make it more complete. The Industrial Workers of the World defined socialism as “industrial democracy”, the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, with private ownership eliminated. The fight for workers’ democracy is inseparable from the fight for socialism, and is the condition for its victory. Socialist Party members, as workers ourselves, toil side by side with the workers on day-to-day problems, and stand against whoever and whatever will lessen the confidence of the working class in itself and in its own independent action.

The special conditions that made possible the 'golden age' of  capitalist ‘prosperity’ in the 1950s and 1960s have disappeared, forever a thing of the past. The disillusionment with old party politics has provided openings for new forms of struggle and the formation of new political identities. The significance is the prospects of a socialist renewal which speaks in terms of  ‘human emancipation’.  A socialist society does not aim at giving workers higher pay and a decent living wage for all. It does not aim at making the working day six hours or four hours, or giving the worker six weeks paid holidays instead of two. What socialists aims at above all is to get rid of the wearisome, dull, grinding labour day after day, year after year, crushing the humane personality, with no prospect of developing the human interests, needs and capacities of man as a human being with aspirations to live and develop a fully human life.

An allegiance to shared ideas and ideals unites the Socialist Party but we haven’t found a smooth road towards socialism as yet. What we need are new styles of work as socialists: new methods of organisation: new forms of socialist agitation; but how and in what ways the old techniques and organisational forms can be supplanted are not easy questions to answer. The likelihood of achieving socialism in the next two or three decades is remote; and many of us will have to accept that the fundamental changes we are working for will not come about in our lifetime. Nevertheless, we retain an unshakable confidence in the socialist future of humanity. The crucial question is the extent to which socialist consciousness can be created. What we need are new styles of work as socialists: new methods of organisation: new forms of socialist agitation; but how and in what ways the old techniques and organisational forms can be supplanted are not easy questions to answer. No one at this stage can offer a blue-print. It will be an exploration in practice. Workers will do what they see it is necessary for them to do. The Socialist Party bases its view of the future of society upon workers’ independent action, because such action will alter the material circumstances of life to such a degree that life and the labour process itself will assume a new purpose and will venture into new spheres and possibilities, working them out by trial and error as men have always done. The short-sighted babble about high wages, unemployment pay, pensions. A few intellectuals even pontificate about the nature of work, but they cannot see that this is a problem which only workers themselves can settle. It is a practical problem for practical people, who are not given to writing books. Marx's writings cannot be treated as Holy Scripture. (To do so is a gross insult to a thinker whose motto for his own work was "Doubt everything.")  Marx analysed the capitalist society he lived in and projected his vision of  socialism from the clues he found in capitalist society. He refused to engage in any elaborate pictures of the socialist future but kept to a minimum outline. New breakthroughs have to await the new experiences of revolutionary workers' societies.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” (Communist Manifesto)

Now is the time for Revolution

People want answers. More than ever before, people are questioning the ability of the capitalist system to provide even the most basic necessities of life. The question being asked by more and more is “Where am I going to find work?” or “How long is this job going to last?” The working class of the world have many problems, struggles and tasks in common. The ruling classes are stealing our labour power and robbing us of the fruits of our labour.

People increasingly realise that their children won’t live as well (and even in some cases, for as long) as they have. That part of the capitalist dream is gone forever. College education, the road out of the working class, is no longer the route to upward mobility. Today there is a whole stratum of jobless who will be permanently unemployed and who will never hold a productive job under capitalism. If they find another job it will not be comparable in pay, conditions or stability. While the capitalist system has created more long-term unemployment and driving more and more workers into its ranks, the capitalists are ruthlessly cutting off the benefits that sustain them. Under the guise of welfare reform and “getting the scroungers back to work ” the government departments are pruning people from eligibility. The implication is clear, jobless workers have to face the possibility of watching their families go hungry. Capitalism tears at and destroys the social fabric in which we live. The deepest and most extensive economic crisis is changing the very lives we lead, how we think and how we act.

In the process of capital accumulation by the capitalists, wealth is constantly accumulated at one end and poverty is accumulated at the other. “This is an absolute and general law of capitalist accumulation.” Marx said. The capitalist are taking bigger and bigger slices of the pie and workers were left to divide up a shrinking percentage of it. The illusory prosperity of the was built on a foundation of sand with the tremendous growth of consumer credit of all kinds. While giving the American people the illusion of owning their house and car, in reality it represented growing absolute impoverishment as debt mounted on debt. The capitalists cannot allow the credit boom to continue. Debt accelerates far ahead of the ability to repay it, leading toward a financial crisis. Since the banks and other creditors have also borrowed heavily to expand their lending and stimulate the economy, when they do not get paid a chain of defaults can ensue. Thus a credit squeeze brought the financial system to the brink of collapse. The consequences changed not only people’s lives, but the dreams they had for their children’s future. To list its effects on our lives is indeed to catalogue the living hell that is capitalism today.

The working class will never be able to launch a determined struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, and to establish a new, socialist society, without participating in all the important protest movements in society at large, i.e., outside the work places, opposing militarism and war, sexism and racism, police-state surveillance, pollution and waste, etc. all produce huge reservoirs of resentment and bitterness among the workers. The socialist revolution itself will be the outcome of the combination of all those important streams of discontent of all the oppressed: their merger into a raging torrent, a tidal wave of opposition.

Clearly, of course, the key question is not simply workers' participation, but precisely what kind of participation. Large-scale participation of the workers, not only just as marchers on demonstrations but organised as a class that is putting forward its own conscious revolutionary goals. Every new wave of workers and activists has to learn the lessons of struggle in their own way. But the work can go faster or slower. Without education and knowledge, the movement of the future will be left to the agony of learning everything from scratch, and it will suffer the pain of having to repeat again and again all sorts of avoidable mistakes. It will inherit nothing from the past but a mass of mistakes. Socialists want the working class to struggle and organise whereas the reformist Left don't want the working class to have its own voice, for this would spell the beginning of the end for them. They seek to keep the workers politically enslaved. They don't want truly mass working class participation in the political movement, because the workers would tend to go out of their control.

The struggle in which we are engaged today is a struggle of classes. The supremacy is now held by the capitalist class, who control the powers of government. The principle of all existing governments is continuity of the status quo. In this there is absolutely no difference between the parties. Continuity means the continuance of capitalism and of the traditional policy of capitalism in its essential features, notwithstanding minor modifications of detail.  Parties but express in political terms the economic interests of those who compose them. There is no fundamental difference between the Labour and Tory parties. Their principles are identical. They are both capitalist parties and both stand for the capitalist system, and such differences as there are between them involve no principle. These are the same, a capitalist party, by whatever name it may be known.Both reek with corruption in their servility to the capitalist class, and both are torn asunder in the mad scramble for the spoils of office. These parties have been in power all these years, why have they not ever fulfilled their platform pledges? These parties already have had the power to make good their promises. How many more years of power do they require to demonstrate that they are the parties of the capitalist class and that they never intend to legislate in the interest of the working class, or provide relief for the suffering people. Their policy speeches are filled with empty platitudes and meaningless phrases but they are discreetly silent about every vital question which is worthy of consideration by any intelligent person. They are without principles and without ideals.

The Socialist Party is the only party which honestly represents the interests of the working class.  It stands for the absolute overthrow of the existing capitalist system and for the reorganisation of society into an industrial and social democracy. The Socialist Party is the party of human emancipation, standing for a world-wide democracy, for the freedom of every man, woman and child, and for the welfare of the planet.

The Socialist Party is party of which the elected spokes-persons will remain the servants – not become the masters. People don’t want politicians impressed by the rigmarole of parliamentary procedure or awe-struck by the medieval pomp and pageantry to way-lay the unwary. We need men and women who will not waste time and energy chasing after the unattainable mirage of reforming capitalism out of existence or in trying to “make it work better.”  We need delegates who will use their position to challenge the fundamental social, economic and political basis of capitalist society and expose the condition of hunger, misery and war that are bred by it – one who will advance the fight for socialism. Our goal is socialism – everything we propose or do will be in the direction of that objective.

The abolition of the state is no empty slogan. It is an integral part of the social revolution. All socialists understand that once the aim of the proletarian movement, the abolition of classes, has been achieved, the state  disappears and its governmental functions are transformed into simple administrative functions, losing its political character, that is, its repressive and coercive elements, and becoming the administration of things, watching over the true interests of society.

Armed struggle is no answer. Not only would armed insurrection provoke a military response a hundred times more violent, it would also give the ruling class of this country the pretext and opportunity to drop the mask of democracy and adopt on the political field the despotism that prevails in capitalist industry. Armed insurrection is an open invitation to an authoritarian dictatorship.

A revolution means a complete change, and it need not be accompanied by violence. For a successful revolution there most be a constructive phase when new institutions are established to replace those that are dismantled. In an age of great technological and economic complexity such as the present one, when prolonged economic paralysis can have devastating consequences to great masses of people, especially to the masses crowded into the great urban centers, this constructive phase of the revolution must be carefully planned and prepared for.

A great social historian, Henry Thomas Buckle, has succinctly summed up the difference between insurrection and revolution. "Insurrections," he wrote over a 100 years ago, "are generally wrong; revolutions are always right. An insurrection is too often the mad and passionate effort of ignorant persons who are impatient under some immediate injury, and never stop to investigate its remote and general causes. But a revolution ... is a splendid and imposing spectacle, because to the moral quality of indignation produced by the presence of evil, it adds the intellectual qualities of foresight and combination; and uniting in the same act some of the highest properties of our nature it achieves a double purpose, not only punishing the oppressor but also relieving the oppressed." 

With all the sympathy that it is possible for a humane mankind to summon for the suffering, anguish and despair of the victims of capitalism, with enlightened understanding of their anger and bitterness and complete agreement that their anger and bitterness are justified, the Socialist Party nevertheless urges all who are inclined to listen to the advocates of violence to reflect, and to reflect soberly. No one should doubt that such a nationwide insurrection as often proposed by political opportunists and adventurers would cause enormous damage and bloodshed.  

A Suicidal Society

In its unrelenting search for ways to cut welfare spending the NHS is an easy target as reports of poor mental health care show. Family doctors have warned of the deteriorating state of mental healthcare in England, after a survey revealed that one in five had seen a patient come to harm because they could not get specialist help. 'GPs reported that some patients had committed suicide or been sectioned because of a lack of available community mental health services. More than eight in 10 GPs now believe that their local mental health teams cannot cope with caseloads, and nearly half said that the situation in their area had got even worse in the past 12 months.' (Independent, 31 July) RD

Capitalism Distorts Democracy

The United States of America never tires of telling the rest of the world what a perfect example of democracy the USA is, but the influence of corporate big business exposes that claim as nonsense.  An explosion of spending on political advertising on television - set to break $2 billion in congressional races, with overall spots up nearly 70 per cent since the 2010 midterm election - is accelerating the rise of moneyed interests and wresting control from the candidates' own efforts to reach voters. 'The top three outside groups alone - Americans for Prosperity, Senate Majority PAC, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - have already spent a combined more than $80 million in congressional races. Americans for Prosperity, backed by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, has spent $44 million on House and Senate races. Senate Majority PAC, which supports Democratic Senate candidates, has spent more than $22 million on Senate races, and the Chamber of Commerce has spent up to $17 million on House and Senate races.' (New York Times, 27 July RD

The Breadline Beckons

The scale of the pensions disaster is underlined in a survey which shows the average retiree will be living off just £15.95 a day in future. Just a quarter of people are saving enough for a "comfortable" retirement without work, it shows. 'The research, from financial services company True Potential, warns millions may never be able to give up employment if they do not want to live on the breadline. It found a toxic mix of high inflation, government cuts and low interest rates will also hit pensioners. True Potential's David Harrison said: "It is not a gap, but a chasm. Without an enormous change in behaviour, it will be simply impossible for millions of people to retire well into old-age. Indeed, many millions may never be able to retire".' (Daily Express, 28 July) So much then for many workers dream of a contented retirement - the breadline beckons! RD

End Capitalism - End War

Contrary to popular misconceptions, in the beginning of human society war was generally unknown. Life was too precarious, the means of subsistence too difficult to obtain, and the instruments at hand too puny for war possibly to have been carried on to any considerable degree. Militarism means masses. War is an act of society.

The  aim of pacifism is to bring about a state of affairs in which war will not exist. Pacifism would be satisfied where it would no longer be possible to compel a human being to kill or to be killed. The goal of pacifism is a warless society, but under exactly the same form of production,  as at present. The goal of socialism is the socialist society, that is, a society without exploitation, the society in which the demand for the complete abolition of private property in the means of production will be realised. Not only is pacifism powerless to prevent war it can actually facilitate war, harsh as this may seem to pacifists themselves, many of whom are personally sincere in their convictions.

 Pacifism instils illusions about the nature of war and the fight against war (advocating disarmament, treaties, the United Nations, etc., as solutions), and thus prevents a true understanding of the nature and causes of war. It takes advantage of the desire of the masses for peace and yet completely deludes people about the character of war.

Pacifists treat the struggle against war as a special struggle independent of the struggle for socialism. Above all, perhaps, confusions on the nature of the state as the political instrument of the class enemy. Thus any policy advocating “anti-war” actions (sanctions or the UN or what not) by capitalist governments means in effect to tie up the working class with the state, and through the state with the class enemy. Pacifists presented a two-stage view of struggle first reduce international tensions, then deal with domestic issues such as strikes, first unite with anybody and everybody against war, then when the war is over start to think about dealing with capitalism. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for instance argued: first get rid of the Bomb, then talk about socialism.

 Many genuine pacifists oppose war “in general”, but others pick and choose, finding this or that particular war to be justified because it is to make the world safe for democracy, to defeat terrorism or to end fascism, to uphold the UN to intervene for humanitarian reasons or for some other noble purpose. These pacifists , overnight, change from “anti-war” groups into fertile propaganda. They become, literally, the recruiting sergeants of the war-makers. The pacifist movement is impotent to solve the problem of militarism and war.

Their wars are not our war and the military of the capitalist state is not our military. We do not support the war and militarism of the capitalists any more than we support the capitalist exploitation of workers in the factories. We are against the war as a whole just as we are against the rule of the class which conducts it, and never under any circumstances vote to give them any confidence in their conduct of the war or preparation for it, not a man, not a penny, not a gun with our support. Our war is the class war of the working class against the capitalist order.

No normal person wishes to achieve his or her social goals through the use of violence. To reduce violence to the utmost in political life should be a common endeavor for all  socialists. Only profoundly sick persons – totally unable to contribute to the building of a real classless society – can actually enjoy advocating and practicing violence on a significant scale. Indeed, the increasing rejection of violence in a growing number of countries is a clear indicator that at least some progress has occurred. One has just to compare the wild and brazen justification of war by nearly all the leading Western intellectuals and politicians in the 1914-1918 period to the near universal revulsion towards war today

The Socialist Party is against the war although we are not pacifists on principle. We, of course , take sides in war, but it’s a third side. It’s the side of the workers, against the owning class that exploits them now, as well as against the owning class that WANTS to exploit them. Those who disclaim against the terrors of war, should  reflect upon the horrors of peace; food shortages, food insecurity, malnutrition,  hunger, famine, starvation. Capitalist peace is no less dreadful than capitalist war. Our anti-war activity is only part of the general struggle for emancipation of the working class. To expropriate the expropriators, to oppose their coercion by that of the workers, to destroy all the instruments of class coercion and exploitation is our task. The future lies, not with pacifism, but in a recognition by the working class of the world that it must prepare the organization of all its forces for class war, the struggle between the workers and the capitalists. under capitalism war is inevitable. If you, fellow-worker, desire to abolish war, we say: Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it  with a system of production for use and not for profit – all over the world.

NOT PATRIOTISM, NOT NATIONALISM, BUT WORKERS SOLIDARITY 

NOT PEOPLE AGAINST PEOPLE, BUT CLASS AGAINST CLASS. 
  

The Not So Great War

With the 100th anniversary of the day the first world war began, it is sobering to look back at the way that conflict was so badly reported. The catalogue of journalistic misdeeds is a matter of record: the willingness to publish propaganda as fact, the apparently tame acceptance of censorship and the failure to hold power to account. 'But a sweeping condemnation of the press coverage is unjust because journalists, as ever, were prevented from informing the public by three powerful forces - the government, the military and their own proprietors. It is undeniable that newspapers began by demonising the German enemy. They published fabricated stories of German barbarism, which were accepted as fact.' (Guardian, 27 July) It has taken 100 years for British newspapers to come clean about their misreporting so how much of that still goes on today? RD

A Sick Society

Capitalism is a completely inadequate society when it comes to dealing with social problems. From world hunger amidst a potential abundance to military violence both local and world-wide - the list goes on and on. Although the following might not seem as pressing as some of the more dramatic problems the following can prove fatal for many workers. 'One in nine people trying to see a GP cannot get an appointment, with doctors turning away their patients more than 40 million times this year.  Doctors' leaders said that the figures were a "shocking indictment" of a  failing system and warned that the early signs of cancer and other deadly  diseases could be missed when patients were shut out of surgeries.' (Times, 28 July) RD

Neither Separatism or Unionism

THE REFERENDUM

Down through the ages mankind has been fired with the great vision of a world free of war and strife, without national rivalries, without racial and religious strife. The ideal of the “Brotherhood of Man” has inspired all the struggles against inequality and oppression. As Burns wrote:
For a' that, an' a' that, 
It's coming yet for a' that, 
That Man to Man, the world o'er, 
Shall brothers be for a' that.

The common interests of wage workers transcends all national boundaries and differences. Our aim is the emancipation of all humanity from exploitation and oppression or as the Communist Manifesto puts it:
“in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

The capitalists have their own type of internationalism, they have a kind of "solidarity" among the capitalists of the world, with their network of international organisations aimed at dominating and grabbing the entire natural wealth of the world and at enslaving the working people of all lands. The working class is impelled to internationalism in outlook and strategy and as Marx explains in the Civil War in France:
 “class rule is no longer able to disguise itself in a national uniform; the national governments are ONE as against the proletariat.”

The socialist revolution, which will put an end to capitalism, must be international. Therefore, the workers must not think so much of their country as of their solidarity with the workers of all countries. Socialists should oppose all measures tending to perpetuate capitalism and be guided in these matters by considerations of tactics. The internationalism of the World Socialist Movement is the abolition of exploitation of man by man in all countries.

The interests of the working class are not tied to any particular country. The struggle of workers takes place on a world-wide scale to defeat the employer class on a world-wide scale. This means the simple solidarity of one worker with another, irrespective of nationality. Class conscious workers understand this and readily support the struggles of workers in other countries. It must look at the struggle in “its” own country in the light of the struggle world-wide. The most crucial aspect of internationalism is the unity of the working class.  There is no way forward for the people of the world without breaking the power of capital and no way of breaking it except through the class struggle and the triumph of socialism internationally.

The more the capitalist world changes, the more it remains the same. The employer buys our ability to work, and for a set period of time, we become theirs. The value of an employee is our wage--the amount of money we need to pay for food, clothes, rent, liquor, bus fare and whatever else we need to keep showing up to work. This is more or less depending on whether we are expected to wear nice clothes and be able to talk about wine and French history with the customers or whether we're just supposed to show up and not spit in the food. It also changes depending on how much food and housing cost in the particular city or country the restaurant is located in. Wages also reflect the balance of power between workers and employers. Where we are strong, we can force wages up. Where we are weak, wages can be lowered to a bare survival level.

All the political actions and judgments of a workers party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. The class struggle is the central principle of socialist politics. It is by carrying the class struggle to its necessary conclusion — that is, to the victory of the working class and the abolition of capitalism — that the socialist society will be realized. And every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliation, by collaborating with them, in peace or in war, has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers. Whenever socialists discuss the socialist path, they talk in terms of a worldwide struggle.

Can the socialist revolution come wrapped in the Saltire? The Communist Manifesto said:
 “In the national struggles of the proletarians of different countries, they [the communists] point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independent of all nationality.”

 It is the internationalist, not nationalist, outlook that must be brought to the fore. It is not the business of communists, nor anyone who wants liberation, to put their shoulder to the wheel of history and push backwards. This means that communists are internationalists, and not nationalists. The Socialist Party position on the independence referendum is that no fundamental problem facing working people can be solved, or even seriously alleviated, by tinkering with the state structure or the constitution. Those on the Left who argue for the right of self determination for all peoples and therefore you must support the Scottish national struggle are expressing a non-Marxist attitude. What role did the Scottish parliament play in the INEOS Grangemouth dispute? Very little. Business decisions are not made in parliaments. The policy being advanced by left nationalists that independence is a solution to workers’ problems, must be exposed as false and a diversion from the real task of  developing a united and class conscious movement of workers everywhere.

Global peace built on a foundation of nation-states is an oxymoron. As historian Michael Howard noted in his book The Lessons of History:
“From the very beginning, the principle of nationalism was almost indissolubly linked, both in theory and practice, with the idea of war. Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests.”

 National interests are business interests. We won’t begin creating global peace until we learn how to bypass nationalism. Against the mad chorus of national rivalries and ethnic hatreds we advance once more the old slogan of socialist internationalism: Workers of the World Unite!

Another NHS Scandal

There was an inquiry into a scandal at the Stafford Hospital where there was thought to have been 400 - 1,2000 avoidable deaths between 2005 and 2009, but patient mistreatment continues in the NHS. In a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) hearing about The  Ridgewood Centre in Surrey it was revealed that elderly dementia patients were "scalded" by their own urine after being left in their beds for days. 'The case comes amid mounting concern at the number of complaints about the treatment of elderly patients, including those with dementia and other mental health conditions, which have risen from 3,118 in 2011-12 to 3,701 last year.' (Sunday Times, 27 July) This treatment is reserved for the working class - the owning class can afford much better. RD

The Stupidity Of Leadership

The working class are brought up to believe in leadership and encouraged to imagine that in a complicated society like capitalism it is best to leave decisions to the intellectually superior minds of politicians and statesmen. The madness of that notion was well illustrated by a recent news item. 'The sick should turn to astrology for answers, a Tory MP has declared. David Tredinnick said astrology had a proven track at helping people recover from illness and should be incorporated into standard medical treatments. The MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire also admitted he had prepared astrological charts for fellow MPs - but refused to say who.' (Daily Mail, 26 July) Tredinnick is a member of two influential Commons committees, the health and science and technology committees, but it would be interesting to know if he suffers from some ill-health in the future whether he will consult an hospital or just look up his astrology chart. RD

Their World Or Ours?

The paper, “Policy Challenges for the Next 50 Years,” published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,  (OECD), a club of the the world’s most developed countries along with a few large developing countries, can be considered as an authoritative representation of elite thinking.

Economic stagnation is forecast. World economic growth, from an overall 3.6 percent (but only 1.2 percent for OECD countries) in the 2010-2020 decade to 2.4 percent (0.5 percent for OECD countries) in the 2050-2060 decade. The implications mean more unemployment and more inequality because capitalism is a system that requires growth. A system based on endless growth can’t function without it — slow growth (worse still,  no growth) means misery for working people as the recent years of so-called “recovery” from the 2008 economic collapse has demonstrated.

Among the remedies prescribed by the OECD:
“Worker mobility (e.g. pension portability” which is code for privatizing public-retirement systems. It also presupposes that working people have pensions connected to their jobs, but in the United States that is a relic of the past for the vast majority of employees. At best, a worker might have a “defined contribution” plan such as a 401(k) that mostly relies on the employee’s own contributions and shifts the risks from employer to employee. A public retirement system has no need for “portability”; only a privatized system free of employer responsibility and job security does.

“Enact social insurance reforms to maintain labour supply in the face of rising longevity and an ageing workforce.” means advocating people work more years before being eligible for retirement and receive less money on which to retire.

“Flexible” labor markets that are “pursued in a way that cushions their potentially negative impact on equality.” Another way of saying speedups and layoffs continually introduced by capitalists subject to relentless competitive pressures as more and more new technology is introduced. But just how are the falling wages and substitution of part-time work for full-time generated by labor “flexibility” not going to create a “negative impact” on equality?

Capitalism already fails to produce jobs. Professors John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney calculate that the “global reserve army” — workers who are underemployed, unemployed or “vulnerably employed” (including informal workers) totals 2.4 billion. In contrast, the world’s wage workers total only 1.4 billion!

The new view is that the working poor are not “deserving” because they are “too lazy” The majority of poor non-senior households in America have someone who works (62 percent). Further, roughly one in five poor households has a full-time, year-round worker. Eighty percent of families with children receiving means-tested assistance for food, housing or health insurance have a worker in the family. Or they did not put in the effort in school they should have – so they “deserve” low wages. Among families with children receiving means-tested assistance, 40 percent have some college coursework, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree – or more.

 Martin Luther King Jr:
 “In the simplistic thinking of [the early part of the 20th Century], the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We have come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands it does not eliminate all poverty.”

Martin Luther King then concludes:
“We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking. The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”

 To criticise capitalism and to suggest there an alternative and better way of life, more relevant to the times, is to be branded as a utopian dreamer.

A rational economic system designed to meet human needs, rather than profit, would have no need to keep growing. But capitalism is designed for profit, and requires continual growth to maintain itself. This calls for harsher austerity and the increased coercive force that will be necessary to implement it. This is what is on offer by the world’s elites. Together with profit, competition is the driving force in business and are behind a plethora of  conflicts and corruption, to the land-grabbing from indigenous people and the abuse of migrant workers.

“Competition good, it’s part of human nature; it’s the only means to motivate and regulate.” So say the fundamentalist believers in the profit system. “Without competition, mediocrity would prevail, apathy and indifference triumph.” argue the apologists for exploitation. All attention is focused on the end result – on winning, ignoring the means. ‘Succeeding’ is all that matters, no matter the impact or effect – human or environmental. The inevitable collateral damage is seen as an acceptable side effect of far-reaching division and separation, leading to conflict, suffering and violence. If, for example, driving costs down entails employing child labour to work in sweatshops, that’s fine as long as prices are competitive and sales increase. Politicians are ideologically driven to secure votes and climb the greasy pole. Their manipulative motives distorted and dishonest, their campaign promises hollow.

Humanity and the planet need to imagine new ideas and revolutionary ways of living.  We live in a world of abundance; there is food and water enough for everyone, there is no need for a single child to go hungry, or die of hunger related illnesses, as around 22,000 do today. All that is required is that we cooperate with one another instead of constantly competing. Cooperation and sharing unites, encourages trust and builds relationships; competition divides, it sets people against one another. Cooperation and sharing are key requirements in bringing about social harmony justice and peace.

The Class Divide

A walk through the streets of a town like Calcutta is enough to convince you of the appalling poverty suffered by India's working class. You can witness homeless families living a hand-to -mouth existence in the streets.  There is another side to India though - the immense wealth enjoyed by the capitalist class. 'India's super-rich have long raised eyebrows around the world with their spectacular spending. Mukesh Ambani, the country's wealthiest man, has built the world's most valuable home in Mumbai, the commercial capital. The 27-storey tower, complete with helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and a staff of more than 600, is worth an estimated $1bn (£500m).' (Guardian, 24 July) Nor is Ambani a unique specimen of India's wealthy.There are now nearly a sixth more Indians worth in excess of $3.75m (£2.2m) than just one year ago, according to a report from the Kotak Mahindra bank. RD

Inherited Wealth

The notion that capitalism rewards the owning class because of their drive and devotion to business is a complete fraud. Robert Reich Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley exploded that myth in his recent blog. 'The "self-made" man or woman, the symbol of American meritocracy, is disappearing. Six of today's ten wealthiest Americans are heirs to prominent fortunes. Just six Walmart heirs have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined (up from 30 per cent in 2007).' (Robert Reich blog, 15 July) Reich was Secretary of Labour in the Clinton administration and  Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century, so he has a good grasp of how capitalism operates. RD

Time to reboot the world

 Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What awaits us? Many feel confused in a state of anxiety and fear. World history shows that we live in a situation where devastating wars, exploitation and oppression of peoples have become a permanent fact of life. In many countries, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and all kinds of degradations make the lives of hundreds of millions of men, women, and children scarcely tolerable. In our world, injustice and the denial of the most elementary rights have become common practice. More and more peoples are under the iron heel of military regimes and police states. Billions of dollars are spent to perfect methods of surveillance, repression and torture. Humanity’s resources are wasted in senseless adventures while people’s basic needs remain unsatisfied, land is spoiled, misery increases, and poverty spreads. The gap between rich countries and poor ones, far from diminishing, is increasing. In this capitalist world the normal condition is war with abnormal interludes of peace.

 Why is it that we have to put up with these conditions? Who is responsible? What economic, political, and social system creates and perpetuates this situation? How can things be changed? Reality shows that who profits from this misery are those whose power depends on maintaining the present conditions. You cannot have capitalist profit without capitalist exploitation. Capitalist profit and the benefit of the entire community are irreconcilable. Capitalism is not an eternal system which has existed from the beginning and will prevail to the end. Like all preceding social systems, however, capitalism too must die. The direction of capitalism’s own development is towards the socialist solution.

If socialism is not the alternative to capitalism, then why a socialist movement at all? It is a question of learning hope. The new is never completely new. The economic basis for socialism was being created under capitalism. The world was ripening under capitalism itself for socialism. When the “inevitability” of socialism is talked about, it means that given correct human action it could come into being. It does not mean that socialism is bound to come, mechanically of itself, independent of human action. On the contrary, the destruction of capitalism could lead to socialism – or barbarism, that the latter could come out of capitalism’s disintegration as an alternative. If you destroy capitalism in a certain way, that is, by a certain form of social action, the road to socialism would be open. If socialism is to be the outcome of capitalism’s downfall, it is necessary that mankind take conscious action in that direction. The two classes of capitalist society are the capitalist class and the working class. Between them there is already a struggle going on; the struggle by the capitalist class to maintain its system of exploitation, and the struggle by the working class to overthrow it.  In order to emancipate itself, the working class would have to expropriate the capitalists and socialise their property. The process of the working class emancipating itself from capitalism is therefore also the process of emancipating all mankind from exploitation.

 One question that is always raised at socialist meetings is how society would be organised after a revolution. Socialists have to convince our fellow workers that socialism represents a better system if only a  sketch of the future state of human society. for people, that the eventual withering away of the state is not a pipe-dream but a realistic aim. How people have always dreamed of this, dreamed of the better life that might be possible. Let our dreams grow fuller, clearer and more familiar. Thinking means venturing beyond. We do not believe in drawing up detailed plans for the socialist future now as such a project would be futile – millions of people engaged in the struggle to establish socialism will be much more creative than a few individuals in a small party as ours in drawing up blueprints. But we can get some idea of what is possible

Even in bourgeois economics there is scarcely a serious scientist or investigator who would deny that the abolition of hunger and of misery is possible with the productive forces that already exist technically. The abolition of poverty and misery is possible as is the abolition of alienation.  Today we are less preoccupied with the abolition of the wages system than ever. The old cry for a fair day’s pay echoes itself time and again.

Marxism teaches that socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the good will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters, as the utopians, who preceded Marx, used to think, and as some people still seem to think. Socialism can be realised only as the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. Only socialism can save humanity from the abyss. This is the truth. We cannot be afraid of "indicting" capitalism and wage-slavery, or afraid of arousing the socialist consciousness and class struggle. We cannot be  afraid of teaching the working class its socialist aim that can only be accomplished by way of a democratic revolution. We cannot be afraid of teaching the working class the evils of capitalism’s "halfway-houses" to “socialism”. The fight for socialism is not as a Utopian scheme but as the realisation of a historic necessity.

A Broken Reid

The late Jimmy Reid was a man of many worthy attributes. Who can forget his demolition job of the smug Kenneth Williams on the Michael Parkinson talk-show. After his Jimmy Reid’s death, a left-wing reformist think-tank was set up, naming itself in his honour, the Jimmy Reid Foundation which spawned the campaign Common Weal. The Socialist Party judges a person’s political credentials, not his personal character and The Socialist Standard painted a less than flattering portrait of Jimmy Reid. 

From the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

After twenty-five years Mr. Jimmy Reid, the doyen of Left Clydeside, has left the Communist Party where he was an Executive Committee member. His reasons for leaving the Party are obscure, as this institution of meddle and muddle has not altered either in its reformist leadership case, or in its slavish acquiescence to the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. (How could it, when the Morning Star, the Party organ, depends on Russian finance? Russia, and the Iron Curtain countries take nearly 14,000 copies of the Morning Star out of the daily number sold of 41,000 copies: Sunday Telegraph, 15th February 1976). According to the Sunday Telegraph, this amounts to a subsidy of 250,000 a year out of a total of 500,000 a year which is required to keep the paper alive.

This fact must have been known to Mr. Reid as a member of the Executive Committee. The British Road to Socialism, the Party statement upon which Mr. Reid bases his faith, has certainly made a large detour through Eastern Europe.

Unfortunately for the working class of Clydeside, Jimmy Reid did not leave his ideas, so we can expect the usual windy dialogues and mis-information about Socialism when his conscience has settled down, or his career has got the better of it. In an interview given to Ian Smith in the Daily Telegraph 13th February 1976, "Mr. Reid said that if a political party emerged which showed it supported Socialism and democracy he would consider joining it". Where has Mr. Reid been during his twenty-six years in politics if he does not know that such a Party has existed for over 70 years — the SPGB? Not that we are waiting on the doorstep to welcome Mr. Jimmy Reid into our ranks. Fortunately we have a choice over those who may decide to join us, and in his present state of muddle we could not permit an individual as ignorant on the fundamental aspects of Socialism to enter our organisation.

By Socialism Mr. Reid, in common with all left-wing parties, means freedom to worship reforms, State capitalism, a touch of Scots Nationalism, and anything else which will provide a peg for opportunist propaganda. It's all in the pamphlet The British Road to Socialism of which he was co-author.

In an interview given to Peter McHugh of the Daily Mail (13th February 1976) he expresses interest in the newly-founded Scottish Labour Party of Mr. Jim Sillars, MP, who apparently is a personal friend and who also is the same type of modern Labour fakir. Both men have in common their rejection of the organisations which brought them to political prominence. It is people like Reid and Sillars who hold back Socialist propaganda, and expect prestige for doing it, as does every professional left-wing politician.

It has taken twenty-six years in politics to convince Reid he backed the wrong horse in the Communist Party. Instead of making public confessions of his ignorance of politics he should gracefully retire to develop a few real Socialist principles. For his and others' information, Socialism means a social system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living, and its achievement depends on understanding

Jim D'Arcy

The Capitalist Con

Capitalism is a system of economy where exists the anarchy of the market, capital, money, credit, etc., where social and political inequality is guaranteed by the capitalist state. This system is the fundamental basis of the maintenance of rule by the capitalist class, and the oppression of the working class. Capitalism is inseparable from the exploitation. It is a vicious system geared to buttressing the strong against the weak, to serving the handful of capitalists against the millions of workers, and to keeping many millions in poverty so that a few may prosper. Capitalism worships property and degrades life. It is at the root of the racialism and nationalism that poisons society and divides worker from worker. It is a system of massive waste and social disorder. It forces the working class to fight every inch of the way to better or even maintain its wages and conditions. The criteria of all capitalist enterprise is—does it make a profit? When it ceases to make a profit it goes bankrupt—it is finished and the workers are cast on to the scrapheap.

Yes, capitalism is working ... for the Billionaires whose ranks swelled from 322 in 2000 to 1,645 in 2014. 85 billionaires now control half the planet’s wealth. And by 2100 we’ll have 11 trillionaires. But for the rest of the world - A billion people live on less than two dollars a day. Thomas Piketty warns inequality between the rich and the rest will get wider, more dangerous. Even the Pope warns “Inequality is the root of social ills,” fueling killings, wars, revolutions.

In an American poll, more than three quarters of self-described conservatives believe “poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything.” In reality, most of America’s poor work hard, often in two or more jobs. The real non-workers are the idle rich who inherit their fortunes. And their ranks are growing. Wealth is going to the privileged, who did nothing except be born into the right family. Six of today’s ten wealthiest Americans are heirs to prominent fortunes. This is the dynastic form of wealth French economist Thomas Piketty warns about. So-called “dynasty trusts” now allow super-rich families to pass on to their heirs money and property largely free from taxes, and to do so for generations.n

The super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these is now faster than income from work. The top elite is raking even more from their investments.

Today almost everything and anything can be bought and sold. Markets and market values have come to govern our lives as never before. Today, the logic of buying and selling no longer applies to material goods alone. It increasingly governs the whole of life. Everything has a price. For-profit schools, hospitals, prisons. Out-sourcing war to private contractors or sub-contracting the police to private security guards. Buying and selling the right to pollute the environment. Buying and selling of elections. Everything is up for sale.  If someone is willing to pay for a kidney, the only question asked is “how much?” Capitalism never asks “what’s the right thing to do?”

 Wage slavery treats human beings as a commodity, to be bought and sold on the labour market and the moralisers fret about people trafficking in the the sex trade. Children are bought and sold to work in sweatshops or as domestic servants. In today’s capitalist world, everything has a price.

Millionaire bankers, CEOs, hedge fund managers will never voluntarily surrender their control of  wealth machine. We need socialists to dispossess them and bring back some sanity to this crazy world we now live in. Otherwise the capitalist class will continue to keep blindly driving us down their self-destructive path to global extinction.

Reformist parties have been successful in passing themselves off as more radical than they have ever been in practice. Their deception shows itself in a thousand different ways, but chiefly in the conception that the working class and the ruling class have a common interest. Unless socialists are able to effectively pose an alternative to these parties, they will be able to go on peddling their illusions. Reformism or gradualism means in practice giving up the fight for socialism. The socialist goal is the liberation of the working class and the humanisation of work.

 To turn a capitalist economy into a socialist one is not to nationalise this company or that. State ownership and social ownership of the means of production are two completely different concepts which should never be confused. The means of production may be owned by the state, but this does not mean that they are thereby the social property of the working class.

Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development. Much can perhaps be added to this definition, but anything less you can call whatever you wish, but it will not be socialism. Socialism for us, yesterday, today, tomorrow still means the end of class rule; the end of class privilege; the freeing of the people from all chains and all coercion, the fullest realisation of democracy, the emancipation of women and of children; abundance for all, and therefore liberty for all.

Social revolution has become the only form of radicalism possible. Never before has the working class been so in need of socialism  and socialism alone. Never before have the conditions been so ripe for turning socialist ideas into reality. Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social and political  system which breaks the fetters of capitalism and opens the way to a new society. Socialism is not something you can  export and import. Socialism cannot be imposed on the points of bayonets. Socialism requires the free choice of conscious people as the main condition for its realisation. When socialism comes, it will not be sneaked in through the back door. Socialism which is constructed without the masses and against the masses is a hollow “socialism” indeed. It will come only when a socialist party, having won the confidence of the working class and convinced the majority that the social ownership and operation of the means of production, has become necessary. Socialist society is not created by gradual reform stepping stones steps toward socialism. Day-to-day struggle alone however does not create socialists. Socialism is a result of conscious building and planning, conducted by the organised majority of the population. There are no short cuts by which we can reach socialism. If the working class does not take into its own hands the power to achieve the new social order, it will pay the penalty of its own destruction. Capitalism is dragging us to global extinction. Our perspective must be working class action to bring down the capitalist system to put a working class socialist alternative in its place – rather than waiting for crumbs from the tables of the bankers and bosses. When society owns the means of production it will own the products. When it owns the products it can distribute them to its members according to their individual and collective needs. This is the only solution.

Zero Hours

Thousands of working Scots are on the edge of poverty because of the abuse of zero-hours contracts by some employers, according to Citizens Advice Scotland. The employment agreements enable businesses to vary the amount of hours a person works, week by week, and the system is meant to allow flexibility for both employers and workers.

Citizens Advice Scotland discovered some workers have gone for long periods with only a few hours in their jobs, or none at all, and therefore little or no pay. In a few cases bosses had drastically cut an employee's hours in what seemed like an effort to force them to resign. Citizens Advice Scotland also found some employers don't tell their staff the job is a zero-hours contract when they are taken on.

According to the Office for National Statistics, there were more than 1.4 million zero-hour contracts across the UK in late 2013.

A Corrupt Society

All their life workers are taught at school, in newspapers, in cinema and TV dramas what a wonderful job the British police do in combating crime, but all of that is just another fantasy of capitalism. 'The family of the Brazilian mistakenly shot dead by anti-terror police were allegedly spied on by undercover Scotland Yard officers. Members of the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS) gathered information on relatives who were campaigning for justice following the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27. His family are reported to be among at least 12 spied on by officers from the now defunct unit.' (Daily Mail, 23 July) Far from the fairy tales of Dixon of Dock Green, Inspector Morse or Midsomer Murders the police are just another institution corrupted by capitalism. RD

Crime And Capitalism

Capitalism is a violent society with military conflicts existing all over the world, but even in non-military situations it is a society fraught with murderous violence. 'Two federal agencies, the FBI and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, only recently announced plans to send additional manpower to Chicago to assist its police department over the remainder of the summer in the wake of the 4 July weekend which saw a shocking spike in shootings. In a four-day period, 82 people were shot across the Windy City, with 17 killed.' (Independent, 21 July) Even in a weekend supposedly set aside to celebrate the land of the free and the mother of the brave, workers are so infected with notions of rivalry and violence 17 of them die with gun-shot wounds. RD

Poverty Amidst Plenty

The following newspaper description of the desperate plight of the homeless in a shanty town would appear to be one about India or Africa but it  isn't. A rake-thin old man dressed in rags and without shoes staggers up a dirt track. Around him, people are living in tree-houses and caves. 'This is Silicon Valley - home to the digital revolution and one of the most celebrated sites of wealth creation the world has ever known. .... As many as 350 people live here, hidden from the surrounding streets, on the banks of a polluted, sunken creek - only 12 miles from the headquarters of Apple.' (Times, 21 July) Some of the inhabitants have excavated holes in the earth about 15 feet deep, 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. They sling tarpaulins and pieces of scrap-wood over the top. In effect they live underground - like modern-day troglodytes. These people are not living the American Dream they are experiencing the American Nightmare. RD

We Are The People !!

Billions live in dire poverty amid unimaginable wealth, and we hurtle relentlessly towards environmental catastrophe.  We see capitalism as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few.

There is no shortage of  ready-made blueprints for a fairer society. However, socialism is not something which can be decreed into being by political parties or individuals but must be created by the mass participation of workers ourselves. Many people may think that socialism sounds like a good idea but doubt it would work in practice. However first it is worth asking "does capitalism work?". We believe there is ample evidence that a socialist society would function far better than our current capitalist one for the vast majority of people.

When we speak of socialism we are talk of a way of organising society based on the principle of “from each according to ability, to each according to need”, and secondly how we achieve such a society based on cooperation, solidarity and meeting human needs. Instead of ownership or control of the means of production - land, factories, offices and so on - being in the hands of private individuals or the state, a socialist society is based on the common ownership and democratic control of those means. And instead of production for exchange and profit, socialism means production to meet human wants.

Today workers  produce everything and run all the services necessary for life. We lay the roads, build the homes, drive the trains, care for the sick, raise the children, make the food, design the products, make the clothes and teach the next generation. Examples abound demonstrating that workers can effectively run workplaces themselves. In fact, the bosses hinder us more than they help and we can do so much better without them. Without the profit motive, any technological advancement which makes a work process more efficient, instead of just laying workers off and making those remaining work harder (which happens at present), we can all just work a little less and have more free time. We can instead focus on how to work less, make what work we need to do more enjoyable, have more fun, more happiness and more joy. we can begin to relate to each other as human beings.

Socialism means a moneyless society where our activity - and its products - no longer take the form of things to be bought and sold. There is ample evidence demonstrating that we do not need the threat of destitution or starvation hanging over us in order to engage in productive activity. For most of human history, we have not had money or wage labour. In hunter-gatherer societies, for example, which were overwhelmingly peaceful and egalitarian there was no distinction between work and play. Even today, a lot of work is done for free.  Nearly 10% of people also carry out unpaid care work and 25% of adults in England carry out voluntary work at least once a month. Almost every useful type of work you can think of is also done by some people for free, not as "work" for wages, demonstrating that they are not strictly necessary.

Studies show that socially useful reason for doing something is the best motivator and that money is not an effective motivator for good performance at complex tasks than people having the freedom and control to do what they want how they want, and having a constructive. The free software movement demonstrates that people don't need wages to be motivated to produce.
 a socially useful goal and can be superior to traditional organisation for profit.

We are socialists because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of  the world’s people. The system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people and sets one group against another. We see in socialism a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Socialism can offer an alternative which can meet the basic needs of people and provide productive and fulfilling work. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. It will be a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs.

We advocate and work for socialism – that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) . We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

The task of The Socialist Party is the organisation and the building of a mass movement of the working class to fight for socialism. We have deep criticisms of the practice of all the various groups calling themselves Marxist-Leninist vanguard parties. Only a conscious socialist movement of the working class can provide the organisation capable of struggling for and ushering in the new society.  Parliament grew out of feudalism and after the capitalist revolution developed as the natural custodian of the interests of Capitalism. It was founded on private property foundations. Its laws are the laws of private property. The modifications that have taken place, the extension of the franchise and the growth of social legislation for the working-class are the reflection of the growing strength and power of the working-class. The more Parliament reflects the class struggle in its work, the more the capitalists attempt to use it as the means to regulate capitalist economy, the more they are impeded by the increasing claims of the worker. The “safety valve” of bourgeois democracy thus becomes no longer “safe” for private property. We call upon the workers to make the machine of Parliament effective for economic change. The way to defend the democratic gains won by years of struggle is to use those gains on every field for working-class advance day in and day out. It must 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. By winning that fight real democracy will supplant capitalist democracy, genuine social democracy will take the place of the sham democracy that hides the dictatorship of Capital. Then, and then only, on the basis of the social ownership of the means of production will there be a government of the People, by the People, for the People.