The world cooperative commonwealth

Capitalism sucks. Corporations poison our environment with toxic wastes, they market products known to be defective or even lethal, and they devastate our communities through factory closures that make thousands idle. They get away with this in part because they fund politicians of all the major parties who are in positions to protect their interests. To mitigate some of the worst excesses of capitalism, reform movements have pushed for various health and welfare programmes.

The socialist revolution will not be made by the Socialist Party. The task is too complex to be accomplished by one section of the population. Planning the new economy and society generally would be far more efficient than it is now because it would include the views of everybody. The logical outcome of a party seizing the initiative in a revolution is that the role of the class becomes redundant. Why participate if a political party can accomplish it for you? When we act for ourselves we learn useful lessons for the future as well as influencing the present. If socialism is to be achieved, people will need to have confidence in their own ability to run society. When we organise constructively in the present we are training ourselves for the future. A free socialist society, the cooperative commonwealth, needs the active involvement of millions of people. And crucially that participation can only happen voluntarily. Socialism cannot be imposed on the people from above, from the outside. It has to be a voluntary, organic process. It has to be a libertarian process. When you are acting for youself, you are clearly not obeying the commands of a leader. No doubt you will be influenced by some people's arguments more than by others but you are free to decide your own course of action. Nobody is compelling you to do anything. The question is not really one of organisation or not, but rather what type of organisation: libertarian or authoritarian, for the spirit of cooperation and mutual aid is vital.

The cooperative commonwealth is realistic. We understand that most people have little interest in making a revolution next week. Or that making one will be easy. Far from it. Many are daunted by the task and search for shortcuts that only result in dead-ends. But if we are serious about achieving socialism, then we have to start about it now. It isn't going to drop from the sky. The longer we wait to begin acting for ourselves the longer it's going to be till we achieve our aim. Too many people are used to letting others run society for them. Sure they might get indignant over corruption or a particular war, but it's fair to say that their actual involvement in changing anything is pretty low. The whole point of having a minority of brainy and benevolent leaders presented by the Leninists and Trotskyists is that they will do the difficult work for you. As such it follows that you yourself don't need to change, to participate on an equal footing with everybody else, to think about why we need socialism, you don't need to get deeply involved in making it happen. This will be fatal for any revolution because the new society will face tough times. But if people have a good understanding of what they are fighting for and have made a deep personal commitment to achieving it, it's unlikely that they are going to let it go easily. The Socialist Party think that the creative capacities of the working class as a whole far outweigh the capacities of a few individual leaders. It is our view that a truly democratic society would be more efficient than it currently is, simply because it would harness everybody's ability.

Most of us have a feeling that, in most things, cooperating with others is generally better than competing against them. That feeling is a sound one. Cooperation is so fundamental to the existence of society that we don't even think of it as cooperation: it seems simply "natural" behaviour. Thus it is normal for two people to move to the side when passing on the footpath, normal to queue for admission to the theatre or sports ground, normal to hold the door open for the person entering behind you. We are an intensely social species who become aware of ourselves as individuals by interacting with our fellow human beings. From the recognition of humans as social beings flows our view on organisation. Workers join unions because they realise that they are better off cooperating with workmates rather than competing against them. All forms of production of goods and services involve cooperation — often by people thousands of kilometres apart. It is the reason why capitalism, itself, depends upon cooperation: the simplest factory couldn't operate without it. Historically, capitalism has greatly increased human cooperation by making production a national and international process. But capitalism also creates contradictions to cooperation. There is cooperation in the factory, but the factory competes against other factories in the same industry. If a single company controls an industry and imposes cooperation, it competes against producers overseas, and against other industries for resources, finance and higher profits. So capitalist cooperation is usually wasteful (duplication of efforts, destruction of losing competitors). It is also imposed from the top — not brought about by the free decision of those who do the cooperating. The real alternative to competition is the freely decided cooperation of working people: cooperation to produce the needs of all human beings, not higher profits for a minority. A major problem with capitalism is that it is based on the concentration of economic power in the hands of a small elite unaccountable to the rest of us. Economic systems are not limited to this choice, however. There is another way, referred to variously as socialism, communism, social democracy, the resource based economy, anarchism, or the cooperative commonwealth. We need a people's movement to democratise the economy.

The cooperative commonwealth is not government ownership, a welfare state, or a repressive bureaucracy. Cooperative commonwealth or socialism is a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighborhoods, homes, and schools.  The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. The cooperative commonwealth produces a constantly renewed future by not plundering the resources of the earth. People across the world need to cast off the systems which oppress them, and build a new world fit for all humanity. Democratic revolutions are needed to dissolve the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government. By revolution we mean a radical and fundamental change in the structure and quality of economic, political, and personal relations. The building of free-access socialism requires widespread understanding and participation, and will not be achieved by an elite or a vanguard working "on behalf of" the people. The working class must implement libertarian socialism themselves. If an attempt is made to impose socialism from above by a state or a benevolent few, it'll prove just as disastrous as it did in the Soviet Union. And socialism won't result anyway. Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity. Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents.

The Earth cannot withstand the onslaught of capitalist culture for very many more years. We are already close to some irreversible tipping points (if we haven’t already reached them). Only a few more years of production for profit, using cheap energy such as coal, will usher in catastrophic global changes. We will have annihilated beyond comprehension vast areas of arable land needed for growing vegetables, despoiled and polluted the supply of fresh water. We are on a march towards planetary suicide. libertarian communism/socialism is where everybody has an equal say in making decisions that affect them and where everybody is assured of equal access to the benefits of society. It's summed up in the old phrase "from each according to ability, to each according to needs." There isn't any reason to keep the wage system after a revolution. As every product is a social product - nobody produces anything in isolation any more - the products themselves ought to be socialised. It's simply not possible to ascertain the true social value of anyone's labour, and in truth not worth the effort of finding out. Everybody's contribution matters. It wouldn't matter how many surgeons we had, if we didn't have cleaners ensuring a hygienic workplace. Both contribute to society. Why discriminate in favour of one in the future society? It'll only preserve the class nature of society. We should move immediately to a system of "to each according to need". We envisage that autonomous cities and industries will federate together and co-ordinate their activities. With socialism there won't be any competitive reason not to. With voluntary co-operation there won't be any need for a centralised authority.

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 80

Denmark challenges Russia and Canada over North Pole. Denmark has presented a claim to the UN, arguing that the area surrounding the North Pole is connected to the continental shelf of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory. Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard said it was a "historic and important milestone" for Denmark.

Lidegaard said data collected since 2002 backed Denmark's claim to an approximate area of 895,000 sq km (346,000 sq miles)- roughly 20 times the size of Denmark - beyond Greenland's nautical borders. Danish scientists were firm in their claim on Monday. "The Lomonosov ridge is the natural extension of the Greenland shelf," Christian Marcussen of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen of Denmark's Syddansk University said the government in Copenhagen had staked its claim, partly to show the world that Denmark could not be pushed about, but also to prove a political point to the people of Greenland. "There's a strong push for independence in Greenland, and Denmark wants to show it's capable of taking its interest into account," he told the BBC. "By taking this step, Copenhagen is sending a signal to Greenland: 'Listen, we're on your team'."

In 2008, a US Geological Survey report estimated that as much as 22% of the world's undiscovered and recoverable resources lay north of the Arctic Circle - 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum.

Common Ownership V State Ownership

Marx and Engels visualised a socialism where all the accumulated treasures in machines and technical appliances created by the genius of man, all that science and art had given to the human race in generations is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. Those who considered themselves to be Marxists saw socialism as being based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new and higher economic system is to be built up, raising production to a higher economic level, and ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good, socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression. This would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

At present there prevails a great confusion of thought, and certain forms of state capitalism are often referred to as Socialism. Some who called themselves socialists mistakenly regarded state-ownership as stage on the way to socialism. The experiences of the Russian Revolution have revealed to us the grave innate dangers of State capitalism. History has taught us that the Leninist-inspired left-wing parties turn from a sheepdog into a wolf, preying on the very flock it promised to guard. State capitalism concentrates an overwhelming power in the hands of the state, and places the citizen completely at the mercy of the State, presenting a bureaucracy with this tremendous power to subjugate the people. Under State capitalism the government derives its income automatically from the economic enterprises of the State and as the owner of banking, industry, agriculture and transport becomes the universal employer, that controls everything on which the fate and happiness of the individual citizen depend. The citizen is dependent on the State as regards his employment, his housing, his supplies, his amusement, his educational and transport facilities. A conflict with the State might affect the citizen as an employee, tenant, etc. This enormous power of the State over the individual citizen must needs call forth or strengthen tendencies towards a dictatorship. State capitalism does not solve any of the outstanding problems. It does not abolish crises, the classes, the wage system. Under State capitalism there is production of commodities for sale, not production for use. Between production and consumption there still remains the partition wall of the purchasing power.

State capitalism is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body. The persons forming this body, the politicians, the ministry and department officials, and the managers of the various enterprises , are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work, including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.

Under State capitalism the workers are not masters of their work; they may be better treated and their wages may be higher than under private ownership; but they are still exploited. Exploitation does not mean simply that the workers do not receive the full produce of their labour; a considerable part must always be spent on the production apparatus and for unproductive though necessary departments of society. Exploitation consists in that others, forming another class, dispose of the produce and its distribution; that they decide what part shall be assigned to the workers as wages, what part they retain for themselves and for other purposes. Under State capitalism this belongs to the regulation of the process of production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. Thus in Russia the Party bureaucracy (the nomenclature or the apparatchiks) was the ruling class and the Russian workers were the exploited class. In other words: the structure of productive work remains as it is under capitalism; workers subservient to commanding directors. Nationalisation is the programme of supposed“friends” of the workers who for the hard exploitation of private capitalism wish to substitute a milder modernised exploitation.  Therein lies the chief danger of State capitalism. It hides an abyss into which the nation may easily tumble, sinking back into barbarism instead of making its way further towards socialism.

Common ownership is self-liberation. The working class themselves can take care of social production if there is no police or State power to keep them off. They have the tools, the machines in their hands, they use and manage them. They do not need masters to command them, nor finances to control the masters. If the working class rejects State ownership with its servitude and exploitation, and demands common ownership with its freedom and self-rule, it cannot do so without fulfilling conditions and shouldering duties. Common ownership of the workers implies, first, that the entirety of producers is master of the means of production and works them in a well-planned system of social production. It implies secondly that in all shops, factories, enterprises the personnel regulate their own collective work as part of the whole. So they have to create the organs of administration by means of which they direct their own work as well as social production at large. The State and its government departments cannot serve for this purpose because it is essentially an organ of domination, and concentrates the general affairs in the hands of a group of rulers. But under socialism the general affairs consist in social production; so they are the concern of all, of every worker, to be discussed and decided at every moment by themselves. Their administrative organs must consist of delegates elected to be bearers of  opinion, and will be continually returning and reporting on the results arrived at in the assemblies of delegates. By means of such delegates that at any moment can be changed and called back the connection of the working masses into smaller and larger groups can be established and organisation of production secured. Such an organizational structure may well be based upon workers’ councils. They cannot be devised beforehand, they must be shaped by the practical activity of the workers themselves when they are needed. Such delegates are not politicians, nor rulers or leaders, but mediators or messengers, forming the connection between the separate workplaces, combining their separate opinions into one common resolution. Common ownership demands common management of the work as well as common productive activity; it can only be realized if all the workers take part in this self-management of what is the basis and content of social life; and if they go to create the organs that unite their separate wills into one common action.

It is important to note that the Socialist Party does not speak here of a higher stage of development, when production will be organized so far as to be no problem any more, when out of the abundance of produce everybody takes according to his wishes, and the entire concept of “ownership” has disappeared. We speak of the time that the working class has conquered political and social power, and stands before the task of organising production and distribution under most difficult conditions. We talk about the here and now.

For over a hundred years the cause of socialism has been dominated by the machinations of two statist creeds, social democracy and Leninism. These have fed off the discontent and aspirations of the working class to become alternative managers of capitalism. Their heydays are long past; the Labourites have long abandoned any pretence to 'reforming capitalism' in favour of simply managing it, after the end of 'communism' the Leninists have been reduced to mini sects which replicate within their own structures the regimes of the old Stalinist States in a homage to Marx's dictum, "first astragedy, now as farce". Their aspirations have shrunk with their horizons, whilst they grandly imagine storming the winter palace and fantasise about bloody revolutions, in reality they have little or no belief in the working class ever rallying to their 'proletarian leadership', and even less in the ability of the working class to emancipate itself. They hide themselves in front campaigns for partial reforms, and embrace and promote a succession of 'Saviours from high' who they are sure will deliver us, until the inevitable betrayal, when they move on to the next. All previous revolutions have been the overthrow of one minority ruling class and the victory of a new one. Such revolutions have needed abstract slogans and ideals (Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité, or Peace, Land, and Bread, ) in order to enlist the support of the masses. They have needed heroes and demagogues to inspire the majority to give their lives for the victory of new masters. The state socialists may talk about socialism, but in reality they wish to replace our present system of class exploitation with another, only with a new bureaucratic exploitative class. This is why they too need heroes, martyrs, demagogues and saviours, because they need to beguile the masses to support their revolution, to support another new ruling class.

The socialist revolution can only take place when the majority of the working class not only understand that it is possible, but also desirable. It needs no abstract ideals to mask it's true purpose, no demagogues to beguile the masses. It needs no heroes.

The Thing That Frightens Everyone.

We all know that continual growth is at the center of capitalist economics. It's nice when the mainstream press says it, too. In the Toronto Star, October 25, in an interview with a staffer, Yuval Noah Harari who wrote the book, " A Brief History of Humankind" said, " If you look at modern economic history, the most salient feature is the exponential growth of the economy. Growth has become the central value of the capitalist ideology. People today are obsessed with growth. Everybody wants their income to grow…The thing that frightens everyone is zero economic growth." John Ayers.

Young Lives Ruined

Capitalism is a fiercely competitive society, so much so it distorts the lives of very young  workers. This has led to an increase in children being treated in hospitals for self-harming. 'Admission of boys aged 10 to 14 have gone up from 454 in 20009-2010 to 659 in 2013-2014 while the number of cases of girls nearly doubles from 3,090 to 5,055 over the same period, according to the Health & Social Care Information Centre.' (Times, 13 December) Capitalism is so awful it even ruins lives before they enter the workplace. RD

Flaunting It

Modesty is not an affliction that the owning class suffer from, thus when it comes to spending their vast wealth they make no secret of how proliferate they can be. 'The top ten most expensive house sales of the year have been revealed - topped by a stunning £50million penthouse. Land Registry data confirmed that an apartment on Princes Gate, London, was the biggest deal of the year and cost almost twice as much as the second most expensive property, a £27million terraced home in west London.' (Daily Mail, 13 December) The contrast with the working class trying to keep up with mortgage payment or paying a council rent should not be lost on any thoughtful worker. RD

Socialism – The Resource of Hope

'The greatest cause of poverty is hover-population,' remarked Harlow.

'Yes,' said old Joe Philpot. 'If a boss wants two men, twenty goes after the job: ther's too many people and not enough work.'

'Over-population!' cried Owen, 'when there's thousands of acres of uncultivated land in England without a house or human being to be seen. Is over-population the cause of poverty in France? Is over-population the cause of poverty in Ireland? Within the last fifty years the population of Ireland has been reduced by more than half. Four millions of people have been exterminated by famine or got rid of by emigration, but they haven't got rid of poverty. P'raps you think that half the people in this country ought to be exterminated as well.'

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

In ‘Imagine’ Lennon was asking us to imagine a place where things that divide people (religion, possessions, etc.) did not exist. The thing that set us apart is class. He felt that would be a much better place. Lennon said this song is "virtually the Communist Manifesto." Lennon added: "even though I am not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement." Take a moment to think about living in a world as imagined by John Lennon in this song, take away material possessions (wealth, status, greed, envy); religion (holy wars, terrorism, religious persecution); countries (war, tyranny, oppression.) And to all those who speak about socialism never ever working. Think of this: early man for thousands of years lived in a society based upon communism. The community was needed to survive. The community or tribe or clan or herd was all that mattered. Share and all survive. That is communism. We as humans have the ability to shape the world into whatever we want.

The Economic Research Service estimates that over 130 billion pounds of edible food goes uneaten per year at the retail and consumer levels in the United States, equating to over 1,200 calories per day per man, woman, and child.  On average, this suggests that as a nation almost one-third of the edible food that could meet our caloric needs goes uneaten. Globally, in developed countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, almost 40 percent of the food is wasted after the dinner table.  In contrast, in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America, almost 40 percent of the food is lost before the dinner table, owing to pests and supply chain issues, including inadequate storage, transportation, and marketing challenges.

The food waste in landfills decomposes, emitting carbon dioxide, methane, other gases, water vapor, and leachates, thus exacerbating our ecological footprint.  Additionally, consider the land, water, fertilizer, labor, energy, and other inputs that went into producing that food, which is now wasted. Indeed, globally food waste/food loss is contributing to the estimated loss of one quadrillion liters of water per year—enough to fill Lake Erie approximately eight times over.

Studies point to the need to double food production to feed the nine plus billion people predicted to populate planet Earth by 2050.  Imagine the possibility:  By eliminating or significantly reducing food waste and food loss, humanity could be closer to achieving food and nutrition security without having to bring in significantly more arable land, energy, water, labor, and other inputs needed to double food production. Mitigating food waste and food loss globally is the “low hanging” fruit in our toolkit to ensure the food and nutritional security of humanity, while husbanding our natural resources such as water and land, and minimizing our ecological footprint.

Americans have steadily moved from farms to cities. The country was 95 percent rural in 1900. Today, 81 percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas. It is predicted that 70% of the entire world will be urban by 2050. For most of human history, food was produced within walking distance of where it was consumed—a way of life in which people maintained a direct connection with the land and their food. Urbanization and the industrialization of food production have rendered this a distant memory for most of us.

Too many households abound in areas that have little or no access to healthy fruits and vegetables. Most of our food is grown from genetically modified and hybrid seeds, sprayed with chemicals and shipped to us from around the world. Quality food is the most important part of being healthy and we are not getting it. Fast food is killing us. We’re eating 31 percent more packaged and processed food than fresh fruits and vegetables. We are consuming more packaged food per person than people in nearly any other country. And food insecurity is growing. Americans spend considerably more on healthcare than any other country. Yet, too many of our children are unhealthy. Our elderly are sicker for longer periods of time.

How will we feed, clothe, shelter, and educate these steadily swelling urban populations? Up until now, too much of the discussion surrounding global warming and the climate crisis has been cloaked in gloom and doom. The fact is, we have the power to reverse, not just mitigate, global warming. We can avert the impending climate catastrophe, mass starvation, resource depletion and endless wars. And while we’re at it, we can also restore soil fertility, eliminate poverty and hunger. We need a global grassroots movement. Our immediate task therefore is to spread this profound message of hope. What is important is that we identify the different messages that will motivate different segments of the population, and then build upon our shared concerns. Through a diversity of messages and campaigns we can build the largest grassroots coalition in history—for our survival, and the survival of the future generations.

Humanity has a shared history and culture, came into being based on some very specific factors. Principle among these was/is a population having access to food and natural resources. Throughout history, population centres formed in the most fertile places – river deltas (Nile, Amazon, Ganges) and those places where plentiful rainfall allowed cropping (Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, SE Asia, where rain-fed agriculture is a viable way to produce food. If we look at a world population distribution map, there is a very strong correlation between rainfall and where people live. The density in South East Asia is incredible, something only possible by historical high rainfall and fertile land. Also, in India, Pakistan and China, this rainfall fed agriculture is supplemented vastly by annual glacier melts that feed their inland river systems. Agriculture is the foundation of life, as we know it. It is what led to our contemporary human societies. “There is no culture without agriculture.” Civilization began when humans settled in one place and started growing crops. We cannot live without a system that grows our food. We cannot flourish without healthy food. Most experts agree that despite advances in modern medicine (or perhaps in part because of them), as a population, we face a serious health crisis. This is particularly apparent in western nations, where there is plenty of food—but much of that “food” is highly processed, nutrient-deficient junk food. Yet the food produced by our modern industrial agriculture system debilitates, rather than enhances, our health.

Why does it matter if the temperature changes? Hotter earth means more energy, which means more frequent violent storms. The NAOO in the US believes that once a century storms will occur every two-three years with 1.5-2 degrees warming. Storms like that wipe out crops, destroy homes, ruin infrastructure, in places where the majority of human beings live. It matters because if the temperature changes, the location and degree of rainfall will change as well, because of changed ocean and atmospheric conditions. 70% of African food is produced by farmers at or close to subsistence level and in SE Asia the level is around 50%, any substantial change in yields will impact those populations hugely. By definition, subsistence farming produces no or small surpluses. We live in a hungry world already. If yields drop too far, literally billions of people will face chronic food shortages. Who cares if the globe warms up? Well, all those hungry people will. Drought, storms and changing rainfall patterns will combine to drastically reduce crop yields. Massive storms will destroy homes and infrastructure. What will hundreds of millions of hungry, homeless people do? What would you do, if your home was repeatedly blown away, and you couldn’t feed your family? You’d find somewhere else to go, just as sure as they will. It’s demonstrably clear that most Australians don’t like boat people. Imagine if millions of starving boat people made their way to Australia?

The hour is late. We are facing the life or death challenge of our lives. Each and every one of us must join the world socialist movement. Environmentalists have argued that waiting for "the revolution" in order to try to save species from extinction, or prevent the planet from boiling over because of climate change, is denying the urgency of environmental problems. They have argued that, given the urgency of environmental problems, we have to use whatever mechanisms are available to us, from high-tech geo-engineering solutions to market mechanisms, to rich philanthropists. Critics of many environmentalists, however, accuse some in the environmentalist movement of willing to accept compromises with elites in ways that ultimately compromise and undermine the environmental cause. Socialists draw attention to the common cause the myriad of different ecological problems share and point to the common enemy, capitalism. Socialists grasp the conclusion that many greens are reluctant to accept, society will have to make massive changes to the economic system, and that the reforms being offered up are not deep enough to stabilise the climate change much less reverse the consequences of global warming. The reformists’ compromises and concessions with capitalism is like driving towards the edge of a high cliff. It doesn’t matter if we roar at it at 150kmh or trickle towards it at 1kmh. Once we reach that tipping point, where global warming is self-reinforcing, we’re not going to stop until we hit the bottom.

A global poll of more than 6.5million people has placed climate change at the very bottom of a long list of priorities, with the finding being consistent across both genders, almost all age ranges, all education levels and in most regions of the world. Across the whole of Africa and Asia climate change rated last, but Europe, Oceania and the Americas promoted the issue to around half way up the table. In the US it ranked 10th, whilst in the UK it was placed 9th. Participants are offered a choice of sixteen policy issues, which also include “a good education”, “Political freedoms”, “Protecting forests, rivers and oceans”, and “Equality between men and women”. We are failing to communicate the urgency and the seriousness of the threat to the environment and the planet.

Many socialists are willing to concede that a key problem is failure to point to solutions. We tend to point to problems - endlessly - as if that will somehow automatically generate action.  In the city of the future we will no longer jump in our cars, burn fossil fuels to go and buy “food” at giant suburban shopping malls that is grown on farms far away. Instead, we will walk to a farm or garden in our neighborhoods to get fresh, nutritious food harvested by urban growers that we know personally. We will no longer pass empty blighted waste-ground. We will eat, work and play close to home, in beautiful spaces. Urban agriculture empowers people with food self-sufficiency, maintains stewardship over the environment and builds a sense of community. And all of it can be done with just a hoe, a rake and a spade. Urban agriculture and the development of local food systems is a way to bring city dwellers closer to their farmers and provide an abundance of natural, nutritious food. In the city of the future, wholesome food will be a right for all, not just a privilege for the few. Urban agriculture transforms both people and places. Growing food in urban areas will grow remarkable cities. The Chicago city planner, Daniel Burnham, famously said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood”. We have no other choice. We must become advocates and campaigners for socialism.

Murphy's Law

Blairite Jim Murphy, a former shadow defence minister, has been announced as the new leader of the Scottish Labour party. Since 2001 Mr Murphy has claimed over £1 million in expenses, voted to cap benefits in March 2014, failed to show up for the vote against the Bedroom Tax, voted for tuition fees despite being NUS president, went on 100 day tour of Scotland campaigning for a no vote, which meant leaving his Eastwood constituency without an MP for almost a third of a year. Yet claimed over £200,000 in Westminster expenses, is a major figure in Labour Friends of Israel, who refuses to recognise of the state of Palestine and strongly supported the illegal invasion of Iraq and unaligned himself with Ed Miliband when he apologised for said invasion. Murphy has never rebelled against the party line in Westminster. Murphy has been sharply critical of any left turn, saying that “galloping off leftward” would be a big mistake. “The SNP would love it if we did that.” [FT, 09/11/14]

All Socialist Courier can say is “Who cares?” According to the best political pundits in the business, the bookies, 90% of the money they had taken for the contest had been for Murphy. But what does it mean? Very little, the Socialist Courier blog says.

The SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN has consistently maintained that the 'left-wing', despite their claims to being socialist are, in reality, reformist rather than revolutionary organisations, with no more than a sentimental attachment to the working class. The rise of the Labour Party has caused inestimable damage to the revolutionary movement for Socialism. The SPGB argued from its formation in 1904 that only socialism can provide a solution to the problems of the working class. Genuine socialists have to be prepared to swim against the tide of popular sentiment, clearly have to combat all manifestations of chauvinism, both unionist or separatist.

The Labour Party in Scotland has consistently shown a readiness to reshape itself, discarding principles, to acquire votes yet even its opportunism has been unable to avoid the slide in support that has been going on for years. Although Scottish Labour has never won over 50% of the national vote, the party did hold the overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats and had control over local government for decades. This was not least because Labour was associated with mass council house building, the formation of the NHS, and other reforms following the second world war. Former Labour voters feel ignored and betrayed by the party. Infested with careerists, it has lost touch with the people it was supposed to represent. Labour has become increasingly viewed as simply another party of the Establishment, which, of course, it always was. At present many are disenchanted, disgusted or outright hostile to Labour, The party is largely empty of active workers.

 Capitalism can no longer afford reforms and as a result we have capitalist austerity and he probably realizes that any promises he makes will never be achieved. Capitalism has no reforms to give. We have seen bursts here and there which are expressions of the deep discontent, frustration and anger that exist in society. There is a deep appetite in society for a greater and more fundamental change. The ideas of reformism or nationalism, which attempt to patch up capitalism, offer nothing for working people. Elaine C. Smith argued that the reason for Scottish Labour’s  poor performance was a lack of socialist analysis and socialist solutions. “The root of the problem is class society; the root of the problem is inequality; the root of the problem is in-work poverty; the root of the problem is unemployment. The root of the problem is avaricious capitalism and our job and the job of the Labour Party, surely, is to root it out.” Yet all she offers is neo-Keynesian state investment that is utopian and undeliverable.

 Socialism, in its modern sense, was born in Scotland. Robert Owen at New Lanark is where it all began. It is the task of the Socialist Party to win those open to revolutionary ideas and offer a real alternative to capitalism and nationalism. What we need is a revolutionary socialist transformation of society! Let this be the message to those who believe in real socialism, we are the party for them, we are the rightful home for you. 

Future Health Dangers

Under the headline "Oceans drowning in a a sea of plastic" we learn the alarming truth about the dumping of plastic waste on the world's oceans. 'What is made up of 52 million pieces and weigh 250,000 tonnes? The answer is the mountain of plastic floating around the world's oceans. The first comprehensive study found that the Mediterranean had more plastic than anywhere else at 90,000 pieces per sq km. Most other  oceans had up to 100,000 pieces sq km.' (Times, 12 December) This dumping is going on at a time when there are growing fears about the capacity of fish and seabirds to absorb potentially harmful plastic compounds and to pass the effects RD

On Course For Tragedy

Talks have reopened in Peru on the final day of a key UN climate summit aimed at advancing a new global treaty. 'But long-running divisions between rich and poor continue to hamper progress. US Secretary of State John Kerry warned the world was "still on a course leading to tragedy", saying a deal was "not an option, an urgent necessity". Negotiators have been meeting in Lima for almost two weeks to prepare the elements of the new treaty. A new text has been produced by the chairman of the talks in an effort to get a decision. But environmental groups say that it is far too weak and threatens to leave many issues unresolved.' (BBC News, 12 December) Despite all the well-meaning sentiments expressed capitalism places the environment concerns way behind that of the profit motive. RD

A Class-For-Itself

When fear and terror become the organising principles of a society in which the tyranny of the state has been replaced by the despotism of an unaccountable market, violence becomes the only valid form of control. The net effect is an entirely intentional grinding down of the majority of the population in order to maintain the dominance of the rich and powerful. The system has not failed. It is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, which is to punish those it considers dangerous or disposable - which increasingly includes more and more individuals and groups.

 In an age when the delete button and an utterly commodified and privatised culture can erase all vestiges of memory and commitment, it is easy for a society to remove from itself sordid memories that reveal the systemic injustices and inequalities which disconnect broader understanding of the past that no longer has any connection to the present. For those who are able to find work, the workplace is increasingly precarious. Whether due to zero-hours contracts, the threat of cuts-related redundancies or the removal of funding, our pay packets are constantly under threat. It has been a case of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ accompanied by a barrage of scapegoating propaganda in the media. While capitalists have acquired increasing financial gain at the expense of now stagnating workers’ wages and from the slashing cuts to healthcare, housing, education and welfare it is not safe to assume that the working class, have finished reacting to all this. Many believe that the imposition of austerity policies would rally people to their cause. This is not an entirely baseless assumption. Today is a new day, particularly for those who embrace and proclaim the need for a total change — a new civilisation.

The Occupy movement was not exactly anti-capitalist, though it did take aim at key aspects of the neo-liberal model of capitalism such as financiers and bankers. Because the movement gave expression to what many people were feeling, and because it was leaderless and non-ideological, it grew rapidly. Still, their numbers were only in the thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands. However, support for Occupy’s goals and for what Occupiers were doing was more widespread. Their slogan “we are the 99%” rang true. Nevertheless, Occupy melted away. This remind us, of a few things. One is that relief from systemic oppression requires radical solutions. Calls for punishing the Wall Street crooks who caused the financial crisis will not reform the system that produced the financial debacle. Such reforms simply give the system a veil of legitimacy, suggesting it can be fixed. It can’t be fixed. The other is that for popular is not enough and that political action must be taken. The people it mobilised expressed rage and celebrated the realization that “a different world is possible.”  But they had no idea how to change the world; and, even if they had, they lacked the means to advance it.

In capitalism’s current phase, it is often expedient for capitalists to export high paying manufacturing jobs overseas. This keeps wages down, even as profits rise, harming all workers, and putting the unions that still represent them in jeopardy. It is a vicious cycle that is especially harmful to those who are least well off. Many people know that instead of bringing the bottom up capitalism pushes the bottom down. Austerity has had the effect of wearing people down, of creating fears, anxieties and deprivations that have forced many to fight simply to keep their own heads above water. The tightening of belts of essential services has meant that those already suffering are made to suffer again. Capitalism is the root of the problems that Occupy protesters onto the streets but this understanding has got lost. It is not enough merely to attack the symptoms of disempowerment; the solution must be more radical. In short, the remedy for political disempowerment is the economic empowerment of the disempowered. This cannot be achieved at the individual level; it requires restructuring the economic structure itself. Since capitalism has always been the main obstacle in the way of empowering people the time to once again make it Public Enemy Number One.

The Occupy movement was moving towards this understanding, but never quite got there. For socialists, changing the world for the better has always been the aim. It can sometimes be useful to vent anger at oppressive circumstances. But, in the end, political struggle is indispensable. The debate among the earlier socialists was not over whether struggles to end oppression should move into the political arena, but how. Every conceivable way was envisioned and tried – violent and peaceful, legal and extra-legal, vanguardist and mass-based. Many lessons should have been learned yet for all practical purposes, the lessons learned from bitter experience it is now lost knowledge. This has been the painful realization for many in the Socialist Party that instead of building upon the past, it seems we now once more require to re-invent the wheel. What is important is that we work out what has happened and learn from the past so that the coming struggles can be better comprehended. As long as solidarity cannot be extended anti-capitalist social movements will remain of limited effectiveness. When there are significant barriers to solidarity, the state can govern unimpeded. What is needed is a wholesale change, a revolution, and end to the misery of private property and the inevitable inequality which goes with it; a new system of society which integrates everyone and distributes its wealth according to the reasonable needs of its members. This new socialist society would abolish at a stroke the problems of deprivation and exclusion. It would enable the wasted talent of those who are presently excluded on economic grounds from a proper participation in the life of society to be properly developed.

The goal of a socialist society based on human values and not economic ones, means that the machines and technology serve the operators and not the other way round. Freed from pointless drudgery, more meaningful work can be developed by those who, for example, want to pursue a craft, but have had no time to develop skill, or those who yearn to do a socially useful task, but couldn’t afford to before. Scores of socially useful tasks, many related to restoring the environment, that today go undone will attract people to work for pleasure. We are not talking about eliminating all jobs, just the most stupid and boring of them, and reducing the time people spend at the rest. Necessary work, the kind that often is undervalued today, may be the most physically exhausting and should be shared in a just society.

But to achieve such a world people need to form themselves into agents of change – or as Marx said, a class-for-itself – to agitate for common ownership. Our ruling class is expert on creating dissension within the workers. One need only refer to the social divisions employers enforced in the early labour movement. However, women, blacks and immigrants often find themselves in identical situations, and the recognition of commonality in struggle begins to define class and galvanise into a force of class struggle. Socialism simply will not come about by wishing it so but requires action. We need a new politics of real change. One thing is certain, no social change of any significance will occur without a re-newed class struggle.

No Longer the North Sea bonanza

North Sea oil was central to the dream of Scottish independence in this year’s referendum. The wealth stored under the waves would buttress public spending, said the SNP, and it would also enable Scots to set up their sovereign fund as Norway has to hold some of its fruits for future generations.

The SNP predicted that oil would be selling now for $110 a barrel. Unusually, however, it forecasted that the price would stay constant over the next five years. Yesterday, North Sea Brent crude traded at one point at $64.24 (and could drop further). The world is now facing an era of cheap oil so the SNP is joining a long queue of people who got their predictions about oil wrong.

 Between 1991 and 2008, tax receipts from the North Sea grew strongly, reaching £12.4 billion, on the back of prices reaching an all-time high in 2008. From 2009, however, revenues have fallen, from £6.1 billion in 2012-13 to £4.7 billion in the last financial year and to £2.8 billion in the one ending next April. The drop equals roughly half of what Scotland spends each year on education.

The price drop may not be temporary. Global demand is “very subdued” and “buoyant” supplies are available from the US where shale is becoming increasingly significant. Some producers may increase, not cut, production.  Banks are rationing lending for energy giants. Projects must show that they can survive at less than $75 a barrel. North Sea investments are competing for cash that has other places to go. The North Sea fields are ageing. New discoveries are being made, but they are smaller than before. Existing fields are also becoming more expensive to run, and more prone to breakdowns. In the North Sea last year only 15 wells were drilled as production costs soared more than 15 per cent. The sharp rise in costs has led oil and gas companies to focus their investments in Norway and North America rather than the North Sea.

The Office of Budget Responsibility believed that oil and gas tax receipts would fall by £100 million between 2014-15 and 2019. Production would stay flat. However, the figures from the independent budget watchdog are already significantly out of date for now, since it was based on a $100-a-barrel price this year. North Sea crude, they estimated, would fetch $85-a-barrel for the rest of the decade.

Falling production and exploration will see employment numbers in the North Sea drop by around a tenth, a report has found. North Sea oil and gas could lose up to 35,000 jobs in the next five years, industry experts have warned. Although some of the job losses will come with the retirement of older workers, the report reveals that more than half of the workforce is under the age of 45. For every offshore job that is lost, three more industry jobs are lost onshore, according to union officials. North Sea oil represented 30% of Scotland's GDP (last year on $113 oil)

Jake Molloy, regional organiser of the RMT union in Aberdeen, said: “The offshore industry is facing what amounts to a perfect storm of a falling oil prices on global markets, the shale revolution, rising costs to extract oil and gas from the North Sea, and smaller and harder-to-access fields.”

An independent Scotland with a budget surplus and an oil investment boom? A fairy tale. 

Crime pays a dividend

Peter Tait, a fishing skipper and a director of the Fraserburgh-based Klondyke Fishing Company, two years ago was fined £40,000 after he and three other members of his family admitted landing illegal catches worth more than £6.5million in Shetland and Peterhead. They were also ordered to forfeit more than £700,000. A total of 31 skippers and three firms were fined just under £1.8 following the “Operation Trawler” inquiry. They falsely declared catches to evade the EU fishing quotas allocated to their vessels and broke European regulations introduced to preserve fish stocks by landing tons of herring and mackerel between 2002 and 2005.

Tait has now paid just over three million pounds for the B-listed, six bedroom Edwardian mansion in the upmarket Rubislaw area of Aberdeen in what is believed to be the most expensive house sold in Scotland this year.

So crime pays after all.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/black-fish-scandal-skipper-snaps-4795558

The Youngest Outcasts

A recent report on homeless children in the USA claims that one child in every thirty is now homeless. 'Titled "America's Youngest Outcasts" the report being issued by the National Center on Family Homelessness calculates that nearly 2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013.' (Yahoo News, 17 November) The richest country in modern capitalism and yet we have kids living without a home. RD

Sporting Madness

Capitalism has some strange sense of values. At a time when world-wide we have families living in penury and near-starvation we have sportsmen signing million dollar contracts. The baseball team Miami Marlins signed Giancarlo Stanton on a 13 year contract for $325 million. 'His contract tops the $292 million 10 year deal Miguel Cabrera agreed with the Detroit Tigers in March. Alex Rodrieque signed a the largest previous deal, a $275 million 10 year contract with the Yankees before the 2008 season.' (Huff Post, 18 November)   RD

More Double Dealing

When news broke about the the CIA carrying out torture in questioning al-Qaeda suspects it originally was claimed that they had not informed the government, but that turns out to be untrue according to Dick Cheney, the vice-president at the time. 'US President George W Bush was "fully informed" about CIA interrogation techniques condemned in a Senate report, his vice-president says. Speaking to Fox News, Dick Cheney said Mr Bush "knew everything he needed to know" about the programme, and the report was "full of crap.' (BBC News, 11 December) RD

A Dangerous World

It is often difficult to get accurate figures about deaths due to terrorist activities but by combining the journalistic and professional resources of the BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring, and the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London we learn the following. 'The findings are both important and disturbing. In the course of November, jihadists carried out 664 attacks, killing 5,042 people - many more than, for instance, the number of people who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.' (BBC News, 11 December) In so-called local skirmishes capitalism with its economic and military rivalries slaughtered over 5,000. RD

War Against War

Honeyed phrases about ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ is a minor issue from the standpoint of the working class. As is the question ‘Who started the war?’ because politicians on either side of a war will always portray the ‘enemy’ as the ‘aggressor’, and usually successfully to sway public opinion. John Pilger quotes the journalist who exposed the Iran/Contragate:

"If you wonder," wrote Robert Parry, "how the world could stumble into world war three - much as it did into world war one a century ago - all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire US political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats versus black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason."

At the height of World War One’s slaughter, British prime minister David Lloyd George confided in C.P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian: "If people really knew the truth the war would be stopped tomorrow, but of course they don't know and can't know."

It's time they knew and that is part of the task of socialists.

Socialists have always claimed that at the bottom of all war there is an economic cause. This claim is substantiated by a careful study of the causes and results of wars. Economic causes are, of course, the root of wars. But today, with all this nationalistic preaching it is easier than ever to obscure this fact. Nationalism is the cloak behind which the economic causes work.

The position that socialists take in a war is of the utmost importance. It is an acid test, for us. Many people are anti-war. There is a more fundamental reason why socialists reject a strategy that leaves the causes of war untouched. So long as we simply aim at putting a halt to the latest barbarity in which our rulers are engaged we will always leave them free to prepare another war. The drive to war is inherent in the way capitalism works. As long as the antiwar or peace movements and the working class in general refuse, or are unwilling, to recognize the cardinal point that capitalism with its production for profit and private ownership of the tools of production is the cause of war, they will find themselves fighting endless reforms or effects under capitalism which never lead to a solution but only to frustration and despair.

The real roots of the war can be seen in the class system of society. The narrow interests of each “national” capitalist class conflict one with the other. It is notorious to all students of history that “spheres of influence” and “places in the sun” are only elegant phrases that really mean exclusive possession of foreign markets and trade privilege. But these things are known only to the careful investigator into facts and to the unprejudiced historian.Kings and capitalists may fight for these things — people, never! Yet it is peoples that must fight the war and die in war.

Internationalism means no nationalism. Nationalism always claims certain virtues as the peculiar, exclusive possession of certain nations. If individuals make such claims, they are laughed to scorn. Why — with what logic — may nations make such claims? Nationalism claims that the culture belonging to one nation is distinct from that belonging to any other. This was so in the past, but the natural evolution of mankind is making it less so. Increased means of communication has created a world where  there is no essential difference between any one of the countries of the world. Even language is tending to become universal. More people understand each other today than ever before. Governments are coming to resemble each other. Codes of ethics are becoming international. It is only by the most artificial kind of propaganda that nationalism is kept alive. Nationalism is an unmitigated curse. It leads inevitably to chauvinism and to national aggression. It leads to a patriotism for the soil, for the particular bit of the earth’s surface on which a particular person has been born. It leads to narrowness and bigotry, to national jealousy and petty pride. In the end nationalism is the best of cloaks for the intrigues and machinations of capitalists.

When people attack 'militarism' yet uphold the capitalist system, they are fighting an effect while defending the cause. The politicians are elected and sent to parliament to protect the economic interests of the capitalist class. That's just one little lesson in political economy that the anti-war movement badly needs. The function of the political State is that of the executive committee of the capitalist class. The only road to permanent peace lies in the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by genuine socialism under which goods will be produced for use and the means of wealth production will be socially owned.

Socialism being a classless and cooperative there will be no exploitative capitalist class as at present to fight over the surplus wealth stolen from the working class and encourage wars to get rid of it. The causes of war that existed under capitalism will no longer exist under socialism. Only under socialism can permanent peace become a reality instead of just a dream as at present. All of the energy, enthusiasm and sacrifice of the present anti-war movements will come to naught unless they quickly learn that capitalism is the cause of war. Capitalism and its nation state system is the root cause of war. The danger of war can only be prevented through a struggle to abolish the profit system and reorganise society on the basis of socialism.

Wars are not accidental. An accident can sometimes spark off war but only if all the other conditions for war are present. But there is no such thing as an “accidental war”. The only way to end the possibility of such madness as war is to destroy the system which inevitably leads to these horrors. 

The Godly Scots

A Freedom of Thought report, published by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) criticises Scotland for the religiously privileged position afforded to three “religious representatives” who are required by law to be appointed to all 32 local authority education committees.

These positions require at least one Roman Catholic and one Church of Scotland representative, but non-religious people are excluded. The report also highlighted the disparity of sex and relationships education, and religious education between Roman Catholic faith schools and others in Scotland.

Douglas McLellan, Chief Executive of the Humanist Society Scotland said:

 “Many commentators in Scotland still seem unable to mention humanists or atheists without adding the term ‘militant’ or ‘aggressive’. I hope this report will make them reflect on how hurtful that is to the many millions of Scots who wish to lead an ethical and fulfilling life without reference to religion.”

Capital Can Dominate

Google has actually come out and said that climate change facts are no longer in dispute and has cancelled its membership in The American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization founded in 1973 that  brings corporate and elected officials together to work on hundreds of model policies and bills that are meant for introduction in US state Legislatures. This is how capital can dominate an elected assembly for its agenda. Not surprisingly, it denies the science behind climate change. John Ayers.

Someone Can't Be A Sinner!

According to Papal doctrine, popes are infallible. The New York Times writes (November 2), "On paper, that doctrine seems to grant extraordinary power to the pope – since he cannot err, the first Vatican Council declared in 1870, when he 'defines doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church." John XXIII said, " I am only infallible if I speak infallibly, but I shall never do that." And I thought we were all sinners! John Ayers.

A Torturous Society (2)

It is not only Britain of the so-called free nations that  carries out torture as the  US has recently confessed. 'The CIA carried out "brutal" interogations of al-Qaeda suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the US, a US senate report has said. The summary of the report compiled by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said that the CIA misled Americans about said it was doing.' (BBC News, 9 December) RD

Steady State Socialism

Socialism is often called the society of the free and equal while democracy is defined as the rule of the people. These simple definitions still ring true. But when some say they too call for a socialist democracy it is incumbent upon us to enquire “Just what do you mean by socialism, and what do you mean by democracy?” and ask “Do you mean what Marx and Engels said? Or do you mean what Lenin and Stalin did?” Workers around the world have become more acutely sensitive than ever before to the value and importance of democratic rights and there is no doubt that mass media propaganda has profoundly affected the sentiments of the working class in regard to socialism. The one-party dictatorship that was in Russia and elsewhere has been identified with the name of socialism and it is perhaps understandable that workers have been prejudiced against socialism. The socialist movement will not advance significantly until it regains the initiative and corrects the misrepresentations of socialism and the misinterpretations of democracy. Our strategy, as socialists, is simply to restate what socialism and democracy meant to the founders and pioneers of our movement and to bring their formulations up to date and apply them to present conditions. There is no room for misunderstanding. It requires a clean break with all the perversions and distortions of the real meaning of socialism and democracy and their relation to each other, and a return to the original definitions. Nothing short of this will do. The authentic socialist movement is the most democratic movement in all history.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. The “self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority” cannot be anything else but democratic, if we understand by “democracy” the rule of the people, the majority.  A society where the people are without voice or the is just as foreign to the thoughts of Marx and Engels as the reformist idea that socialism can be handed down to the workers by degrees by those who exploit them.

Marx and Engels reiterated their position that “the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves”. That is a way of saying that a socialist a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class. Nothing could be more democratic than that. Only the revolution that replaces the class rule of the capitalists by the class rule of the workers who constitute the vast majority of people can really establish democracy.

Marx and Engels never taught that the nationalisation of the forces of production signified the establishment of socialism, still less could they have sanctioned, even if they had been able to imagine, the monstrous idea that socialism was without freedom and without equality, or that people controlled by a ruthless police dictatorship, complete with prisons, torture chambers and forced-labour camps, could be designated as a “socialist” society. Marxists defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a democratic workers’ state, to say nothing of a state in the monstrous form of a bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority. The Communist Manifesto said: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association.” NB: “an association”, not a state—“an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”

Just as those travesties described as “ peoples democracies” cannot be passed themselves off genuine workers democracies, nor should  those who claim describe capitalist countries as democratic succeed in duping us. What is termed bourgeois democracy is a system of minority rule, and the beneficiaries of it are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slaveowners of ancient times were the actual rulers and the real beneficiaries of the Athenian democracy. Within bourgeois democracy people can exercise the right of free speech through a free media. But this formal right of freedom 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 communication and information as right now we witness the endeavours of the authorities to control the internet and the world wide web.

The right to join or form union organisation is a precious right, a democratic right, yet workers have neither voice nor vote in the management of the industry which they have created, nor in regulating the speed of the assembly line. Full control of production is still the exclusive prerogative of “management”, that is, of the absentee stock-holders. Workers have no democratic rights in industry at all, as far as regulating production is concerned; that these rights are exclusively reserved for the parasitic owners, who never see the inside of a factory. What’s democratic about that? Another word to express socialism is “industrial democracy”, the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, where private ownership eliminated.

But even so, with all that, a little democracy is better than none. We socialists have never denied that. Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet peoples’ needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, the many structures of economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that people can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives. Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. Socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. Socialists do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society. Rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the economic institutions should commonly owned and collectively controlled by the people themselves. Democracy does not come from the top, it comes from the bottom.

“Dictatorship of the Proletariat” is perhaps the most misfortunate of expressions and perhaps one of the most misunderstood phrase that has been seized upon by followers of Lenin to justify the idea of the existence of a coercive State after the establishment of “socialism”, that stage various Bolshevik-type  groups believe that we must go through as a lengthy transition before "real communism" can be brought about. Marx did believe that a period known as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" would separate capitalism and socialism/communism. However, this phrase was consciously and dishonestly distorted by Lenin.

Marx meant by the word dictatorship in an explicit sense to mean the domination of society by one class through its control over the state machine. He often, for example, referred to Britain as a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", though he was freely allowed to write and work in the country. Marx took the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" from the French revolutionaries he met when he lived in Paris in the mid-1840s. Only, whereas they saw this as being a minority dictatorship supposedly on behalf of the working class (or proletariat) Marx gave it a democratic content and saw it as the unlimited exercise of political power by the working class by and on its own behalf. What Marx envisaged was a period between the end of capitalist political rule and the establishment of socialism (or communism, the same thing) when political power would be exercised by the majority working class within a democratic context. So, yes, he did envisage democracy and freedom of speech for all people, even capitalists and former capitalists, under his interpretation of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Engels referred to the Paris Commune of 1871 as an example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and, although we can doubt that it really was a beginning of a transition to socialism, it was an elected council with competing parties-quite unlike Russia under Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.  Leninism made what can only be construed as a quite deliberate play on words, using the term dictatorship in its popularly understood sense, to mean the denial of basic democratic freedoms, the maintenance of rule by force and the ruthless suppression of political opponents. Lenin gave special emphasis to the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to identify the term with a state ruled by a vanguard party. It is noticeable however that Lenin's Three Sources of Marxism article contained no mention of the phrase or Lenin's particular conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Although, the Socialist Party say that the working class should still organise to win control of political power and use it in the course of establishing socialism - and would call this the "dictatorship of the proletariat" if pressed - we don't envisage this as lasting for any length of time and think the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to be so open to misunderstanding as to be counter-productive. If used by Socialist Party members it is meant the working class conquest of power, which should not be confuse with a socialist society. We prefer to speak simply of the (very short-term democratic) exercise of political power by the working class.

 Taken and adapted from the writings of Richard Smith

Won't be fooled again

Socialism is often called the society of the free and equal while democracy is defined as the rule of the people. These simple definitions still ring true. But when some say they too call for a socialist democracy it is incumbent upon us to enquire “Just what do you mean by socialism, and what do you mean by democracy?” and ask “Do you mean what Marx and Engels said? Or do you mean what Lenin and Stalin did?” Workers around the world have become more acutely sensitive than ever before to the value and importance of democratic rights and there is no doubt that mass media propaganda has profoundly affected the sentiments of the working class in regard to socialism. The one-party dictatorship that was in Russia and elsewhere has been identified with the name of socialism and it is perhaps understandable that workers have been prejudiced against socialism. The socialist movement will not advance significantly until it regains the initiative and corrects the misrepresentations of socialism and the misinterpretations of democracy. Our strategy, as socialists, is simply to restate what socialism and democracy meant to the founders and pioneers of our movement and to bring their formulations up to date and apply them to present conditions. There is no room for misunderstanding. It requires a clean break with all the perversions and distortions of the real meaning of socialism and democracy and their relation to each other, and a return to the original definitions. Nothing short of this will do. The authentic socialist movement is the most democratic movement in all history.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. The “self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority” cannot be anything else but democratic, if we understand by “democracy” the rule of the people, the majority.  A society where the people are without voice or the is just as foreign to the thoughts of Marx and Engels as the reformist idea that socialism can be handed down to the workers by degrees by those who exploit them.

Marx and Engels reiterated their position that “the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves”. That is a way of saying that a socialist a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class. Nothing could be more democratic than that. Only the revolution that replaces the class rule of the capitalists by the class rule of the workers who constitute the vast majority of people can really establish democracy.

Marx and Engels never taught that the nationalisation of the forces of production signified the establishment of socialism, still less could they have sanctioned, even if they had been able to imagine, the monstrous idea that socialism was without freedom and without equality, or that people controlled by a ruthless police dictatorship, complete with prisons, torture chambers and forced-labour camps, could be designated as a “socialist” society. Marxists defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a democratic workers’ state, to say nothing of a state in the monstrous form of a bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority. The Communist Manifesto said: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association.” NB: “an association”, not a state—“an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”

Just as those travesties described as “ peoples democracies” cannot be passed themselves off genuine workers democracies, nor should  those who claim describe capitalist countries as democratic succeed in duping us. What is termed bourgeois democracy is a system of minority rule, and the beneficiaries of it are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slaveowners of ancient times were the actual rulers and the real beneficiaries of the Athenian democracy. Within bourgeois democracy people can exercise the right of free speech through a free media. But this formal right of freedom 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 communication and information as right now we witness the endeavours of the authorities to control the internet and the world wide web.

The right to join or form union organisation is a precious right, a democratic right, yet workers have neither voice nor vote in the management of the industry which they have created, nor in regulating the speed of the assembly line. Full control of production is still the exclusive prerogative of “management”, that is, of the absentee stock-holders. Workers have no democratic rights in industry at all, as far as regulating production is concerned; that these rights are exclusively reserved for the parasitic owners, who never see the inside of a factory. What’s democratic about that? Another word to express socialism is “industrial democracy”, the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, where private ownership eliminated.

But even so, with all that, a little democracy is better than none. We socialists have never denied that. Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet peoples’ needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, the many structures of economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that people can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives. Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. Socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. Socialists do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society. Rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the economic institutions should commonly owned and collectively controlled by the people themselves. Democracy does not come from the top, it comes from the bottom.

“Dictatorship of the Proletariat” is perhaps the most misfortunate of expressions and perhaps one of the most misunderstood phrase that has been seized upon by followers of Lenin to justify the idea of the existence of a coercive State after the establishment of “socialism”, that stage various Bolshevik-type  groups believe that we must go through as a lengthy transition before "real communism" can be brought about. Marx did believe that a period known as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" would separate capitalism and socialism/communism. However, this phrase was consciously and dishonestly distorted by Lenin.

Marx meant by the word dictatorship in an explicit sense to mean the domination of society by one class through its control over the state machine. He often, for example, referred to Britain as a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", though he was freely allowed to write and work in the country. Marx took the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" from the French revolutionaries he met when he lived in Paris in the mid-1840s. Only, whereas they saw this as being a minority dictatorship supposedly on behalf of the working class (or proletariat) Marx gave it a democratic content and saw it as the unlimited exercise of political power by the working class by and on its own behalf. What Marx envisaged was a period between the end of capitalist political rule and the establishment of socialism (or communism, the same thing) when political power would be exercised by the majority working class within a democratic context. So, yes, he did envisage democracy and freedom of speech for all people, even capitalists and former capitalists, under his interpretation of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Engels referred to the Paris Commune of 1871 as an example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and, although we can doubt that it really was a beginning of a transition to socialism, it was an elected council with competing parties-quite unlike Russia under Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.  Leninism made what can only be construed as a quite deliberate play on words, using the term dictatorship in its popularly understood sense, to mean the denial of basic democratic freedoms, the maintenance of rule by force and the ruthless suppression of political opponents. Lenin gave special emphasis to the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to identify the term with a state ruled by a vanguard party. It is noticeable however that Lenin's Three Sources of Marxism article contained no mention of the phrase or Lenin's particular conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Although, the Socialist Party say that the working class should still organise to win control of political power and use it in the course of establishing socialism - and would call this the "dictatorship of the proletariat" if pressed - we don't envisage this as lasting for any length of time and think the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to be so open to misunderstanding as to be counter-productive. If used by Socialist Party members it is meant the working class conquest of power, which should not be confuse with a socialist society. We prefer to speak simply of the (very short-term democratic) exercise of political power by the working class.

The "poverty premium"

In Scotland the poorest households are paying £1,300 a year more than their wealthier neighbours for everyday goods and services. Thereport by a coalition of churches andcharities draws on a year of grassroots research conducted in Glasgow and charts the so-called "poverty premium"; the high prices charged for everyday essentials including food, fuel, finance, furniture, and even funerals in the city's poorest neighbourhoods.

Niall Cooper, Director of Church Action on Poverty, said: “It shouldn’t cost money to be poor. It is unacceptable for companies to exploit their most vulnerable customers by charging them the highest prices.”

Peter MacDonald, leader of the Iona Community, said: “It is clear from this report, consistent with several others, that we are not ‘all in this together’. The poorest among us are paying the price of austerity. This is morally and economically just plain wrong.”

Martin Johnstone, chief executive of Faith in Community Scotland and secretary of Scotland’s Poverty Truth Commission, said: “This report highlights what many of our poorest citizens already know. If you are poor then food, fuel, furniture and even funerals costs you more than if you have spare money in the bank. That is ludicrous but it is reality. It’s a scandal, a scandal that we must overturn, once and for all. Having read this report no politician, no business and no citizen should rest content until things are different.”

Socialist Courier would say that this confirms what the Socialist Party has been saying for decades. Poverty is an inherent part of capitalism and rather than expecting supporters of the capitalist system such as businesses and politicians to remedy the failure to provide for all, no citizen should rest until things are different and we have socialism.

Getting Burnt

That Russell Hobbs has withdrawn thousands of irons after customers have reported them bursting into flames in their hands should come as no surprise. The company knew about the problem for sometime before withdrawing the faulty models. 'Tim Wright, the vice-president of Spectrum Brands, Russell Hobbs parent company, admitted the company discovered the problem 18 months ago, and apologised for all who had been hurt. ..... Questioned about the delay in recalling the faulty products, he said: "We did actually discover it over a year ago as you say. We recognised that we had a flex in our irons which is actually UK and European compliant, but in certain occasions was causing an issue.' (Daily Telegraph, 6 December) The whole motive force of capitalism is to make a profit. Everything else is secondary including safety. RD

A Torturous Society

Torture according to the press is something carried out by unscrupulous foreigners but just isn't British. So how come  a letter discovered in Downing Street at the National Archives has placed Britain in the dock at European Court of Human Rights accused of torturing detainees in Northern Ireland in the 1970s? 'The confidential memo written in March 1977 by Merlyn Rees, then Labour home secretary, states that, six years earlier, Tory ministers had authorised the use of torture in Ulster. Mr Rees told prime minister James Callaghan that he thought individuals or soldiers should not be prosecuted because "a political decision was taken" to use the so-called deep interrogation techniques.' (Times, 6 December) These techniques included wall standing in stress positions, white noise, hooding, sleep deprivation and withholding of food and water. RD