Cooped up in Co-ops

Socialists should learn from history and experience. The idea that society can be transformed by the introduction of cooperatives is not a new one. The first cooperatives represented a peaceful attempt to build an alternative economic system by organising peoples' institutions that would co-exist alongside capitalist ones, and would gradually expand to involve the majority of the population as cooperative producers and consumers. The first American dairy cooperatives were founded in the Goshen, Connecticut and South Trenton, New York, both in 1810. A decade later a group of Ohio farmers formed America's first agricultural marketing cooperative on record. In 1822 Pennsylvania barley farmers set up the first cooperative brewery. The first cooperative wheat elevator was opened in Dane City, Illinois, in 1847. The Amalgamated Houses is the oldest non-profit housing cooperative in the country established in 1927, now with 1500 families in 11 buildings on 15 acres between Van Cortlandt Park and the Jerome Park Reservoir, New York.

In 1933, the author turned activist, Upton Sinclair, outlined a plan for ending the depression in California, in a widely-distributed pamphlet. His plan, EPIC (End Poverty In California), was to create "land colonies whereby the unemployed may become self-sustaining" in the countryside, while in the cities EPIC would procure "production plants whereby the unemployed may produce the basic necessities required for themselves and for the land colonies, and to operate these factories and house and feed and care for the workers." These two groups, in the cities and countryside, would "maintain a distribution system for the exchange of each other’s products. The industries will (constitute) a complete industrial system, a new and self-sustaining world for those our present system cannot employ." EPIC planned to incorporate the widespread "self-help" cooperatives into the program. The plan's supporters began forming EPIC clubs; in less than a year Sinclair won the Democratic Party nomination for governor, dumping out the "regular" machine. With the slogan Production for Use, Sinclair and EPIC waged an uphill campaign against both the Republicans and the Democratic machine, who joined to defeat him, spending twenty to thirty times as much and controlling virtually every major newspaper and radio station in the state. Still, Sinclair got 38% of the votes but not enough to jettison the Republican/Democratic political machine from the driver's seat and seize control of the steering wheel.

With the collapse of the campaign, numerous EPIC clubs turned their energies to organizing co-operatives, mostly stores and buying clubs, reviving the consumer movement. Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, which became the largest consumer cooperative in the United States. But reckless expansion undertaken in closed-door sessions by a “conservative” board, without membership input or approval, brought it to ruin. The Berkeley Co-op expanded into surrounding areas where there was no base of support, simply taking over other (and already failing) supermarkets. The whole house of cards came tumbling down in 1987 when the Berkeley Co-op filed for bankruptcy and dissolution.

In the 60s, thousands of people, mostly young, moved out of the cities into rural cooperative communities and communes, and tens of thousands stayed in their own communities and worked to create a survival network outside of and against the capitalist system, with a common ideological base of working to build a new social system based on cooperation and sharing "within the shell of the old.' At first the mass media called it the "counterculture" or "alternative." Although most of its participants did not know it at the time, it was stemming from one of America's oldest and deepest traditions. Groups such as the Quakers and Mennonites have used the collective form for hundreds of years and before them the Iroquois Confederacy. The basic idea was to withdraw, (drop-out) from the system of competition and exploitation, and create a new system based on cooperation (tune-in) which could expand to embrace all of society when the old system collapsed, as many naively expected to happen imminently. Very old forms of cooperation found rebirths. The San Francisco Diggers' built a system of gathering necessities and giving them away. But the need was endless. The class problem ran through all countercultural organisations, including rural communities: since it was only people with access to money who could gather the resources to get the projects started, they usually wound up in control, at least in the beginning. Many founders never relinquished control, and those projects never became truly cooperative.

Cooperatives did about a third of the total farm production and marketing in the US in 1980, with 7500 farmer co-ops and almost six million members. But these numbers have been shrinking continually through the century. Twenty-five years previously there were 1600 more farmer co-ops with 1.6 million more members. Most rural people today are no longer independent farmers as they once were, but wage-earners, part of a fast-growing "rural proletariat."

Millions of people around the world are desperately searching for a way out of the misery inflicted by capitalism. Within the constant mass upheavals taking place in many parts of the world, many are debating new and old ideas of how to change society for the better. The idea of worker’s and consumer’s cooperatives is one issue that has regained some attention. In the United States the current popular advocates are David Schweikart, Richard Woolf and Gar Alperovitz. The problem to get around is that cooperatives are established in the context of the capitalist market and so must compete in order to survive, and if the rate of exploitation is high among your competitors, then you must match it. Co-operatives means a continuation of the market. Some cooperatives find small niche markets in which to survive, but the majority will either be driven out of business or be forced to copy the practices used by other employers. Co-operatives are bound to fail within the confines of capitalism. Cooperatives that exist within a general framework of capitalism are still subject to the laws of capitalist operation. They often must seek loans and finance from capitalist banks and they must compete on price against other privately owned capitalist businesses, amongst other restrictions. This means the cooperative workers are pushed and pulled to play the contradictory role of exploiter to themselves. If they refuse to play by the rules they face the prospect of the cooperative collapsing.

In Rosa Luxemburg’s words:

“The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur—a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving.”

There is also the related argument that co–ops by themselves do not challenge the system and may divert energy away from doing so. Individual co–ops do not threaten the system, are likely to degenerate, and can absorb time and resources that could be used for other kinds of organising. Workers can potentially learn about the need to take economic and political power from the capitalist class through this process. However people tend to lean towards what seems to be the least complex or easiest solution to any problem they face. Rather than grapple with broader political, economic or social questions those involved in the cooperatives often take on the outlook of small business people or focus exclusively on commercial problems that face their own cooperative. Many of the old cooperatives around the world have ceased to be cooperatives except by name. Many are out and out capitalist enterprises now. Cooperatives under capitalism are ‘islands of socialism’ in a sea of capitalism. They are battered by the storm forces of that capitalist sea i.e. credit conditions, the price of raw materials, rent, competition, the ability to make profitable sales, etc. They can only temporarily shelter from some of these pressures by finding a guaranteed market to avoid ‘free competition’.

Co-ops are not a microcosm of a socialist society any more than socialism will be simply co-ops writ large. Worker collectives and cooperatives keep a vision of a different and feasible system alive in daily practice. Cooperatives can be a legitimate way in which workers attempt to better their circumstances. But some people go much further, arguing that establishing cooperatives is a strategy capable of fundamentally transforming the world. But is it possible that capitalism can be overcome and replaced by a critical mass of producers and consumers cooperatives? The answer is no. Cooperatives offer no ability to take this power away from the capitalist class. As such, it is impossible for a cooperative movement in and of itself to overwhelm capitalism. Luxemburg put it cooperatives are “an attack made on the twigs of the capitalist tree”.

For sure, the history of the 20th century shows that centrally planned economies don’t work.  Knowledge is too widely distributed in society for a tiny group of masterminds to be able to direct the economic activities of everybody else.  But unfettered capitalism isn’t working either.  Power has migrated into the hands of financiers and corporate executives who are rewarded for exploiting their positions. Cooperative movements will almost certainly find new life as capitalism rolls on. The working class will instinctively and understandably seek ways to patch over social wounds to improve their quality of life. Both producer and consumer cooperatives can provide some immediate relief from the various symptoms of capitalism. Cooperatives can also act as an important school for those involved. They are real-life examples that it is possible to organise production and distribution without greedy private capitalists at the helm. In doing so they help dispel the myth that working class people can’t organise or run society and go some way to showing that the capitalist class is unnecessary and parasitic. They make a vision of an alternative society seem more practical and possible.

Today the people who run this world speak about "capitalism", "freedom" and "democracy" as if they are all synonymous. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Although individuals are "free" to take a job or quit it, for the vast majority there is no viable option to taking a job. Others own all the means of survival, so the only way to survive is to get money, and the only legal way to get money is to find a job. Being an employee should be considered a form of bondage – wage slavery. Whoever controls the basic means of survival controls society. There is no such thing as democracy or equality without the people having collective control of these means, both locally and on a large scale, in the neighborhood and the workshop, and the transport and communications interlinking it all. The fortress of capitalist power is in production a widespread co-op network is by itself no real threat: for just as long as capital rules production, all gains can be taken away in a different form. If the world is ever to become truly free, the organised power of the people must be used to ensure that everyone has an alternative to wage slavery. That choice can only be through socialism. The way of capitalism and competition offers only increasing bondage, while the way of collectivity and cooperation offers real freedom. Market “socialism” is oxymoronic. These days the '99%' and 'Another World is Possible' are slogans fluttering atop many a radical social movement. Yet on those occasions activists' deliberations turn to what a post-capitalist future might look like, there will be a lot of talk about participatory democracy, community networks, the decentralisation of power and so on but at the bottom of it all, an acceptance of the basic principles of capitalist production. 

Penny Pinching

The government has come up with a scheme that saves it £74 million and cuts payments to the working class. 'Citizens Advice is urging a rethink of reforms that have caused claims against employers to plunge.  Employment tribunal fees have been branded "a barrier to justice", the high charges discouraging four out of five workers from pursuing claims against their employers, according to Citizens Advice.' (Independent, 21 December) Employment tribunal fees were introduced by the Government in July 2013, aiming to transfer the £74m cost of running tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal from the taxpayer to the claimants. Before the fees were introduced, Employment Tribunals (ETs) received an average of 48,000 new claims per quarter. However the most recent ET figures for July to September 2014 show that this had dropped to 13,612 new claims. RD

The Distortion Of Democracy

The UK likes to portray itself as the perfect example of democracy in action, but it is a complete fallacy. Donations to the Conservatives' key marginal and target seats have been provided by David Cameron's exclusive diners' group of top Tory benefactors. 'Fifteen of the Tories' key 40/40 seats "those the party is defending and their top targets" were entirely reliant on the controversial Leader's Group money in 2014, the figures from the Electoral Commission show. Donors can gain access to the exclusive circle by giving £50,000 or more a year to the Conservative Party a year, which wins them access to the Prime Minister and other top Tories over dinner.' (Independent, 21 December) Since the last election, of the £2,638,752 donated directly to the Conservatives' 40/40 seats, £798,120, or 30 per cent, came from organisations or individual members of the Leader's Group. The 40/40 seats are those Mr Cameron's party needs to win to secure an outright majority on 7 May. This influence by the extremely rich distorts democracy. RD

Free Speech - At what cost?

“Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” I.F. Stone

We have all heard Lincoln’s dictum, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” But he failed to add the political truth “But you can fool enough of the people enough of the time.”

Without objective information, there can be no meaningful free choices.

Most people believe they have a range of choices in their daily lives and that they may choose among them freely. That is, they intuitively believe that their choices are made autonomously and without outside interference. How many individual daily decisions are determined by some degree of media manipulation? Well, for many they can include what we eat, what we wear, how we entertain ourselves, how we groom ourselves.  Those that use the media to try to sway our behavior declare that they are simply providing information that allows informed choices: “advertising ensures that we don’t have to settle for second best. It helps us exercise our right to choose.” However, this is problematic. Advertisers seek to restrict choice, not broaden it and ultimately they want to determine the choice for you. So, generally, what you see as a range of choices is really limited options within a predetermined context - the context of the marketplace. And your freedom of choice? Your choice may well be made on the basis of which product sponsor is most effective in manipulating your perceptions. This is media determinism in action and it has proven very successful. U.S. businesses spend some $70 billion a year on TV advertising alone. And, as one ad executive comments, “companies would not invest [that much money] in something they thought didn’t work.” This is discouraging news for those who believe in the everyday consumer’s freedom of choice. There are, however, other categories of our lives where media determines our thoughts.

You would think that when it comes to choosing political leaders and deciding between war and peace, the public would deserve information approaching objectivity. This is exactly what they never get. For instance, political campaign promises and party platforms are almost never scrutinized by the media, nor does the media point out that they are only rarely translated into post-election blueprints for action. Instead the media present manipulated information. Yet such is the power of the myth of democracy that the charade is ongoing

The mass media are quasi-governmental organs, predictably predictable and predictably dishonest. The truth is not in them. You don’t need to ban or censor newspapers or critical books, because the only people who read them already agree with them. You don’t need to kick in doors at three in the morning to seize forbidden computers or duplicators. People might revolt against that sort of thing. Better just to keep prohibited topics off the networks and out of the papers with a well-placed word, a hint that access to government spokespersons will be withdrawn or that advertisers will go elsewhere. It is enough.

The alliance between government and media can be seen in what soon followed. President Bush’s determination to attack Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, led to an orchestrated campaign of misinformation. In March of 2003, as the invasion took place, polls showed that between 72% and 76% of Americans supported the president’s war. In doing so, did they exercise free choice? Most of them would probably have told you that they did. Yet a strong argument can be made that because of the misinformation given them in the run-up to the war - for instance, misinformation about the Iraqi people’s desire to be rescued from Saddam Hussein and the notorious issue of weapons of mass destruction - they were in fact victims of the media.

This system is breaking down under the onslaught of the internet. Papers are losing both credibility and circulation. So are the television and radio networks. We now have a press of two tiers, the establishment media and the net, with sharply differing narratives. The internet is now primary. The bright get their news from around the web and then read the New York Times to see how the paper of record will prevaricate. People increasingly judge the media by the web, not the web by the media. Before the internet, people who wanted a high level of intellectual community had to move to a large city or live on the campus of a good university. Magazines of small circulation delivered by snail mail helped a bit, but not much. Today, email, specialized websites, and list serves put people of like mind in Canberra, Buenos Aires, Bali, and Toronto in the same living room, so to speak. There exists now a decreasing ability to control opinion. Because growing communication of voiceless groups to realize that they are numerous and have interests in common. It’s a new ball game.

The major media are not comfortable with intelligence. Television is worst, the medium of the illiterate, barely literate, stupid, uneducated, and uninterested. It cannot afford to air much that might puzzle these classes. They are dull because they have to be, bland because they must avoid offending anyone, controlled because they can be. They write to the least common denominator of their clientele because they have to be comprehensible to non-specialist readers.

A major component of the free press illusion is the notion that some media outlets are more liberal while others are more right wing. Widespread belief in this myth further limits the already limited parameters of accepted debate. The media are as liberal or conservative as the corporations that own them. Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outlets are large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common strategy: selling a product (an affluent audience) to a given market (advertisers).

Therefore, we shouldn’t find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite. That’s why every major daily newspaper has a business section, but not a labour section.

NHS Crisis

It used to be a boast of the UK government that they had the finest NHS in the world. No such boast is heard today. 'Casualty wards could hit major difficulties if the numbers suffering from flu and norovirus continue to rise, experts warned. ......  More than 10,000 patients had to wait longer than four hours for a bed after being admitted from A&E. Last year the figure was under 4,000. Public Health England data showed flu infection rates last week were 66 per cent higher than last year. ..... Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "Although patient numbers are rising NHS trusts can't hire enough nurses because of misguided cuts to training places.' (Daily Express, 20 December) RD

Madness In Islamabad

Anti-Taliban protesters in Islamabad demanded action against pro-militant cleric. Hundreds of people gathered outside police station to protest against refusal of Abdul Aziz, head of the Red Mosque, to condemn killings in Peshawar. 'The cleric, who makes no secret of his admiration for terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, caused outrage earlier in the week by refusing to condemn the brutal attack by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on the army school in Peshawar.' (Guardian,  19 December) A so-called man of god that refuses to condemn the slaughter of 132 innocent school kids. Does capitalism make everybody insane? RD

Who are scoring the goals?

In Scotland, there are approximately 414,000 people currently paid below the Living Wage.

Heart of Midlothian Football Club has become the first football club in Scotland to become an officially accredited Living Wage Employer. The move will see all staff employers at the club paid the Living Wage. The Living Wage was uprated to £7.85 per hour in November, £1.35 per hour more than the National Minimum Wage.

Peter Kelly, Director of the Poverty Alliance, said: 

“Congratulations to Heart of Midlothian on becoming Scotland's first Living Wage Accredited football club.  We are delighted that Heart of Midlothian will pay all staff who work at the club the Living Wage, and that they have opted to have their commitment to the Living Wage recognised through the accreditation mark. This is an important step forward for the campaign to end poverty pay in Scotland. Almost two in three children in poverty in Scotland live in a household where someone works, and the Living Wage is a vital tool in lifting people out of in work poverty. Football clubs have an important role in communities across Scotland. With thousands of people turning out every week to support their local clubs, they can play an important leadership role, not only for fans but for the businesses they work with. I hope that more clubs will follow Heart of Midlothian's example but not only giving their staff a pay rise this Christmas, but by showing real leadership on this issue on and off the pitch.”

Chelsea FC has become the first English football club to be accredited as a Living Wage Employer. At the same time the club will also start the process of ensuring staff of external contractors will also receive the Living Wage for working at Stamford Bridge, Cobham training ground and all areas where the club operates. Chelsea will also ensure any additional agency employees not currently meeting the criteria to recieve the Living Wage will also get the same rates of pay.

In contrast, in the Observer, Kevin McKenna writes:

“Last month, Celtic, the richest sporting organisation in Scotland, had to be dragged screaming and protesting by its own fans to a decision to pay the living wage to its full-time employees. The club still refused to budge on a similar rate for its hundreds of part-time workers and was still bleating about remaining competitive and not allowing its wage policy to be influenced by a third party (the Living Wage Foundation). This club was established by poor people for poor people and receives loyal backing still from many poor people. The entire board of directors, a gentrified assortment of CV-embellishers, ought to be made to resign"

Told you so

Throughout the referendum debate, the Socialist Party and this blog, tried to explain that there was no such thing as actual independence in the economic sense. That a sovereign Scotland would still be subject to the world market and despite all the SNP promises of jam tomorrow it would be still subjugated by world capital.

Today we see how the world market and the fall in oil prices would have directly impacted upon Salmond’s budget and any reforms he would have proposed. An independent Scotland in its first year would have faced a £6.4bn "gaping chasm" in its finances, the Treasury has calculated based on the slump in the oil price and would have forced the Scottish Government in 2016 to implement unprecedented levels of cuts in public services, according to the Whitehall department. The pay freeze announced by one of the biggest employers in the oil business in the North-east is just the first symptom of the chilling effect the low price could have on one of Scotland’s key industries. The number of insolvencies of UK oil and gas services companies has trebled in the last year amid the huge fall in oil prices, according to a new report by the accountancy firm Moore Stephens. The drop in oil prices is triggering cost cutting across much of the sector and the reduction in capital investment means less work for oil and gas services companies.

And for those left nationalists who sought to claim a “free” Scotland would tax the rich, the oil industry is already lobbying for relief from taxes.

Jobs Going Abroad. That's Capitalism.

In October, Ontarians lost a high stakes bidding war over auto-manufacturing jobs. Unifor, the auto workers' union, said that Ford will build a new type of engine in Mexico instead of Windsor. The project would have meant about 1,000 jobs. The minister for Economic Development and Employment, Brad Duguid, said, " Our government is committed to partnering with business in a fiscally responsible way, but we will not invest taxpayers' dollars in any partnership that does not provide a strong return for Ontarians". Governments at all levels have been stung hard and often by companies taking the money and running away in short order. It will be, as usual, the working class that loses out with fewer good jobs while the capitalist class can still invest their money in the company no matter where it operates. Many other countries are competing for work by offering huge incentives and low labour costs resulting in higher profits. It's the natural thing for capital to do. To beat it, drop capitalism. John Ayers.

Death In Gaza

Israeli aircraft have bombed a site in Gaza, in the first such action since the declaration of the truce in August. The strike was carried out on a Hamas facility in response to a rocket fired earlier from Gaza, a statement from the Israeli military said. 'Residents of the Khan Yunis area in Gaza reported hearing two explosions, the Associated Press news agency said. The August truce ended seven weeks of fighting that killed more than 2,200 people - most of them Palestinians.' (BBC News, 20 December) Compared with the day to day conflicts of capitalism this will be only considered a minor military clash, but big enough to claim 2,200 lives. RD

Connect the dots

The world has estimated 30 million humans still confined to modern-day slavery. Slavery still exists through laws and their practices. If you’ve seen the state of migrant workers in various Middle Eastern countries, you’d think twice before you can call their employers “humans.” Have you seen how Qatar forced all its migrant workers to surrender their passports to their employers, the migrants involved in laying the groundwork for the 2022 World Cup? Money is the name of the game, and there's nothing more profitable than owning other humans.

It’s been three years since the Syrians started leaving their country. A total of 3.1 million humans have become homeless, and they are regarded as unwelcome aliens in another country. The UN say there were roughly 10 million people worldwide who lacked a nationality and the human rights protections that go with it. If you think of Rohingyas in Myanmar, you can tell the extent to which humanity is disregarded.

Governments, claiming to be champions of human rights, are engaged in torture and arbitrary detention in Guantanamo Bay, police brutality, and creating groups such as the Islamic State. There’s not a single day that goes by without reports of loathsome human rights abuses everywhere. We’ve also seen beheadings in Mexico, and we’ve seen racism and xenophobia in Europe.

Every day, almost 25,000 people starve to death, that too after prolonged suffering. Dying of starvation is the worst kind of death in the modern age of science and food production.

People are fed up with the the rule-rigging that is favouring the wealthy few. This discontent isn’t something that “left-wing groups” are engineering. People are fed up and they are seeing the signs of betrayal, all the back-room, under-the-table deals that help the banksters, the giant corporations, the 1 percent, the polluters, the fraudsters, the tax-dodgers, the out-sourcers, the union busters, the wage-thieves, the pension-cutters and the rest of those who are rigging the system against the rest of us. We the people have had enough.

Sankhari Devi, a 54 year old widow in Rajasthan who had never received formal education, “I am not aware if Constitution exists or what is it…But all I know is just one thing that we need food, water, land and employment, to survive…those are our basic needs….who else can give us those…. Not courts, not laws, not panchayats, not police ….why should we go and ask them….These are ours…. If anyone threatens our survival we have to fight on our own….because for us this is life”. Or, in other word, “Nobody can give you freedom, nobody can give you justice. No laws or formal institutions can help you survive. You need to assert for your survival” as quoted here.  

The threat of revolution is all we have. Not so long ago we could negotiate but today, established power does not see human needs as a calculation. The capitalist system does not have capacity to turn back the clock to restore adequate pensions, decent wages, and a humane social safety net. Across the world, millions of activists campaign against climate chaos, the escalating conflicts over scarce resources, the growing impoverishment and marginalisation of the poor and the looming prospect of another global economic collapse. But despite this growing awareness of a global emergency and the need for massive combined action. Clearly not enough is being done to tackle the systemic causes of the world’s interrelated problems. What we still lack is a truly unified movement, the fusion of causes under a common banner, one that can create a consensus for transformational change. Unless individuals and organisations in different countries align their efforts in more concrete ways (a process that is already underway), it may remain impossible to overcome the vested interests and entrenched structures that maintain business-as-usual. While there is no shortage of individuals, organizations, and even nations wanting to alter the system to be more humane, there is an obvious shortage of respect for those with their hand out. On the other hand, there is no serious discussion of what wealth is, of how it is created and who owns.  The bottom line is we create it and they take it. The mess we are living through is not a matter of evil and greedy people becoming ever more callous as they grow. It is not a matter of capitalists or politicians being evil and selfish. The problem is much more serious. The problem is systemic and even if we jailed all the capitalists and the politicians today, the system would run exactly the same way tomorrow.

Reform minded movements and individuals are barely fighting to increase wages and restore working conditions. Our collective powerlessness including the powerlessness of the union movement is obvious. Aside from begging we have no strategy at all. Collective begging that consists of complaining to lawmakers, signing petitions, protesting, and various other means are utterly toothless. Reform had been granted in the past as a result of building class consciousness among citizens. In 1936 and 1937 workers in the United States began sit down strikes all over the country. The capitalist class were insecure. They were terrified of revolution. Arguments against neo-liberal policies may conclude that extremists like Thatcher or Reagan have ruined our standard of living. They assume a return to standards and regulations and general sanity will right the ship and so, it is a matter of getting the right politicians elected. Something amiss however. No matter what social democratic party or good guy politician is elected, like Obama, they always govern for the banks and the corporations and against Main Street. It isn't that the politicians are cruel or cowardly as much as politicians do not govern. They merely sit in a given seat and are told what to do. That is a more serious matter than if we were simply dealing with opportunists and self-serving fools.  These are not necessarily evil people. They are simply immersed in a system they barely understand and they are powerless.

Inequality doesn’t just happen; it results from people making decisions under a specific political and social conditions. During the past few years many economists confidently have predicted an acceleration in wage growth. But wage growth for most Americans remains only slightly above inflation. We see the reason every day in the news, as the 1% uses their power to boost their profits at their workers’ expense. The process accelerates as they grow stronger — and seize more — while we grow weaker. The 1% grows stronger and seizes resources to grow still stronger.

Political change occurs first in the minds of individuals. Conservatives convinced workers that their mechanisms of collective action —unions — were ineffective or illegitimate, and that only as individuals could they win. That’s the equivalent of convincing medieval peasants in the divine right of kings. Such doctrines render a people powerless. They’re shackles of the mind. We can continue to whine about it. Or we can organise, once again.

Who owns the North Pole Part 81

Russia's interests in the Arctic go beyond the economic and military advantages offered by the Northern Sea Route. The region is rich in minerals, wildlife, fish, and other natural resources. Some estimates claim that 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves and almost one-third of the world's undiscovered natural gas reserves are located in the Arctic region. For now, the Arctic region is an area of low conflict, and it is in everyone's interest to keep it that way. Although the security challenges currently faced in the Arctic are not military in nature, there is still a requirement for military capability in the region that can support civilian authorities. So it should be no surprise that like Russia, other Arctic countries deploy military assets into the region. Even so, Russia has taken steps to increase military capability in the region that seems to be beyond the scope of supporting civilian operations.

Russia's primary military focus in the Arctic is in the maritime sphere. New Russian naval doctrine calls for Russia to increase its maritime presence in the Arctic. Already, Russia's Northern Fleet, which is based in the Arctic, counts for two-thirds of the Russian navy. There will be a significant increase of Russian ground troops based in the region too. Over the next few years two new so-called Arctic brigades will be permanently based above the Arctic Circle, and the current regiment of marines assigned to the Northern Fleet will increase by one-third. Russia has plans to build 13 airfields as well as 10 radar posts along the course of the Northern Sea Route. Most of these airfields will be refurbished Soviet era bases, but others will be new.

Nationalism is on the rise in Russia, Putin's Arctic strategy is popular among the population.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/russia-arctic-opportunity-2014121854828947405.html

Cuts, Cuts And More Cuts

In an effort to deal with a national economic crisis the government has attempted to make major local welfare cuts. 'English councils will face an average cut of 1.8% in their overall spending power, the government has said. Minister Kris Hopkins said the funding grants settlement for 2015-16 was "fair for all parts of the country". He said no council would face a loss of more than 6.4% - but Labour said councils in the greatest need were facing the biggest cuts in funding. Local authority bosses said cuts of up to 6.4% would "push some authorities to breaking point".' (BBC News, 18 December) One of the difficulties of these local cuts were they tended to hurt those who were the most vulnerable. RD

Santa And The Holy Ghost

Parents were disgusted after a clergywoman told children that Father Christmas is not real. 'Rev Margaret McPhee made the mistake during a choir concert for primary school children from Stalham Academy, in Norfolk. During the service at St Mary's Church in the town, the curate asked pupils what they thought Christmas was about. When one child said "Father Christmas", she replied that he was make-believe and not real.' (Daily Telegraph, 18 December) Presumably those same parents won't be "disgusted" when the same Rev teaches the kids about virgin birth, making cripples walk and of course rising from the dead. RD

The Gotha Critique

The word "exploitation" often conjures up images of workers toiling in sweatshops for 12 hours or more per day, for pennies, driven by a merciless overseer. This is contrasted to the ideal of a "fair wage day's wage for a fair day's work", the supposedly "normal" situation under capitalism in which workers receive a “decent” wage, enough for a "decent" standard of living, health insurance and security in their retirement. Marxists have a broader and more precise definition of exploitation than this. It is the forced appropriation of the unpaid labour of workers. Under this definition, all working-class people are exploited and it is argued that the ultimate source of profit, the driving force behind capitalist production, is the unpaid labour of workers. So exploitation forms the foundation of the capitalist system. The distinction between "labour-power" and "labour" is the key to understanding exploitation under capitalism. When a capitalist pays a worker a wage, they are not paying for the value of a certain amount of completed labour, but for labour-power. Employers buy labour-power on the market. In general, the wage, the price of labor-power, is, like all other commodities, determined by its cost of production, which is in turn regulated by struggles between workers and capitalists over the level of wages and benefits, and by competition between workers for jobs.

Capitalism can be best defined as generalised commodity production where labour power itself has become a commodity. The workers—those who operate the means of production—are separated from them, they don’t own them. Instead, a separate class of people—the capitalists—own the means of production. The capitalists purchase labor power from people who belong to the proletariat—people who own neither land nor capital. The proletarians sell their ability to work, or labour power, to the capitalists and get in return a definite sum of money—called a wage. Wages are therefore nothing but the price of labour power.

The idea that socialists support everybody getting the same level of pay is basically nothing more than a strawman argument of our actual positions. Equal pay is a concept that has nothing to do with socialism which is about getting rid of "pay" - the abolition of the wages system. In point of fact, Marx argued that equal pay was a theoretical and practical impossibility anyway as it iss at variance with the labour theory of value concerning the value content of labour power which necessarily varies according the the skill of the workers.

Marx said absolutely nothing about building a socialist society as opposed to a communist society. He nowhere mentioned the building of socialism at all in the “Gotha Critique.” Instead, he spoke of a transition period between capitalist and communist societies with both political and economic aspects. Marx wrote: “Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” So if we are to follow Marx’s logic, there is a transition period between capitalist and communist society that has both political and economic aspects. Marx did not believe that wage-labour would be retained under the first phase of communism.

“Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production,” Marx wrote, “the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor.”

Remember, this is a description of the lower not the higher stage of communism. While under capitalism only the labour that is used to produce the money commodity is directly social, under communism, including its first stage, the labour that goes into the production of all products is directly social. Marx explained that the lower phase of communism is a co-operative society. It is a gigantic producers’ cooperative that embraces the entire economy. Its central feature is the common ownership of the means of production. Notice, not some means of production but all means of production, certainly all means of production of any significance. There is not only no private ownership of the means of production. There is also no group ownership of the means of production such as existed with the Soviet Union. Therefore, there are no classes at all. We are already dealing with a classless society. As far as their relationship to the means of production—ownership in legal language—all people are equal. Second, “the producers do not exchange their products.” This is not only true of the producers of the means of production but also is true of the producers of the means of consumption. Many Marxists over the decades—not only the theoreticians of the Russia but also the Trotskyists –imagined that this was true of only the higher stage of communism. But this was not Marx’s view at all. Even in its initial stage, according to Marx, commodity production has already completely disappeared. “Just as little,” Marx wrote, “does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products—since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labour.”

Without commodity production, there cannot be money relations. Therefore, money will not exist, if we follow Marx, in the lower phase of communism. If commodity production and money still exist, it is not or not yet the lower stage of communism but at best a hypothetical transitional phase that lies between capitalism and the lower stage of communism. Since wages are defined as the sum of money workers receive in exchange for selling their ability to work for a given period of time to capitalists—this includes the capitalist state—how can we speak of wages under the lower phase of communism? Marx wrote: “For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labour cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.”

Notice here Marx does not say the workers receive a certain sum of money for the labour they perform for society but rather certificates that they have furnished a certain amount of labour to society. Marx specifically avoids using the term money here. So there is no wage labour in the sense of a price of labour power in the first phase of communist society as foreseen by Marx in the “Critique of Gotha Program.”

Workers work because they need the certificates that they have performed a certain quantity of work if they are to get access to goods they need to live, giving them the right to draw a certain amount of means of personal consumption. They do not work because work has become their primary need. Marx certainly does not overlook this. Let’s see what Marx has to say about this not unimportant subject:

“Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labour, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labour in another form.”

According to Marx’s definition of the first stage of communism as expressed in his “Critique of the Gotha Program,” all people able to work are required to do so. All the means of production are held in common by society. Therefore, there are no classes, and since there are no classes there is no class struggle. To talk about the class struggle under the lower phase of communism is therefore nonsense. Since there are no longer any classes during the lower stage of communism, the state is no longer truly a state, defined as an organization of repression by which one class holds down another class. But is there equality and justice? Compared to capitalism or any class society, the answer is yes. But is there full equality and full justice?

Here we get to the distinction between the lower and higher stages of communism. Unlike the higher stage of communism, people are paid, with some modifications, according to their work. This element survives from the “wages system” and still exists in the lower stage of communism, according to Marx. Why is this so? Marx assumed that under the first phase of communism the productive forces would not be sufficiently developed to fully meet the needs of all people. Therefore, we cannot yet have full justice and equality. Different individuals have different abilities to work and different interests and therefore needs. So even if goods—notice I say goods, not commodities—were distributed equally—either in the sense of the exact same material use values or a basket of goods that take on average the same quantity of labor to produce—everybody’s needs would not be equally met and the result would not be perfectly just. Perfect justice requires, on the contrary, that we recognize the different needs of individuals. Not equality but the meeting of everyone’s needs is required for a fully just society. Notice that a “just” society is therefore not an egalitarian society.

This is explained by Marx as follows:

“But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only—for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labour, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.”

But Marx foresaw a day when: “In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

Before society can be described as having reached the lower stage of communism, the private sector that breeds a petty bourgeoisie of small business people must become an economic impossibility. When society achieves the lower phase of communism, any attempts by individuals to engage in private business will come to nothing. Private businesses will die out, not because they are repressed by state power but because there is less and less business for them to do. Therefore, there will no longer be any need to repress such attempts. People will be free to set up private business and hire wage labour without limit—if they can find anybody willing to work for them—but they won’t get very far. Any attempts to hire wage labour under the lower stage of communism will fail not because there are laws against it but because the would-be employers will not be able to find anybody willing to work for them.

So we can say that Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme identifies three more or less distinct periods which are often confused. There is a period of revolutionary transformation, a first phase of communist society, and a higher phase of communist society. Within the context of discussing these societal shifts, “socialism” is never described by Marx as a distinct phase, as he did not differentiate between the concept of socialist society and communist society—the terms were interchangeable for Marx. Right from the first phase of communist society, labour must be socially distributed for the purpose of satisfying human needs. Marx consistently maintained that in transition towards communism exchange of commodities and the use of money would be eliminated.

For Marx, money is not simply a unit of measure, but presupposes private commodity owners confronting each other on the market. Its social function is the mediation of the private labours of commodity producers. For Marx in the first phase of communism—this social function of money is no longer necessary. The labour certificates have a different function, that of facilitating a conscious allocation of goods. Marx in no way identifies the idea of labour certificates and labour-time accounting being used in a communist society with the law of value. Marx decidedly does not identify the “rule of value” with bookkeeping and conscious social control over the production process, but rather with the producers’ subordination to the production process. According to Marx, “the concept ‘value’ presupposes ‘exchanges’ of the products. Where labour is communal, the relations of men in their social production do not manifest themselves as ‘values’ of ‘things’.”

Taken and adapted from here 

North Sea Crisis

The volatile nature of capitalist production and distribution is well illustrated by the latest development in the oil industry. 'The UK's oil industry is in 'crisis' as prices drop, a senior industry leader has told the BBC. Oil companies and service providers are cutting staff and investment to save money. Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers' association Brindex, told the BBC that the industry is "close to collapse". Almost no new projects in the North Sea are profitable with oil below $60, he claims.' (BBC News, 18 December) This is just another employment insecurity suffered by the working class. RD

Conflict In The Pacific

The struggle for control over the Pacific has recently revealed satellite images showing China is building an island on a reef in the disputed Spratly Islands large enough to accommodate what could be its first offshore airstrip in the South China Sea, a leading defense publication said on Friday. 'The construction has stoked concern that China may be converting disputed territory in the mineral-rich archipelago into military installations, adding to tensions waters also claimed by Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei. ..... The building work flies in the face of U.S. calls for a freeze in provocative activity in the South China Sea, one of Asia's biggest security issues.' (Yahoo News, 22 November) This is an ominous development that increases the prospect of conflict in the area. RD

We need revolution

The great bulk of people would vastly prefer to live in a world free of poverty, unemployment, racism and war. This kind of world is only possible in socialism. Many workers today would readily agree that this is the kind of world they would want for themselves and future generations. But they think it’s a pipedream. In fact, the need for class struggle is the key to what will make the difference for future generations. For decades now the working class has been under attack yet the employers would love for this class struggle to just be considered an “old-fashioned” notion from the past. The class struggle -- the conflict between the capitalists and the workers -- is at the very heart of the capitalist system and without going into the scientific understanding first explained by Karl Marx, simply put, the capitalist class makes profits at the expense of the working class’s wages and living standards, so the two sides are inevitably driven into conflict. The workers create the wealth and the bosses take the lion’s share.

Capitalism has always been brutal in its methods. But it developed technology and a worldwide system of production which laid the material basis or groundwork for overcoming scarcity and creating abundance for all. People could have everything they need to live well. But it’s impossible to achieve under the capitalist system, which is driven to pursue profits rather than human needs. Therefore, as Karl Marx pointed out, only a socialist revolution could bring about a society of abundance for all. Socialism can only be built upon abundance. Racism, sexism, and nationalism would die out, since there would be no need for vicious competition among workers, who are all forced to compete with each other for the miserable jobs and other crumbs that capitalism offers us. As profit margins have fallen in the system as a whole, competition between capitalist firms and nations has become ever more vicious. The needs of the ruling class to boost profit rates also dictates escalated racist and anti-immigrant attacks across the board -- to keep the working class down through divide-and-conquer methods. There exists a “race to the bottom” in which capitalists try to outdo each other in finding the cheapest labour possible is prevalent. A key focus of these recent attacks has been pensions. The employers are demanding that workers either pay into the pension funds themselves or accept inferior plans.

Globalisation brings multinationals which are tools to exploit natural resources, livelihood and finally affected the survival of masses. Yet it also in some way helped people to connect globally with like-minded people and organizations and exchange ideas, tools and information against oppression. Platforms, for all their flaws, like World Social Forum help people to align globally against the neoliberal forces under the slogan Another World is Possible as against There is No Alternative pushed by the market forces.

The Socialist Party argues that socialism is the only solution. In order to build toward this future socialist revolution, we urge interested workers to get in touch with ourselves. We believe that in order to save humanity from the economic chaos, social injustice, and environmental destruction caused by global capitalism, it is necessary to abolish the capitalist system altogether and replace it with a humane, democratically-run planned socialist economy. Socialism is possible only from the self-organised working class realising its power as an alternative to that of its masters, the capitalist ruling class. If socialism is to represent a new society of freedom, then it has to be achieved through a process in which people liberated themselves. Unlike many on the Left who look to an elite to change things for the masses, the Socialist Party argue that the working class has to free themselves. Freedom cannot be conquered for and handed over to the workers. The Socialist Party puts forth the principle of self-emancipation - the principle that socialism can only be brought into being by the self-mobilisation of the working class - a fundamental aspect of the socialist project. Socialism can only be brought into being through the mass democratic action of the exploited and the oppressed.

Socialism means a society restructured according to the working-class principle of solidarity. It means an economy of democratic planning, based on common ownership of the means of production, a high level of technology, education, culture and leisure, economic equality, no material privileges for officials, and accountability. Beyond the work necessary to ensure secure material comfort for all, it means the maximum of individual liberty and autonomy. Socialism can be far freer and more democratic than capitalism could conceivably be - through integrating economic and political power in democratic structures, through accountability and provisions for decision-making participation.

To think that a socialist revolution is not possible, you would have to believe not only that the ruling class and their economic wizards have found a way to ‘manage’ capitalism. You would also have to close your eyes to the spreading wars, and economic, financial, and social crises we are in the midst of. With climate change, poverty, wars, racism and much else - is such that it is not very easy for our rulers to persuade people that everything is alright. But they don't need to. All they need to do is persuade people that there is nothing they can do about it. This is why, when it comes to justifying capitalism, inequality and war, the mantra of: "But you can't change human nature" has always been popular with the powerful and drummed into the heads of ordinary people. It is commonly said that human nature, being greedy and self-interested, makes real equality impossible. But this is false because human nature is not fixed. It changes and develops as circumstances change. We know from the fact that hunters and gatherers lived in democratic and egalitarian societies for tens of thousands of years before classes emerged that there is not some innate obstacle to equality lodged in human nature.

 It is easy to produce a list of revolutions and uprisings that failed. Yet many of today's democratic capitalist regimes are the product of successful revolutions. So how is it, after this abundant experience of successful revolutions, that the claim that they always fail has the resonance it does? The answer is that none of these revolutions have yet produced a society of equality and freedom as almost all of them claimed they would. We need to be clear about the difference between the bourgeois revolutions of the past and the socialist revolution we are talking about today. The bourgeois revolutions were both progressive and successful but they could not introduce economic equality or a classless society. They adopted the rhetoric of "equal rights" to mobilise popular support but in reality were led by, and transferred state power to, a class - the capitalists - which was by its nature an exploiting class and which could not exist without a working class beneath it. The same applies to the various anti-colonial, anti-imperialist nationalist revolutions. For historical reasons these revolutions often adopted radical language, frequently calling themselves socialist or Marxist but they could do no more than establish independent state capitalist regimes which would not only be class societies but would also be subject to all the distorting pressures of the world market.

It’s not enough to say that socialism is the solution. Its vision must be in our hearts. Marxists such as William Morris and the anarchists around Kropotkin saw the new world as a different system, not a change of administration. If we don't get a clearer idea of where we want to go, all the discussions devolve into discussions of changing administration. Sticking to a vision of the cooperative commonwealth as mere worker-run enterprises leads to “workers’ business capitalism”. Today humanity faces a global crisis stemming from the incredible rapacious requirements of the capitalist system. In the first place, there is catastrophic climate change which threatens to end life on our planet, then there is endemic war and civil wars, mass poverty  and an ever more ruthless assault on working people everywhere. It is absolutely clear that the bourgeoisie will continue to put the drive for corporate profit ahead of everything, even our own future as a species. It is incapable of changing. Even when it recognises the danger it cannot stop doing what it does. If capitalism is not overthrown, humanity is most likely doomed. Capitalism will destroy the human race. The only way out is the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialismThis can be achieved only through a socialist revolution. A socialist revolution radically differs from all the preceding types of social revolution. What is the difference? Firstly, all previous revolutions did not aim to abolish exploitation, but merely modified its forms. A socialist revolution, however, abolishes every exploitation for all time and ushers in the era of construction of a classless society. Secondly, previous revolutions did not have to create a new economy. They only brought political power into line with the new economic relations which arose within the old society. One of the principal tasks of a socialist revolution is to create a new economy, the economy of socialism which does not arise within the womb of capitalism. Thirdly, no revolution is marked by as much great activity of the people as a socialist revolution.

Reformists have always opposed the socialist revolution. The reformists claim that in present-day conditions there is no need for a socialist revolution, that the possibility has arisen for the evolution from capitalism to socialism through reforms. Contemporary capitalism, they maintain, has ceased to be the capitalism of which Marx wrote in Capital. They claim that it has lost its class nature and has become a “welfare state” capable of bringing about socialism by reforms within the framework-of the existing political system. Reformists do not even toy with the idea of destroying the cornerstone of capitalism, private property.

The significance of the socialist revolution consists in this; that the length of the working day for the average person will shrink, and they will thus be free in the real sense of the word to turn their attention to all of the various activities that round out the human as a species. They would become more involved in art and craft and science, socialising and recreation

The Real Cold War

Fuel poverty is defined as needing to pay more than 10 per cent of income on fuel bills while those in extreme fuel poverty spend more than 20% of income.  Charities have hit out at the big energy suppliers and the Scottish Government for not doing enough for the most vulnerable in society, especially in the winter months.

Fuel poverty has reached its highest level in a decade, with rising energy prices meaning that almost two out of five homes in Scotland are now suffering from the problem. Scottish Government figures for 2013 showed that 940,000 households across the country were classed as being in fuel poverty - a rise of about 100,000 from the previous year. There were 39.1% of households in fuel poverty last year - a rise of almost four percent from 2012 and more than double the total of 16% that were affected in 2003-04. Some 10.5% of households were suffering from extreme fuel poverty in 2013 - up from 9.4% the previous year.

David Stewart, of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, said that fuel poverty was now at "crisis levels in Scotland" and called for more to be done to provide warm, affordable homes. He added: "Too many households cannot afford to heat their homes and they face a choice between heating their homes or eating this winter. 

Almost half of pensioners in Dumbarton and the Vale are living in fuel poverty, according to a report. 

The World Did Wrong!

In an article in the Toronto Star (October 18) titled, "What The World Did Wrong About Ebola: Everything", Joanne Liu, international president of Medicins Sans Frontiers, said, "The reality is, we failed as an international community." She didn't say that funding to the World Health Organization had been cut so badly that there were large gaps in the personnel necessary to conduct health business properly. With our technology, it should have been a relatively simple matter to control the initial outbreak and save thousands of lives. But doing it properly, costs money that must come from profits and here lies the major problem with the capitalist system – profits must trump anything else in the long run John Ayers.

Nationalism And The NHS

At a time when there is opposition to immigration to this country it is worth considering what this mindless nationalism amounts to. Four in five extra nurses recruited in the last year are from abroad, according to new figures which sparked warnings that the NHS has become reliant on foreign labour. 'Nurse leaders accused hospitals of "panic-buying" overseas workers at great   expense to plug staff shortages, while patients groups raised fears that care is being compromised by nurses with poor command of English. ........ Data from every NHS hospital trust in the country shows 5,778 nurses were recruited from overseas over the last year, with the largest numbers coming from Spain, Portugal, the Phillipines and Italy.' (Daily Telegraph, 17 December) It is doubtful that those zealot nationalists who have recently had to rely on foreign nurses are still as committed to anti-immigration. RD

Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie

Despite the dangers of over-fishing and damaging the future the British by applying pressure have managed to increase their share of various fishing rights. 'Britain's fishermen will be allowed to increase their catch of cod and other key fish species next year after late-night wrangling between EU ministers in Brussels resulted in a new set of fishing quotas that flout scientific advice. ...... Conservationists said the deal, reached after a day and a half of negotiations in Brussels, was not in line with what scientists had advised.' (Guardian, 16 December) Just another example of how profit is more important than conservation. RD

The Madness Of Capitalism

What will future generations make of the insanity of today's society? 'The Pakistani city of Peshawar has begun burying its dead after a Taliban attack at a school killed at least 132 children and nine staff. Mourners crowded around coffins bedecked with flowers, while other families waited at hospitals for news. ...... . World leaders voiced disgust at the Taliban's deadliest attack to date, which even its Afghan allies disowned.' (BBC News, 17 December) This is just the latest madness in a society wrecked by dissent , dispute and chronic anti-social behaviour. What does the death of young children prove? RD

Socialism, the hope of humanity

Mankind shall turn from Competition's strife, To share the blessings of Communal life.

Consider the definition of socialism/communism - common ownership of the means of production. What does it mean? Common ownership is where everyone owns and has some form of democratic control over something. Socialism is the common and democratic ownership of the means of production, to be used in the interests of people instead of profits. It is thus incompatible with a command economy.

Socialism must be comprised of three main things:

1. Common Ownership.

2. Democratic Control.

3. Production solely for use.

These features of socialist society would be dependent on each other and could only operate together as basic parts of an integrated social system. In combination, these define a way of organizing society that in every important aspect of production, distribution, decision making and social administration, is clearly distinguished from the operation of capitalist society.

The social system under which most of the people of the world live today is known as capitalism and it is based on the private or government ownership of industry and transport for the production of goods for profit. Capitalism produces only when there is a profit for the owner of capital. When there is no profitable market for his product, the capitalist will not produce, no matter how great and urgent the need of the people for work, for food, for clothing and shelter, for a decent living standard, for security. Where wealth is concentrated, power is concentrated. The wealth of our society is made up mainly and primarily of the means of producing and distributing the necessities of life. Whoever has this wealth has the power to rule society and dominate the life of all others. The longer capitalism lives, the more this wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of the few, the giants of industry and finance, as Thomas Piketty has shown in his studies of wealth inequality. 

Every day the lives of millions and hundreds of millions become more and more dependent upon these powerful few, the tiny minority of capitalists. Where such power is in the hands of a ruling, exploiting, oppressing minority, all talk of genuine freedom is nonsense. All talk of genuine equality between those who have the power and those over whom they exercise this power, is likewise nonsense. With the economic and political power they have at their disposal, they control the newspapers, the radio and television, the movie screens, the schools, the churches, the legislatures, the courts, the police, the main political parties, and all other means for shaping the minds and controlling the bodies of the people. What is worse is the more discontented the masses of the people become over the conditions to which capitalism reduces them, the more determined are the capitalists to rule over the people, to keep them docile and silent which can be seen in the nefarious attempts to control the internet and the World Wide Web. The longer capitalism is allowed to exist, the greater becomes the inequality—social, economic and political —and the lesser becomes the freedom of the people. We oppose the commodification of culture and support the free cultural development of all peoples.

Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production and exchange and their democratic organization and management by all the people in a society free of classes, class divisions and class rule. Socialism is the democratic organization of production for use, of production for abundance, of plenty for all, without the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the union of the whole world into an international federation of free and equal peoples, disposing in common of the natural resources and wealth. Socialism means peace, security, prosperity, freedom and equality—all the things that the working people of society, have always wanted and longed for. Decades ago, socialism could be looked upon as a noble ideal, but nothing more than a noble ideal. Today, in light of an impending environmental catastrophe it need to be more than an ideal, and become an urgent necessity.

Production is organised for use, not for profit. Production is carried on in a planned, decentralized but coordinated, democratically-controlled way, not on the basis of whether or not the private capitalist can make a profit on the market. Everyone has different tastes, different ambitions, different hopes but where production is rationally planned, all the needs and comforts of society can easily be provided for, year in and year out. Every new improvement and advance in the field of production, would mean not only a higher standard of living for all, but a reduction in the working-day and the work-share that every member of society will voluntarily contribute to the community. Where there is abundance for all, the nightmare of insecurity vanishes. Where there is abundance for all, and where no one has the economic power to exploit and oppress others, the basis of classes, class division and class conflict vanishes. Where there is abundance for all, and where all have equal access to the fruits of the soil and the wealth of industry, the wars between nations and peoples vanish.

The Socialist Party advocates a society in which class divisions are abolished and the state that enforces class rule withers away. A society based on common ownership and control of its resources by each and every one of its citizens, democratically determining the development of its economy and society, will eradicate the divisions of class, race, sex and religion. A democratically planned society has the potential to progressively reduce the burden of work allowing greater and greater participation in the running of society by those that create its wealth through their labour. The world of necessity (work) will give way to the world of freedom. This will lead to humanity actually living the ideas of cooperation and solidarity and see the true development of human personality in all its potential. Such a society will not create perfection because perfection itself is not a feature of humanity. It will remove the social causes of inhumanity so that everything that is truly human will be free. Only the working class, as the overwhelming majority and the creators of all wealth can be the agency of this change. 

A socialist revolution simply means the vast majority of society carries out this task. It represents society’s majority becoming truly politically active for the first time. This emancipation of the working class can only be achieved by the working class itself. Because the capitalist state is a creation of the capitalist class and functions as a weapon of its rule it cannot be taken over by the workers and used to further the abolition of classes and itself. In other words it cannot be reformed because society is structured around the ownership of productive resources by a tiny minority and the compulsion of the majority to work, in order to live, to create profit for that minority, society cannot be reformed to abolish exploitation or the periodic economic crises that result from it. Only common ownership and control of the economic and social resources of society can abolish exploitation and the unemployment and attacks on living standards that arise from crises. Again this is only possible through revolution. Socialism cannot be achieved in one country but must embrace every country of the world and therefore socialists are internationalists, irreconcilably opposed to all forms of nationalism, which preaches a false identity of interest between workers and bosses.

The Invergordon 1931 naval mutiny

A strike by a thousand sailors of the Royal Navy occurred in northern Scotland in 1931 against proposed wage cuts, won significant concessions and provoked vicious government reprisals.

Britain of 1931 was in the first throws of the Great Depression. Economic stagnation had led to mass unemployment with the number of people out of work having more than doubled to 2.5 million during the previous year alone, homelessness was rife, and those who still had work were faced with enormous pay cuts. The government, wishing to create savings in public spending, put forward of series of pay cuts to be enforced in the public sector, including cuts to the Armed Forces. Those who had joined the RN after 1925 were to receive a cut of 10% and ratings below the rank of petty officer who had joined before 1925 would have their pay reduced to a new rate, in most cases this amounted to a 25% cut in pay. These cuts essentially condemned many sailors and their families to poverty.

Agitation amongst the crews began almost immediately and on the evening of the 12^th Sept. a group of sailors held a meeting on a football field in Invergordon and voted in favour of a strike. Singing the Red Flag, the men left to spread the news among the others and to make preparations for the action. Several meetings were held in a canteen in Invergordon on the 13th with hundreds of sailors in attendance, many climbing on tables to make impromptu speeches in favour of the strike. The strike was to take place on the 15th, a day designated for practice maneuvers. When ordered to put to sea that morning the commanding officers of four of the ships were met with flat refusal from their crews. The crews of HMS Hood, the fleet's flagship, and HMS Nelson carried out harbour duties but refused to put to sea, and the crews of HMS Valiant and HMS Rodney carried out essential duties only and simply ignored other orders. Sailors gathered on their ship's decks, cheering and using semaphore signals to indicate to each other that the strike was in effect. Only four ships had put to sea, and three had to return to dock after several hours for lack of crew members who were willing to obey orders.

Over a thousand men had taken part in the strike, and it was successful in forcing the fleet commanders to abandon plans for the maneuvers. Rear Admiral Wilfrid Tomkinson, temporary commander of the fleet at the time telegraphed the Admiralty in the afternoon explaining the situation and insisted that any restoration of order would be impossible without immediate concessions to the strikers. Not wishing to spread the mutiny, Tomkinson ordered concessions to the strikers. These included extending marriage allowances to sailors under the age of 25, and that those on lower rates of pay could remain on the old rate, effectively cancelling the 25% pay cut in favour of a universal 10% cut. These allowances were accepted by the government and the Admiralty, and although not completely cancelling out the pay cuts, were largely accepted by the strikers. They had won a small victory.

A highly embarrassing incident for the Admiralty and the government, and fearing repeats of the mutiny from other sections of the armed forces, attempts were made to suppress any record or public knowledge of the strike at Invergordon. The government refused to hold an inquiry, public court martials for strikers were forbidden and the Atlantic Fleet was renamed the Home Fleet. Strikers were punished out of the public eye however, many were jailed, and many more punished in barracks and then dispersed throughout the Navy.

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.