Socialism Matters

Many believe that socialism means government or state ownership and control but socialism is something entirely different. Socialism means economic democracy, workers making decisions every day where they work and in the field in which they are most qualified. When we use the word “worker,” we mean everyone who sells his or her ability to work (labour power) to an employer. Coal miners are workers, but so are musicians, scientists, nurses, teachers, architects, inventors and mathematicians. Industry should be used to benefit all of us, not restricted to the creation of profits for the enrichment of a small group of capitalist owners. Our natural resources could be intelligently conserved. We would have full and free access to the means of wealth production and distribution. There would be a complete and full democracy in which the final and only power will be the great mass of our people, the useful producers, which in socialist society would mean everybody. Society no longer would be split into two contending classes. The power of the socialist vision has always been that it offered for the first time in the history of humanity a realistic means of overcoming alienation and exploitation, inhumanity and misery, violence and war.

Socialism is a vision of a transformed society in harmony with nature, and the development of practices that can attain it. Our mission is to facilitate a global movement towards a new society. Our whole future depends upon achieving it. But socialism doesn’t drop from the sky, nor can it socialism be delivered to people from above, to be handed down to us by the enlightened.  There is only one way we can reach it — through our own activity. We would be pedantic fools if we insisted that there is only one path to the social revolution. Yet to construct a socialist society, one step in every particular path is critical — the capture and control of the state. Without the removal of state power from capitalist control, every real threat to capital will be destroyed. The capitalist state is an essential support for the reproduction of capitalist social relations; and the army, police, legal system. Capital always uses the power of its state when challenged. Socialism is not a statist society where decisions are top-down and where all is the property of state office-holders or the party cadres of self-reproducing vanguards. Socialism is the banner under which millions of working people will the horrors of the factory system and demanded a new society of equality, justice and freedom. Socialism is the promise of the emancipation of labour, a society in which work would be transformed from drudgery done in the pursuit of profit to collective activity done in the service of human needs. Every person will have an equal say in how the new economy is run. Private ownership of the industries will be eliminated, in favor of social, or common, ownership. We will have a society of free access to the goods we produce in direct exchange for our services rendered, and we shall all be given useful and rewarding occupations that we have a personal aptitude for, each of us working a fraction of the amount of time we have to work in capitalist society. Poverty, hunger, racism, sexism, environmental destruction, unemployment, rampant crime and war will become things of the past. Education will be given to anyone who has the desire to learn free of "charge." Health care shall be free to all who need it, as will be housing and transport. Recreational and cultural facilities will now be open to all as well, and we will now have plenty of leisure time to enjoy it. Magazines, the television stations, radio stations and the Internet will be in the hands of everyone collectively, so we will no longer have our means of communications in the hands of the few, deciding what we can publish or which ideas we can express. Those who are physically or mentally incapable of work, or those who are too old and infirm to work, will share in this abundance. Even the slothful can be supported by a healthy society.

What is the political role of a socialist party? The objective of a socialist society is the promotion of a free, universal development of its individuals. A socialist society may only form itself around the generalisation of the emancipatory achievements of earlier struggles and by linking them to future tasks. We need to articulate a compelling vision of a new society, bring together disparate campaigns and organizations on an ongoing and coordinated basis, and mount a general political offensive against the system in its totality. The gap between the challenges we face and our ability to meet them is daunting. Socialism can and must be established before capitalism brings our world to an end. Currently, the working class is not class conscious, and most support the pro-capitalist political parties. We may dislike certain politicians and policies, we may hate the poverty, inequality and environmental destruction that capitalism creates, but never do we actually blame capitalism itself or even consider capitalism as the problem. Always do we consider "solutions" to the problems within the framework of capitalism, and never do we oppose the politicians and the capitalist class that controls them. In our education we are taught to obey the government and to trust our political betters for they are looking out for us and we are taught all this by schools, mass media and other sources of information controlled by the capitalists. We are encouraged to work our jobs, keep our noses at the grind-stone and endure the exploitation and ignore the humiliation that we suffer.

We must become class conscious. We must recognize ourselves as members of the working class, regardless of our occupations, income or employment status. Anyone who must work for a living is a member of the working class. Anyone who owns enough property to live off of the labor of others, yet never needs to work themselves, is a member of the capitalist class. It's that simple. We must cast off social mythology that casts us into fictitious classes such as the "middle-class." Or an “under-class”. We must heed our commonality as a class above and beyond simplistic identity politics. A socialist political party will present us with the opportunity to use the ballot in a revolutionary manner.

Socialism is not dead. It didn’t die because it is still to live and has never existed before, anywhere.

Sunrise capitalism

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Japan is often cited as an example of how capitalism can work, if only all workers were hard-working and loyal. Its low unemployment, high growth rate and high wages are apparently what we should all be striving for. Indeed, when he was describing Labour's economic policy recently, Neil Kinnock said that Labour was after a Japanese-type economy.

It is not only in this country that Japan is held up as a shining example of "successful" capitalism. In the United States, competition from Japan has led to many industries closing down - especially car and steel plants - which in turn has resulted in some American workers mistakenly blaming "dirty foreigners" for their unemployment. Russian leaders have also been pointing to Japan's economy, and the quality of their goods, as an example of what their workers should be aspiring to.

Despite the fact that in Japan unemployment is one fifth of Britain's, that wages are on average one third higher and that the economy is growing at a relatively high rate - conditions which are supposedly the best that capitalism can achieve - Japanese workers face problems and conditions that are bad even by British standards.

Housing in Japan is generally very poor and costly in comparison with Britain. It costs three times as much, which makes a nonsense of directly comparing wage rates. In the late seventies, one third of Japanese houses averaged 11 feet by 11 feet, and are often referred to as "rabbit hutches". Nearly one half of the 34 million homes in Japan have no flushing toilet and 6 per cent have no piped water. Within the three main metropolitan areas, 50 million of Japan's 120 million people are crushed; Tokyo has very few parks or gardens.

The old and sick in Japan are in a precarious position. Pensions are usually low, and some workers do not even get one. Many have to rely on savings or charity from their families, although less old people are now being looked after in this way. Some old workers are retired by companies at 55 years old, although pensions don't usually start until they are 60. On the other hand, many small businesses in Japan employ old workers who have to work until they drop.

It is not advisable to fall ill in Japan. Although there is health insurance, it is not comprehensive, and up to 30 per cent of the bill may have to be paid by the patient himself.

Unemployment in Japan may be lower, but if you are out of work then you are in trouble. Unemployment benefits usually lasts for only 90 days, although older workers at the bigger companies might get a maximum of eight months' benefit. After this, workers who cannot get a job have to rely on any savings they may have, or on their families, as there is no supplementary benefit.

Although security of employment is better in Japan (at least in the bigger companies), when companies do make workers redundant it is the 45-55 year age group that is most vulnerable. Pay rates in Japan are linked to age and workers may get as much as three times more than their colleagues in their twenties which, apart from dividing the workforce, makes them a ready target for cost-cutting employers.

Employment in Japan is not an altogether pleasant experience, and workers there have less protection than their European counterparts. Independent unions are discouraged and instead workers join company unions. These unions preach subservience and loyalty to the company, which is like cattle preaching loyalty to the butcher.

In the bigger companies workers do have relatively high wages and security (of exploitation). Long hours are expected, however, and overtime is often little short of compulsory. Many Japanese workers, however, are employed in smaller firms, where wages are much lower (up to a third), and conditions and job security are much poorer. This is most noticeable in the car industry, where the further down the sub-contracting line the worse the working conditions tend to be. Temporary labour is used a lot, with the advantage to the capitalists of being cheap and disposable.

Workers in Japan are cajoled and exhorted to work hard and be loyal to "their" company. A strict labour discipline which is instilled in workers at an early age. The school system in Japan can be brutal. Strict codes define all aspects of a child's behaviour throughout the day. The uniformed nonentities found in Japanese factories are found in the schools, where rules of dress are strict.

Large classes are geared towards passing exams, which are themselves geared to the needs of their future employers (pronounced exploiters). Failure is not tolerated. The creating of a compliant, docile workforce, suitable for the profit requirements of capital, leaves its mark on the children. Violence, bullying, absenteeism and delinquency are on the increase. Those children whose academic achievements are poor or appear different are the main targets for bullying in the classroom jungle.

In 1984, 572 people under the age of 19 committed suicide. The figure was 62 for those under 14, compared to two in Britain. The "success" of Japanese capitalism has its price.

Japan's economy is now the second biggest in the world, after the United States. But the problems facing workers in Japan, who created this wealth, have not disappeared. In fact, you could argue that they are relatively worse off, in that the wealth they have created has increased faster than their wages, becoming an oppressive, alienated force in the hands of capital. Certainly, Japanese workers do face similar problems to those elsewhere.

When capitalism is a "success", as we are led to believe it is in Japan, it is only the capitalists who benefit. It is clear that those who express an admiration for, and desire to emulate, Japan are only wanting capitalism to be "successful" in their countries. The lot of the working class is not substantially changed by capitalist success or failure. It will only be changed by its abolition.

Ian Ratcliffe

Crisis In Ukraine

We live in a social system beset with conflict and and nowhere is this more apparent than in Ukraine. 'Some 5.2 million people live in conflict-affected areas and 1.4 million are considered "highly vulnerable and in need of assistance". More than a million people have fled their homes with 633,523 living as displaced persons within Ukraine and 593,622 living outside Ukraine, mostly in Russia.' (BBC News, 22  January) According to a UN report of 9 January more than 4,800 people have been killed in the fighting and at least 10,322 have been injured, including at least 102 children. RD

Bound Together to Break the Chains

Society stands at the crossroads of socialism or chaos. If the working class does not succeed in overthrowing capitalism, then this chilling prediction will seem in retrospect to have been too mild. The current economic crisis brings back on to the agenda the prospect of revolution but also the possibility of counter-revolution. There will be ebbs and flows, setbacks and outright defeats in the class struggles ahead. The workers do not immediate seek revolution. There will be illusions in reformism, religious demagogy, populism, nationalism and – most dangerous of all – racism and xenophobia. All contributing to despair and confusion. However, there will also be a resurgence of socialist ideas, which will grip the minds of the working class. It will go against all Marxist thought if socialist ideas do not find an audience. There is speculation about a rise of a popular right wing such as UKIP. But it will be even more surprising if a new left does not sooner or later present a challenge. The crisis brings the classes into direct confrontation. The failure to overthrow the rule of capital and introduce a rationally planned socialist system has brought a return of scenes hardly witnessed since the19th century: hunger, homelessness, hysteria, the destruction of the environment plus wars and civil wars. The only way out of the nightmare, resulting quite possibly this time in the terminal destruction of human society itself, is to reorganize society on the basis of a rational administration of resources and a harnessing of humankind’s productive potential. The end of the Soviet state, the eclipse of Stalinist parties along with the rejection of Trotskyist opportunism and adventurism plus the exposure of the treachery and betrayal of the reformists of the social democratic labour parties offers a clean slate to socialists to win over fresh layers. However, old traditions die hard. The paralysis of the working class in moving to change society today comes not so much from the old illusions in reformist or national programmes, but in the perceived helplessness of the mass of ordinary people.

The initial response to the crisis is usually one of stunned shock. As workplaces close, as workers lose their jobs and have their homes foreclosed it is true that there will be a weakening in the cohesion, solidarity and initiative of the working class. However, in the process of the descent into the abyss, there will inevitably be inspiring struggles. The period of the Great Depression in the 30s also witnessed the great waves of sit-in strikes in the USA and France. In some countries there have already been explosive reactions. These are clearly only the tentative beginning of a massive worldwide movement of protest.  It is remarkable that there is a general understanding throughout society today of the causes and nature of the current crisis. The attempts to blame asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, benefit scroungers, single mothers, Polish plumbers, or even Islamic terrorists for the crisis has all been tried but overall without too much success. Bankers and financiers are held in universal contempt as are their political servants and media mouthpieces. Few needed to be told that the Iraq war was over oil. The revolution could be within reach If only there were a political party strong enough to channel that mass class hatred into building a new socialist world. A socialist political party is needed to generalise this discontent, to plan for democratically elected committees to liaise and co-ordinate, and above all to imbue the people with confidence in the historic meaning of the change, give their actions an international horizon, and make explicit and conscious what would already be taking place on the ground in an instinctive and pragmatic form.

Many new factors have strengthened the workers’ movement. The squeeze of the so-called middle class, their proletarianisation as some would term it, has strengthened the working class. We are far better educated and informed than previously via the communications revolution. Despite of the nationalist threat, the internet has drawn the world together and an international consciousness has arisen that would have been inconceivable before. They have created a cultural climate which drastically tilts the relative balance of forces in society. Democratic social movements have arisen above all the women, who have risen to their feet and forever shaken off their historically subservient role, but also mobilised and in the forefront of working-class struggles are the ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples.  It is a new cultural awareness – a mood to which capitalists themselves have had to pay lip-service and homage to in pledges of social equality, fair trade, ethical banking, sustainable development– that has become an unquantifiable factor standing in the way of the capitalists’ resolve to drive down living standards. This new awareness was manifested in an unprecedented international movement of anti-capitalist protest, with thousands of activists crossing national frontiers in solidarity campaigns in spontaneous eruption of protest enough to alarm the ruling class, as in the Zapatistas, Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring or the Indignados. The outsourcing and relocation of industrial capital has led to the new theatres of class war, in China and Bangladesh and other regions of the world. In 2005 there were 90,000 officially designated “public order disturbances” in China i.e. strikes and protests

Capitalism has long outlived its usefulness. The global banks and corporations which rule the world have been revealed to be totally parasitic. Non-socialists keep asking themselves if a solution be found within capitalism itself? Yet this ongoing destruction of the world has made many once more question the assumption that the idea of a socialist society is a utopian mirage. The material basis for socialism is plenty. The irony is that it is this very plenty which is posing apparently insuperable problems for capitalists. Their problem is how to dispose of the goods, but they present us with a picture of scarcity and hopelessness. Capitalism has now reached the point where, at least in some areas of the economy, productivity is so advanced that its products are effectively available free of charge.  Music is available online at no cost. Within the computer industry, much of the software products are now given away free, partly a reflection of fierce competition but also an indication of technological progress. It is an anomaly that it is the very productivity on which the chances for socialism and for human survival depend which is too much for the capitalist market to cope with. What is needed is not simply more renewable energy, or this or that technological fix, but a changed attitude to technology and the relationship of man, society and nature.

It is unfortunate that for the majority of in the environmentalist movement, none of their findings questions capitalism. On the contrary, Big Eco-business has sprung up even though the Stern report described climate change as "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen." Some suggested a carbon tax on emissions. Some have drawn up elaborate geo-engineering projects. "We must act quickly" the experts all agree. "Can we afford to do what it takes?" the economists and politicians ask. The people answer "Can we afford not to?” they should ask themselves just who is meant by “we?” and who it is that has to act now. Irrational capitalism is now prevailing and it is urgent that it is understood that the only people who can turn the sustainable ecological vision into something real is the working class. If not the “socialism or barbarism” is closer to hand than ever.

The battle has still yet to be joined together, and we will be surprised by what latent resources the working class can still summon forth when the time comes. The struggle to build a worldwide workers' party goes back almost to the beginnings of capitalism. The working class majority have not yet spoken in one voice. When they do, they will transform the outlook.

“There is no supreme savior,

No God, no Caesar, no Tribune,

Producers, do it yourselves!

Proclaim universal salvation!”

The Internationale

Tory stirs the sh*t

It is not often that the Socialist Courier blog finds itself agreeing with a Conservative Party MSP but when Ruth Davidson describes the lowering of flags to half-mast to mourn the death of the Saudi Arabian despot, as  "a steaming pile of nonsense". we can only congratualate her and can only assume her choice of the word nonsense may have not been the word she had in mind.  

To change everything, start everywhere

The world is a mess. We’re living in an age of crises – economic, environmental and political – for which our rulers have no solutions. We are all repelled by such horrors as the persistence of modern-day slavery, the relegation of a child to a life of poverty, the outbreak of disease epidemics In the face of these crises, people face a conundrum. On one hand, the right manipulates the political situation to further its own advantage. On the other hand the liberal reformers offers little to distinguish itself from its right counterpart. It's an abomination that while working people are striving every day for a more sustainable, more equal and more democratic economy, politicians are willingly trading off our future for short-term profit. Within the new protest movements an old debate has re-emerged. Are the numerous crises we face simply the product of mismanaged capitalism – the result of greedy, power-hungry people at the helm of business and government? Or is it the inevitable byproduct of the profit system? Our answer is unequivocal. At the root of this suffering is the economic, social, and political system of capitalism. We cannot tame the capitalist monster by regulation and legislation. We cannot humanize capitalism through palliatives and reforms. Despite all their penetrating criticisms of the existing system too many radicals side-step the essence of the problem. It is not the lack of effective laws that have allowed corporations to dominate society, but rather it is corporations’ dominant economic position that has afforded them the power to draft the laws, in the first place, something they still continue to do.

The mainstream political parties are owned by the corporate elite. If history has only one lesson to teach, it is that the capitalist class is unwilling, incapable, or outright hostile to the idea of carrying out measures in the interests of the majority. It’s still time for a freedom party. We just can’t wait any longer. Both justice and survival demand that we make the socialist vision a reality and rejecting the doctrine of futility that characterizes our current approach to political and social change. There is a difference between selfishness and self-interest. There is absolutely no doubt that human beings look out for their self-interests, and the struggle for socialism is completely in line with this. Working people have the most power to improve our lives when we work collectively instead of desperately trying to succeed as individuals in a system rigged against us. Liberal intellectual have long joined the openly pro-capitalist apologists in condemning socialism as a pipedream. At the same time, these reformists rarely bother to explain how their promises can be achieved within the constraints of capitalism, if they address the issue at all. The reality is that radical reform within capitalism is the utopian pipedream.

Most people can see that the government serves the interests of corporations and the rich, but at the same time there is a widespread feeling that nothing can be done to change the system. Many argue that workers are too conservative to fight for socialism. It is true that capitalist ideas still holds a powerful influence over many people, like the idea of the “American Dream” or that each generation will be better off than the previous, that if you work hard, you can raise your standard of living. But these beliefs are beginning to crack. Many workers are not yet fully aware of these underlying trends, but they will learn quickly under the hammer blow of future events. The key task is for workers to become conscious and realize their power and get organized in their workplaces and communities. People need to build up our own organisations, unions, and create a potent socialist party to be able to effectively defend our interests. Socialist ideas are an outcome of working people’s struggle to live a decent, dignified life. There is ample evidence that working people, if sufficiently organised and politically conscious, have the power and potential to carry out the socialist transformation of society. As capitalism makes this increasingly impossible, workers’ readiness to join the struggle for socialism will grow. But this won’t happen automatically. No individual or party can do it on our behalf. It takes us all. That is why we are appealing for you to join us, to help lay the foundations for a powerful new socialist movement in the belly of the beast. Our aim must be to fight for the interests of the working class, to combine parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action to fight to defend workers’ conditions and democratic rights. This will involve using parliament and parliamentary elections as a platform for advocating socialism policies, while all the exposing the hollowness and corruption of the capitalist system and its institutions. A socialist democracy would have nothing in common with the totalitarian bureaucracies that presided over the Soviet Union and other so-called Communist regimes. Genuine social democracy will unleash the deep, untapped wells of human creativity, now suppressed by a repressive hierarchal system. This coordinated collective ingenuity, combined with the elimination of the colossal waste caused by capitalism, will open the doors to a sustainable, peaceful society of plenty.

Worldwide symptoms of economic crisis and the prospect of environmental catastrophe show that capitalism can no longer take society forward. Technology and production develop in a completely distorted way because of the domination of the profit motive and the anarchy of market competition. Nevertheless, the science and technology exist to develop the economy internationally to meet the real needs of the world’s population. But this will only be possible if it is utilised in a planned way, under the democratic control of the working class. 

Eugene Debs put it:

 “People do not shrink from work, but from slavery. The person who works primarily for another does so primarily under compulsion, and work so done is the very essence of slavery.”

Pre-programmed To Create Inequality

Our companion party in the UK has informed us that there has been a 163% increase in the use of food banks compared to the previous financial year. Over 900,000 adults and children have received three day's emergency food and support. Yet the press says we are in an economic recovery. This must be a recovery like no other.

 Meanwhile, in Toronto, The Star (December 20) asks, " How can a city that's so rich have so many who are poor? Good question! The author's suggestion re children going to bed hungry is that it is because we allow them to. We are too preoccupied with our own struggle to stay afloat that we have little time to devote to helping others. There are 150,000 kids living in poverty in Toronto, or 29%. Well, maybe we allow the same parties to run capitalism with the same predictable results, and yes, we are in a struggle to survive. But nowhere is there a finger pointing at a system that is pre-programmed to create inequality and poverty. John Ayers.

Upping the Anti

The Socialist Party of Great Britain takes the view that Lenin was an opponent of the self-emancipation of the working class. We challenge the image of a “libertarian” Lenin who could say every cook can govern, yet for someone known for his careful selection of words, he did not say “ought” or “must”. Instead, Lenin began to argue “does every worker know how to rule the country? It was Lenin who usurped the power of the soviets. His phrase “workers' control of production” is imprecise and ambiguous in the context of events. It was Lenin who replaced the factory committees attempts of workers' self-management with one-man management. Nationalisation was used to liquidate the self-organisation power of the workers councils who would not be loyal to the Bolshevik state. In “the trade union debate” of 1920 Lenin makes a mockery of those who advocate industrial democracy in the form of syndicalist vision of workers self-government. Trade union management of the national economy, Lenin said was “syndicalist twaddle” and an “absurdity.” If working people could both manage the economy and govern, this would destroy the Bolshevik hold on state power. To allow the working class to act independently and to defend themselves in their unions would be to allow them to challenge the State. Lenin publicly admitted many economic planning mistakes. However, he never admitted the abandonment of direct democracy was a mistake or dictatorial measures against his opponents whether workers or peasants, revolutionaries or socialists were mistaken. All rival radical ideas and parties were outlawed. Lenin believed neither in liberty nor workers' democracy. Lenin saw no self-emancipating workers because those who are inspired by a different anti-capitalist or more libertarian socialist perspective he suppresses. Where Mensheviks, SRs, or Left SRs gained a majority in the Soviets, he would either disband them or expel the offending forces and deliver the Soviets to Communist Party members or functionaries who then steered the Soviets to conformity with government policy.

On April 23, 1918, Lenin addressed the Moscow Soviet, and said “the Soviet Power” had a nature of “jellyfish not of iron” and that, in many instances, was not efficient or determined against the counter-revolution. Lenin began a wave of terror against the independent power of the workers' councils. On June 28th, the Council of People's Commisars passed a nationalization decree. Implemented gradually until completion at the beginning of the next year, under the premise of rooting out disorganization of production and supply, the Bolshevik state outlawed the remaining Soviets they did not control in mining, metals, textiles, steam driven mills, utilities, railways, and other sectors. Workers in the factories viewed the Bolshevik State as they did the capitalist employer and thus desired to give their bosses as little work as possible. Jonathan Aves has called this the volyna (go slow) movement. It was essential above all for Lenin to suppress the idea of the Kronstadt Commune as a movement which defended the principles of the 1917 Revolution against the Bolsheviks - the idea of the third revolution. The Kronstadt rebels represented not a mutiny but embodied one of many popular committees of labour which were in motion everywhere against the regime—especially in the wildcat strikes of Petrograd. Lenin, used state power to discredit and repress the self-emancipation of the workers along with the libertarian socialists who consistently defended them. Today Leninists and Trotskyists raise the banner of labour's self-emancipation yet advocate principles that only discipline and disarm working people.  

The aim of socialists is to organise society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his or her capacities and powers in complete freedom. The only way to do so is through people doing so of their own volition because human development is not a gift from high. "Only in a revolution," wrote Marx and Engels, can the working class "succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew." The theme of working class self-emancipation runs through their writings. Engels that the conception was: "our notion, from the very beginning, was that "the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself", he wrote in a preface to the Communist Manifesto, not a late addition to their thought. If self-emancipation is the goal, it must be the means as well. To paraphrase the great American Eugene Debs, if a savior can lead you into the promised land, he can lead you back out again too. Socialism before Marx had quite a few self-appointed saviours and messiahs. A myriad of groups and individuals preached their schemes to transform the world. The conspiratorial followers of Babeuf, with his secret society, were ready and waiting to seize power on behalf of the masses and build a dictatorship that would wait until the people were ‘ready’ (or sufficiently educated by this benevolent elite) to hand over their realm of justice and equality. There were also well-meaning attempts at building perfect utopian communities. There were the philosophical socialists who believed that their worked out philosophical solutions to the world’s problems would be delivered ready-made to the masses. They believed socialism to be ‘above’ the struggle of classes. Socialism from ‘above’ always has an appeal as long as we live under a system of domination, hierarchy and exploitation. When struggles are defeated or when workers are beaten back, the loss of confidence that ensues allows for ‘substitutionism’ - when organisations or individuals step in claiming to liberate the masses ‘from above’.

What differentiates Marx was the focus on self-activity and its criticism of elitism and all substitutes for the self-activity of the working people. Karl Marx said the liberation of the working class is different in several respects from that of previous exploited classes. This is self-liberation. It is, necessarily, self-conscious emanicipation. The workers and their families are active participants in what goes on. Workers can’t be tricked by clever leaders. It is important that we restore to its rightful place the principle of self- emancipation. Revolutionaries have to be willing to enter into a constant dialogue with the working class. The educators must themselves first be educated.

Ideas that tell people that they are unworthy to decide upon their fate and require some other authority to determine the right and best way, as the only way can keep them from trying to change things. On the other hand, if oppressed people believe that they are capable of taking decisions for themselves, and reaching an awareness that their lot in life is wrong and  unjust, and if they get a glimpse of what a better world would be like — these ideas can be powerful motivators for the action necessary for radical social change. At its core, capitalism rests on the domination of the overwhelming majority by a small minority. And one of the worst things about this domination is that it is experienced as such, without being understood as such. Part of our job as socialists is to help people see through the illusions of capitalism, to understand that we are faced with this stark choice of socialism or barbarism, and to encourage a vision of self-emancipation as both means and end of revolutionary socialist practice.

Marx made clear that he did not think of socialism as simply any society that replaced capitalism with a collective form of ownership, as so many so-called socialists have defined it. Consider Marx’s scathing comments in The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on what he called crude communism, which he describes as a “regression” of the worker to the “unnatural simplicity of the poor and undemanding man who has not only failed to transcend private property, but hasn’t even reached it,” where envy levels everyone down, and where the individual capitalist is replaced by “the community as universal capitalist.” The key point is that the evils of capitalism, most basically exploitation, while inherent in capitalism, are not unique to it, nor to slavery or feudalism. These evils are endemic, Marx says in Capital, to any society in which workers do not control the means of production; it is simply the mode of exploitation that changes. Therefore it is crucial not just to be against capitalism, but to be clear about why capitalism needs replaced.

We live today in an era in which socialism has largely lost its meaning and relevance, at least in the mainstream. Socialism’s meaning is distorted by an endless variety of parties, movements and states all claiming to be socialist. The profusion of social democratic, Leninist, Stalinist, and Maoist governments over the past century which have failed to carry out their promised “socialist” objectives has dealt a serious blow to the integrity of the very concept of socialism and is largely responsible for its marginalization today. Supposed “socialist” parties  out for power have proved no better, as cultism, bureaucratization, and reformism has crippled virtually every such grouping until they are able to amass only a handful of members. We also are obliged to admit that despite our own unique insightful critique of party structures with their perils of leadership and reformism and despite stressing the importance of working class self-activity we too have had little success in implanting ourselves or our ideas within the struggles of working class. We offer no easy answers, nor present a pure version of any one revolutionary theory that can be mechanically applied only provide a ruthless criticism of everything that exists and a willingness to learn from our mistakes as we move forward.

Raise the red flag and always remember that “the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves”!

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 82

The People’s Republic of China has systematically increased its activity in the Arctic high north through various avenues. The region’s massive resource reserves, China’s growing presence, Chinese challenges to regional Arctic governance, and the current standoff between Russia and the West are a potentially potent combination. China’s wealth and capital make it an important partner for Arctic nations in developing the high north. China declares itself to be a “near Arctic state” and an “Arctic stakeholder,” even though its northernmost territory lies more than 1,000 miles south of the Arctic Circle. As the most populous country in the world, China claims that it should have a say in Arctic policy and disagrees with Arctic issues being decided by Arctic states alone. More broadly, given the region’s resource reserves, shipping lanes, and implications for global warming, China argues that Arctic state interests and claims must be balanced against international interests in the seas and resources of the region. Very prominent and influential Chinese scholars and officials push this rhetoric. For example, the head of the European department of the China Institute for International Studies recently pronounced: “Countries closer to the Arctic, such as Iceland, Russia, Canada, and a few other European countries may tend to wish the Arctic were private or that they had priority to develop it, but China insists that the Arctic belongs to everyone just like the Moon.” Similarly, the director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration has stated that “Arctic resources…will be allocated according to the needs of the world, not only owned by certain countries.” And in response to Russian Arctic territorial claims, Chinese Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo declared that “the Arctic belongs to all the people around the world as no nation has sovereignty over it.” In the context of the country’s quest for natural resources, Chinese attitudes toward the Arctic are unprecedented. While it has been aggressive in pursuing resources around the globe, China has also maintained a clear respect for sovereign claims in doing so. Its rhetoric concerning the Arctic diverges from this practice.

China’s growing physical presence in the Arctic, the statements of prominent government officials, and the region’s significant potential benefits encourage the sense that China may label its activity in the region as a core interest. The introduction of such a large actor into Arctic international relations with interests beyond mere investment and trade – i.e., claims and ownership – is a recipe for elevated conflict in a region that already possesses its share of tension due to the often incompatible claims of Arctic littoral states. The economic dependence being nurtured between China and certain Arctic nations has the potential to hasten the arrival of the situation noted above. This dependence could give China an amplified voice in northern affairs and an ever-deepening Arctic presence. For Iceland and Denmark, Arctic trade with and investment from China are significantly more important to them than the reverse is for the PRC. This gives those countries a strong incentive to support China’s regional ambitions and, accordingly, affords China significant leverage. As Russia becomes increasingly isolated and its economy suffers due to its actions in Ukraine and resulting sanctions, it will find itself in a similar position in Arctic interactions. Russian support for Chinese Arctic ventures and interests will begin to grow in attractiveness out of a desire to gain investment and trade, and not to offend its sole significant partner.

The Arctic offers China diversity, security and savings. Despite significant inroads with Russia, China is largely dependent on oil imports from the volatile Middle East that must pass through the chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia. In 2011, approximately 85 percent of China’s oil imports transited this passage. The source and travel path for these resources, and China’s current lack of alternatives, are not ideal. Arctic energy sources and shipping lanes provide attractive diversity and security.

Arctic shipping would also substantially reduce transport costs. The distance from Shanghai to Hamburg along the Northern Sea Route over Russia is approximately 30 percent shorter than the comparable route through the Suez Canal. Such a reduction in shipping time and distance will yield large savings on fuel and increase China’s export potential to Europe. In 2013, 71 vessels sailed the Northern Sea Route, moving 1,355,897 tons. This is a substantial increase over the four vessels that did so in 2010. China hopes to send 15 percent of its international shipping through the Arctic by 2020.

 China has taken substantial steps toward establishing a financial and physical presence in the Arctic and placing itself in the conversation on Arctic affairs. China is spending approximately $60 million annually on polar research (more than the U.S., which actually controls Arctic territory), runs the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, opened the China-Nordic Arctic Research Center in Shanghai in late 2013, and plans to dramatically increase its Arctic research staff. China’s physical presence in the Arctic has also increased considerably in the past decade. In 2003, it completed the Arctic Yellow River Station, a permanent research facility on Norway’s Spitsbergen Island. China also currently possesses one icebreaker directed toward Arctic operations, with another to be completed by 2016. Despite being a non-Arctic nation, it will soon have the same number of Arctic icebreakers as Arctic littoral states Norway and the U.S.

In the realm of international organizations and politics, China has joined a litany of international Arctic scientific groups. In 2013, it also became a permanent observer to the Arctic Council – the eight-member intergovernmental forum that is the center of international Arctic policy formulation. Similarly, with respect to bilateral relations, the PRC has actively courted northern states, and made substantial progress with both Iceland and Denmark. Following Iceland’s 2008 economic crash, China provided it with large aid packages. In 2012, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao began his tour of Europe in the small country, and a Chinese-Icelandic free trade agreement was inked in 2013. China is also seeking energy projects in Greenland and courting Danish leaders. The targeting of small countries in great need of capital, investment and labor allows China to use its wealth and resources to cultivate economic entanglement and, ultimately, degrees of dependence. As a result, Iceland and Denmark have become very supportive of China having a louder voice in Arctic affairs and policy.

Now, something similar is developing between China and Russia. While energy trade between Russia and China has been steadily advancing since the mid-2000s, early 2013 saw the first major Arctic cooperative deal between the countries. The China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) contracted with Rosneft to survey three areas of the Arctic in the Pechora and Barents Seas. Later that same year, CNPC announced it would partner with Novatek, Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer, and take a 20 percent stake in the Yamal Project tapping the resource rich Arctic South Tambey gas field. Although Russia’s turn east has thus far been largely on its terms, this year’s sanctions are changing the dynamic. Compared to smaller countries, Russia has traditionally not been as susceptible to foreign influence. Yet the sanctions are taking a significant toll and severely limiting its potential Arctic partners, leaving Russia with few places to turn. When it comes to its needs and bargaining stature with China on Arctic issues, Russia is progressively finding itself in an even weaker position than that which Iceland and Denmark occupy: in need of capital and funding but severely limited in partner choice.

The resource rich Kara Sea is likely the first place where Western sanctions will significantly benefit China. Exxon and Rosneft jointly discovered a massive reserve in the region estimated to contain 11.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 750 million barrels of oil. After completing the much more complex tasks of exploration and drilling but before pumping any gas or oil, Exxon was forced to pull out. Now, Russia is faced with an expensive undertaking that necessitates a partner – and China is in an excellent position to assume Exxon’s stake in the resource operation for several reasons. For one, Russia has already begun talks with China to sail rigs from the South China Sea to the Arctic Ocean to replace exiting Western installations. Rosneft, which is currently studying Arctic offshore cooperative offers from Asia, has also contracted to sell a 10 percent percent stake in one of Russia’s largest oil fields and “Rosneft’s biggest production asset” to China, evidencing its readiness to partner with China on nationally important projects to ease sanctions-related burdens. In addition, Chinese prospecting areas in the Pechora and Barents Seas in the Russian Arctic directly abut the Kara Sea. Just as with Iceland and Denmark, China will slowly increase its trade and Arctic partnerships with Russia to substantial levels. This will breed a level of economic dependence. Trade between Russia and China was already trending upward before Western sanctions were levied; these measures will serve to speed up this process. Russia’s lack of alternative partners gives China a distinct advantage in any negotiations, and the PRC has displayed this new dynamic by driving hard bargains in energy deals reached with Russia since the Ukrainian crisis began.

What is concerning about the impact of Western sanctions on China’s entry into the Arctic is not the PRC potentially “locking up” a substantial portion of the Earth’s untapped resources. Rather, the issue is the introduction of a large, assertive, and potentially combative actor into already tense Arctic relations where Arctic states have a host of conflicting claims to the region that will likely only be exacerbated as global warming opens it up.

http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/russian-sanctions-china-and-the-arctic/

How The Rich Get Richer

 

    The world's richest people, about 1 per cent of the population, have accumulated so much money that they now have about 48 per cent of the world's assets. The remaining 52 per cent is not distributed equally amongst the average-income earning citizens, according to Oxfam, almost  all the remaining 52 per cent are in the pockets of the richest people in the world , which is just about 20 per cent of the population.       

    This means of course that 80 per cent of the population own only 5.5 per cent of the wealth. Their average wealth is only $3.8851 (Dh 14,000) per adult, which is 1/700 th. of the average wealth of the 1 per cent. These statistics leads to this conclusion. 'Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International , says the scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite calls for eradicating poverty, the gap between the rich and the poor just keeps getting wider each year.'               

    A recent Oxfam research paper revealed how the super rich invest their money. According to it a large number of the richest billionaires like Warren Buffett, George Soros or Michael Bloomberg have all invested in financial and insurance sectors. They have seen their wealth grow  by 15 per cent in a single year, from $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion.                                                   

    Other billionaires like Ludwig Merckle from Germany and Dillip Shanghvi from India invested in healthcare and pharmaceuticals and witnessed their fortunes  grow by 47 per cent. Merckle saw  his wealth grow in one year by 21 per cent, from $7.1 billion in 2013 to $8.6 billion last year.                                       

    Not only do these billionaires invest in lucrative deals they also have to protect their investment so they spend large fortunes influencing government officials to pass the  necessary legislation to protect their investments. Last year the finance sector spent more than $400 million on lobbying in the US alone and according to Oxfam spent $150 million on EU institutions.                                   

    It is difficult to convey the immense wealth enjoyed by these billionaires but here are a few figures that might convey how crazy capitalism has become in modern times.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Warren Buffett: Source of Wealth: Berkshire Hathaway Wealth in 2014 :$58.2 billion increase in wealth between 2013 & 2014: 9%.                                                                                                                   

Michael Bloomberg: Source of Wealth Bloomberg LP Wealth in 2014, $33 million  Increase in wealth between 2013 &2014:  22%                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                George Soros: Source of Wealth : Hedge funds Wealth in 2014 : $23  billion Increase in wealth between 2013 & 2014: 20%.                                                                                                                                           Amidst these dizzying figures one simple concept should not be lost however. It is simply that all wealth is produced by the working class. The owning class produce nothing. They live of the exploitation of the working class. It is the surplus value that the workers produce that allows these capitalist parasites to live in ease and luxury.           RD

(Main source gulfnews. com, 20 January)

 

 

Sacrifice For Others

Doctors performed the first organ transplants from a newborn in the UK. Described as a milestone in neonatal care, a six-day-old baby girl's kidneys and liver cells were given to two separate recipients after her heart stopped beating. 'Experts argue there is potential for more life-saving donations, but say current UK guidelines are prohibitive. An official review is expected by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health this year. We praise the brave decision of the family to donate their baby's organs.' (BBC News, 20 January) Prof James Neuberger of NHS Blood and Transplant, said: "We are pleased the first transplant of organs from a newborn in the UK was a success and we praise the brave decision of the family to donate their baby's organs for the survival  of others. RD

Why Socialism

The alternative to capitalism — for better or for worse — has historically been called socialism. The widespread misunderstanding and confusion about socialism has profound consequences. Just what do we mean by socialism? Many groups and individuals advocate a “socialism” without any of the features that a socialist society is supposed to have, adding to all the confusion about the meaning of socialism. Many who know better cynically accepted these distortions to misrepresent what socialists aspire towards. Radicals or ex-radicals already brought to a reconciliation with capitalist society describe their concessions and compromises as socialist policies. Identified with the name of socialism, this identification has been taken as a matter of fact, for the academics and media prejudiced against genuine socialism, gives those socialist imposters credibility. No party has a right to call itself socialist unless it stands for workers’ self-emancipation from wage slavery, their course determined and directed by their own actions themselves and not of any leader or elite.  

We don’t know what exact form it will look like as it’s not the place of socialists to make predictions. Our task is to help the working class to build socialism for themselves and it will be they who will shape the socialist society. Previous systems like feudalism were overthrown when they outlived their usefulness and could no longer bring humanity forward. Likewise the capitalist system is now retarding further advances for humanity. The vast majority of workers have no real stake in maintaining capitalism because we don’t own any means of production or businesses; we aren’t bosses. Indeed, workers have to sell their labour power to the bosses in exchange for wages. By using our power and by learning through the lessons of the class struggles that went before us, workers develop class consciousness which means not only the ability to recognize the working peoples’ interests in today’s class war but also to understand our need and ability to organise to overturn the capitalist state, and create socialism. Socialism can only be built upon abundance -- which could only be achieved by pooling the combined resources and productive power of the world. We argue that socialism is the only solution to win security and abundance for all.

What are the prospects for socialism? Many are now understandably pessimistic, disillusioned with the prospect of a socialist transformation of society within the foreseeable future. They have witnessed the abandonment of socialist objectives and the open acceptance of the capitalist market by much of the labour movement. The idea that socialism has been finally eclipsed has been reinforced by a swing to the right and the rise of the nationalists. As a result the working class has been to some extent weakened economically, socially, and politically, left increasingly vulnerable in opposing the renewed capitalist offensive. It can be no wonder that many have been demoralised. There is not one of the traditional workers' organisations which is not currently in a state of decline.

Yet, saying all this, the working class remains the decisive force for change. They will not passively allow a worsening of conditions, of mounting unemployment and increasing impoverishment, which are clearly on the capitalists' agenda. Moreover, the workers cannot resist these attacks upon itself without challenging the whole system. Far from seeing the end of the working class struggle, we are about to experience the beginning of a new phase of the class-war. The desertion of the union and political leaders from the battlefield and the rout of the traditional workers' parties is clearing the ground for a renewal of anti-capitalist, socialist struggle. We can already see the signs of democratisation and renewal in peoples’ resistance. Far from fading, the working class is drawing towards it wide sections of the middle strata of society, who are themselves being squeezed and in reality have been proletarianised and politicalized by the capitalist recession. Increasing class consciousness will be driven by current conditions and the events which will unfold. Workers will be impelled to search for an anti-capitalist solution. It is impossible to defend living standards and democratic rights, to halt the devastation of the environment, let alone end the various bloody conflicts internationally, without confronting the power of the capitalist class. A future of increased social polarisation in unavoidable and inevitable. The only viable alternative remains socialism. Only in a balanced way, can production be made to meet human needs and to permit the harmonious development of society in the interests of the majority.

Our task is to engage in a dialogue with our fellow workers re-establish the credentials of real socialism and cease the current capitulation to capitalism.

In-work poverty

52% of adults in Scotland are in in-work poverty, meaning they live in a household where at least one adult is working, and that number is increasing. 59% of children in poverty are living in households with someone in employment, according to research.

The Socialist Party’s own research shows that 100% of adults and 100% of children are living in relative poverty, when living standards and equality of life are contrasted with the wealth that is created and potentially possible for all. 

Danny Lambert on socialism

Lower Prospects

  The forecast for global economic growth for this year and next has been lowered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 'The IMF now expects growth of 3.5% this year, compared with the previous estimate of 3.8% which it made in October. The growth forecast for 2016 has also been cut, to 3.7%. The downgrade to the forecasts comes despite one major boost for the global economy - the sharp fall in oil prices, which is positive for most countries. The IMF expects that to be more than offset by negative factors, notably weaker investment.' (BBC News, 20 January) Lower forecasts don't look good for workers' prospects. RD

Below The Minimum

Despite the boasts of the Scottish Nationalist Party the Scottish working class are far from living in ease  and affluence going by the the latest statistics. 'The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) estimates that the total income of 22.8 per cent of Scottish homes lie below the Minimum Income Standard(MIS), up from 17.8 per cent in 2008.' (The Herald, 19 January) RD

Preserve Capitalism Or Conserve the Planet

The growing global environmental crisis is in the opinion of many the greatest challenge mankind has faced. Species and entire habitats are disappearing at a pace unseen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Natural resources are being consumed far faster than they can regenerate. It is already clear that climate change is leading toward catastrophic collapse of the natural systems that billions of people depend upon. These problems are not accidental, but are symptoms of the irrationality of our capitalist system of production and distribution. Greenhouse gases will increase as long as our economy depends on coal, oil and natural gas, controlled by some of the wealthiest corporations in history following the logic that accumulating profits over-rides all other concerns. Abandoning fossil fuel investments and converting the whole economy to the use renewable energy would impose huge costs on corporate bank balances. The UK government has provided well over a billion pounds in loans to fossil fuel projects around the world despite a pledge to withdraw financial support from such schemes, an analysis of loans made by the UK’s export credit agency has revealed.  Gazprom in Russia, Brazil’s state-owned oil company and petrochemical companies in Saudi Arabia are among the companies benefiting from around £1.7bn in government funding over the course of the parliament. Coal-mining, petrochemical complexes, and oil and gas exploration and infrastructure are among the industries benefiting from the loans and guarantees, which cover projects in countries including Slovakia, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany, Norway, Vietnam, the Phillipines and Saudi Arabia. MP Joan Walley, the chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, which has investigated the government’s fossil fuel subsidies, said: “At the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit [in 2012] the UK government agreed to phase out harmful and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, so I am disappointed to discover the government is still providing billions in loans to fossil energy projects around the world that are fuelling climate change. Taxpayer cash should not be used to subsidise the fossil fuel industry in the twenty first century.” 

Under capitalism, decisions on what and how to produce are made by CEOs seeking to maximise return by raising sales figures and cutting costs. Individual lifestyle changes and some new technology may buy a little more time but are grossly insufficient to save the planet while capitalist industries are given free rein to continue polluting. Achieving an environmentally sustainable social system will require fundamental political and economic change.  The entire production system must be transformed; we must change the way society allocates its resources. We call such a system socialism which has at its material roots the inability of capitalism to solve humanity's problems.

We are approaching tipping points that if reached will give global warming a momentum that human actions will have little or no control over  where human intervention will be unable to slow down and stop this process. Obviously civilization as we know it will change drastically. It is easy to make a case that global warming is the preeminent challenge for humanity to tackle. Every new scientific finding makes it imperative to immediately recognise the need to reduce carbon emissions. This degradation of nature is a compelling argument for the new urgency of socialism - a society that protects people and the environment. World socialism will put the preservation of the ecosystems of the entire planet above the self-interest of nation-states and prevent widespread ecological collapse. Freed from national rivalries this new society can share scientific knowledge and technology with unprecedented planet-wide cooperation of scientists and the involvement of local communities, learning from the experiences and insights of all people around the world. We depend for our survival on the natural world. We are linked with the natural world through complex evolutionary chains and through networks of ecosystems. There is now pressing time-line for our actions act. If we do not move quickly to stem climate change by protecting and preserving our fast-disappearing flora and fauna this planet could very well become uninhabitable for billions of people, and possibly all of humanity who may well also vanish from the face of the Earth.

Socialism makes it possible for us all to live lives worthy of human beings while at the same time living in harmony with our environment and heighten our determination to make the socialist revolution happen.  Socialism requires a conscious collective decision about the lives we want to live and the communities we want to live in–and it takes a collective effort in that goal – in order to create truly sustainable communities–socially, economically, and environmentally sound.  Even if you personally reduce, reuse and recycle the changes necessary are so large and profound that they are beyond the reach of individual action. Sadly, individual action does not work. It distracts us from the need for collective action, and it doesn’t add up to enough. Getting people excited about making individual environmental sacrifices is doomed to fail. The reality is that we cannot overcome the global threats posed by greenhouse gases without speaking the ultimate inconvenient truth: we need a socialist revolution.

It’s capitalism, a global system based on prioritising profits over people, which has brought us to the brink of a climate-induced catastrophe that can destroy humanity. In a world with billions of people living in poverty and exclusion, production is determined by the profit motive, not human needs. In a world with millions of unemployed or low-income workers, access (distribution) to wealth is conditioned to having a job. In a world of globalized market, there is no coordination to supply and what is produced. Instead there is a killer competition for profit between companies. There is no "sustainable capitalism". There is only "disaster capitalism". Green reformism – the default position of most environmental campaigners and thinkers, pursue change through existing structures and it does not seek to replace capitalism or challenge class structures. It isn’t revolutionary, but attempts to work with government and business interests to affect change. Ecological degradation is not halted; it is instead measured, monitored, and manipulated within capitalism, Marx and Engels showed that capitalism is driven to constantly “revolutionise” industry and commerce, continually transforming the globe. This is not to satisfy basic needs or to genuinely improve the quality of life of the population. Capitalism seeks to create new needs, destroying what it built only yesterday and governments will continue to bend to capitalist interests. In contrast socialists seek all people, co-operatively and together, to be in control of their lives and work would be for the long-lived benefit of all, caring for the whole global ecology and all its inhabitants. Only mutual aid, not self-sacrifice, is enough to motivate real changes. People can build their collective knowledge through the organisations they need to advance their interests and build the confidence needed to take on capitalism as they win a larger hearing from more and more people, and make the socialist revolution possible.

Brian Montague on Socialism

Forgetting About Planet Earth

 Once again, climate talks have produced little beyond minimal, voluntary actions to avert climate disaster. Once again, countries bickered over their own self- interests until the last minute when the weak agreement was cobbled together to save face. They could not agree to keep the warming to two degrees Celsius due to the long-running rift between developed and developing countries. The rich, developed countries can afford to call for sanctions because they have sent their dirty industry to the third world looking for cheaper labour and their capital now sits there collecting high profits. The developing countries see this as their chance to become rich and are therefore loath to consider the strong sanctions necessary. We are still in a primitive world when two hundred countries can forget about the planet as a whole and simply pursue their own petty interest.

 John Ayers.

The Rich Get Richer

Capitalism is becoming more and more inequitable as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. 'The wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by charity group Oxfam. The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.' (BBC News, 19 January) , On current trends Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016. RD

Legal Action

LEGAL ACTION                                               

Scottish health boards are fending off more than 1,500 legal actions from patients and staff who are seeking millions of pounds in compensation for negligence and and medical errors. Recent figures show that Grampian NHS is facing up to £24 million for alleged failures in treatment. 'NHS Dumfries and Galloway said that more than 50 claims had been made against the health board ....' (Sunday Times, 18 January) RD

Socialism cannot wait

The Socialist Party believes that socialism is the alternative to capitalism. Socialism requires the joint efforts of workers worldwide. Socialism is the only answer for the working class. And that we must organise as a class whose goal is that. The Socialist Party has never had as a policy that “socialism can wait.”

The Scottish National Party is the party of a certain segment of the Scottish capitalist class. Brian Souter, the owner of the Stagecoach transport network has given more than a million pounds to the SNP. Needless to say, he did so knowing full well that the party would not challenge his wealth or power. In particular, the SNP has made it clear that the bus system and the railroads will remain in the private sector. The SNP has gone out of the way to reassure the business community, including the transnational corporations, that they have nothing to fear because an independent Scotland would not threaten their interests. There can be no question that the SNP will act to protect the interests of the capitalist class, even though this means defending the interests of huge transnational corporations based outside of Scotland. The SNP has been skilful in presenting one face to the people and a very different one to the corporations. To the former the SNP claim to be social democrats who believed in greater equality and to the latter, the SNP stands for a strong economy and continued growth. The SNP leaders support a continuation of capitalist exploitation in an independent Scotland. This was summed up in their White Paper that proposed cuts to corporation tax for big business while seeking to bind the trade unions into ‘partnership’ and a ‘Team Scotland’ approach. In practice, this means accepting attacks on their wages and working conditions for the so-called “national interest”. The SNP has "tacked leftwards" in rhetoric, though not at all in policy implementation. Voting for nationalist parties simply helps to confuse and divide an already confused and divided British working class even more.

For too long, the left has accepted the orthodoxy that there exists a “right to national self-determination”, and that we should support any struggle to that end. The left is wrong, and that the damage caused by this mistaken idea is second only to that caused by the corruption to the socialist cause from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

At first hearing, the very sound of a “struggle for national self-determination” suggests that it is democratic and progressive. To throw off the yoke of imperial government, to fight the occupiers and the foreign-appointed governors: it all sounds just. And yet what does it amount to? Having thrown off the yoke of foreign rule, the ex-colonies of the European empires have largely established their 'own' governments. Has this seen their peoples achieve freedom and plenty? In most, undemocratic foreign rule has been replaced by undemocratic home rule. Different face in different uniforms hold the same guns, and the people still stare down the barrels.

Worse, the old colonial rulers retain all their former power through overpowering military supremacy and economic dominance. What the UK once controlled through occupation, the US now controls through their manipulation of trade backed by the implicit threat posed by their sole superpower status. The EU and China desperately compete, and the 'great game' of rival empires continues. The new 'home' governments of ex-colonies are allowed to line their own pockets and bully their populations, but are otherwise kept it in line. The question remains, when the left have supported demands for 'national self-determination' - which can only mean the right to form nation states - have they expected it to bring freedom and plenty? The answer is no. Socialists are internationalists, and do not believe that socialism can exist within a single state: the results of Stalin's 'socialism in one country' proved that forever. It can be seen that when the left limit their demands to what they see as the 'limited’ perspective of the people they claim to 'lead', this patronising nonsense does enormous harm. As a result, our most famous slogan must always be: “Workers of the world, unite!” We demand open borders, and the abolition of states altogether. We believe that states exist to oppress!

If socialists oppose the state, how much more that we oppose the nation state. It is bad enough that people should be penned by the world's rulers like cattle owned by farmers. It is worse that such states should attempt to exclude those of the wrong 'nation' or 'people' or ‘race’. In attempting to harness the power of struggles for national self-determination to the socialist cause, the left have dragged the workers’ movement into the mud and mire of nationalism. The right of self-determination is not national, but the right of every individual, and of all humanity. It includes to right to determine where to live and work, regardless of states, or borders, or 'nationality'. Humanity's freedom will not be won by building new states, but by destroying them all. The problem with countries is if you love your country or only your ethnicity, you separate from others like you. We become divided as a human race. Countries divide us; governments divide us; when we truly are one global species, one people.

We know that the future belongs to us, the workers. We know socialism is possible. We know that only the working class can bring socialism about. We need to build a society where we own the factories, the land, the transport—a society where we are guaranteed housing, education, healthcare and jobs. A society where there will be no borders for people. Rosa Luxemburg’s once wrote “socialism or barbarism” but these days we may very well qualify it by adding “Barbarism… if we are lucky”. Our choice in these days of environmental cataclysm is one world or none.

Clifford Slapper on socialism

$95,000 For A White Truffle!

Recently released figures by Oxfam clearly show the inequalities in society. Eighty-five of the world's billionaires collectively have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people. Between March 2013 and march 2014, those eighty -five had their wealth increased by $668 million – that's $1.8 million a day just for the increase! Russian mining 'tycoon', Vladimir Potanin spent $95,000 on a 1.8 kg white truffle – he's worth $13.9 billion so can afford it. It would take Bill Gates two hundred and eighteen years to spend all of his money if he spent a million dollars a day, not taking into account interest on what would be left each day. It would take ninety three years for a South African platinum miner to earn the average CEO's annual average bonus. Sound crazy? You bet. We must get rid of such stupidity. John Ayers.

A Desperate Plight

Immigrants trying to reach Europe highlight the dangers of their would-be ocean crossings.  'Last year, at least, 3,419 migrants lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean,according to the UN refugee agency, making it the deadliest migrant route in the world. ...Spanish coastguards rescued 3,500 of them last year, a 55 per cent increase on the previous year.' (Times, 17 January)The desperation of these workers and their attempts to create a new life away from the dangers of North Africa can only be imagined. RD