What's Fair About Capitalism?

It’s time for revolution if we want a livable future. We do not need a guru to instruct us on how to act. Those who wish to remain as slaves will continue sit by in anticipation of the coming of the savior or of a guide, that once followed to the letter will bestow upon them freedom. We have witnessed such men who have set out to be the revolutionary vanguard and the failure speaks for itself. History owes us nothing: we must struggle! We must not mistake our enemy. We must not to fight the wrong enemy. The need for a scapegoat is as old as civilization, and is nothing but the product of the frustrations of those who seek facile answers to the burdens that afflict us. Here there can be no ambiguity as to the nature of our battle. We favour the emancipation of all of mankind, without any form of exception. All for all is the principle that we stand by.

Around the world the right-wing and religious reactionaries are on the rise. If you're visiting this blog, chances are you are a member of the working class - not because the post specifically pertains to your interests but because, by definition, the vast majority of us are compelled to work for a wage or salary to survive. The Occupy slogan the 99% and the 1% - is actually not far off. The 99% essentially refers to the working class - those of us who are underemployed, unemployed, making minimum wage, making an hourly wage, working multiple jobs, earning a salary, working as "salaried professionals," working "under-the-table," etc.. In other words, if you weren't born with enough privilege and wealth to carry you through life, you are likely working for a wage in some form or another, or would be compelled to do so if left to your own means. Consider how far removed we are from the age-old concept of workers "enjoying the fruits of their labour." The working class has found itself in a breakneck "race to the bottom." “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” sounds like a good thing. However, what is a fair day’s wages, and what is a fair day’s work?

From the perspective of a boss the answer is pretty simple. The labour market defines the capitalist’s role as a buyer of workers’ ability to work, and the employee’s role as the seller. The employee sells her time to the employer who in turn pays the employee in wages. The capitalist pays his version of a “fair wage”—the amount required for a worker with average needs to survive and keep coming back to work each day. Some bosses might pay a little more, some a little less, but on average this is the base rate of “fair” pay. A fair day’s work to the boss is the maximum amount of work an average worker can do without exhausting herself so much that she can’t do that same amount of work the next day. You, the worker, gives as much, and the capitalist gives as little, as the nature of the bargain will allow. People praise the “free market” that wages and working conditions are fixed by competition between the buyers, the capitalists. Supposedly, capitalists are all competing for workers, so that competition inevitably leads to fair wages and working conditions. After all, the seller—the worker—theoretically has several options of employers to choose from. If a buyer doesn’t offer a price that a worker thinks is fair for her labor, then she can look for another job that pays better. By agreeing to the prevailing wage, so goes this line of argument, workers have essentially made the statement: “We think this is fair.

This is a very strange sort of “fairness.” One problem is that workers and bosses do not start on equal terms when they are buying and selling. It’s not like you’re selling something E-Bay, in which you can wait until someone pays the price you want. For most of us, if we don’t have a job, we can’t pay our bills, feed ourselves and our families, or heat our homes. Having employment is a life or death issue. It may not be life or death in the short term, but eventually if you can’t find a job or someone with a job who will help you out financially, you will not be able to buy the things you need to live, let alone the things you need in order to be happy and fulfilled. It’s a very different for employers. They have money in the bank, and if they don’t get employees tomorrow or even this month, they might be inconvenienced or take a hit in profits, but they don’t risk anything like the consequences workers do.

Let’s express it more simply. Jones is an individual who has zero access to capital, which excludes him from being self-employed. He must find somebody who will share access to capital if he is to continue to eat. Fortunately, Smith has plenty of capital, and is willing to share it -- under certain conditions of course. Smith says to Jones that he can use Smith's capital to produce, *provided* that Jones engages in 90% of the productivity while Smith engages in 10%. Also, Jones will only receive 10% of the revenues despite all of his hard work, while Smith gets to keep 90% for his self. Jones agrees to these conditions because he has no other option. Is Jones morally bound by his agreement to allow Smith to keep 8 in 9 parts of what Jones produces? The capitalist, of course, answers, "Yes” Such an arrangement would be grossly unfair. This relationship between Smith and Jones is inherently exploitive, and Jones is entitled to much better. A society in which “forces” people to "agree" to subject their will to that of a boss is by no means "free". Capitalism simply put is a system of, by and for the owners of capital; and so long as it retains that primary characteristic, any society is capitalist even if the State has assumed ownership of the capital.

In sharp contrast, under regimes like feudalism labour was not a commodity but the property of the landlord. Indeed, labour had no price (i.e. no wage was paid) and its activities were commanded, or commandeered, by the person who had inherited the right to do so.

Contrary to the rosy version of the Industrial Revolution where it is believed that the capital investments on which the factory system was built came largely from hard-working and thrifty entrepreneurs who saved their own earnings as investment capital. In fact, they were junior partners of the landed elites, with much of their investment capital coming either from the Whig landed oligarchy or from the overseas fruits of mercantilism, slavery, and colonialism.

In addition, factory employers depended on harsh authoritarian measures by the government to keep labor under control and reduce its bargaining power. In England the Laws of Settlement acted as a sort of internal passport system, preventing workers from traveling outside the parish of their birth without government permission. Thus workers were prevented from “voting with their feet” in search of better-paying jobs. You might think this would have worked to the disadvantage of employers in underpopulated areas, like Manchester and other areas of the industrial north. But never fear: the state came to the employers’ rescue. Because workers were forbidden to migrate on their own in search of better pay, employers were freed from the necessity of offering high enough wages to attract free agents; instead, they were able to “hire” workers auctioned off by the parish Poor Law authorities on terms set by collusion between the authorities and employers. The Combination Laws, which prevented workers from freely associating to bargain with employers, were enforced entirely by administrative law without any protections of common-law due process. And they were only enforced against combination by workers, not against combination by employers (such as blacklisting “troublemakers” and collusive setting of wages). The Riot Act (1714) and other police-state legislation during the Napoleonic Wars were used to stem the threat of domestic revolution, essentially turning the English working class into an occupied enemy population. Such legislation criminalized most forms of association.

The initial acts of coercion and robbery on which capitalism was founded didn’t stop there. Once the system was up and running, it depended on the state’s ongoing efforts to maintain a legal structure of privilege, based on artificial property rights and artificial scarcity. Capitalism depended on even more massive state intervention. There never was anything remotely approaching laissez faire. Capitalismhas had very little to do with free markets and everything to do with legalized theft and violence. So the free market idea of an “even playing field” is, in reality, a sick joke.

Every society must allocate its scarce resources between different productive activities. Market-societies emerged only very recently (around three centuries ago). The difference between a society-with-markets from a market-society is that in market-societies the factors of production are commodities (e.g. land, labour and tools) and, therefore, their employment is regulated through some market mechanism (e.g. the labour market). In this sense, market societies (which emerged during the past three centuries) have the distinctive feature that the allocation of resources, as well as the distribution of the produce, is based on a decentralised mechanism functioning by means of price signals: the activities, goods and services, and processes whose associated price rises attract more ‘attention’, and are invested with more resources (e.g. land and labour), while those whose prices decline repel producers. Market-societies, or capitalism, emerged when, sometime in the 18th century, the expulsion of peasants from their ancestral lands (the so-called Enclosures in Britain), and their replacement with sheep (whose wool had become an internationally traded commodity), gave rise to the gradual commodification of land (with each acre acquiring a value reflecting the value of wool that could ‘grow’ on it) and, then, of labour (as the, now, landless peasants were eager to sell their labour time for a loaf of bread, money, anything of exchange value). Once land and labour became commodities that were traded in open markets, markets began to spread their influence in every direction. Thus, societies-with-markets begat market-societies. We must beware of those promoters of the market. They amount in practice to allowing the robbers—arms still full of loot—to say: “All right, no more stealing, starting . . . now!”

The Wealth Gap

The wealthiest 10% of households in Scotland owned 44% of all private wealth, the same percentage as for the rest of the UK. By contrast, the poorer half of Scottish households owned just 9% of all personal wealth. Three out of 10 poorer households have no savings or pensions.

Nearly half of the poorer households were headed by someone in employment. The less affluent households were more likely to be single adults and lone parents.

The study, published by the Scottish government, looked at wealth and assets over a six-year period from 2006. 83% of Scots thought the gap between those on high and low incomes was too large.

Between 2010 and 2012, a snapshot of the wealth and assets in Scotland report found that the least affluent 30% of households owned just 2% of all personal wealth, mainly property and personal belongings.

Between 2006 and 2012, before and after the economic downturn, found that 2% of households owned 17% of all personal wealth in Scotland.

Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil said: "It's not right that the wealthiest 10% of households have 20 times more wealth than the least wealthy 30%." 

The Next Revolution

Despite the misrepresentations socialists fully understand that the history of the future will be written by choices yet to be made and actions yet to be taken, under circumstances yet to exist. We organise for one possible scenario that we think most probable for very plausible reasons. We argue that our vision for the future is desirable and feasible. We work towards a subjective shift in consciousness which would underpin a corresponding objective shift in society. Does our hope have any future as we set about unraveling old thought patterns and dismantling redundant mindsets and urging the adoption of new ones by people to open up the opportunities for the transformation of society. Since Ancient Greece philosophers have long dreamed of a time when the entire human family would encompass the whole world, a truly single global humanity, “citizens of the world”. Existing international bodies and movements can offer lessons and, in some cases, even building blocks. But a centerpiece of world socialism will be fashioning institutions beholden to the whole body politic, rather than merely balancing the interests of competing states as feebly attempted by the likes of the United Nations. It all may seem far-fetched but to dismiss such a goal out-of-hand would be a failure of historical perspective. It would be rather like an 18^th C insisting that their world map of 200,000 territories was eternally fixed and not imagining  it would soon be transformed into one with a mere 200 nation-states. Capitalism evoked a spirit of cosmopolitanism and globalisation which socialists are now convinced can go much further and develop into a world commonwealth. Who will change the world by harnessing both the discontent and the aspirations to overcome the resistance of entrenched interests? We cannot hardly expect it to be the old order, the ancient regime of intergovernmental institutions and transnational corporations, bringing change from above. We need to look elsewhere. History offers the clue for us to see that what is required can only come from below – the working class.

What will it take to the ghastly cycle of poverty, hunger and war and create a peaceful society in which humanity lives cooperatively and harmoniously? The socialist answer is we must overthrow capitalism, a system that inevitably generates inequality and conflict. And overthrowing it will require a revolution. What will it take to make a revolution? The socialist answer is the majority of people must realize that capitalism can't provide them a decent life. Global capitalism has lurched from one crisis to another, and the ruling class keep resorting to desperate measures to keep it afloat. More and more people are seeing how their and their children's lives are being degraded for the sake of profits. But we're a long way from revolution yet if people do not succeed in replacing capitalism by socialism the prospects for humanity and our environment, are very dismal, far worse than now. We have all the objective conditions for the socialist revolution and socialism itself. The hostility to socialist ideas is not as predominant present now because many have experienced the deep failures of capitalism. Red-baiting and red-scares no longer work as they used to. People want change and are seeking a solution. They are looking for something radically different. We, as socialists, must convince them about what that alternative is. It is our job to point out that the crises of capitalism will happen over and over again and to save the ecosystem and ourselves we must break out of the cycle of capitalist exploitation. 

Inequality has been a condition in society since the dawn of class society. It is no secret that capitalism thrives off exploitation. It needs people to be completely reliant on their labour power. It needs a considerable part of the people to be impoverished and unemployed - "a reserve army of labour," as Marx put it - in order to create a "demand" for labour and thus make such exploitative positions "competitive" to those who need to partake in them to merely survive. It needs these things in order to stay intact. Capitalism is based in the buying and selling of commodities, its lifeblood is production. And since production in a capitalist system is not based on need, but rather on demand, it has the tendency to produce more than it can sell. If millions of people are unable to access basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare, the commodification of those needs becomes all the more effective. When society commodifies the bare necessities of life, they are commodifying human beings, whose labour can be bought and sold. The apologies and philosophical rationalisations of is a defence of wage slavery. For, if your labour is for sale, then you are for sale. You are a slave – a wage-slave.

The world economy is a structure of cycles of expansion and contraction. There is no doubt that in the next contracting cycle the number of people in the world who will languish in abject poverty will rise. The malnourished and hungry will increase while the real value of labour decrease and living standards will lower throughout Western nations. It means more beng dragged down into poverty as workers scramble to pay ever-climbing bills with ever-smaller pay-checks. The think-tanks and the various NGOs working to reduce world poverty keeps promising the world that the goal is zero poverty within a few years. Yet, the reality of the existing political economy continues to disprove the apologists of capitalism that ask people to keep their faith in a system that perpetuates inequality and exacerbates social injustice. When the issue of poverty is raised, many people rationalise this through the Malthusian argument that there are too many people and too few resources, therefore there will always be poor people in the world. Many of those very same educated intellectuals have never argued that there are not sufficient resources to bail out capitalism costing trillions of dollars. Feeding a starving child that faces death every five seconds is not nearly as urgent for the state as buttressing finance capitalism. If a billionaire is a philanthropist who has given back some of the wealth she/he had appropriated through a system that promotes capital concentration, then that billionaires becomes a hero and role-model, rather than robber baron that she/he truly is. It must be clear now that the dream of a better life under capitalism surely must have its expiration date coming up.

We may not be on the eve of a revolution but imagine what life would be like if capitalism was overthrown if we replaced it and were able to live in a genuinely socialist society. Imagine a society of ecological sanity, material abundance and social equality, a society where social relations were premised on human solidarity, not capitalist exploitation and human competition, where people are not set against each other, where production for profit, driven by accumulation of capital, has given way to production for use. Another world is not just possible; it is inevitable if we are to exist in the long-term. The most poignant question you can now ask yourself is this; “What can I do to bring to life this collective yearning for a much better world?” The task of building the global socialist movement now beckons all of us who care about the future and we must seek to bridge divisions of nationality, sex and race and bring all the single issues within an umbrella of common principles and goals to sustain the basis for unity. All this is necessary, but not sufficient. A socialist party can only articulate the inspiring vision of another world, it takes people and a social movement to create one.

“I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.” – Bob Dylan

Socialist Comment 3

I was collecting some newspapers to throw in the recycle bin when I can across page 6 of the March 19 Metro. In this page were a number of reports about the Chancellors Budget which made me think that a bit of socialist comment could be useful, for example.

Another snippet "Oil Industry given a shot in the arm". The Oil and Gas Industry was handed a £1.3billion 'lifeline' amid warnings that 10,000 North Sea jobs could be lost. It is suggested that these tax cuts would lay foundations for the regeneration of the sector which has been hit by plunging oil prices. The Scottish Government said it was' a step in the right direction ' but accused Osborne of 'mismanaging' the industry.

During the campaign for independence.  I watch a Utube video of a meeting  in which Tommy Sheridan had been invited to speak. Tommy supported an Independent Scotland and was pointing out that in Scotland the figure for deprived children was 12.5% compared to independent Norway which was 5%. It was also stated that Norway was doing well with a £500billion fund. I thought it strange that Norway with such a big fund had any deprived children, but the answer became clearer as the oil prices fell by 50%.

 Scottish Government argued that they like Norway would progress better being independent. Scottish oil would fund all sorts of things and now they are arguing that Osbourne is mismanaging the industry. The Scottish Government imply that like Norway they should have put billions aside in order to fund the oil industry to regenerate.

Now we know why Norway has 5% deprived children, they need the £500billion for regeneration of industries and I think that is just what the Scottish Government is complaining about. They want a big fund to help regenerate industry as well. Not much change for deprived children then.

Socialist Comment 2

I was collecting some newspapers to throw in the recycle bin when I can across page 6 of the March 19 Metro. In this page were a number of reports about the Chancellors Budget which made me think that a bit of socialist comment could be useful, for example.

Another snippet "Pleased as punch over 1d off a pint" Apparently Campaigners were delighted that the Chancellor had also cut tax on cider and spirits as well as Duty on wine, tobacco and gambling. It was also pointed out it was the third cut in beer duty and that has saved more than 1,000 pubs from closing. I can appreciate that saving some jobs is important for those workers, like any other worker it's the only means of getting some money. What come to my mind is that in this climate lots of workers will have been cutting down their spending on beer, wine, tobacco and spirits, those reductions in tax will mean very little to them. Never mind those snippets help to make you feel things are on the up.

Socialist Comment

I was collecting some newspapers to throw in the recycle bin when I can across page 6 of the March 19 Metro. In this page were a number of reports about the Chancellors Budget which made me think that a bit of socialist comment could be useful, for example.

The headline "Don't pay tax until you earn £11k" followed by workers will be able to earn £11,000 a year before paying tax. (That is if he or she has a Job), That reminded me that the Prime Minister was also urging employers to pay more towards what he calls a Living Wage. Why this concern all of a sudden? Could it be he knows that there will be an inevitable workers reaction as the government cuts will continue to reduce the spending power of lower paid workers and he can always come back with the argument? "We are doing or best to help the lower paid workers " I can remember when Ted Heath was PM the Unions were in for a £5 rise to keep up with the rising cost of living and he increased the tax allowance so that worker received about £3 more a week in their bottom line. Ted warned the Unions not to ask for £5 as he had already given the workers £3. These manipulations leave the workers more or less in the same condition of needing a further rise just to be where they started. Only a change from private ownership to common ownership of the means of production can ever really make a real difference.

 

Socialism is the answer

These days no one has a kind word for capitalism. We recall how they said if some people were getting obscenely wealthy, enough of it would trickle down to the masses to make everyone happy. And we now know that never happened. The solution is not about reforming capitalism. It’s an economic system, not just a policy that can be changed by changing politicians and amending a few laws. Capitalism is driven by profits. The search for profits drives it to expand; the need to make profits also drives it into crisis. These cycles have been recurring for more than three centuries and no one has ever figured out a way to fix the system. So it isn’t about trying to patch up capitalism. It’s about getting rid of it entirely. What shall we replace capitalism with? Socialism is the answer. We will establish a society where the all means of production and distribution—factories, mines, the energy sources, transport are owned in common by all the people. The “right” to exploit other people will not exist which may deprive the rich of their way of life but for the rest of us working people it won’t be anything to worry about. Those who benefit from capitalism scare-monger and tell you that under socialism you can’t have your own PERSONAL property or possessions. You won’t own your own home, for instance. Only a few workers actually do own their own home, for most of us it is still owned by the bank or building society for the next twenty or twenty-five years when eventually the mortgage is paid off. Same with our cars bought on four or five year repayment plans, and becomes ours just when the rust begins to take effect. And if we suffer redundancy we soon find what we thought was ours – ain’t. We are repossessed of our homes, and the car taken away to be sold at auction. It exposes the illusion that capitalism protects personal property, you can lose everything.

What socialism proposes is wealth for all, plenty of the good things of life for everybody. A finehouse to live in, nice furniture in it, and a garden. A dining table loaded with good things to eat. Abundance of clothing, comfortable and elegant. Opportunity and means to travel all over the world. Leisure to read and play and work. No poverty anymore with its filth and sickness and vice. With all these things, socialism will bring a natural human development, healthy, noble men and women, happy and energetic.

You say all this is a dream? No, not a dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatsoever. There is no doubt at all about this. Modern inventions have so increased the productive capacity of mankind. Socialism proposes to get this abundance for all to share in. Socialism will take this vast new machinery and use it for producing new wealth for all instead of producing profit for a few. If we all owned these factories and railroads and mines and mills and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear. The Socialist Party proposes that we who are deprived of the right to use the machinery we have made and to get the riches we make, shall come to-gether in a political party and vote the parasite class out of power. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. The Socialist Party appeals to the workers on the ground of their self-interests. We are a being very practical and indulging in no dreams or false hopes. We simply say to our fellow workers: “Come, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use the power of the state to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which you are entitled to.”

The mission of the Socialist Party is to muster all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private or government ownership of the means of production, and also to shut out of the parties of the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the status quo.

Reading Notes

As the mining industry gets set to blow the top off Blair Mountain, archaeologists and activists join together to stop it. Archaeologists are there to record the evidence of the 'Battle of Blair Mountain' in 1921. Some 10 000 miners, marched to the courthouse in Logan to protest martial law and heavy- handed treatment of strikers. They were opposed by 3 000 volunteers under anti-union sheriff, Don Chafin. The archaeologists, from the pattern of ammunition distribution, have determined that the miners fought cleverly in guerrilla fashion, not the undisciplined mob that they were thought to be. One million rounds were fired in five days and estimates of the dead range from twenty to one hundred. Now the archaeologists have been told to pack up and get off the land by the owners, the mining company, of course. It was a fairly major battle, probably bigger than some of the small skirmishes in the War of Independence, but, unlike them, remains almost completely forgotten. Another example of the manipulation of facts and the media to deny labour history. (Archaeology magazine, Jan/Feb, 2012) John Ayers.

More Than Just A Drop

Re the environment – we have just had an incredible year – dust storms in Arizona, drought and fires in Texas, towns like Goderich, Ontario flattened, tornadoes, massive floods, yet, according to Dailyclimate.org (The Toronto Star, Jan 15 2010) mention of climate change in newspapers dropped 20% from 2010 and 40% from 2009. It asks is it climate change fatigue? I ask, is it a deliberate attempt to put it on the back-burner. John Ayers.

Socialism Not Separatism

The ruling class of Scotland have long been merged with that of England and the working-class of Scotland, Wales and England has long been one homogenous working class. We cannot tag along with, follow behind, or try to lead these nationalist movements or parties – we must resolutely struggle against them while propagating socialism. “Self-determination” is a slogan that can be used to justify any project, no matter how reactionary. It was the call for self-determination for the national minorities of Yugoslavia in the 1990s that laid the basis for the bloody civil war. It is the call for self-determination in eastern Ukraine that is creating the conditions of civil war there today. “Self-determination” in reality means granting the ruling elite free rein to set its own economic and political agenda to meet their own needs, skilfully masked by socialist phrases.

Nationalism is always the tool of the capitalist class. There was a brief period in history where there existed an identity of interest between the national bourgeoisie and the working class against aristocratic feudalism, and hence even Marx recognized nationalism had a progressive role to play. However, now that the progressive role of the capitalists is long finished, so too is the progressive role of nationalism. In essence, supporting nationalism nowadays amounts to a switch from socialist which hold that the working class is the sole agency for the liberation of humanity, to nationalism, which effectively is a movement in support of the local “national” capitalist class.

 From being a tiny inconsequential entity with a few members the Scottish National Party became suddenly the dominant party in Scotland. How did this startling transformation come about? Disappointments, defeats and disillusion have been the left’s constant companions for many a year. The SNP increasingly began to seem like an attractive and viable alternative to many people given the background of growing disillusionment with Labour. The SNP was tailor-made for the job of providing the reformism traditionally offered by the Labour Party. This trajectory is essentially a product of despair following successive defeats of the working class and the destruction of large sections of the organised working class. The SNP has successfully tapped into widespread anger and a sense of injustice. Nationalism is being fomented now in Scotland in order to provide an alternative to austerity.  A series of Labour governments have now convinced even some Trotskyists that the Labour is nothing but a pro-capitalist party, and they are now deserting the Labour Party like rats from a sinking ship and rushing to fill the life-boat of left-nationalism. They are blind to the fact that they are jumping from the frying pan into the fire. They still do not understand or opportunistically refuse the anti-socialist role of nationalism. The Trotskyist movement naively simply switched their opportunistic slogan “vote Labour without illusions” to vote “Independence without illusions.”

 Let us also be very clear and state the patently obvious. Scottish nationalism has no intention of challenging capitalism.

At present Scottish nationalism and the SNP have the appearance of a progressive left-wing movement to some honest people who read the promises of their election policies. Deceived by manifesto pledges, sincere people will work in and around the nationalist movement only to discover, in some years’ time, that they have been most cruelly misled, have been wasting their time and worse – have been advocating ideas which they will then have to destroy to establish socialist principles. Instead of tragically wasting their time fostering nationalism those seeking a socialist society must stand firm to socialism. We must do work to popularise socialism alone in order that people shall not be side-tracked. Socialism and nationalism are mutually exclusive. Nationalism abandons notions of workers solidarity and seeks an outcome that necessitates the dividing of workers, denying any role for English or Welsh trade union activists. The history of the British labour movement is the history of the intertwined fates of the Scottish, English, and Welsh working class, for example, the legendary Keir Hardie was an MP for a London and then for a Welsh constituency. The links between Scottish, English and Welsh working people have forged through common struggles and shared experiences a potentially powerful political force. Rising support for nationalism means Scottish workers are turning their back on class unity and joint struggle with their brothers and sisters south of the border, and strengthening reformist illusions that hope lies in a new constitution and a sovereign Edinburgh parliament.

The left nationalists urge Scottish workers to reject this historic solidarity with their English and Welsh fellow-workers, on the grounds that it is impossible to achieve progress at a British level; only in Scotland. But they are wrong if they think that a more radical, more socialistic agenda will emerge in an independent Scotland. The new Scottish state would find its policies constrained exactly the same sort of undemocratic, technocratic, neo-liberal rules of globalization that left nationalists stringently oppose. As with the formation of the Irish Republic, the political landscape will be dominated not by a consciousness of class but of “national interest”. Working people will be spun the line that sacrifice for the good of the nation is the symbol of patriotism despite the pain and privation. A new Scottish state would have an overwhelming incentive, like Ireland, to cut business taxation to gain a competitive advantage over its larger neighbour and would actively discourage collective co-ordinated action by workers across all of the nations of the United Kingdom. Scottish English and Welsh workers do not respond to an abstract appeal for “international solidarity”, they don’t need one, they act out of their already existing unity. The fact is that we live in a single state with a single economy and trade unions have created an organic unity with identical interests and a common consciousness. Independence will tear the fabric of unity apart. In Britain a division of the working class along national lines would be a huge step backwards for the workers movement, even from the weakened state it is currently in.  For though class struggle is at a very low level, those struggles that have taken place, including in Scotland, have arisen out of nationwide disputes.  The creation of an independent Scotland would break that unity and make the task of advancing the workers movement more difficult.

The left nationalists must ask themselves if the possibility of a few seats in a Scottish Parliament is a worthwhile exchange for an abandonment of basic socialist principles. Draping themselves in the Saltire rather than the Red Flag, left- nationalists act as a recruiting sergeants for the pro-business SNP. During the referendum vote many on the left tried to disguise the unpalatable policies that the SNP was preparing to implement by claiming that a Yes vote did not mean support for the SNP and that a move to independence would not necessarily mean an SNP government. Clearly this was deceitful as there was no other political party capable of forming a government if the Yes campaign had succeeded and the SNP’s economic policies and corporate-friendly pledges would have entailed a race to the bottom for tax rates on capital and for workers’ living standards in Europe. The Left-nationalists could merely counter with an idealist social democratic utopia in a very small state vulnerable to the economic blackmail of the bankers as we witness in Greece today.

There is an alternative to nationalism and spreading false hope amongst workers in Scotland. It’s called class politics and it comes with internationalism and working class unity and being honest with the working class, even if it’s not what some want to hear, rather than peddle cynical opportunistic shortcuts up deluded blind alleys to gain some supposed influence amongst workers. In reality the short-cut to socialism turned out to be a short cut to nationalism. The Socialist Party reject the idea that Scottish nationalism (or any nationalism, for that matter) represents a way of advancing the interests of the working class.  There is no basis for socialists to be advocates of Scottish independence.  All the arguments for independence are in essence nationalist and pro capitalist whatever the left-wing gloss than is placed on them. Our opposition to independence is not support for the status quo but for the unity of the working class. The workers movement would be weakened by a process where regional capitalist classes try to corner local resources and endeavor win the workers over to defend them. The task for socialists in all countries, whether that be Scotland, Britain or Ireland, is indeed independence - not of nations or of regions - but of the working class. This class independence, in terms of politics and organisation, is the very foundation of the struggle for socialism.  It is because Scottish nationalism and the call for independence throw up yet more barriers to this unity that we urge workers in Scotland to reject the siren song of separatism

"merchants have no country. the mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." Thomas Jefferson

Deformed reform

Capitalism can be reformed. It can be reformed in many ways. But it cannot be reformed in such a manner as to effect an essential fundamental improvement in the working class conditions of life. It cannot be reformed in such a way as to free the workers from economic exploitation. Reforms, insofar as they have had any effect, have been effective simply by preventing the workers from sinking too far below the poverty level, their function being to do no more than preserve the workers as able-bodied means of production.

It is not in the nature of capitalist society to provide better conditions for its slave class. The efficient operation of capitalist industry requires not only a capable working class, it requires a working class always at the beck and call of the master class. Only by keeping the workers bordering on necessity at all times can this condition be assured. The whiplash of poverty is far more effective than any coercive force could be in keeping them tied to the machine and subservient to their masters.

Those who would administer the affairs of capitalism are limited in their endeavors by the requirements of capitalism, and even though they would bend every energy to lighten the burdens of the workers, the system itself inevitably reduces the results to disheartening proportions.

Practically all of the reform legislation on the statute books of the capitalist world has been placed there by capitalist parties. The capitalists have never been noted for their generosity towards the workers, but they are practical gentlemen and they have long known that the smooth and economical operation of their system requires periodic additions to the mountains of reforms. Reforms to them are like a vile tasting tonic that must be taken from time to time for the protection of their health and well-being. Workers who live under poor sanitary conditions are ready victims of ailments which often develop into communicable diseases; and diseases do not respect the superior and necessary persons of capitalists. Moreover, workers afflicted by ailments spend time at home that could better be spent in the factory turning out surplus values for the factory owner. They must be protected against these conditions. They must also be protected against malnutrition, accidents, etc., in order that their efficiency as cogs in the wealth producing machine may not be impaired. They must even be provided for when they are unemployed, for the repressive measures of bygone days are no longer sufficient to deal with the vastly increased number of workers thrown periodically into the scrapheap by modern industry. It is now more economical to provide them with necessities than to maintain a coercive force great enough to prevent them from helping themselves. Besides, as in times of war or other periods of trade expansion, their services may be required again.

Hence the measures dealing with sanitation and housing, sickness and accidents, health and unemployment! Hence the reforms piled upon reforms, reaching to the heavens! Hence the gradual conversion of the workers into destitute wards of the state!

There is a further reason for the acceptance of reform measures by the parties of the capitalist class. The workers form the immense majority of the members of society. They are the ones who suffer most from the evils of capitalism. They are only too conscious of the existence, if not the cause, of these evils, and they are ever ready to lend their support to whoever will promise redress. No party can govern without the consent of the workers. The capitalists, in consequence, must be ever ready with the required promises, if they are to protect their exclusive right to govern. Reforms that are not desirable to them can frequently be sidetracked afterwards, together with flattering appeals to the workers for loyalty, understanding and co-operation. Where they cannot be sidetracked, these reforms can always be watered down and presented with fanfares and glowing self-praise. It is an easy game to play, and while it does not give the workers very much, neither does it cost the capitalists very much, and it frequently assures for them a period of contentedness on the part of their slaves.

The traditional socialist tenet today is in tatters so much so that many would rather go naked than garb ourselves in what passes for socialism these days. Socialists oppose the capitalist system and argue that since it cannot be reformed effectively it must be abolished. Simple as that. 

Not for “OUR” People but for “THE” People

“The Socialist League therefore aims at the realisation of complete Revolutionary Socialism, and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all civilisation. For us neither geographical boundaries, political history, race, nor creed makes rivals or enemies; for us there are no nations, but only varied masses of workers and friends, whose mutual sympathies are checked or perverted by groups of masters and fleecers whose interest it is to stir up rivalries and hatreds between the dwellers in different lands.” - The Manifesto of the Socialist League, Commonweal, February 1885

When humanity has truly grown up, it will look back on the division of the world into states, and the restriction of the right of humans to travel, live, and work where they wish, as a kind of world apartheid. We will wonder how we ever felt it was justified, or even meaningful, to speak of a human being's statehood. We will understand, of course, the material history and the social causes which lay behind states, in the same way that we understand the history of apartheid itself, or slavery, or the treatment of women as property or 'chattel'. But intellectual understanding does not educate the imagination, and we will wonder how we ever managed to escape awareness of the obvious fact that there is but one, common humanity, and that all rights spring from it alone, and not accidents of race, sex, or geography. States are pens into which humanity is divided for the purpose of being ruled over and exploited by minorities. They exist to limit human freedom: money and goods travel the world freely, while humans are kept in check by passports and border controls.

If socialists oppose the state, how much more should they 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 'people' or ‘race’. In attempting to harness the power of struggles for the socialist cause, some have dragged our movement into the mud 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.

We already have a one-world culture. Information flows around the world. We reach a consensus on different issues through this very rapid, decentralized information flow.  So already governments are less important. The Web has little concept of national boundaries.

We cannot trust the capitalist system to be run in the interest of workers. Everything we win in the course of class struggle can be taken away again if we let down our guard. The only way to keep hold of the gains we make is to get rid of the capitalist system and establish socialism. A lack of local powers is not an argument for nationalism; it is an argument for socialism.

Our task as socialists is to try to provide clarity on the class basis for taking a position. And our position must always be based on what is going to be in the interests of the working class movement. We socialists want to show workers that their interests lie in the maximum unity of all workers against all oppressors. We want them to identify their interests with the oppressed everywhere, to discard the blood-stained Saltire along with the blood-stained Union Jack. But we will not do that without understanding clearly who are our friends and who are our enemies. Our job is to propagate a class-conscious understanding in order to help workers discard harmful popular prejudices. If we don’t do that, then there’s really not much point to our existence, since it is only through discarding the beliefs that keep us shackled to capitalist ideas that we will be able to build a movement capable of building socialism.

The fact that good, well-meaning people have been misled must not prevent us from seeking truth from facts. The fact that left-nationalists Scots wish to see British capitalism weakened, and hope that by voting for independence they will achieve this aim, does not prove that that is what will actually happen. In Scotland nationalism gives workers a scapegoat for the ills of capitalist society. “Don’t blame capitalism, blame the immigrants!” say the UKIP to angry and disillusioned workers in England. And in Scotland the refrain is “Don’t blame capitalism, blame the English!” That people are in the mood to fall for this misdirection is a sign that they understand that something is wrong and that something must be done. They have understood that this society is not serving them but they still have not recognized the true “Auld Enemy” – capitalism – as the cause of their woes.

Technology has increases productive power and efficiency. This means we continually do more for less, thus we will approach a point where ultra-efficient automation entails an extreme abundance of resources, thus everything will be free, nobody will need to work. This situation is called “post-scarcity”. Governments only exist to manage scarcity, they manage the social dysfunction arising from scarcity, thus via eliminating scarcity you eliminate all governments. All need for oppression becomes obsolete when scarcity is vanquished thus dictators will not arise. This is the bigger picture beyond the parochial concerns of borders on Earth.

Realistic Utopia

A serious critique of capitalism is essential to help solve the current world environmental crisis. Important questions are being raised about the dire state of the Earth’s ecosystems. We must now rethink our vision of a future society. We need to have a global perspective, understanding revolution and revolutionary transformation as a world process. Ecological issues must fundamentally be dealt with on a world scale. But that can only happen on the basis of a social and economic system—socialism—that does not treat the environment simply as a means by which to accumulate wealth. The world doesn’t need to go green to save the planet and the people on it, it needs to go red. The only solution is to get rid of capitalism.

Socialism presents a criticism of the god, Mammon, its high priests of finance and those lords of the universe, the industrialists, who worship the market at the sacred altar of money, and like a god, claim omnipotence that they can do anything. Socialism, disputes such a premise and argues that the market is unable to solve everything and that the world cannot live only for consumption and ever more consumption, as the "god-capitalism" always decrees it to be so. Who has eyes to see knows that there is a contradiction and conflict between capital and nature.  Ecological socialism (eco-socialism) denies the divinity of the market. 

Capitalism cannot deal with the environment in a sustainable rational way. Its logic is “expand-or-die”, limitless growth, to cheapen cost and to expand in order to wage the competitive battle and gain market share. And unplanned, large-scale, globally-interconnected production poses grave threats to the environment. Zero growth is not possible in a capitalist economy. Firms compete to make profit. Those who make the most profit can reinvest in capital and with more efficient machinery they out compete other firms. Firms have to make profit to survive. It’s not a case of wicked capitalists but instead a system with a built in growth imperative. Capitalism without growth is capitalism in crisis. Capitalism tend to be based on the short term. They seek to maximise returns quickly. They don’t think about the consequences in 10, 20, 30 years. Capitalist production is by its nature broken up into competing units of capitalist control and ownership over the means of production. And each unit is fundamentally concerned with itself and its expansion and its profit. The economy, the constructed and natural environment, and society cannot be dealt with as a social whole under capitalism. It’s all fragmented and each part looks at what lies outside itself as a “free ride.” An individual capitalist can open a steel mill and be concerned with the cost of that steel mill. But what they do to the air is not “their cost,” because it’s not part of their sphere of ownership. In mainstream economic theory, this is called “externality.” Socialism is not guided by profit but by social need, achieving rational balances between industry and agriculture, reducing gaps between town and country, factoring in the short-run, medium-term, and long-term, etc. And socialist planning is able to take into account non-economic factors: like health, the environment, alienation that people may experience from jobs. Society itself, and not a small oligarchy of property-owners—nor an elite of state techno-crats will be able to decide, democratically, what will be produced and in what way and in what quantities and they will be free to choose how much of the natural and social resources are to be devoted to education, health, or culture. Far from being “despotic,” planning is the exercise by a whole society of its freedom. A significant increase in free time is a condition for the democratic participation of working people in democratic discussion and management of the economy and of society. Human labour force itself is a natural resource. "The natural force of people" and "the natural force of the earth" are "the only two sources of wealth" and those are plundered by capitalism. A number of environmentalists don’t like to use the “c” word for risk of offence, but it’s all about “capitalism”.

The ecological socialist utopia is only a possibility, not inevitable. One cannot predict the future, except in conditional terms. In the absence of a socialist transformation the logic of capitalism will lead the planet to dramatic ecological disasters, threatening the health and the life of billions of human beings, and perhaps even the survival of our species. There is no reason for optimism.  Rosa Luxemburg could reasonably assume that the alternative to socialism would be barbarism. The ecological crisis has made barbarism even more probable. The entrenched ruling class is incredibly powerful, and the forces of radical opposition are still small. But socialism is the only hope that the catastrophic course of capitalist “growth” will be halted. Socialism is pragmatic, not utopian. The society we want to build must reverse the growth imperative and system of private and government ownership, make work life-affirmative, and create an economy based on community, cooperation, sharing, and a system of production that takes into account our impact on ecological systems. It should contribute to the betterment of society while allowing each individual to develop to their full potential. Technology will inevitably be part of our solution, but we must use and re-focus science and technology to serve the priorities of people and nature.

The language of life and death, of apocalyptic cataclysm is not poetic rhetoric — it is the reality of cancer from polluted waters, of choking asthma attacks from poisoned air. Climate change is no longer a future consequence. It is now an actuality. This is capitalism in all its naked brutality— willing to destroy everything for profits. This should not only cause us to despair but rather should motivate all of us to join the struggle to solve the ecological crisis in the only way it can ultimately be resolved — through the revolutionary transformation of our society. Our self-interest in preserving and regenerating healthy eco-systems, living and working in a way that does not compromise ourwell-being, will become central in making decisions about how food is grown and all other aspects of getting our basic needs met. When and where possible we should develop infrastructures for local food, water, and energy sovereignty, recognising that we will need an intricate balance between local production and a more centralised distribution and reallocation of resources. There are decisions that cannot be made on local or regional levels since their consequences obey no borders and affect other regions and, potentially, the entire planet; somehow, we must make these decisions globally. Those who live downstream must be as much involved in decision making as those upstream.

We must uphold the banner of socialism if we are to transform society and fight for all of humanity and for the planet that is our home. 

Why Political Action?

Part of the Socialist Party of Great Britain's argument is that by endeavouring to go through parliament and capturing the state machine which includes the armed forces the likelihood of bloodshed is minimalised. The state controls every part of the armed forces, from the policeman’s truncheon to the nuclear bomb. So long as the capitalist class is allowed to remain in control of the military, there would be no chance of dispossessing the capitalists, or abolishing their system. The primary objective of a revolutionary working class entails gaining control of the armed forces.

There is no possibility of the workers successfully engaging the capitalist class in violence. If the capitalist means of co-ercion was solely the police, then, we could organise workers’ battalions such as the Irish Citizens Army. But the tremendous nature of military force in society today preclude the possibility of prevailing. So capitalists has the supreme weapon - political power and with it, control of the army, navy, air and police forces and that power is conferred upon the representatives of the capitalist class by elections and that is why they invest such large amounts of wealth and much time and effort to win them .

The SPGB are not pacifists. We considered violence a possibility but we argue that the more workers understand and the more educated they become in socialist ideas, the less chance there would be of violence. Historically the battle of ideas has been waged both in the mind (in debates and discussions) and on the streets. The SPGB favour the first approach, and do all we can to keep activity there. Street fighting can only firstly divide us and secondly weaken us. Authoritarian parties such as the old Communist Party denigrate and suppress their opposition so as not to compete by demonstrating the relative values of their ideas. This is where street-fighting plays its negative role: physically removing opposition that one cannot overcome in a battle of hearts and minds. The revolution is aborted in the process, not defended. This is another reason why a socialist revolution must be peaceful. Revolutionary violence is a sign of weakness in the working class.

Our assumption in the SPGB is that significant numbers of capitalists will see the futility of resisting a well-educated, well-organised working-class majority. The capitalist class cannot continue its rule even through violence when enough workers decide to break with the capitalists’ legitimacy and the capitalist system. The position of the SPGB is that the control of the state neutralises the threat of a recalcitrant capitalist class thwarting the will of a class conscious majority, which is the precondition of establishing socialism .The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the majority have come to want and understand it. Without a socialist working class, there can be no socialism. The establishment of socialism can only be the conscious majority, and therefore democratic, act of a socialist-minded working class. In many of the so-called revolutionary situations in the past that majority did not exist within the working class.

The capitalist class are the dominant class today because they control the State (machinery of government/political power). And they control the State because a majority of the population allow them to, by their everyday attitudes but also voting for pro-capitalist parties at election times, so returning a pro-capitalism majority to Parliament, so ensuring that any government emerging from Parliament will be pro-capitalism. Just as today a pro-capitalism majority in Parliament reflects the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population wants or accepts capitalism, so a socialist majority in Parliament would reflect the fact that a majority outside Parliament wanted socialism. The SPGB argue that control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be emasculated, so that socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption. The SPGB is not pacifist and does not exclude if need be violence but has adopted the Chartist slogan "peacefully if possibly, forcibly if necessary".

The Russian and German Revolutions actually confirm in some ways the views advanced by the SPGB, that BECAUSE of their control of the state, the German SPD could enforce its rule. And of course, it was the control of the state again that permitted the Bolsheviks to assume dictatorial control over Russia through the coercion of the Red Army over the SR/Menshevik/Anarchist opposition.

The position of the SPGB is that the control of the state neutralises the threat of a recalcitrant capitalist class thwarting the will of a class conscious majority, which is the precondition of establishing socialism. The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the majority have come to want and understand it. Without a socialist working class, there can be no socialism. The establishment of socialism can only be the conscious majority, and therefore democratic, act of a socialist-minded working class. I think in many of the so-called revolutionary situations in the past that majority did not exist within the working class.

The German SPD prevailed because they indeed had either the active or passive support of most Germans who sought simply a period of respite and recuperation after the war years. Luxemburg understood that the battle for the hearts and minds of the German working class was still to be won and that any insurrection would have been premature. The Sparticist / Revolutionary Shop Stewards Uprising was actually provoked by the Right and certainly not instigated by Luxemburg or Leibnecht. That the Left did what was expected of them demonstrated the political immaturity of the times. Only a majority of socialist-minded workers could have made the revolution in Germany. The bloody defeat showed how violence, especially by a minority, is suicidal against an existing organised state. That Luxemburg was against proposing a revolutionary putsch is on record and what she simply did, was what any honest representative of the working class could do when events actually began - she took the side of the workers against blood-thirsty mercenaries.

The SPGB position is to capture parliament to abolish capitalism as you well know, not to assume political office or to institute a policy of reforms. Therefore, we can agree with Luxemburg when she says:

"Our participation in the elections is necessary not in order to collaborate with the bourgeoisie and its shield-bearers in making laws, but to cast out the bourgeoisie and its shield-bearers from the temple, to storm the fortress of the counter-revolution, and to raise above it the victorious banner of the proletarian revolution. In order to do this, is a majority in the National Assembly necessary? Only those who subscribe to parliamentary cretinism, who would decide the revolution and socialism with parliamentary majorities, believe this. Not the parliamentary majority in the National Assembly, but the proletarian mass outside, in the factories and on the streets, will decide the fate of the National Assembly.... It, the mass, shall decide on the fate and the outcome of the National Assembly. What happens in, what becomes of, the National Assembly depends upon its own revolutionary activity. The greatest importance therefore attaches to the action outside, which must batter furiously at the gates of the counter-revolutionary parliament. But even the elections themselves and the action of the revolutionary representatives of the mass inside parliament must serve the cause of the revolution. To denounce ruthlessly and loudly all the tricks and dodges of the esteemed assembly, to expose its counter-revolutionary work to the masses at every step, to call upon the masses to decide, to intervene – this is the task of the socialists’ participation in the National Assembly."

Again the example of the army in Russian Revolution answers those that argue that soldiers (and state employees in general) due to their indoctrination, would not obey the instructions of a workers' parliament but would still respond to the orders of the capitalists. They claim that they could then be used to put down the revolution and this gives rise to further speculation about the need for workers' militia, by-passing parliament and so on. It is quite illogical to assume that the wave of enthusiasm for socialism which would be sweeping through the working class as a whole would somehow miss out that section which forms the bulk of the armed forces. Our evidence for this is the record of previous revolutions. The success of the bourgeois revolution in Russia in 1917 was guaranteed when the military, which for decades had brutally put down all opposition to the tsar, succumbed to the general revolutionary discontent and refused any longer to protect the old ruling class. If soldiers then took up the slogans of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs, how much more likely will they be to accept socialist policies put forward by workers like themselves organised in a mass socialist party?

The vote is merely the legitimate stamp which will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the States and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy. It is the Achilles heel of capitalism and makes a non-violent revolution possible. What matters is a conscious socialist majority outside parliament, ready and organised to take over and run industry and society; electing a socialist majority in parliament is essentially just a reflection of this. It is not parliament that establishes socialism, but the socialist working-class majority outside parliament and they do this, not by their votes, but by their active participating beyond this in the transformation of society. We fully agree with Luxemburg that "Without the conscious will and action of the majority of the proletariat, there can be no socialism."

Of those organisations with agreed positions, the SPGB has perhaps the most thought out argument for maintaining that there is all possibility that socialism can be achieved by little violence. It has been discussed and debated within the SPGB since it began all through the various stands of popular contemporary political currents of the time, from insurrectionists to syndicalism. So far, it has been a matter of the SPGB unfortunately saying "we told you so" and that hurts and gives no satisfaction to most SPGB members. We want to be proved wrong and that somehow there is a shortcut to socialism. But we are a miserable lot of gloom and doom merchants, but again at same time, we are rosy eyed optimists too in our views that the workers are fully capable of eventually understanding socialism and organising for it with the minimum of social disruption and upheaval and chaos, normally associated with revolution.

You and others may not agree with the SPGB case, but it is nevertheless a valid proposition for the working class to choose or reject and it should not be denied to them though omission or by misinterpretation. Our critics say the working class have been rejecting this "proposition" for the past 100 years" It is the case, yet it seems like they too have all shared the same rejection by any measure you choose to use, votes or membership or actual workers activism so lack of success is nothing to crow about in sole regard to the SPGB.

To summarise, the SPGB position is that we deem it as very unlikely that the capitalist class would be capable of resisting socialism violently. But not being soothsayers or determinists , we say that there may indeed be a reaction from the capitalist class and it would be resisted and thus we adopt the slogan "peacefully if possible, forcibly as necessary " and that's been part of the SPGB case since 1904 and the reason we emphasise the importance of capturing political control of the state machinery INCLUDING the armed forces to guarantee the will of the majority over any recalcitrant minority .

Who owns the North Pole part 86

The Arctic Cold War Hots Up 

Canada plans to spend billions of dollars on new patrol ships, polar satellites, transport upgrade, and winter gear for its troops amid rising demands for the Arctic’s riches.

In line with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s vow to boost the country’s footprint in the Arctic in a bid to spur its economic growth, the Conservative government has announced a multi-billion dollar budget to purchase everything from naval ships to weather satellites, US-based Defense News reported this week.  According to the report, on top of the shopping list are five new patrol ships for the Royal Canadian Navy, which will be outfitted with Lockheed Martin avionics at a cost of CAN $3.5 billion ($3.4 billion), as well as up to $50 million in technical upgrades for the Air Force’s CC-138 transport aircraft. Canada plans to buy up to 100 all-terrain vehicles at an estimated price tag between $100 million and $249 million. The Arctic spending package will also include up to $49 million spent on new winter apparel, including snowshoes, skis and toboggans.

Several U.S. lawmakers are warning U.S. military leaders about the pace and scope of Russia's Arctic militarization, including the addition new brigades, ships and airfields to the fast-changing region. 

Russian initiatives are making it increasingly difficult for the U.S. to successfully compete in the area as new sea lanes emerge, they say. 

"When you look at what the Russians are doing in the Arctic, it is actually quite impressive --impressive, but disturbing," Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Ala., told military leaders at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee Navy budget hearing.

"The Russians are looking at adding four new combat brigades in the Arctic as our U.S. Army is thinking at pulling them out of there," he said. "I think that would give Vladimir Putin a lot of joy. They are building 13 new airfields and conducting long-range air patrols off the coast of Alaska."

"That we would even contemplate taking one soldier away from Alaska is lunacy given Putin's recent actions in the Arctic," he said. "Alaska's Army BCTs are the best cold-weather and mountain-hardened BCTs in the country.  The training makes them uniquely valuable to the U.S. Army and their presence in Alaska hopefully ensures that other nations never make us use them."

Experts say the pace of melting ice and rising water temperatures is expected to open more waterways in the region and possibly new sea-routes for commercial shipping, transport, strategic military presence and adventure tourism. The developments carry geopolitical and national-security risks, as well.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said the U.S. needs to intensify its preparations for Arctic activity.

"We need to look at it deliberately and understand it," he said. "We need to get industry up there and study the place and find out when it is going to melt. What are the sea lines that will open? Are there territorial disputes? Are there threats? Russia is increasing their military presence which sort of makes sense. Also, how do we survive up there with our ships our aircraft and our people?"

The Navy is researching technologies that will better enable sailors, ships, sensors and weapons to operate in such a harsh environment.

"We have to look at the hardening of our hulls," he said. "It is not just surface ships. It is the aircraft and the undersea domain. I've directed the increase in our activity up there."

The Office of Naval Research has deployed drones underneath the ice to assess the temperature and salt content of the water so as to better predict the pace of melting ice and the opening up of sea routes.

Greenert also said the Navy is increasing joint exercises with Canada and Scandinavian countries in preparation for increased Arctic activity.

Despite these measures, some lawmakers are still not convinced that the U.S. is doing enough to counterbalance Russian military initiatives in the region. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, expressed concern that the U.S. only operates a handful of ice breaker ships compared to Russia's large fleet of ice breakers.

"We have one heavy duty and one medium-duty Coast Guard ice breakers," he said. "The Russians have 17 ice breakers in the Arctic. If we are talking about innocent passage and trade, ice breakers are the highway builders and that is an example of how we are really not adequately developing our strategic interests in that region."

Sullivan also echoed Sen. King's concerns about the small U.S. fleet of ice breakers, adding that the Russians have six new icebreakers in development with five more planned.

The U.S. has more than 1,000 miles of Arctic coastline along its Alaskan border. However, Russia's Northern Sea Route, which parallels the Arctic and Russian border, is by far the largest existing shipping route in the region.

Recognizing that the quickening pace of melting ice and warming water temperatures may open up sea lanes sooner than expected, the Navy last year released an Updated Arctic Road Map, which details the service's preparations for increasing its presence in the region.

The Navy's initial version of the document released in 2009 includes mission analysis and "fleet readiness" details for the environment, including search and rescue, maritime security, C4ISR, cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, strategic sealift and strategic deterrence, among other things.

"The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe," the document states. "While significant uncertainty exists in projections for Arctic ice extent, the current scientific consensus indicates the Arctic may experience nearly ice free summers sometime in the 2030s."

An assessment by the Navy's Task Force Climate Change determined the rate of melting has increased since the time of this report. As a result, Navy planners anticipate needing to operate there to a much greater extent by the middle of the 2020s instead of the 2030s.

Although the thinning of the Arctic ice was reported by Navy submarines in the 1990s, there have been considerable changes to the environment since that time, said Robert Freeman, spokesman for the oceanographer of the Navy.

While stressing that budget constraints might limit what preparations are possible, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus also said the service was increasing its exercises and preparations for greater activity in the region.

"As the ice melts in the Arctic our responsibilities go up. It is not just platforms and capabilities -- it is what we are facing," he said. "We not only have less ice but it is freezing in different ways. The ice is forming in different ways that are beginning to be a hazard to navigation. We're upping our exercises and research into the area."

Putin called the Navy's Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia's Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighboring Norway, a NATO member. Norway is currently holding its "Joint Viking" drills involving 5,000 troops and 400 vehicles in Finnmark county, which borders Russia in the resource-rich Arctic circle where both countries are vying for influence. This is an operative exercise with all weapons and branches involved,” said army spokesperson Lt. Col. Aleksander Jankov. “To illustrate the magnitude of this, I can mention that if we put the vehicles one after another on the road it will stretch 6 kilometers.”

Norway said its military drills had been planned before the Ukraine crisis. "However, the current security situation in Europe shows that the exercise is more relevant than ever," Lieutenant General Haga Lunde said in a statement. Russia's drills would include nearly 40,000 servicemen, 41 warships and 15 submarines, RIA reported. 

"New challenges and threats to military security require the armed forces to further boost their military capabilities. Special attention must be paid to newly created strategic formations in the north," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, quoted by RIA news agency.

Russia's biggest new military development in the Arctic is the creation of the Russian Joint Strategic Command North (JSCN), which is built out of the former Northern Fleet. The command, according to Defense News, has a surface fleet and a submarine fleet of about 40 vessels each, although between 40% and 70% of those ships are currently unusable.

According to the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the JSCN won't be an ordinary naval fleet. The command will ultimately feature an air defense division, two Arctic mechanized brigades, a naval infantry brigade, a coastal defense missile system, and the placement of missile regiments in outlying archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean. As part of the air defense regiment, Moscow is moving a total of nine S-400 Triumph air defense missile systems to the coast. The S-400 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system that can engage a variety of targets, including aircraft, drones, and other missiles. Triumph air defense missile systems can strike at targets up to 250 miles away and at a maximum altitude of 18.6 miles.  New infrastructure throughout Russia's remote northern coast will support this military buildup. Formerly abandoned Soviet bases are being reopened and new ports and airstrips will be constructed. Moscow's current plans envision the opening of ten Arctic search-and-rescue stations, 16 deepwater ports, 13 airfields, and ten air-defense radar stations across its Arctic coast. Once completed, this construction will "permit the use of larger and more modern bombers," Mark Galeotti, an NYU professor specializing on Russia, writes for The Moscow Times. "By 2025, the Arctic waters are to be patrolled by a squadron of next-generation stealthy PAK DA bombers." One of the new bases is in Alakurtti in the Murmansk region, just 31 miles away from the Finnish border. Murmansk will soon be the location of over 3,000 ground troops, 39 surface ships, and 35 submarines.

Robert Papp, the U.S. special representative for the Arctic, says he questions reports that Russia has launched a major military buildup in the Arctic. Papp says he’s asking U.S. intelligence agencies to look beyond Russia’s military swagger for a realistic view of its Arctic activity. Papp says Moscow could be adding infrastructure for general use in the north.

“One person can look at what’s going on in terms of what they call ‘military buildup’ and rightfully say they’ve got an awful long border along the Arctic, and if you’re going to have increased maritime traffic you should have search-and-rescue facilities, you should have modern airports and other things — things I’d like to have built in Alaska as maritime traffic increases,” he said.

Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno spoke yesterday of Russia’s military buildup in the Arctic. 

“We have seen over the last several years an obvious increased interest in the Russians in the Arctic,” Odierno said at a U.S. Senate hearing. “There are clear indications … that they are increasing their presence and building bases so in the future they will be able to increase the presence and have an impact in the Arctic region.”

Last week, the secretary of defense said much the same, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said Russia is activating four new brigades in the Arctic.

Poverty in Scotland is becoming more entrenched

More than half a million Scots, including 100,000 children, have been living in severe poverty, according to the Scottish government. Relative poverty had fallen over the past decade but a greater proportion of those struggling to get by were now facing either severe or extreme poverty. People are classed as being in severe poverty if their household income is less than 50% of the UK average. From 2012-13, when anyone whose household income was below £11,500 would have been classed as living in severe poverty. Extreme poverty is defined as being 40% or less of the UK median annual household income - or less than £9,200 in 2012-13.

A total of 510,000 individuals - or 10% of the population - were living in severe poverty in 2012-13, the report said. This included 330,000 working-age adults, 100,000 children and 80,000 pensioners.

But when housing costs were factored in, the number facing severe poverty increased to 710,000. This included 500,000 who were in extreme poverty after paying their rent or mortgage. A total of 370,000 working-age adults, 90,000 children and 40,000 pensioners were all affected by this.

The report stating: "There have been decreases in real earned income, a rise in insecure employment (including zero hour contracts) and increases in the numbers in low pay. The combination of these factors is likely to increase the numbers living in severe and extreme poverty, and reduce the chances of those in low-paid work to lift their families out of poverty." The report concluded: "In short, poverty is changing; work is no longer a guarantee of a life free of poverty; people in poverty face increasing costs; and those in receipt of benefits and tax credits - which of course includes many in work - are finding their incomes squeezed." More than one in four Scots get paid less than the living wage.

The research also said that "welfare reform is another key factor", adding: "For low-income working families reliant on benefits and tax credits, cuts combined with changes in eligibility have seen household income decrease in 2012-13." It warned that more welfare changes are to come, stating: "The majority of the decrease in welfare expenditure is expected to be in the two years to 2015-16. Continuous, cumulative real-terms cuts in benefit levels are expected, affecting both working households and households not in employment."