FORWARD TO SOCIALISM!

The average worker is unable to see any alternative to the profit system.  He or she is often willing to see the boss get higher prices for the goods which he, the worker, has produced. Under capitalism or the profit system, it is necessary to maintain and, if possible, increase the gap between wages (or what it costs in labour power to produce goods) and price (or the exchange-value which those goods have on the market). This gap exists because the worker only receives the price of his or her labour power and no share in the values he or she creates. With socialism, there will be no wages at all. There will be no prices or market values.

No profits; no production: that is the capitalist law. For, the whole purpose of the capitalist production process is – profit, which is but another name for the self-expansion of capital. The capitalist throws into the productive process a certain quantity of capital as a means to expanding it. That is the whole point in the process – for the capitalist. If at the end of the process the capital thus thrown in has not expanded, i.e. increased in quantity, the whole process is, from his point of view, useless. Which is why we say that capitalist production is but a means to capitalist profit. Production, which is essential to society, is only incidental to the process; profit is its motive, and profit its purpose.

Under capitalism, the worker, at the end of the week (or more commonly these days, the month), receives wages which simply go to refurbish him or her for another Monday. Sunday is the day of rest if you’re lucky and don’t have to work on Sundays, too. And so it goes on and on for workers under capitalism – a continuous treadmill (sometimes broken by unemployment), with the worker never quite catching up or getting ahead, but always forced to go to work on Monday.

In socialism, all this is changed. Goods are produced for the use of men and NOT for the profits which they bring to bosses. Labour power is no longer regarded as a commodity to be bought and sold. It is not purchased at all, let alone purchased at the lowest possible price to keep it alive and able to produce more value. Men and women, inside socialism, will work and produce useful goods. But they will produce these for their mutual needs and for their mutual development. The sufficiency of goods which mankind and machines can create will be given to people to develop their bodies so that their minds can grow rich in the wealth of human knowledge, esthetic appreciation and artistic creation. From day to day, from week to week, and from year to year, individual creativity will widen and increase. Men and women, no longer fettered by the necessity of working for the bosses’ profits, will be freed to live more fully. The time that is spent at work will shorten yet the goods produced for all to enjoy will be plentiful. Those who even thinks of “reasonable profit” will be jeered at and treated as a barbarian out of the past Dark Age. He who talks about prices and wages will be talking gibberish, for we all have been freed from the capitalist system, freed from wage labour, price and profit. That is why, instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” workers must inscribe on their banner the REVOLUTIONARY watchword: “Abolition of the wage system!” Socialism is the ONLY answer!

We of the Socialist Party have nothing to do with those other parties that pass themselves off as socialist. We are orthodox Marxists, because we know that Marxism is the only revolutionary socialism of the working class, and that is the only genuine socialism. History has demonstrated the spuriousness of every other brand. Marxism is a theory of social evolution which affirms that capitalism is obsolete and bankrupt, and that it must be, and will be, replaced by a higher form of social organisation which Marx and Engels called socialism or communism. Marxism teaches that socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the good will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters, as the Utopians, who preceded Marx, used to think, and as some people still seem to think. Socialism can be realised only as the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. The class struggle is the motive force of history. All the actions and judgments of a socialist party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. The class struggle is the central and governing principle of socialist politics. It is by carrying the class struggle to its necessary conclusion — that is, to the victory of the working class and the abolition of capitalism — that the socialist society will be realised. This is the teaching of Marxism. There is no other way. And every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliating them, by collaborating with them, in peace or in war, has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers.

The road to the socialist solution is clearly indicated by history. Socialistic aspirations of the working class are rising. Humanity’s problems can be solved only as a world whole. Marx, however, did not say that if you somehow destroy capitalism socialism must dawn. That is a fatalist and mechanistic conception with which Marxism has nothing in common. What Marx did teach and demonstrate was that if you destroy capitalism in a certain way, that is, by a certain form of social action, the road to socialism would be opened. In what way? In the revolutionary way. If socialism is to be the outcome of capitalism’s downfall, it is necessary that mankind take conscious action in that direction. The basic classes of capitalist society are the capitalist class and the working class. Between them there is already a struggle going on; the struggle by the capitalist class to maintain its system of exploitation, and the struggle by the working class to overthrow it. What Marx taught and demonstrated was that the road to socialism lay through the carrying forward to its logical conclusion of this struggle by the working class against the capitalist class. Why did he teach this? Not out of “selfishness” or “hate” but by reason of reasoned necessity. Marx showed that the successful carrying forward of the struggle of the working class to free itself from capitalist exploitation would open the road to socialism by demonstrating that the working class could not emancipate itself without also emancipating all

society. In order to emancipate itself, the working class would have to expropriate the capitalists and socialize their property. But the process of socializing the means of production and distribution is also the process of bringing in the world-wide, classless and democratic society. Marx demonstrated that socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism and that the bringing of the socialist society into being demands the carrying forward of the revolutionary class struggle to its logical conclusion, i.e. the overthrow of the capitalist class and its state. For ends determine means, and means condition ends.

Hunger Lesson for Teachers

Child poverty in Scotland is now so severe that teachers are being sent advice on how to spot if a child in their class is going hungry, amid evidence that the problem is having an increasingly serious impact on education. The new guidance, which will be distributed to schools and colleges across Scotland next week, warns that the issue of hunger among pupils is “moving from the exceptional to the more commonplace” as families struggle to make ends meet. 

The advice has been drawn up by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country’s largest teaching union, after a survey of 300 schools and colleges suggested that teachers are increasingly having to help underfed pupils.

“Pupils may appear pale, fatigued, irritable or lacking in concentration, or complain of headaches or feeling unwell,” it states. “While there can be other reasons underlying such signs, for a growing number of children and young people in our schools and colleges today, the reason will be hunger.”

More than 222,000 children in Scotland are currently described as being in poverty, but the EIS warned that the number would rise if the Government’s “austerity agenda” continued. “Schools and colleges are part of society, and so are not immune from the problems of that wider society,” said the union’s general secretary Larry Flanagan.

Billionaires With A Conscience?

Some of the world's billionaires are getting a social conscience, according to The New York Times. Johann Rupert a dealer in Cartier diamonds and Montblanc pens 'sounded more like a Marxist theoretician' when he said, that it wasn't good business for the richest of the rich to raid the world's spoils and, "It's unfair and not sustainable." Paul Tudor Jones II, a private equity investor, said that extreme income divides have traditionally been resolved by taxes, wars, or revolution. Then Jeff Greene, a real estate billionaire weighed in with 'the super rich should pay higher taxes to restore the inclusive economy I grew up in.' And Nick Hanauer, a tech billionaire from Seattle warned, "I have a message for my fellow filthy rich. For all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up people, it won't last." Well it has lasted too long already, higher taxes will solve nothing and capitalism never claimed to be a fair system. Chrystia Freeland in her book, "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else." said that the phenomenon of the socially conscious billionaire is significant. Apparently a few billionaires told her that they agreed that the current system isn't working. All well and good but will they support a system that guarantees necessary goods and services to all humans? Not bloody likely! John Ayers.

There Is Only One Solution – Socialism!

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

We live in an epoch in which there exists class oppression, poverty, hunger war, racism and sexism. There’s a name for this kind of society and it’s called capitalism. It relishes and thrives on inequality. By capitalism, we mean the system that exists on the basis of your unpaid labour. You as a worker produce commodities to be exchanged on the market. You produce not only enough to pay your own wage, but also an added value, a surplus value, over and above the cost of your maintenance. Surplus labour is your unpaid wage. In polite circles it is called “profit.” And that’s what capitalism is all about. Capitalism is at the core of all of our struggles and all of our problems. The ruling class wants to preserve its privileges, its interests, its power, its wealth, its dominion. And so it engages in what is called divide and conquer. It’s a weapon designed to make us all hate and resent and compete with each other. And so many of us fall into its trap. We can’t let ourselves do that! We have to make change. We have to make revolutionary social and  economic change. And we can do it through unity. We are the people. We are the majority. If we organise, we can change this world, and we must for humanity to survive.

Some people try to escape the system. They try to ignore things happening around them, pretend it doesn’t affect them. It’s always a temptation to want to avoid trouble. But although you may try to escape the system, the system won’t escape you. You may try to ignore it, but it won’t ignore you. Sooner or later life and the system are going to put you in a struggle stance. Sooner or later you’re going to find yourselves in a battle. And suddenly you’ll find you need solidarity. When people realise the system has turned against them, they become politicised. And a very, very quickly acquire class consciousness. When it hits you, when it hurts you, you can begin to generalise, to see that everybody is suffering its effects. So we’ve got to have solidarity. We’ve got to stick together if we’re going to create change. What is class? Socialists call it your relation to the means of production. What end of the commodity production process are you on? Are you a producer of goods, or are you an appropriator of profits? Are you a worker employed by somebody else, or are you the owner who reaps surplus value from the labour of your workers? Workers are all the people who don’t own their own means of production. By this we mean the factories, the offices; the production operation.

So who are workers today? Who isn’t? Movie stars, artists, musicians, government workers, professionals of all kinds, teachers, professors—almost everybody is a worker today. Workers aren’t just blue collared in overalls; there are very few of those as automation takes over and everything becomes computerised. We do different kinds of work these days. We work with our minds more and we sit on our behind monitors more. But we’re still workers. We are the working class. We are the overwhelming majority. And taken together, workers in jobs and out of work, workers of various colours, young and old, male and female, gays and lesbians, and the fit and disabled are the majority class. That’s what too many of us lose sight of. We really have some power if only we would use it. And that’s why we should stop sniping at each other and start organising.

There’s a big class struggle going on. And the question is, what side are you on? There can be no liberation without socialism. And conversely, there can be no socialism without liberation for everybody. What is socialism? Socialism is not production for profit. It is production for use. It is not private ownership of resources. It is common ownership of the wealth. It is not inequality and misery and persecution and discrimination; it is equality and fairness. It is not poverty and want; it is freedom from want. It is freedom from war. It is freedom from ugliness and squalor. To achieve socialism you have to recognise class—who’s the boss, who’s the worker, who’s right and who’s wrong.

Cameron And Refugees

 The British government has pledged sniffer dogs and fences in the effort to keep economic migrants and war refugees from entering its territory. PM Cameron said, "We rule nothing out in taking action to deal with this very serious problem. We are absolutely on it." Too bad he's not 'absolutely on' the major problems facing Britons today. Some world where you have to use dogs, fences, and worse, to keep people from their armed enclaves. John Ayers.

The Pope's Comments.

Pope Francis' approval rating in the USA has dropped twenty-seven percentage points to fifty-nine per cent just two months ahead of his visit there. Three weeks before the poll was taken, Francis proclaimed that climate change was man-made! You can't fool those Republicans. Topping that, The New York Times (July 19) reported, "His (Francis') speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to 'the dung of the devil'. He does not simply argue that systemic 'greed for money' is a bad thing. He calls it a 'subtle dictatorship' that 'condemns and enslaves men and women'. Has he been reading our web site? John Ayers.

We Can Win, We Shall Win

Forget six counties overhung with smoke

Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke

Forget the spreading of the hideous town;

Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,

And dream of London, small and white and clean,

The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.

William Morris, ‘Earthly Paradise’

Socialism is not a social system in which everybody has been levelled down to a shared lower level of a so-called “equality”, but a society in which the classes have really been abolished, in which a rise has been accomplished in production that there can no longer be any comparison between the living conditions of the workers (i.e., of the whole population) under the new society and under the most highly developed capitalist state, and above all, in which the state power and coercion have died out, replaced by the administration of things. This assumes a tremendous rise in the productivity of labour.

Socialism does not propose to take the clothes off your back, to evict you from your home and commandeer your car. Capitalism is based on capitalist private property – not on personal possessions. It means the ownership by a minority of the population of the means of production and exchange. And when we say expropriate private property we mean nothing else but that. This ownership is what gives the capitalist class power of life or death over the working class and over society as a whole. To live, you, the working men and women, must not only work for the owners of the means of production and exchange – you must guarantee them a profit. Working for them is not enough; a profit is absolutey required for you to get your job; and that profit can be obtained in no other wise except by exploiting that which is your only real possession – namely your physical or mental capacity to work. That is all the worker has. 

Ownership on the one hand, non-ownership of the means of production on the other hand tht is today’s society and it is why two classes are hostile. To survive economically, the capitalist must accumulate; not that he wants to or doesn’t – he must accumulate in order to prosper. To accumulate, he must be assured profit. To profit, he must exploit labour. There is no other way. No one, no genius, not the greatest, has discovered another way. Capital always seeks to intensify exploitation; labour always and necessarily seeks to resist exploitation. Capitalism seeks what is rightfully its own, from its point of view: the maximum that it can get out of the worker. Labour seeks what is rightfully its own: that’s why it forms class organisations, labour unions. We, in the Socialist Party, argue that capitalism, which is founded upon and cannot exist without the ownership and control of the means of production and exchange by a minority, has brought society literally to the edge of a precipice, where it cannot guarantee security to the people, cannot guarantee peace to the people, cannot guarantee brotherhood to the people, cannot guarantee abundance to the people or protect the planet from ecological ravages. Any social system which cannot guarantee those to the masses of the people stands condemned. 

The only way to replace capitalism is to build socialism. Socialism demands not only the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution but the control of the working class. Anything less than that may be anything you want; it is not and never will be socialism. We declare with them that the most important work that men and women can engage in is that of helping on the overthrow of capitalism, and the creation of the socialist co-operative commonwealth. The truth in socialist utopianism is what shows the potential in the capabilities of workers. Socialism cannot be introduced without the actions of organised public opinion supporting the socialist ideal. Whether that support is won at the ballot box or through workers councils is not as important as that it be won. As long as the ballot can be used, even under difficulties as it is today, it should be used. That is why we look forward to bigger and better Socialist Party election campaigns. If that method is withheld from us in the future, we shall still have to go forward until we do gain the socialist commonwealth by the best means at our command. One thing seems evident. If we cannot get people to vote for our idea, there is little hope of getting them to take up arms on behalf of our cause. If the people who vote for a socialist do not do so because he is a socialist or because they do not know what socialism is, what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? The answer is “none whatever.” 

 On every occasion we state our socialist position and our socialist objective. The Socialist Party is and must be a political party throughout the year, and not only during election campaigns.

Wellfare For Capitalists?

The British government has approved the expenditure of one hundred and fifty - million pounds to renovate Buckingham Palace. They say there is no money for education, health and various welfare programs but they do have it to fix up a capitalist's house. We can call this a capitalist's welfare program. So much for government priorities. John Ayers.

When Do Unions Work Effecttively?

-About four hundred unionized jobs at Sobeys warehouse in Milton will be eliminated by 2017 as the supermarket chain shifts more goods into its new high-tech warehouse in Vaughan. The union can do little to save the jobs. This justifies the socialist belief that unions can only work effectively in periods of high production. John Ayers.

Against Capitalism - For Socialism

According to the media magnates, the “old fashioned radical” ideas of the socialist movement are “out-dated” and “obsolete” because we now live in a “Welfare State”, even if it is an ever weakening one. But the Socialist Party point out that in the process of capital accumulation by the capitalists, wealth is constantly accumulated at one end and poverty is accumulated at the other. “This,” Marx said, “is an absolute and general law of capitalist accumulation.” (Capital, Vol. 1) In capitalist society part of the workers’ labour that is plundered by the capitalists as surplus value, the source of all profit under capitalism. A parent’s feeling that their children won’t live as well as they have – under capitalism – is true. They won’t. That part of the capitalist dream is gone for now. And the ability of even the children of the “middle-class” suburbs, and of the country as a whole, to reach or surpass the income levels and status of their parents through a college education is rapidly being closed off by mounting fees and student debt. No longer is there guaranteed the road to the highly illusory “upward mobility.”

Wherever there is capitalism, there is unemployment. The official unemployment rates actually show only the tip of the iceberg about the true picture of joblessness under capitalism. Today there is a whole stratum of jobless who are permanently unemployed and who will never hold a productive job under capitalism. It is another example of how the Great Recession today is fundamentally deeper and more extensive than the Great Depression. The trend in this crisis is for more and more workers and poor to be forced into the ranks of the permanently unemployed. For black and other minority youth (and increasingly for white youth as well) this means that they may never know what a steady job and steady income mean as they hop from one lousy McDonald’s job to another. For older workers in dying declining industries many will also be forced onto welfare. Though the capitalist system has created increasing permanently unemployed and the deepening stagnation is driving more and more workers into its ranks, the employing class are ruthlessly cutting off the funds that keep them alive. Capitalism tears at and destroys the social fabric in which we live. The impact of the economic crisis on the family is profound, gnawing at people’s standard of living and taking a relentless toll and the family is under attack by the capitalist system as never before in our history. Unable to direct their anger at the real source of their desperation and destitution, the capitalists, many people inevitably lash out at anybody available, including their nearest and dearest. People go berserk, grab guns and say “I hate this world” as they randomly kill strangers. Demagogues are whipping up Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, pitting people against people, feeding on the desperation and fears of people.

For all the suffering borne by people, we have not seen any mass resistance of significance. A strange situation indeed – accelerating destitution and deprivation on the one hand and relative docility on the other.  This is the deepest capitalist economic crisis ever and the number of strikes is actually almost the lowest in decades. Disoriented, the vast majority of workers are still dazed by the full brunt of the capitalist crisis. People have not taken to the streets in droves (with a few notable exceptions), but they are in fact awakening to political life by the millions and tens of millions. Unlike any time in the last thirty years, the vast majority are open to political ideas, listening intently to all shades of political opinion. In every pub and club, in every living room, a great debate on every question is raging and discussions on politics are no longer taboo topic at the dining table. That the people will at some time soon vote with their feet is certain. They are trying to decide now what they are going to “vote” for. Soon there will be action but for a revolution to be any good, you have to be FOR something. We should be, without hesitation or embarrassment, Utopia, and demand the impossible.

We analyse the sources of surplus value, class exploitation and its termination in a socialist society of abundance for all with production for use not profit. We fret over the cruelty and the absurdity of unemployment, of want and suffering in the midst of plenty. We probe the economic and political roots of war and question how to eradicate them. We wish to  establish an economic order internationally where the antagonism between classes vanishes and the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. We seek the human future of associated labour in which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all. People want clarity and want to study. We want to teach. But above all, we ourselves also learn.

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Why we are socialists

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

Capitalism — the rule of business — must be abolished. Working people need to throw the capitalist parties out of office and fundamentally transform society. The needs of working people can only be met by creating an economy, where ownership and control of the means of production are taken from the tiny minority of capitalists and placed in the hands of the working people, to be run democratically. When we speak of the means of production, we mean that wealth which is necessary for the production of the necessities of the people. The industries, the railroads, mines, and so on. We have never proposed the elimination of private property in personal effects. We speak of those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs. When the vast resources available to us are used to serve the needs of all instead of the profits of the few, and there exists a world socialist commonwealth, then the way will be opened for unparalleled growth in culture, freedom and the development of every individual. In a socialist world of plenty, mankind is at long last freed of the dominance of economics, the tyranny of economics. We will for the first time be free to develop the full potentialities and capacities of the human individual, and see the full flowering of man’s spirit. This is the only goal worth fighting for today. It is the real freedom. Socialism is a name applied to a new form of society, and it is a name also applied to the movement working in that direction. Those of us within the World Socialist Movement visualise a social system that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes.

Such a society is worth fighting for. Socialists often hear the comment that "Socialism is a good idea but it’s not practical." But today it’s becoming more apparent than ever that it is the present system — capitalism — that is impractical and unworkable. The Socialist Party want to change society. But we think that problems will not disappear by wishing or hoping them away. The only way we can get a rational society, based on the needs of the majority, is by organizing and fighting for it. We know that a better world is not only possible, but absolutely necessary. We in the Socialist Party stand for a society where ownership and control of the means of production are taken out of the hands of the tiny minority of capitalists, and placed in the hands of the majority — the workers. The capitalist system is run for the profits of the few, not the needs of the majority. Workers are thus continually forced to fight to defend their interests. Through these struggles, they will come to see the need for socialism, to replace capitalism. We feel that all the problems people experience in the context of our present society — war, poverty, pollution, the deep economic crises— flow from a cause, the nature of this profit-oriented society. We see that there are no real solutions to these problems until the entire society is changed.

We should be very clear about the kind of change that we are talking about. When we say that we are revolutionaries we are not talking about a change in society that would take place when some small group storms parliament and runs up the red flag. What we mean by revolution is the political and economic transformation of society and it is fundamental change because it will affect the property system and affects the method and means of production. A political revolution can occur without any radical transformation of the underlying economic structure of society, the property basis of society. A social revolution, on the other hand, affects not only the government, but affects the economic system. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of people consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way people relate to their jobs. We're out to change the whole system. If you are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the system and to build a political organisation capable of assisting in that. A few workers see the need for socialism. Others don't see that need. The task of the Socialist Party is to educate, agitate and organise.

The economy of the world now is all tied together in one unit, and because we think that the solution of the problem of the day—the establishment of socialism—is a world problem, we believe that workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We have, from the very beginning of our movement, collaborated with like-minded people in all other countries in trying to promote the socialist movement on a world scale. We have advocated the international organisation of the workers, and their cooperation in all respects, and mutual assistance in all respects possible. The Socialist Party is opposed to all forms of national chauvinism, race prejudice, sex discrimination. We visualise the future society of mankind as a world socialism where will have a worldwide division of labour according to their resources, a comradely collaboration between them, and production of the necessities and luxuries of mankind according to a single universal world plan

The reformists wish that the problems of the world could be solved by reforming capitalism. They don't recognise the existing reality today and what the possibilities are right now for building the socialist movement. They don't want to have to work for a fundamental change in society. They conclude that capitalism can be reformed. Bernie Sanders campaigning to win the Democratic nomination so he can contest the presidency simply says that the United States can learn a few things from Scandinavian states when it comes to having a stronger welfare state, socialised health care, stronger unions, and the like. He is diluting the meaning of the word socialism which for actual socialists refers to workers’ control of production and the democratic running of the economy for people and the common good, not the profits of a capitalist elite as much as advancing it. Bernie blames the US billionaire class for the increase in poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and even war. It also makes it clear that Bernie believes the system that created this relatively minuscule group of billionaires can reform itself given the right person at the helm with a large popular movement behind them. This belies the idea that he has a socialist understanding of how capitalists accumulate wealth. In other words, Bernie Sanders is no socialist. Instead, he is a progressive in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. Like both of those men, Sanders believes that capitalism can work if it is properly tethered and monopolies are broken up.

Socialists contend that present day society is divided into two main classes. One is the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie (a French designation which is used by Marx interchangeably with the expression the modern capitalist). The other main class is the working class (or the proletariat.) These are the two main classes in society. We use the term working class, or proletariat, to designate the modern wage workers. The workers are exploited by the capitalists. There is a constant conflict of interests between them, an unceasing struggle between these classes, which can only culminate in the eventual victory of the proletariat and the establishment of socialism.

The Socialist Party view the trade-union movement as the basic organisation of the workers that should include the great mass of the workers, and must include them, in the struggle to defend their interests from day to day. We are in favor of trade unions, and participate in organising them wherever we can as individuals. The trade unions help the workers to resist oppression, possibly to gain improvement of conditions; that is for us a decisive reason to support them, because we are in favour of anything that protects the workers. In general we are in favour of industrial unionism. That is, that form of unionism which organises all the workers in a given shop or given industry into one union. We consider that a more progressive and effective form of organisation than sectional craft unionism but we do not believe in setting up rival parallel unions. We don’t condemn trade unionism although we are continually insisting upon a democratic structure of decision-making inside the unions, demanding the rights of the members to speak freely, to have regular elections of officials , and in general, to have the unions under the control of its members through the system of democracy.

When classes are abolished, as exploitation is eliminated, as the conflict of class against class is eliminated, the very reason for the existence of the State diminishes. Governments are primarily instruments of repression of one class against another. According to the doctrine of Marx and Engels and all of the great Marxists who followed them, and based themselves on their doctrine, we visualise, as Engels expressed it, the withering away of the State as a repressive force, as an armed force, and its replacement by purely administrative councils, whose duties will be to plan production, to supervise public works, and education, and things of this sort. As Engels expressed it the government of men will be replaced by the administration of things. The “government” of a socialist society in reality will be an administrative body, because we don’t anticipate the need for police and armies, jails, repressions, and consequently that aspect of government dies out for want of function.

We have the possibility of peaceful revolution by the registration of the will of the majority of the people in elections and it seems to the Socialist Party it would be utterly absurd to reject that, because if we don’t have the support of the majority of the people, we can’t make a successful revolution anyhow. Our party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct very energetic campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in elections . The first purpose is to make full use of the democratic possibility afforded to popularise our ideas, to try to get elected wherever possible and advancing the socialist cause by democratic means. It is our opinion is that if the workers reached the point of the majority, and confronted the capitalist private owners of industry with the fact of their majority and will exercise their power, then the capitalist class will capitulate but if not then the workers will appropriate and remove them from power by force, legitimised by our electoral victories.

Quote of the Day

"I don't like nationalists. So my goat has been well and truly got over the past 18 months by the independence referendum. I don't like putting new lines on maps, breaking up countries into smaller parts. And I don't like people who bang the drum of their tribe, thinking that the coincidence of where they were born confers superiority on them..." -  Neil Oliver, Scottish archaeologist and historian,  presenter of TV series  'Coast' and 'A History of Scotland'

Talking Socialism

THE TRUTH HURTS

Capitalism does not know how to abolish poverty, hunger or war – but we socialists do! If capitalism, with its system of production for profit – with its international rivalry for domination of foreign territories and trade, which produces one war after another – if capitalist, which keeps millions exploited, by its wage system, – if this system cannot give peace and plenty to its people, socialism will.

Today with the global economy recovering from a protracted recession, rising unemployment and draconian austerity policies, working people are increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo. However, this discontent does not necessarily translate into support for the socialist option. While there are many reasons for this, one of the most important is that at the present time the socialist alternative does not appear so attractive to many. First of all, the word “socialism” is in the popular consciousness was closely associated with the former USSR and Eastern Europe. While these state-capitalist regimes were not socialist – for socialism means that the workers hold power, not a handful of privileged bureaucrats yet we never stop hearing that these countries typified socialism

Socialism means production for use and not for profit. Socialism means internationalism. It means that one working class is not pitted against the others in wars. It means that one worker is not pitted against the other in the fight for a job. The criteria for production in socialism would be – how much is needed? Some people will argue that it can’t work, it’s a utopia. We can only answer that capitalism has already ably demonstrated that it cannot work. A society organised on the basis of production for use would have more of a chance of working than our present economic system. The thing to observe is that for decades those who claim to be political leaders have never been able to devise any kind of plan to solve the basic ills of capitalism. They all seek to do the impossible: make capitalism work. Wars every few years years, untold misery, poverty and unemployment are the living proven facts that prove that capitalism doesn’t work – not for the working class, anyway. Our mission is not to preserve capitalism.

Socialism is a word that has been so misused for so long that it is worth re-stating its basic principles. Socialism means that the means of production are owned and controlled by society so that what is produced can be shared out according to people’s needs. Do we have a blueprint for a socialist society? Can we envision what such a society looks like? If we rely on the people, if we pool our own collective experiences we can. If more workers are to be won to the cause of socialism it is clear that we must greatly advance in our ability to explain the advantages of a socialist world and how we can achieve it. Socialism means expanding democracy, freedom not just in the political sense but economic liberation – freedom from want. Our compass for where we are finally headed should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end foremost in mind so to not to lose our way. We have a world of plenty. All around us are the signs that we can produce more than enough for everyone. If production is planned and its products shared fairly, there is no reason why anyone should be short of anything – nor why the environment should be polluted and destroyed in the process. We can end the dirty work and the drudgery. As for possessions, the whole point of common ownership of the means of production is that more is produced and distributed, not less. To every one according to needs, from everyone according to ability.

Working people will own the industries, plan the industries and work for themselves and not for the capitalist class. Socialism means a change in the relations of production. With socialism, control of production, the plan of production, determination of working conditions, are in the hands of the workers themselves. The working class and the minorities must vigorously oppose every transgression upon their civil and constitutional rights, from whatever quarter they come, and utilise every safeguard provided by law. But they cannot entrust the protection of their liberties to the capitalists or expect the powers-that-be to stop or eradicate the menace of authoritarianism. Class-conscious workers should not fall into the trap of demanding infringements of anyone’s civil rights, including those of the fascists.

We must be sure to stress that this new society do not exist in some text, nor can they be mechanically transposed from some other country. They will be defined and forged by the working people as we all advance in our struggle.

RISE is risible

Marx and Engels supported only certain nationalist struggles on the basis that it would help further development of the capitalist mode of production and opposed others which would retard that development. However, capitalism has now spread to every corner of the globe and every country is ruled by the laws of capitalism whether they wish it or not. For left nationalists, though, independence and “socialism” go together and that this struggle must be waged simultaneously because, according to their logic, independence is essential to socialism (in fact, some rank it above socialism). The Left nationalist puts the question of socialism on ice, shelving the struggle for socialism and replacing it with demands for reforms. Many of the Trotskyist groups, for example, have become Scottish separatists. The Trotskyists say they want to “radicalise” the movement for independence yet can we forget that one of the promoters of RISE sat alongside business leaders on the Yes campaign during the referendum debate.

One telling characteristic of the Left is that, although they are forever dividing, they always end up uniting to divide the working class movement. They become in favour of Scottish independence because this point of view is currently popular among Scots. As far as they are concerned the working class is too retarded in political consciousness to take up the socialist struggle. It needs a transitional programme of wishful promises. RISE’s basic belief is that the Scottish worker is more radical than his or her English counter-part. But being anti-Tory doesn’t necessarily correspond to being more socialist.  Yet many of workers’ struggles in Scotland and England have been linked together and the victory of each often depends on the other.  The Scottish, Welsh and English working class have not developed separately but, because of capitalism, have developed as part of one united working class. Independence may rupture the united British working class movement at trade union level. Scottish independence would disrupt the unity of the working class fueling the myths of national brotherhood between exploiters and exploited.  In reality, a socialist transformation of Scotland could only take place in a British (European and World) context. Mass movements would take place also in Wolverhampton and Walsall, as well as in Glasgow and Greenock. A socialist transformation would be on a world scale. There is no Scottish road to socialism. For there can be no socialist Scotland, socialism is global or it is not socialism. The Scottish working class is exploited in the same way as the English working class: by the English, Scottish and international capitalist class. The bosses organises internationally and those sympathetic towards RISE want to ensure our class doesn’t do the same.

The task before workers in Scotland and the UK is to join in struggle against their common enemy, whether they wave the Union flag or the Saltire. The overriding goal is not to build new, smaller states but to end the nation state system through social revolution. The Socialist Party stands for the overthrow of capitalism and a precondition for this is the unity of the working class in this common struggle for socialism. RISE offer the same stale promises of the old Labour Party all dressed up in new clothes. Although they speak of “socialism” against “capitalism,” they do not propose the overthrow of capitalism, the working-class conquest of power, the expropriation of the capitalists; their basis is still the same basis of capitalism, of capitalist democracy, of the capitalist State, and therefore the outcome can only be the same. Their only proposals are for the constitutionally re-organisation of capitalism by re-locating the Parliament and government. This is precisely its value to capitalism, to act as a diversion for workers in the name of phrases of “socialism.”

Socialists must tell the workers the truth. And the truth is that nationalism, regardless of how it is camoflaged with Marxist terminology, represents no way forward for the working people. The establishment of a separate Scottish state is the creation of a capitalist state. Scotland envisage by RISE (and particularly if in coalition with the Green Party) would be thousands of small businesses thriving. There's no virtue in being a small business. They make their money the same way as large ones, by paying workers less than the value that they produce. Often the working conditions of small businesses are no improvement on bigger enterprises: wages tend to be lower, insecurity of employment higher, less health and safety oversight making the work riskier, the pollution worse. Left nationalists such as RISE are simply spouting populist rhetoric. Being against big business but in favour of small business shows little understanding of capitalism or of class.

Somehow in this "socialist" Scotland profit would no longer be the raison d'être
of businesses (even if they were cooperatives). The logic of capitalist production is the preservation of the capital invested and the creation of surplus-value – the origin of profits. This is a logic which is fundamental and cannot be suspended. Instead of being siphoned off to shareholders (who would of course receive fair compensation for their loss), the surpluses produced by workers would be used to increase wages, reduce hours, improve working conditions. Socially owned companies such as workers co-operatives or council-owned.  Banks would become more like building societies again or nationalised.  The creation of community banks or credit unions is not really doing anything that is in anyway revolutionary. It's definitely not challenging capitalism and property ownership. It is not questioning the parasitic relationship of capitalist production which is all about money -- money expanding into more money, the accumulation of capital.  Yes, their vision of a "socialist Scotland" is a nice and not a nasty capitalism. Left-wing nationalists  imagine that businesses in their " socialist" Scotland will no longer be concerned with costs or competition or commercial confidentiality or market share. But capitalism is now more than ever a global system of production. Competition is a fact of life for the capitalist mode of production. It has destructive effects upon the lives of working people. However, competition is also frequently destructive to capital. It is so destructive that large capitalists try to eliminate competition by buying up competitors, ruining them in various ways or forming cartels and monopolies. For one country to be competitive means having a higher productivity, lower labour-costs and lower infrastructure and taxation costs than another country.  Capital looks for places where production can be set up with low wages, low taxation, low levels of regulation and few restrictions on pollution. To be such a competitive location for capital investment – on any serious scale – would require that advanced capitalist countries such as Scotland will have to lower wages, taxation, regulation, welfare provision and pollution regulations to a standard level or below the current average available in Asia, Eastern Europe elsewhere. Or increase productivity to such a high level that massive levels of relative over-production would occur and increase pollution and resource destruction. Competition on the world level requires mass-production and mass-production conducted with fewer and fewer workers. And if each country adopts this path – a competitive race to the bottom of welfare standards will ensue. So increased competition will lower wages, lower environmental standards, lead to more exhaustion of raw material resources and more crises down the competitive road of economic growth.

Of course, the solution RISE will present to save their "socialist" Scotland will be by increased taxation. Taxation, is revenue extracted from wages, salaries, profits and sales of commodities. Under capitalism wages and salaries come from the payment for two main types of labour – productive-labour and unproductive-labour. Productive-labour is that which is employed by capital and preserves value as well as creating surplus-value. This value and surplus-value is the source of money-capital from which, wages, profits, rents, interest and those taxes collected from these sources, is paid. In other words surplus-value is the source of direct tax revenue for governments. Even the taxes paid on consumption also comes out of the wages and salaries of workers which have their origins in surplus-value.

 The oppression and exploitation of working people is a product of capitalist society and can only be removed by the genuine socialist transformation of society, not pretend state- or municipal- “socialist” imaginations of a make-believe Scotland. This requires the unity of all workers, irrespective of nation, colour, creed, sex or language. It is our role as socialists to put across the case for socialism openly and honestly and not try to dupe our fellow workers into joining through the advocacy of so-called "transitional demands" and the like. The only way capitalism will come to an end is if a majority of workers decide to consciously replace it with non-market, non-statist alternative. Members of the Socialist Party understand well the urge to do something now, to make a change. That makes us all the more determined, however, to get the message across, to gather together our fellow workers to clear away the barrier of the wages system, so that we can begin to build a truly human society.

Wake Up, Workers

Socialism — what fear and anger the word arouses in the minds of the rulers of society! Daily the press pours out its denunciation and men in high places issue their warnings and threats against it. Socialism is dictatorship, it means bloodshed, wholesale murder and destruction. It means the collapse of orderly society, the breakdown of production, and consequent misery and poverty. Thus speak those whom socialism threatens with the loss of their privileges to amass wealth at the expense of the misery and poverty of the masses. Why does socialism arouse such dread and anger among the exploiters of the workers? Why do they fear it so? The answers to these questions are to be found in the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels — who first formulated the principles of the socialist movement.

Marx and Engels said that the history of the past was the history of a class struggle. They said that in each period of the past there appeared a ruling class — rich, powerful, living in luxury and splendor — and an exploited class which worked hard and long but enjoyed little of the wealth it brought into existence. They said that in the past the struggle between these classes had resulted either “in the revolutionary reconstruction of society or the common ruin of the contending classes.” In modern society this struggle presents itself, they said, in a conflict between the capitalists who own the factories, mines and mills and the means of production generally, and the workers who have to sell their labour power to these capitalists in order to earn a living. They said that since the capitalists own the things that the workers must use in order to earn a living, the capitalists have the whip-hand and that they compel workers to sell their labour power for much less than the value of what they produce. In fact they argued that the workers usually receive in the wages paid them only just enough to buy the necessities for a poor sort of living for themselves and to provide for the raising of children so that the line of workers might not be exhausted. The workers produce the amount of wealth they receive in wages in two, three, or four hours, depending upon the technical development of industry, but they are compelled to keep on working up to eight, ten, or twelve hours and during the hours they work over and above the time required to produce their wages they produce “surplus value” for the boss. They said that naturally the workers attempted to improve their standard of living by an effort to secure more of the wealth they produced and that the capitalists resisted this effort of the workers in order to keep as much as possible of the product of industry for themselves as profits, and that, consequently, the there was a class war between the workers and capitalists. The working class are the grave-diggers of capitalism and the builders of the new world.

A better world is of course possible, if we ourselves make it possible, but a worse one is too! Capitalism has outlived itself as a world system. It has ceased to fulfill its essential mission, the increase of human power and human wealth. Humanity cannot stand still at the level which it has reached. Only a powerful increase in productive forces and a sound, planned, that is, socialist, organization of production and distribution can assure humanity—all humanity—of a decent standard of life and at the same time give it the precious feeling of freedom with respect to its own economy. Freedom in two senses—first of all, human beings collectively will no longer be compelled to devote the greater part of his or her life to physical labour. Second, he or she will no longer be dependent on the laws of the market, that is, on those blind and dark forces.

The Capitalist Reich

We come before you as an organisation advocating the principles of world socialism; that is, we seek a change in the basis of society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities. Workers, although they produce all the wealth of society, have no control over its production or distribution. People are treated as a mere appendage to capital - as a part of its machinery. This must be altered from the foundation: the land, the capital, the machinery, factories, workshops, stores and offices, means of transport, mines, all means of production and distribution of wealth, must be declared and treated as the common property of all. The waste now incurred by the pursuit of profit and the amount of labour necessary for every individual to perform in order to carry on the essential work of the world will be reduced to something like two or three hours daily; so that everyone will have abundant leisure for following intellectual or cultural or sporting pursuits.  The Socialist Party aims at the realisation of complete socialism, and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all the world. 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 various ruling classes masters whose interest it is to stir up rivalries and hatreds between the dwellers in different lands. Socialism will be worldwide and universal, or it will be nothing.

Wage-workers are ravaged by this global scourge with lost jobs and low pay, wage freezes and wage cuts, downsized and diminished benefits, factory closures, out-sourcing and casualisation of labour along with strike-breaking and union-busting. What does the future hold for the working class? The prophets of profits talk of “free markets” and “free trade”. But how about freeing workers from wage-slavery? Marx said that the governments of the various countries were merely committees for administering the affairs, protecting the property interests, of the whole capitalist class of these countries. He said that all social institutions reflect the changes that take place in the economic life of a nation and that these institutions foster, and protect the economic owners of society in their private ownership and control. But capital today has become so absolutely global. To be effective socialists must array the workers’ Internationale against international capitalism.

They tell us progress and prosperity will ultimately trickle down. And we always ask “when?” and keep waiting. Working people have produced more wealth than the total output of mankind since the dawn of civilisation. But the gap between the rich and the poor is wider and deeper than ever in history. Despite all the advances in technology, billions today still have no food on their tables, nor clothes on their backs or roofs over their heads. The last 100 years of capitalism has been a century of over-abundance for the owners of capital and utter deprivation for those who live only by the sale of their labour. Is this the meaning of capitalist progress and civilization? Capitalism has been a history of wars and civil wars. Paradoxically, the esteemed professors and intellectuals teach that it is socialism rather than capitalism that is passé. Revolutionary movements which predicted the fall of capitalism are now likened to religious sects which prophesise the end of the world. But let these conceited academics beware the lesson of history. The barons of capital will be no different from the feudal lords and slaveholders of yore who thought they would rule forever. The capitalist reich will not last a thousand years. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

 But capitalism isn't going to end without a struggle. Nowhere is labour going to triumph without standing united against the foe. Socialism is coming but whether it be sooner or later depends upon us! The Socialist Party’s exists to make Socialists, and there is only one way of doing that — by teaching socialism, true socialism, revolutionary socialism, world socialism. Socialism must be seen as feasible and practical so that people are convinced that it will work. Socialist have find out from workers what they want most, and they must explain this in terms of and they must make the workers want more — make them want the Revolution. We must do this in words which can be understood immediately by the workers, in terms of their own lives. Our message is that all workers belong to the working class and must be conscious of it; that all the sources of wealth belong to the capitalist class — who are conscious of it; that this wealth must become the property of the workers before they can control their own lives

Man is a god to man

ALL THINGS ARE HELD IN COMMON

People will be guaranteed security, democracy, equality and peace only when our world is run on an entirely different basis than it is now; only when a socialist system replaces the present capitalist one. Anti-socialists charge us with fomenting the class war as though we had invented it! It is not by shutting our eyes to the war which divides and exhausts humanity that we shall arrive at the desired peace. The war of every moment is threefold:

War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. Man becomes a wolf for his fellow-man. It is a question of eating one’s brother or being eaten by him.

War between workers and workers for the sharing of wages.

War between capitalists and capitalists for the sharing of profits.

General insecurity has become the normal condition of society. More and more has capitalist society proved its failure to produce anything from a superabundance of riches; of means of consumption and happiness, but misery, suffering, ruin and death! The solution of the social problem is to be found in the problem itself, such as I have just given in a short exposition. The greatest socio-economic evil of today consists in the ever more complete divorce of the two factors in production, labour and property or capital, and consequently the remedy can be found only in their unification. Under what form ought this unification to be effected? It is only collectively that the workers can and ought to possess the means of wealth (mines, railways, factories, etc.) socially operated. Capitalist evolution itself supplies the necessary elements, material and intellectual, of this appropriation and of this production by and for society now become a vast co-operative commonwealth. This economic expropriation—which would allow to the expropriated full participation in the benefits accruing from social appropriation—must be preceded by a political expropriation.

The state–the police, army, courts, bureaucracy and similar institutions–is set up and controlled by this capitalist class. These big businessmen–the bourgeoisie,–consistently use the police, army and courts to break workers’ strikes and generally to put down the rebellions of the poor who own little or no means of production. The police and military are never called out against the bankers and CEOs. In short, this state is a bourgeois dictatorship. This does not mean there is a dictatorship in this country of one or several men. It does mean there is a class dictatorship, where a tiny handful of profit-makers rules society and uses the state as their machine to suppress the working people. Most people do not think of their country as a dictatorship because the relationship of different classes is usually concealed. The monopoly capitalists do not openly admit their rule. Instead they claim that this is a democracy where everyone shares power and takes part in running the government. In fact, the bourgeoisie is no more willing to “share” power with the majority of people than it is to share the ownership of the means of production and the wealth that comes from this. For them to function as a capitalist class, they must exploit the working class; and to exploit the workers, who constantly resist this exploitation and oppression, they must use the state to suppress the workers. The ruling class goes to great lengths to cover up their dictatorship under the mask of democracy, for it is extremely difficult for a minority of exploiters to rule by force alone.

Of course the ruling class has been forced to grant the workers some democratic rights such as the right to vote, free speech, free press, etc. But these freedoms, like everything else in capitalist society, have their class content: they mean one thing to the ruling class and quite another for the workers. For the capitalists, freedom of the press and free speech, as examples, mean the right to fill the air-waves and daily newspapers with their propaganda and lies and to use them freely to debate with each other. For the capitalists, elections are a way to settle differences among themselves, while making it look like everybody has equal say. For the working class, democratic rights are the fruits of previous struggles, and we fight to preserve them for they make it easier to organize and mobilize for the day when the capitalists will be overthrown. Nevertheless democratic rights for the masses are primarily a sham, a mask, to cover the real dictatorship of the capitalists. This becomes especially clear when democratic rights come into conflict with the most basic “freedom” of bourgeois society–the right of the capitalists to their “private property” and to exploit the labor of the workers. In the final analysis all their talk about democracy boils down to one thing. The ruling class decides by struggle and compromise within its own ranks, and among its paid politicians, how it will maintain its system of exploitation over the people. Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich–that is the democracy of capitalist society. This situation can only be reversed by socialist revolution to overthrow capitalist rule.

There will be an end to all class distinction and consequently an end to the class-war. All the members of society are at once and with equal title co-owners and co-producers. The State, in the oppressive sense of the word, will cease to exist, it being nothing more than a means of maintaining artificially, by force, order that a system of society, founded on the antagonism of interests would naturally give birth to. The government of men gives place to the administration of things. It is the reign of social peace and harmony. Commercial production of exchange-values with an end to realising profit will disappear, and be replaced by the co-operative production of use-values for consumption with a view to satisfying social wants. In place of robbing and exploiting one another, we will all help one another. Homo homini Deus, “Man is a god to man”.

When everyone in society can share equally in mental and manual work, in producing goods and services and managing the affairs of society; when the outlook of the working class, putting the common good above narrow, individual interests, has become second nature to members of society; when goods and services can be produced so abundantly that money is no longer needed to exchange them and they can be distributed to people solely according to their needs; then society will have reached socialism. Classes will have been completely eliminated, and the state as such will be replaced by the common administration of society by all its members. As this happens, throughout the world, mankind will have scaled a great mountain and will look out on a whole new horizon.

Glasgow: New slums for old (1962)

From the May 1962 issue of the Socialist  Standard In Glasgow recently, the press gave a great deal of publicity to the collapse of a tenement in the Gorbals. Photographs of this victim of old age and disrepair were spectacular, showing one side of the building minus a wall and exposing a rabbit warren interior where the tenants lived, ate and slept. To the newspapers it was a one-day sensation. To the Socialist it was something much more. Glasgow Corporation's publication Industry on the Move (January, 1959),  has this to say about the nightmare living conditions of workers in the city: There are over 80,000 people living at more than three persons to a room. And dealing with certain parts of Glasgow: These central districts home more than half a million people. In these areas most of the people have to share toilet facilities; only one house in five has an an internal water closet—and few of the houses have a bath. The promise of better housing for the working class was, of course, in the programmes of all the reformist parties in the recent municipal election. Indeed, the last Labour-controlled council had the audacity to boast of their record and point to the new housing schemes on the city outskirts and their "overspill" programme, as solutions to the workers' plight. "Overspill" is a scheme to get Glasgow workers housed in another town. It is proving far from popular, even among the desperate, as it sometimes involves moving great distances, and suitable jobs are not always available in the new areas. A sorry commentary on the housing schemes in the outskirts can be found almost daily in the Glasgow newspapers, in the forms of warrant sales. These are sales of household effects of workers hopelessly in debt. Many of them are in the homes of workers who live on the new housing estates and it is not hard to understand why. Although these houses are superior to the slums (it would be difficult for them to be inferior), the rent is almost invariably higher. This, coupled with the increase expense of travelling to and from work, lands many workers in the position of seeing their sticks of furniture compulsorily sold. In a single day recently in Drumchapel, there were five warrant sales in one street. To those who have lived in a single room, the change to a three or four roomed dwelling with interior water closet and bath must seem like Utopia. But when you consider that such places were built mainly of the cheapest possible materials, it does not take much imagination to recognise them as the slums of the not-too-distant future. Already, peeling plaster, shrunken doors and badly made window frames bear silent witness to the shoddiness of production for profit. And the grim irony of it all is that a physical shortage of houses does not exist in Glasgow. Like so many problems confronting Glaswegians and their brothers elsewhere, it is really one of poverty—the sheer inability to afford a decent place to live in. How then can this problem be solved within the present social set-up? The answer is a simple one. It cannot. But this is not something which our Tory, Labour and other opponents are telling workers during the current local elections. They can be safely trusted to carry on flying in the face of fact and promising to remedy this evil which is as old as Capitalism itself. It is left to the Socialist candidate contesting North Kelvin Ward to point out the unpalatable truth and to give the only answer, Socialism. Glaswegian.

Against All False Idols

The Socialist Party, being a voice of the needs and aspirations of the working class, takes as its aim the emancipation, by means of class struggle, of the whole working population from the yoke of capitalist society. To this end, the Socialist Party, linked to the World Socialist Movement is carrying on the struggle for the total transformation of society. The working class will take possession of the means of production (land, mines, factories, means of communication), which in the hands of the capitalists are the means of exploiting and oppressing the working masses, and will make them into social property. By suppressing the division of society into classes, workers will put an end to the exploitation of man by man, and will make it possible for all people to enjoy the fruits of their own and collective labour.

Nationalism is a bourgeois ideology which developed with the emergence of nations and the rise and development of capitalism. Nationalism serves the bourgeoisie in the sense that they are seeking a market for their goods, and their national market is always primary as capitalism develops. And nationalism serves to help that bourgeoisie secure its national market. It is nationalism that can divide the workers so that the workers of one nationality are struggling against the workers of another nationality for a few illusory crumbs the rulers throw out exactly for that purpose! It is nationalism that can pit groups of workers against each other with the most hideous rage, while their mutual oppressors skip off with both their purses for a little sun and fun. Nationalism means exclusivism and isolation. Any nationalism finally implies that those people are better than all others. We are the victims of nationalism that preaches superiority and inferiority. We have seen its obscene terror and oppression. We are not fighting so that we can put these on somebody else. Nationalism ultimately does not serve the real interests of the masses of that nationality. As ironic as this sounds, nationalism does not even ultimately serve the nation. This is true and has been proven correct time and again. Nationalism after a certain point isolates the oppressed people from their allies and delivers them into the hands of the exploiters and reactionaries of their own nationality. Zionism should teach us this more forcibly than anything else, how even the most “justifiable” nationalism, taken to its logical conclusion, can end up justifying the repression of almost anybody else outside the nation. The struggle that unifies the working class completely must be the struggle to abolish capitalism forever.

Despite recurring crises of the capitalist economy, capitalist society will not collapse spontaneously. Capitalism requires the conscious actions of the people to over-throw it. The victory of the working class, the destruction of the economic and social bases of the possessing classes, the putting into practice of the principles of the planned socialist economy – all these will lead to the creation of the classless society, where there will be no exploited or exploiters, nor class struggles, and all the efforts of society will be deployed to the common good. From the moment of the revolution and the establishment of the classless society it will make possible the complete achievement of socialist democracy and the abolition of the State. Society will then determine for itself the forms of its confederations and its organisational structure. The victory of socialism means the emancipation of all humanity. Socialism will create not only the new economic and social order, but also the higher civilisation of free mankind.

Religion is a social phenomenon in present-day society. Hence no amount of merely negative and critical propaganda can destroy it. Hence, to seek to abolish religion in a society founded on exploitation is futile. The ancient Greek and Roman freethinkers such as Epicurus and Lucretius demolished every theological argument as well as their modern successors have done, but when Paganism passed from the scene it was Christianity, not Atheism, which took its place. Only the positive achievement of a classless society can do that by abolishing its causes. It follows that religion cannot die out or be abolished in a class society, it follows equally and by the same reasoning that it could not survive inside socialism. Once a socialist society is fully established the twin foundations of religion, ignorance and fear, will be torn up by the roots. Socialism, by doing away with class exploitation and by developing to the fullest possible extent the unfathomed productive potentialities of the modern-age, hitherto hardly touched under capitalism, would make poverty and insecurity absolutely meaningless terms in an age of universal plenty. Whilst war, the third partner in the unholy capitalist trinity, would necessarily pass into oblivion along with the competitive capitalism and imperialism which is its sole efficient cause. All the social roots of religion would thus simultaneously disappear. And, of course, it goes without saying that the last remains of barbaric ignorance and superstition which still survive from pre-civilised eras would vanish before the impact of universal free education based on the scientific humanism that is inseparable from socialism, and no longer twisted as today by class domination into a mere machine for producing standardised wage-slaves, mechanical minders of machines, and servile robots. Whosoever therefore is capable of reasoning scientifically from cause to effect must realise that socialism means inevitably the definitive end of religion; which, deprived of all reason for existence, would become a mere anachronism in such a society. Religion becomes ever more obviously a parasite. With world socialism we shall arrive at that pleasing state of things where the Social Revolution will destroy religion by abolishing its effective causes and humanity itself takes the place of god.

In the meantime, the Socialist Party continues its necessary propaganda against all manifestations of capitalism, including those which belong to the sphere of religion. Whether it is necessary to attack religion specifically depends on local and on particular circumstances, but every reactionary movement of the Churches in our current society should be exposed. In all fairness we must draw attention to such movements as those of the Lollards and Anabaptists which were anti-ruling-class, and in some cases, even ‘communistic’ in their tenets. It is undeniable that such movements existed, that they reflected their contemporary class antagonisms and were, even, to a certain extent, revolutionary in their relation to contemporary states and society. To that extent accordingly they must be excempt from the strictures passed above on their official counterparts, the ‘orthodox’ churches.  We must also add, however, that their ‘communism’ was pre-scientific and therefore backward -looking: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span where was then the gentleman?’, as the Lollards phrased it: viz, in the beginning class distinctions did not exist. In all such Utopian ‘Communism’ history chases its own tail. Moreover, most of these movements were dominated by clerics—for example, John Ball and Thomas Munzer, etc. Had they succeeded they would have inevitably become themselves theocracies. Voltaire has summed up, once for all, the social character of all theocratic communism in his satirical description of the clerical ‘communistic’ state founded by the Jesuits in Paraguay (eighteenth century): ‘In Paraguay perfect communism existed: the Jesuits shared the wealth; whilst the Indians shared the work!’

What has been said of Christianity is equally true in respect of other religions also. For example, Islam has always stubbornly opposed even the modernization of the bourgeois revolution: Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, still strongholds of Mohammedan clericalism, are almost completely feudal. Whilst Hinduism, by means of its doctrine of reincarnation, has cleverly allayed the discontent of the Indian masses with their frightful conditions in this life! Even the originally rationalistic Buddhism had in Tibet become an obscurantist and oppressive monastic despotism. As far as the class struggle is concerned, official religion is, and always has been, on the side of the exploiters. Indeed, granted its social background, it could not have been anything else. And the same is true today.

The war against the gods is equivalent to the class war for a socialist society: Forward to the Social Revolution! Banish gods from the skies and capitalists from the Earth.

The Price of Cost-Saving

Steven Conway died while working at Diamond Wheels (Dundee) Ltd. There were no safety protocols in place at the premises, no risk assessment was carried out and there was no safe system of work in place.

The 33-year-old was sent in to remove debris from a tank containing "volatile" chemicals with limited protective clothing. He was wearing only trainers, tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and fleece. The mask he was given did nothing to protect him from the toxic fumes let off by the chemicals and was actually releasing "contaminants" into his air supply. The gloves he was given had holes in them. He had suffered chemical burns from contact with hydrofluoric acid. Pathologists concluded he had died from inhaling industrial paint stripper.

Diamond Wheels, pleaded guilty to a charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act. They will face a fine as a punishment.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-34119674