Socialism—will it work? (1987)

From the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialism's all very well but . . . we've got to start somewhere . . . it's idealistic . . . you can't run before you can walk . . . "

Ever said that? Ever felt like that? Most people do when faced with the arguments for a moneyless, wageless society. They agree completely but still feel that there is something more immediate to do.

It's fairly understandable really. It's an attitude we learn every week on the TV, when Sir Robin Day manages to get his guests through 17 different world events, conflicts and social problems in the space of 60 minutes. Or breakfast telly devotes up to three minutes to Jimmy Greaves' views on thermonuclear war. And every week brings some government spokesperson presenting a new sure-fire solution to what is usually a very old problem. Unemployment? That's easy set up a programme called JobClub! or JobStart! or JobTrain! or TrainStart!, or something like that. Then spend more on full-page ads than you do on the scheme itself, and quietly issue the results of the scheme on a bank holiday or whenever the next royal baby is due.

Or what about a new problem, like AIDS? What's the blinkered response of the politicians to that? Wake up Lord Whitelaw in the House of Lords, tell him how to spell AIDS, and what it is, and get him to head a committee to look into it.

But take a step back from the day-to-day catalogue of initiatives and schemes, of campaigns and committees, to ask the simple question, does it work? The answer can only be no; the same problems remain every year and return every election. And with them come some new ones—AIDS, drug abuse, and so on. Capitalism produces problems as quick as the legislators or campaigners can solve them. The simple point that must be grasped is that the vast majority of social problems have a common cause in capitalism. So if you say "Socialism is fine but it must wait, then be aware of exactly what you are saying. Can you really say that unemployment is just an unfortunate blight on society, or is there a reason why capitalism cannot avoid the dole queues? Is it enough, for example, to condemn heroin as "evil", or is there a reason why people should seek to escape from reality?

To all these problems, socialism (which means the replacement of capitalism by a system of common ownership and democratic control) is a far more relevant and immediate solution than any attempt to keep capitalism but without the nasty bits.

But then, isn't there one issue that overrides everything: "I want socialism but we've got to get rid of the Bomb first . . . " Well, what is being done at the moment to solve this particular and particularly pressing problem: in the last few months thousands of people got together to Link Arms Across Scotland; people around the world donated a Million Minutes of Peace to thinking about peace (as if if we all clap our hands loud enough then Tinkerbell might live); the Pope invited a variety of religious leaders round for a really big pray-in and an appeal for one day of ceasefire (which lasted until lunch-time in Ulster and breakfast-time in Beirut); and Billy Bragg got himself arrested for cutting some fence around an American base (the things people will do to plug a new album).

Meanwhile of course, those supporters of multilateral "disarmament" met in another plush hotel, this time in Reykjavik, where they almost reached agreement on whether to hold another summit. So a lot has been done, there can be no doubt about that. But what has been achieved? Another month of demonstrations that may make the demonstrators feel they are doing something. Another month of Terry Waite flying in. And another month of more warheads being stockpiled while even more destruction is being designed on the drawing-board.

Just because nuclear weapons are the most obvious and most horrific problem that most of us face, does not remove their rationale inside capitalism, it doesn't mean that capitalism suddenly doesn't need them and we need only wish them away. Only a sane society can guarantee freedom from the threat of war.

In socialism, there would be no need for weapons of destruction, because a society based on production for use must remove the conflicts over resources and markets that is inherent within capitalism, whether it's the fishing areas around the Falklands. or the Kharg Island oil terminal. Removing the weapons of war is more than just a question of taking the toys from the boys or banning the bomb, but of denying to the small minority—whose interests weapons are there to defend—the position of having separate interests.

With socialism, the world will no longer be split up into countries, states, super powers, blocs or pacts. Instead we will have to democratically organise around the world to use the earth's resources to produce for the population s needs, and not for markets or economic quotas.

It can be tempting to get caught up in the demos and the marches as an alternative to actually getting anywhere. But just think of all the battles workers have fought this century already — and for what? For the very same things that reformism is still demanding. The only difference now is that the weapons are even more horrific.

So the argument that "socialism is a fine ideal but we must do something now" presents a false choice between socialism and doing something now. The real option is to do something now—buying this paper, selling this paper, joining us—for socialism.

Brian Gardner

(Glasgow Branch)

Scotland Still not Fair

Research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in a report ‘Is Scotland Fairer?’ calls Scotland’s inequality gap ‘concerning’.

Women are more likely to hold a degree than men but are less likely to command a senior position in the workforce. The study found that in 2013, men were still significantly more likely to be employed in a managerial, directorial or senior official role than their female counterparts,

It found that ethnic minorities and disabled people were most likely to be living in relative poverty, while some ethnicities suffered from poorer general health. The study also flags up the fact that unemployment among young people (20 per cent), disabled people (12 per cent) and ethnic minorities (13 per cent) is far more prevalent than the Scottish average of 7 per cent.

The Battle of Ideas

“Let those desert us who will because we refuse to shut the international door in the faces of their own brethren; we will be none the weaker but all the stronger for their going, for they evidently have no clear conception of the international solidarity, are wholly lacking in the revolutionary spirit, and have no proper place in the Socialist movement while they entertain such aristocratic notions of their own assumed superiority.” - Eugene Debs

Capitalism draws invisible lines across the planet and say that any human on one side of the line can have dreams, but any human on the other side of the line, can only live in a nightmare, people will think about crossing that imaginary line. All workers are our fellow-workers, fully deserving our sympathy, support, and solidarity.

We don't need leaders. That is capitalist ideology speaking. In capitalism human welfare does not only come second place to profits, but it sometimes has to be sacrificed to it. Politicians (regardless of how well-meaning or sincere sounding), whether Left, Right, Green or Tartan can only manage this state of affairs. It is only a politically aware working class itself, self-organised for the ending of capitalism, can change this. It is not possible to lead workers to the Promised Land. A socialist society will only come into being from the actions of the immense majority. Protest demonstrations and rallies may make us feel like we are 'doing something', but it’s an illusion. The real battle is over ideas: the ideas in the heads of those who do all the work but get little reward. That's why the rich and powerful spend so much time trying to suppress and ridicule any idea of an alternative. The world is rich enough. We can have a world where free access to wealth replaces the market where useful work is to be enjoyed rather than endured, and where no individual can monopolise access to wealth. Armed with knowledge, humanity can finally start to demand the possible. Socialism will see we all have democratic control over 'things' such as resources, where we will delegate, with instant recall where necessary, rather than have elected representatives ruling over us.

Reforms gained in ‘good’ times will be snatched away in the ‘bad’ times, as capitalism cannot function without workers desperate for a job, so they are always to be kept in managed penury actual and relative. The job of capitalist politicians is to gain your assent to be governed and managed over. You cannot have humane capitalism, no matter who are the leaders of the parties are. It is way past time that workers stopped selling their votes to political parties to govern 'over' them on the promise of reform and opted to make the post-capitalist, commonly owned, free access society where they run things for and by themselves, in political and economic equality without classes or political overlords. Government is only necessary to protect privileged class ownership, be it private, corporate or state. They manage 'us' after gaining consent to do so, by promises and trickery at general elections. Governments and their politicians are the buffer between the capitalist parasite class and the productive wealth-producing working class. Reforms of capitalism and nominal redistribution, can only occur when we are in boom times and they will be clawed back when the inevitable slump occurs. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Its cycles of boom and bust are integral features of it. Reformist solutions are akin to putting sticking plaster on a cancerous growth. In any subsequent downturn, such as presently, the capitalist class will reduce wages to a level where it becomes once again profitable to risk their capital (stolen surplus value from previous exploitation of workers) in the further exploitation of workers. Until the markets pick up the capitalist class will sit on their loot if they can't see exploitative opportunities elsewhere, as capitalism is global. No amount of tinkering with capitalism, be it the pretence of free market libertarianism, (still retains the state and its repressive and ideological apparatus of governments over the workers) and wage war to protect, gain or plunder, resources, raw materials and markets (the two world wars last century were not about goodies versus baddies), or Keynesian pretence that capitalism has manageability with more or less equitable outcomes, can change or reform capitalism.

Capitalism has to be replaced by a new society. We can make a democratic revolution – but only based on real understanding of how capitalism works against our interests, and how reforms of capitalism will always be offered in order to distract us. You just cannot challenge capitalism and reform it at the same time. Abolish the wages system. Time to get off your knees. A social revolution is required for a true post-capitalism. There is no need of a ‘minimum programme’ of palliatives in order to con workers into supporting a Left party. Power won't be captured and handed back to the people. The state will be taken by the people using its democracy in order that its guns are not turned against them. It will be shorn of its oppressive apparatus, not to be reconstituted once more, but to be eliminated, this will be the legitimization of what will already be taking place in the wider community. The Left do not represent the working class except as a vehicle to be used for gaining power. They can objectively represent business interests once elected, and attempt to gain workers acquiescence in their own exploitation. The Left while ostensibly claiming to act in the interests of workers, really are a part of capitalism, albeit in the most extreme versions, i.e. pro-nationalisation statist capitalist version of the same disguised exploitation. Workers have to deny and despise these attempts to control them. The socialist revolution will be fundamentally different from all previous revolutions. What was at stake before was the freedom of one class to exploit the rest of society. Today, working class emancipation from the bonds of capital will mean the emancipation of all mankind. The production of wealth is the cooperative effort of untold millions and the potential capacity of that production is unprecedented. The production of wealth is the cooperative effort of untold millions and the potential capacity of that production is unprecedented. No person need go short of anything. Under capitalism, productivity has increased dramatically but the fruits for the producers have only been slow and grudging: for this is a capitalist world and the ruling class can only be expected to look after their own interests. We must look after ours, by working for socialism.

"...the more the proletariat matures towards its self-emancipation, the more does it constitute itself as a separate class and elect its own representatives in place of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be that in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” - Engels

“I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so; in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels, and not as members of the governing body prepared to pass palliative measures to keep Society alive.” - William Morris

News from the Past (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow reports that they had an audience of about eighty at their debate with the Young Liberals, when R. Donnelly put our case. 

The theme of our May Day meeting in Glasgow was “Abolish the Wages System”. The audience numbered over a hundred, seven pound collection was taken and over £2 worth of literature sold.

The Branch contested two wards—North Kelvin and Knightswood—in the municipal elections. Publicity at North Kelvin was limited to intensive canvassing of the Socialist Standard—over 450 copies were sold during the previous three months—and the distribution of eight thousand manifestoes. The party polled 134 votes which, Glasgow Branch think, must have contained comparatively few “mistaken” votes.

In Knightswood again our publicity was restricted, although we did get a mention on TV. The Glasgow members slogged away here under tremendous difficulties—they sold the Socialist Standard around the doors and they distributed twelve thousand manifestoes. The party polled 297 votes but, as the Branch puts it, “How many of these were Socialist votes is difficult to say in view of this being the first time we have contested the ward.”

Glasgow Branch are a living witness to the fact that hard work for Socialism is the most invigorating thing. Far from being tired after their exertions, they arc already planning “a greater effort next year.”

CEOs in clover

Share the Wealth

You are trapped in a conditioned ideological stupour. Free yourself and let us build the post-capitalist society where world wars for markets and vital resources are impossible. We have a world to win. we workers collectively produce all of the wealth, run capitalism from top to bottom and the capitalist class do not take any part in the production process other than risking previously appropriated capital (dead labour)arising from the previous exploitation of wage slaves, we can dispense with their parasitism and indeed have free access to all of the world’s wealth. The capitalist class is the property owning class who will be dispossessed of their ownership. Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world where  the means for producing and distributing goods (the land, factories, technology, transport system etc) are owned by a small minority of people. Owning one's home (more likely along with a massive mortgage debt) hardly takes us out of the working class.

There is absolutely no automatic right to housing within the capitalist system. All must pay. To pay, all must work. It is no matter that you work long and hard and that your children work long and hard and don't go to school. All that matters is that you have enough to buy or rent or build. Maybe you did have enough before the housing market bubble burst and the “worth” of your house went down while the interest rates went up. Well, tough! Look around you. See the empty houses and FOR SALE and foreclosure signs. These people must be living somewhere now. There is always housing stock available – if you can pay the going rate.

This is one very obvious benefit of not having money. The recent economic crisis has focused many home-owners' minds. Why should anyone be secure one month and the next find themselves in Queer Street? Can anybody justify one individual's multiple home ownership while others live in slums, in cars, in cardboard boxes on the streets? Please! When the majority of us have eventually decided that this scenario is unacceptably obscene we can at last begin to move to a humanitarian way of ordering our societies. Housing for all. Decent housing for all. Materials that are free and belong to all of us. Our architects, builders, plumbers, plasterers, electricians, etc. etc. will all work for free – they also need homes to live in. New housing can be built to the best specifications using appropriate materials, incorporating adequate insulation and services with regard to environmental protection and best use of alternative energy.

We are ordinary people who realise that human society has reached a point in its development in history where the majority of people, in all countries, must understand the structure of the society we live in so as to consciously take steps, as a whole, to peacefully and democratically establish a completely new form of worldwide society in line with the modern technological age. A society which will work to the benefit and well-being of everyone everywhere.

The popular conception of socialism (or communism) is of sharing-out poverty by retaining the present social organization but dividing up the existing wealth equally among everybody. This idea is a moralistic fantasy that would probably end up in more vicious divisions than before. The poverty that exists today can only be ended by a real revolutionary transformation - the establishment of a world-wide community of free men and women in total control of the productive forces of society. This is what socialism means, and it can only be established by your active participation in the World Socialist Movement that accepts no compromise with poverty. A post-capitalist society can register accurate demand in this day of bar-codes and stock control systems to ensure that needs are met, instead of needing a rigged artificial market

Class is a relationship to the means of production and distribution. There are now only two classes. All men and women who because of their lack of property are forced to seek work for a wage or a salary are members of the working class. Whether you work in a factory or an office whether you push a barrow or a pen if you have to seek a wage or a salary in order to live, you are a member of the working class. “Better off” workers still have to worry about making ends meet, face the indignity of redundancy or pay-cuts and in one degree or another, suffer the problems created by capitalist society. "Middle class" is not an appropriate term for people who are only a few pay-checks or a medical bill away from financial disaster or people who have jobs but with debts wildly disproportionate to their income and no assets to speak of. It should be admitted that they really are working class. This is what places them firmly in the ranks of the workers whether or not they like it or not or even know it. It is not a question of social origins. An individual born in the working class may well enter the capitalist class (and vice versa). Nevertheless a class tends to perpetuate itself along the lines of its social origins. What this means is that essentially we are living in a two-class society of capitalists and workers. To “escape from your class” do not believe or trust in becoming a capitalist. Work instead for a society in which class divisions no longer exist. No matter how seductive the notion, "that we are all middle class now" may be, because we are buying or own our house and send little Dumkins to private school, we are still wage slaves and that fact is growing more and more apparent to more and more people. The middle class were originally the emerging capitalist class, which became the dominant owning class and absorbed the land owning aristocratic one, leaving the rest as one great working class which is still to achieve its emancipation.

"A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it.” – Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Chapter XXV

War Games

The Defence Secretary and David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, urge Nicola Sturgeon to find and punish the figure in her government who claimed school cadet forces provide 'cannon fodder.’

Julian Brazier, a Defence Minister, wrote to the Scottish Government urging them to help promote the setting up of cadet units in schools, particularly in deprived areas. But a senior SNP government source was quoted as stating: “There’s no way we’re having this cannon fodder scheme in schools. “It’s back to the days of General Wolfe and ‘No great mischief if they fall’”. This refers to Major General James Wolfe’s callous reaction to the death of Highlanders enlisted in Britain’s efforts to wrestle Canada from France during the 18th Century.

The cadet unit tradition goes back to 1860. Across the UK there were more than 260 units, mostly in England, but the Ministry of Defence wants to increase this to 500. The next phase of the £50 million Cadet Expansion Programme would focus on schools in “areas of high deprivation.”

The Educational Institute of Scotland, the country’s largest teaching union, said there would be a “fair degree of concern” among its members “if we were to go down this route.”

More than one in 10 new Army recruits are boy soldiers of just 16 years old, according to the 2014 figures. More than one in four of all new Army recruits are under 18 – too young to be sent into combat. But old enough to brain-wash and indoctrinate into the military discipline and ethos, just as members of the cadet force are.

The figures mean Britain stands alongside some of the world's most repressive regimes by recruiting children into the armed forces – among under 20 countries, including North Korea and Iran, that allow 16-year-olds to join up. They accused the MoD of deliberately targetting teenagers not old enough to vote in a bid to boost recruitment. According to British government policy under-18s in the British armed forces are prohibited from participation in armed conflict, but this policy can be overruled if there is a “genuine” military need or if it is otherwise impracticable to withdraw minors before deployment. Its systems for tracking personnel to ensure that under-18s are not deployed has reduced, but not entirely stopped, soldiers from being inadvertently deployed to operation theatres before they turn 18, and the UK has repeatedly exposed children to the risk of participation in hostilities.

All Is Wrong With The World But It Can Be Mended

The world may well be an anti-human, capitalist-tinted, ideologically-reinforced powerless one but it permits the active, disciplined use of democracy, by the immense majority to institute a revolutionary state of affairs. This use of presently flawed, representative 'bourgeois' democracy, by an immense majority of convinced socialist to, dissolve and end forever, 'government over them' and elect the people, to administer a delegatory democratic society of real social equals in relation to the social product, locally, regionally and globally, using re-callable delegates where necessary, is the 'Achilles heel' of capitalism. The workers are already running capitalism from top to bottom. They are more than capable and qualified to run the post-capitalist society. It is a change of ownership from the minority to everyone. The means and ends of this transformation must be in harmony. "The ends must determine the means" used to those ends.

The exercising of a democratic mandate, for the change of ownership, from private, corporate, state or other bloc elites, into common ownership 'is' a culmination of the revolution which will be already growing in the minds actions, and aspirations of the immense majority and reflected in the growing enfeeblement of capitalist representatives, dispensing fearful prophecies and reforms, to disabuse the majority before realising the game's up. It is unstoppable once the idea grows. It would be foolish indeed to resist. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.

All previous true revolutions, as opposed to putsch's and civil wars, have been minority ones, using larger groups to help, (peasants ,workers) but discarding them afterwards when the prize was won, to install new elite classes and of course, they were bloody affairs. Those had damn all to do with human 'nature’, but socially conditioned human behaviour. Those arose out of the social conditions and class struggles of their time, but ends and the means coincided for their minority post-revolutionary justification, coercion preceding ideological, reinforcement,  eventually, as 'the only show in town'.

"The ends justify the means", is the anti-human doctrine of such minority revolutions. The beneficiaries, minority class rulers, in a parasitic economic relationship to the majority. Capitalism certainly 'sprang into the world oozing blood from every pore' and it certainly spawned a system where war, two world wars and the nuclear obliteration of a population of two cities are seen as normal legitimate concomitants of capitalism in, 'business by other means' mode, for access to raw materials, trade routes, markets and spheres of interests.

The greatest emergent quality within capitalism is, ironically, social production itself. All of the necessities of life are produced socially but acquired individually (by the capitalist). That the producers (the working class) perceive that their economic interests are not represented within the present political power structure reflects the similar relationship of the past between the bourgeoisie and the king. So, in this way, we see the seeds of our future (socialist revolution) in the economic relationships of the present. Human culture is a dynamic economic and political process that is always changing. Any attempt to analyse economics and politics without a realisation of this most important factor is like trying to get on board a speeding train while wearing a blindfold. The popularity of this ’blindfolded’ approach to the study of political economy is obviously in the interests of the status quo whose agency within industry and the centres of learning has encouraged superficial theories such as ‘neo liberalism’ etc.

In this way almost all contemporary economic and political theories have been merely attempts to rationalise the irrational realities of the market system, which is conceived of as eternal and essentially unchanging. The economic elements for making socialism a practical alternative have been in place for at least a century, but as is painfully obvious, the mass consciousness necessary for revolution, is almost entirely absent. Many aspects of the history of the last century can be postulated as reasons for this: the carnage of two world wars and the subsequent loss of confidence in human potential to make a better world (poignantly expressed in Adorno‘s phrase: ‘Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’) and the ubiquity of the distraction of consumerism together with the minority control and ownership of the mass media, being two of the most probable. None of these explanations, however, can disguise the cultural, political and moral bankruptcy of 21st century capitalism.

We socialists say that mass consciousness and self-determination is the only way to create socialism; history will decide if we are correct because, among other things, it can never betray you.

The Scots Lords Bill

Peers are entitled to claim a variety of allowances and expenses in the course of their work. They can claim up to £300 per day for attending the House of Lords, tax free. They can also claim an allowance for undertaking work outside the House of Lords. In addition, they can claim travel expenses for business class travel between their registered address and the House of Lords and they can claim further travel expenses for their spouse and family to travel to Westminster six times per year. Twelve of the 64 active peers resident in Scotland are hereditary peers.

Peers can opt to receive a loan of two computers and a PDA from parliamentary authorities as well.Sixty four peers living in Scotland shared a payout of £1.83m from tax payers in just one year, The Ferret can reveal.

The three most expensive Lords were all Liberal Democrats. They were the only Scottish peers to receive more than £50,000 each in one year. On average, peers claimed £28,528 each, or £346.38 for each day worked. Each person typically signed in to the House of Lords for 78 days in the last 12 month period for which records are available, August 2014 to July 2015. The most active peer, Lord Purvis, attended for 128 days. Collectively, peers spent £287,896 on air travel between Scotland and London, a figure described as “disappointing” and “excessive” by critics. They also spent £28,776 on taxis, parking and bridge tolls.

Former Deputy First Minister of Scotland Lord Stephen is the most expensive peer living in Scotland. He claimed £56,274 in 12 months. He is the Liberal Democrat principal spokesperson on Scotland in the House of Lords. He has financial interests in a number of renewable energy firms active in Scotland and cites an interest in ‘Energy and the Environment’ on his parliamentary web page. In 2012, Lord Stephen ran into criticism after he made £110,000 from selling a home he bought in Edinburgh. Whilst he was an MSP, he claimed around £70,000 towards mortgage payments and the other maintenance costs of the home through expense claims to the Scottish Parliament. In 2013, he was forced to issue an apology after the Privileges and Conduct Committee found that he had omitted to declare some directorships and shareholdings in the Register of Interests.

Lord Steel of Aikwood was the second most expensive peer resident in Scotland. He claimed £52,769 in a year and was the only Scottish peer to claim more than £20,000 for travel between his home and London. He lives in the Scottish Borders. Before entering the House of Lords he was the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament for four years. Prior to this he was a Member of Parliament at Westminster from 1965 to 1997.

Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Purvis of Tweed, was the third most expensive peer. He claimed £52,241. During this period, he acted as the Liberal Democrat principal spokesperson for energy and climate change in the House of Lords for one month. A former Borders MSP, he claimed £9,126 worth of air fares for travelling between his home in the Borders and London.

Labour peer Lord Foulkes, claimed £49,943. The former MP, MSP, and Hearts of Midlothian Football Club chairman, is currently also the Honorary Treasurer of a campaign group that brings “legislators together to combat climate change,” called Climate Parliament. He spent £11,951 on air travel between Edinburgh and London in twelve months.

Two hereditary peers living in Scotland came out as the most expensive to the tax payer, if their claims are adjusted to take account of how many days they each spent in the House of Lords.

The Earl of Stair claimed the equivalent of £759 for each of the 13 days he spent in the House of Lords over 12 months. The peer, who owns land in Dumfries and Galloway and the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, claimed £6873 in travel expenses. He is a member of one committee in the House of Lords; the Refreshment Committee.

The Earl of Dundee, claimed the equivalent of £510 for each of the 97 days he attended the House of Lords. He lives in Birkhill Castle and owns forestry, farmland and residential property in Fife and Angus.

https://theferret.scot/scottish-peers-expenses/

Without money, we’d all be rich

Investors benefit from the continued actual or relative impoverishment of labour in order that workers will present themselves for further exploitation in return for wages. Capital is dead labour, it has already been stolen via the wages trick, or acquired by local or global banditry, or else borrowed by the individual capitalist, but this capital risk is not taken for philanthropic reasons. It is not to create jobs or wealth for the worker that capital is risked, it is to exploit the wealth producing capacity of labour over and above their rationed access (wages) and accumulate ever more wealth from their parasitism that drives capitalist investments.

There is no natural reason for this division between rich and poor. Both classes include every biological and psychological facet of humanity. The only difference between them is one of ownership. The vast majority of people own practically nothing but their ability to work and the little that they do own — some clothes, some furniture, perhaps a house and a car — is dependent on their continuing to possess and exercise that ability to work. Unable to do so through sickness, old age or unemployment, they will quickly be reduced to the level of pauperism. They are the working class because they have to sell their working power to live and to such an extent that they are virtually living to work.

This lack of ownership among the many is paralleled by the immense wealth of the few. They are the capitalist class because they live on the income from their capital which, as well as the means of production and distribution, includes the labour-power, the mental and physical energies, of those workers hired to operate them. The capitalist class do not give workers jobs out of charity. If they did not make a profit out of the deal, they would soon be left in the same position as the workers. They only employ you if your abilities can be exploited to provide some of the wealth which secures their life of ease and luxury. If not, your much vaunted "right to provide for home and family" becomes your right to whistle for it. This is what is happening in many industries just now. All over the world, there are large stockpiles of unsold goods with many either wholly or partly unemployed.

In terms of playing a social role in production, the capitalist class are redundant. At the dawn of their epoch, they were instrumental in razing to the ground the anachronistic restrictions of feudalism and developing the means of production and distribution on an enormous scale in their drive for bigger and better profits. Today, they only take part on a small, individual basis and have been replaced by paid managers and various other hired hands. The only role left to them is that of consuming the finest fruits of a society run by the working class.

The major problem that most people face today can be summed up in one word — poverty. They are denied access to the wealth of society which would enable them to develop and enjoy themselves to the full. They have to make ends meet and make the best of it. The result is a life-style of frustration and boredom — getting up in the morning, the buses, the trains, the traffic, the shop, the office, the factory, the boss, the canteen and so on, ad nauseam.

These situations give the lie to the false notion that 'hard work' will solve all the worker's problems. If the people in these industries worked any harder they would just be out of a job so much the sooner. The market that they produce for is on the downturn, their masters cannot profitably sell all they are capable of producing, and so there is no work for the wage-slaves.

It is not a 'free' agreement. The worker is 'compelled' to seek employment in order to live. The capitalist class have no such compulsion and only offer employment in order to extract surplus value from the worker.

Nor has it to do with human nature. Damn all natural about capitalism. It is a consequence of a class struggle between the then emerging manufacturing and trading classes overthrowing feudal institutions and establishing a new class settlement where the capitalist class held the dominant levers of power reflecting their ascendency. It is a social construction and not a natural one. Capitalism must ensure that the poor are always with us in order to keep them in luxury by exploiting our need to surrender ourselves to waged slavery that they may exploit our mental and physical abilities to produce a surplus value over and above the price of our labour-power.

The self-preservation of the human species and well-being of the planet, would be considerably enhanced, if the earth and everything in it and on it were in the common custodianship of us all, as social equals with free access to the common produce. Capitalism produces its own gravediggers and gives them the means to free themselves, and humanity, from economic necessity. We run capitalism from top to bottom and can free ourselves form its domination, by use of its Achilles heel. Democracy. You do not need capitalist political party such as Labour is, and always has been, to give power to the common people. It will never happen.

Where did the capital come from in the first place? "Capital came into the world oozing blood form every pore" as Marx put it. The Atlantic slave trade, some piracy operations, smashing the Indian cotton weaving village industry, forcing the Chinese to allow the opium trade through gunship diplomacy. Today’s capitalist are descendants of colonial war criminals, and now live high on the hog in conspicuous consumption mode.

If you appraise yourself of the fact that capitalism unable be reformed and must be replaced by a wage-less society and persuade the immense majority, then fellow workers of the world can unite for socialism, abolish the wages system and 'take' power for ourselves. Extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers worldwide and work with them to end the wages system, where all the productive resources of the Earth become the common heritage of the people of the world. "Make the Earth a common treasury for all", as Gerrard Winstanley put it right at the beginning of capitalism—so that they can be used, not to produce for sale on a market, not to make a profit, but purely and simply to satisfy human wants and needs in accordance with the principle of "from each region according to ability, to each according to needs".

Workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains

Scotland V England - The Pay League

Typical hourly pay in Scotland has crept above that in England for the first time since records began.

As recently as 2004, typical hourly pay in Scotland was 7.2 per cent lower than in England, the study says. But strong wage growth in the mid-2000s reduced the gap to just 2.9 per cent by 2009, when the repercussions of the crash began to be felt throughout the British economy. In the years following the financial crisis, Scotland experienced sharp falls in employment, but people still in work saw their pay packets squeezed less than those in England. Typical (median) pay in Scotland is now £11.92 an hour, marginally higher than the £11.84 earned in England, the analysis concludes. Earnings growth in Scotland has also been stronger than in England across all pay levels, other than for those at the very top.

A greater trade-union presence, more public-sector employment and lower migration rates – meaning less competition for jobs – all benefited Scotland in the years before the crash. When the 2008 crisis came, Conor D’Arcy, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, explained  the country also experienced a more “traditional recession” than England, with unemployment rising steeply but pay levels not taking as big a hit as they did south of the border.

However, around one in five workers in Scotland still earns below the low-pay threshold. A Holyrood committee highlighted a concerning decline in “job quality” in recent years, with an increase in low-paid, zero-hours contracts since the recession. It said poor-quality jobs were having an adverse impact on health.

Change is Happening

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness. The only way to socialism is through majority working class understanding and democracy. Left-wing capitalism can no more alleviate the condition of workers than dyed-in-the-wool right-wing capitalism. Workers will have to grow out of expecting a 'nicer' politician will make them happy-clappy wage slaves. Supporting the Labour Party, or any of the other parties of capitalism, is futile. Poverty, actual and relative, is an inevitable and essential part of capitalism, whether we are in work or not, and cannot be reformed away. The Labour Party do not want to end capitalism, they wish to reform it into a nicer capitalism with relatively happy wage-slaves. But..., capitalism requires a work-force sufficiently impoverished, so that they will present themselves to be exploited in return for rations, (food, clothing, shelter etc. expressed in a wage or salary) Exploitation takes place at the point of production, whether by hand or by brain, at the workplace, when the worker sells his or her mental and or physical abilities for a wage or a salary. They produce a 'surplus value' over and above what they receive from wages. This wealth, 'surplus value', after it is sold on the markets at a profit for the capitalist blood-sucking class. All wealth is produced by the working class. The owning class produce nothing. They live of the exploitation of the working class. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It can only be replaced.

Removing class ownership and control of wealth production and distribution, means at last, we can have production for use 'and' be social equals, with free access, to the common product. Only the workers themselves organised to this end, are the sole agency for this change, not the parties of capitalism of which the Labour Party is but one amongst many. There are no 'revolutionaries' inside the Labour Party. Even at his or her most radical, a Labour Party member stands for the retention of capitalism.

Not only al the economists know that there will always be a pool of unemployed but they also want there to be. They don’t want ‘full employment’ as this would exert an upward pressure on wages, cutting into profits. But the truth sometimes slips out, as in an article in the Times (10 June, 2015) by its Economics Editor, Philip Aldrick. He referred to an ‘equilibrium unemployment rate’, defined as ‘the level at which wage inflation pressures build up.’ This used to be called ‘the natural rate of unemployment’ but conceding that unemployment was natural to capitalism was considered too much of a concession to its critics and it is now called in economics textbooks the ‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU). It’s a bit of a dubious concept (it’s trying to calculate when a boom begins to get out of hand, but even if this could be done it wouldn’t make any difference as nobody could do anything about it). But that’s not the point. The point is that government policy-makers believe it. Michael Saunders of the Citi investment bank, is suggesting that the rate here could now be as low as 4 percent, and comments:

‘In other words, at the economy’s optimum cruising speed, 400,000 fewer people need be unemployed than before the crisis.’

‘Need be unemployed’! That’s a telling phrase, saying that some people need to be unemployed. In the three months to April this year the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent, or 1,810,000. If it had been 4 percent this would still have left 1,316,000 as ‘needing’ to be unemployed. The government may well, from one point of view, want to cut the benefits bill by reducing the number on the dole, but, from another point of view (that of big business whose interests they serve), to reduce the number too far would set off an upward pressure on wages to the detriment of profits. It’s a balancing act. Capitalist firms will have to pay one way or another. Either their profits are taxed to pay unemployment ‘benefit’ to at least 1,316,000 (or on the Bank of England’s figure 1,678,000). Or their profits will be eaten into by rising wages.

So, no matter how many application forms they fill in, however many courses they go on, however many times they report to the DWP, between one and two million people will not get a job because, if a substantial number of them did, it would upset ‘the economy’s optimum cruising speed’ and the government doesn’t want that. In saying that they are practising ‘tough love’ by harassing people as a means of helping them to get a job, Cameron, Osborne and the rest (the leaders of the Labour Party too as they are also into bashing the unemployed) are shameless hypocrites. We need to get rid of capitalism, abolish the wages system. Protest is insufficient, we need to use democracy to replace capitalism. We are not pining away for a mythical future. We are working for a new world. The cruel joke is on you, if you are worker and do not recognise your class interests lie in getting rid of this warring system. How the capitalist class must laugh at you, foolish worker. Laughing all the way to the bank. Workers collectively, produce all of the world’s wealth, they mine resources, they create technological marvels, they produce them, they collectively, effectively, run this system from top to bottom, even though they do not share in the accumulated products, other than a wage. If you are incapable of conceiving this then you have been getting ideologically neutered by capitalism's equivalent of the Rome’s 'Bread and Circuses'.

It would be foolish to expect the capitalist class to voluntarily give up its privileged position in society. Governments exist solely to administer the society as it exists, in the interests of the ruling (capitalist) class, so governments will not end the privilege. Capitalism will continue as long as the working class accepts it. The working class will have to force the capitalist class to give up its position of privilege. Political parties of the left, right and centre, claim to be working for the betterment of society. Because society functions in the interests of the capitalist class, it is clear that these parties are then supporting the interests of the capitalist class. History shows us that no matter what these parties say, when elected they administer capitalism in the only way it can be administered - in the interests of the capitalist class. Each of them has their own idea of how to run capitalism, often stealing the ideas of their supposed political opposites. The reforms that they implement must reflect economic reality. If they do not, they will not get re-elected - until the next party fails to reflect that reality. Taxation difference constitute much of election manifestoes but they have damn all to do with 'most' people though. If you are a worker, your wage is your take-home pay. If the government removed whatever nominal tax your employer pays your wages would be cut accordingly. If you are not a worker, but an employer, tough luck, as your parasitic employer class collectively have the benefits of exploiting educated, qualified workers to produce more wealth for you, (surplus value) in return for their wage-salary (ration) they can collectively, damn well pay for their wage-slaves of the future's education. Tax is a burden upon the capitalist class and it is their interests, business that the clampdown is taking place. It will make no real difference which capitalist party is in power. The employing class pays the piper, calls the tune and if need be have capital flight as a last resort.

Get off your knees and make common cause with your fellow worker to abolish this iniquitous system, instead of spouting slavish 'Uncle Tom' platitudes, applauding the oppression of your class. There is no way that capitalism can meet the needs of the majority, but all of these parties pretend it can if only they find the right plan. None of them have any really new ideas, only rehashed reforms that have failed in the past. Voting for any of these parties is voting for capitalism, forever.

Scots gasping for fresh air

Scotland's most polluted streets have been named by environmental campaigners, Friends of the Earth Scotland, from official data. The environmental group said air pollution was linked to thousands of deaths in Scotland each year.

The annual average European legal limit for nitrogen dioxide, which is linked to asthma and other respiratory problems, is set at 40 microgrammes per cubic metre. But new research from Friends of the Earth Scotland, collected from official monitoring stations, says it was breached on streets across the country in 2015.

It listed annual average levels as:

St. John's Road Edinburgh: 65 microgrammes

Hope Street Glasgow: 60 microgrammes

Seagate, Dundee: 50 microgrammes

Atholl Street, Perth: 48 microgrammes

Lochee Road, Dundee: 48 microgrammes

Union Street, Aberdeen: 46 microgrammes

Queensferry Road, Edinburgh: 41 microgrammes

Wellington Road, Aberdeen: 41 microgrammes

Friends of the Earth Scotland also collected data on particulate matter - tiny particles which are pumped into the air by diesel vehicles. It said streets in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Perth, Glasgow, Dundee, Falkirk and Rutherglen failed to meet Scottish air quality standards.

Friends of the Earth Scotland air pollution campaigner Emilia Hanna, said: "Air pollution causes 2,000 early deaths in Scotland every year - it's a serious public health crisis and tackling it should be a top priority for the Scottish government."

Let's not fix capitalism – Let’s get rid of it.

The earliest societies practiced a primitive communism. To work is good for one’s well-being, as opposed to being employed. The people who transcend the capitalist method of wage slavery producing for sale on a market will not be lacking in their resolve to make the superabundance be shared and work for all. Capitalism has solved the production problem and created the knowledgeable workforce capable of running it from top to bottom. Socialism is going to be built upon the mass technology of capitalism. Capitalism generates an abundance of evidence of its own failings every minute of every hour of every day, evidence which people are remarkably adept at ignoring or skilled at explaining away.  Nothing, however, is forever. Capitalism had outlived its useful potential by the start of the 20th century. We have had two world wars, innumerable small ones and they are picking sides as we speak for another go, over raw materials, spheres of interest etc. War isn't about 'Goodies' versus 'Baddies'. It is 'business by other means.' Capitalism is in the same predicament as feudalism was with warring kingly factions seeking domination over what spoils of war may bring. Arguments for going to war are arguments for killing our fellow worker on both sides. Capitalism cannot exist without war.It is an insane system which can legitimise slaughter in the interests of a minority parasite class against other capitalist parasites, for raw materials, strategic advantage, trade routes etc. and justify it with our without, the legal and juridical structures which are imposed for protection of the dominance of king Capital. War is never in the interests of workers and are not entered into out of any humane considerations. These are sometimes stitched on to the case made but this is a part of propaganda.

The division of the world’s population into distinct nations seems to be perfectly natural. The idea of nationalism is that "we" all have certain characteristics in common, and "we" should stick together. We are all assumed to belong to a national group but nationality is a product of social processes. The modern state is a product of bourgeois (i.e. capitalist) development. There exists a mistaken belief in a country's permanence - the myth of the "eternal nation", based on national character, or territory or its institutions and upon its continuity across many generations, the community's common ancestry. Capitalist nations however are not 'ours' but serve the interests of the elite. It is their nation, not ours. Political scientist, Benedict Anderson, discusses nations as socially constructed "imagined communities," because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion." Nationalism conceals the real nature of capitalism, turns worker against worker and serves to impede working-class solidarity. Race is a stupid, contrived category. We all came out of Africa. We are all homo-sapiens. We have more in common with workers worldwide than with our home-grown leeches. We should be making common cause with our fellow workers to overthrow the system which causes misery and share the planets resources. Race is an irrelevant, unscientific classification.

It is not the concern of capitalist politicians to put workers first. The may pretend to do so to win power, but their job is to govern workers to maintain the discipline, in order to maximise profits for the parasite capitalist class. Sounding tough on immigration is an attempt to deflect attention from the causes as well as consequences of inadequate, housing, over-crowded schools and under-funded health care, by blaming other factors than the everyday cutting of rations to the wage slaves in a market driven by profits, by focusing public perceptions elsewhere, at symptoms rather than causes. In fact, austerity is a prime example of the capitalist imperative to put Profits before People. No doubt IDS is a tosser, but he is only a symptom of a market system, which requires workers, whether in work or not, to have wages or subsistence benefits, until market conditions change sufficiently, expansion and boom follows slump and stagnation, so they have more bargaining power. This will continue ad infinitum until capitalism and production of profit within a competitive, anarchic market, in conditions of waged slavery is ended and replaced by a society where production is for use and there exists free access for the wealth producers. We need a social revolution to win a world fit for us all. Instead of being choked off as presently, when production is for sale, before needs can be met, a society of common ownership can continue with production until human needs are satisfied. This will utilise the available technology with "calculation in kind", replacing the need for monetary calculation. Auto-regulated, self-correcting stock control systems, using bar codes and whatever new gizmos are available at the time, enable a rational human-centred demand and production model, rather than profit driven boom/slump present day models which create artificial scarcity by rationing methods (the wages system and the prices system). In a post-capitalist system, there is no elite planners or top- down state bureaucracy, or any other privileged minority with control over decision making, but rather the wealth-producers, as social equals, self-administer over 'things.'

Effectively there are only two economic classes now. We don't accept there is a true 'middle'' class any more. They were either absorbed into the upper class or fell into the working class as the progress of capitalism's revolution gathered pace. If you 'have' to work for a wage or salary in order to live, then you are working class. If you are an owner of sufficient capital so you can exploit and have others work for you to produce more wealth, then you are in the capitalist class. It is a conceit that capitalism can be fine-tuned and managed. Capitalism is competition married to market anarchy.

We are already producing enough food to meet the needs of ten or even 12 billion people. The question is really where, how and what to produce. Right now, too much is being produced in some regions of the world, and not enough in others.  In the northern part of the world and in some emerging economies, there is a surplus in the production of particular foodstuffs – like corn, cereals, rice, soya and rapeseed – which are mainly used for making biofuels, animal fodder, starch and sugar (which we do not need). In most southern countries, however, there is a great untapped potential for producing more. So we need to rebalance the world food and economic system. Current production exceeds our need for food, but millions of people are still dying of hunger – which means the current system doesn’t work. We need systemic change to the food processing model. Currently, throughout the world, there is a growing trend of simplification. Intensive single crops that will produce foodstuffs generating a large profit are favoured. They are often high in calories, too, which can have a devastating effect on health. While there are 800 million people suffering from the effects of famine, 1.5 billion are overweight. We really need to move onto a sane post-capitalist future where production is for the use and consumption of everyone, in conditions of free access and common ownership, with democratic control by social equals, free at last from the drudgery of wage slavery for the enrichment of a capitalist class. The SPGB (Britain's oldest existing socialist party) are proceeding from a Marxian analysis which sees capitalism having to be replaced with its superior advantages of technology and production and information intact, harnessed for the common good with production for use and free access to the wealth, by the worlds workers, who already produce the wealth but not only that, increasingly run capitalism, from top to bottom.

Capitalism has outlived its essential usefulness in developing the technology. Let's not try to fix this exploitative and oppressive social system but get rid of it.  Ending the capitalist mode of production and distribution, with private, corporate, state ownership of resources, would free up labour presently engaged in buying and selling and money shuffling, for the production of useful necessities and lighten the working day for all.

"Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds that there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves". - Eugene Debs

 

Omnia Sunt Communia

The Socialist Party of Great Britain recognises the immense contribution made by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in developing a scientific understanding of capitalism as a distinct and transient society, one which was historically progressive in its time, but which is now outdated and needing to be replaced. This is not to say that we think Marx and Engels were correct on every subject then, still less now. The whole point of a scientific approach to politics and economics is that it is based on facts, evidence and objective testing and reassessment. Marxism itself has been defined as the distillation of all the lessons and understandings gained from working class struggles against capitalism, expressed in a scientific manner. Nonetheless, there is enormous value to be gained from studying the classical works of Marx and Engels. Writing during the earlier phases of capitalism’s development and working to get a handle on the whole phenomenon, their writings provide a clarity and a perspective on capitalism and the need for workers to replace it by socialism, rarely achieved since. In fact, some hold that the development of capitalism has accorded even more closely with their basic analysis than was perhaps the case at the time.

For over 110 years, the Labour Party has hoodwinked the workers, and endlessly led them down the blind alley of reformism, always mindful that its real allegiance was to the master class who own and control society. Make no mistake. A Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn would make no departure from the historical record. Its task would be primarily to try to make capitalism – a system based upon the exploitation of one class by another – work in the interests of the exploited. Labour, under Corbyn, would not really control the economy, it would control him. The historical record shows that if the dictates of capital demanded, the workers would have to be lied to, betrayed and made out to be villains of the piece and a threat to the economic interests of the country. No Labour leader to date has failed to be cast in a mould created by the capitalist class, no matter how noble their intentions. Bloody hilarious how people can see the Labour Party having ever been socialist. Nostalgic workers, who mourn the demise of Clause 4 in the 1990s, would do well to remind themselves of its authors and who they actually were – the Fabian Society – and what they actually thought about the working class. Perhaps the closest we come to a definition of the Fabians is Engels' description of them as 'a clique united only by their fear of the threatening rule of the workers and doing all in their power to avert the danger.' The Labour Party then, as now, was not so much interested in promoting ideas that threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class, but in securing the most votes. Even at its 'hardest Left' the Labour party can provide no solutions to the problems of capitalism. They all stand for a 'nicer' capitalism so are no socialists, but social reformers. Capitalism came into the world oozing blood from every pore and it continues likewise. We had two world wars last century and they are all doing war dances presently. You cannot have a nicer capitalism and there is no such thing for instance as "a fair days pay for a fair days work". Even at its most radical, Labour stands for the retention of capitalism, wage labour. Nationalisation is NOT Common Ownership socialism but state capitalism. Labour's Clause 4 was and is a nonsense. We don't need a means of exchange when 'all' is owned by us 'all', in common with each other as social equals. Removing class ownership and control of wealth production and distribution, means at last, we can have production for use 'and' be social equals, with free access, to the common product. The 'Left-capitalist parties don't tell you that as they want to be guvnors like the Fabians they consider you too stupid to comprehend the ideals of socialism. But it is incumbent upon the workers to make the post-capitalist revolution for and by themselves.

Western capitalism society is not an isolated separated system, from the events people are fleeing from, or the sweat shops of eastern capitalism, or the shanty towns amidst opulence. Global capitalism is interrelated. We workers have more in common with workers elsewhere, than with the global capitalist parasite class. All wealth springs from the workers. Capitalism has solved the production problem and created the knowledgeable workforce capable of running it from top to bottom but it is unable of solving the distribution one. It is obsolete and in the same predicament as feudalism was with warring kingly factions seeking domination over what spoils of war may bring. Employment in capitalism is, ‘only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer.’ Such dehumanisation of those involved will only end when the terms buyer and seller become redundant with the establishment of socialism. We have a world of free access to win.

Marx and Engels, unlike vanguardist 'Lefties', insisted that the task of building and running the post-capitalist society was to be the workers prerogative and they would decide what forms the new society would organise in. They recognised too, that the idea of socialism was older than their own contribution to the critique of capitalism, favourably quoting Thomas Muntzer to this end 'omnia sunt communia', (‘all things held in common'.) Employment in capitalism is, ’only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer.’ Such dehumanisation of those involved will only end when the terms buyer and seller become redundant with the establishment of socialism.

The division of the world’s population into distinct nations seems to be perfectly natural. The idea of nationalism is that "we" all have certain characteristics in common, and "we" should stick together. We are all assumed to belong to a national group but nationality is a product of social processes. The modern state is a product of bourgeois development. All this of course benefits the ruling class. It is usually a sign of desperation and of an incapacity to formulate a coherent argument when our masters resort to playing the nationalist card. It benefits them to see the workers placing meaning and identity in things that are irrelevant and mythical to the truth of class struggle.

Keeping the workers unable to see the true state of affairs in the world works to the ruling class advantage. Class existed before the nation-state. Throughout history one ruling class or another has attempted to impose its view on those they ruled over, manipulating their passions and pretending that its interests and their interests were the same. So, in another of life's ironies, the masses waste their energy fighting amongst themselves, believing their interests and the interests of their rulers are linked. Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation-states not only literally but ideologically. If the workers were ever to put their misplaced passion for “their” nation into socialism, then it would be the end of the ruling class.

"We're A’ Jock Tamson's Bairns" is a saying in Scotland and the north of England used to mean "we're all the same under the skin". A “bairn” is a child; the A’ is an abbreviation for All. Jock Tamson (John Thompson) is a generic name, equivalent to such names as “John Doe” or “Joe Bloggs” It is a reminder that despite the fact we live in a capitalist society we are all equal.

We should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.

"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." - Eugene V. Debs

Democracy – capitalism’s Achilles heel

People don't generally become poor. They are born poor, (in relation to the amount of wealth available) Yes, even in work. They may have better or worse conditions but essentially they are only a few week’s wages or a couple of month’s salary cheques away from the food-bank. The wealthy have generally inherited wealth and can increase their wealth by exploiting the labour power of those who are born poor. With few exceptions if you are born poor you will die poor and if born rich you will die even richer. Poverty is actual and relative to the wealth produced collectively. The rate of exploitation of the waged slave is greater and accelerating. The fact of working people having access to smart-phones, cars, education is used as some indication of social progress, when it is just an indicator of technological progress and workers require access to these in order to present themselves to perform the tasks of selling their mental and physical abilities for a wage or salary, to keep producing surplus-vale for the local, regional and global parasite class who employ them. We are still wage slaves though. Freedom is still to be won.

Socialism is a post-capitalist society, where production is for use (not for sale) to satisfy human needs, with free access to the wealth produced which will have no need of banks, insurance, or money, itself. With voluntary labour and real social equality, with no need for elites or government 'over' people, we will be free at last. The last great emancipation will be the emancipation of the wage slaves. The workers themselves self-organise to this end and are the only agency for this change. The principle for the new society is, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"

The Labour Party in the past, as now, was not so much interested in promoting ideas that threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class, but in securing the most votes. Corbyn-style Labour is merely a recipe to run capitalism and an attempt to manage it in a way which is fair and balanced, while still retaining all the features of capitalist exploitation - private, corporate or state ownership of the means and instruments of producing wealth, waged slavery for the wealth producers (workers), and production for profit after sale on the market for the enrichment of the parasite class (capitalists). What is the difference between a Labour (capitalist business friendly government) and a Tory one? Very little. It is reformism doomed to failure, no matter how laudable and sincere the intentions of the reformers, as capitalism cannot be reformed in any lasting way, to ensure 'a fair and balanced outcome' (however you define this) for the majority. It is just left wing capitalism rather than anything to do with socialism. So the so-called intellectual argument is proceeding from a dishonest and willfully blind perspective of trying to damn 'ideas' of that which is not being implemented, (socialism) in order to traduce the idea of socialism, which is a post-capitalist society. Capitalism once revolutionary, is an outmoded social system and has been so since the start of the last century where inequality is an entrenched as is poverty and the elite ownership of resources. What is in the ultimate class interest of all workers, is the abolition of the wages system and the removal of capitalist ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

The ruling class don't have to physically own the business they invest in. Capital is dead labour if it isn't used. That is why governments hammer the poor in a downturn when capital is being held back (capital strike) as the markets have slumped, in order to make them (then worker wealth producer) more attractive as an exploitative opportunity for the parasite class to invest in.  Even the public service sectors, for example are a function of the overall system.

First of all the rate of exploitation is greater in the examples of shrinking work-forces and growing profits, (more widgets with fewer workers means as you say unemployment for some) secondly, Capital cannot grow just by laying around, it needs to be re-invested in exploitative opportunities in order for it to expand. For our purposes it matters little whether this is knowingly, in some venture, or managed (the richest don't even have manage their loot, it is workers who do this for them) through investment trusts, or even extracted by the state for investment in infrastructure say (some capitalists will howl others rub their hands), as it results in the exploitation of workers on wages or salaries to produce surplus value over and above their wages (ration)to be sold on the markets with a view of realising a profit. All wealth springs from labour. The conditions where by capital is accumulated but human needs are not met, except for a minority parasite class, are an impediment upon human progress now, as we could have production for use to satisfy human needs, if all the means of producing and distributing wealth were owned and controlled in common by the whole population, without an elite class or its government overseers. Capital is plundered by extraction of surplus value via waged slavery. The original capital was literally plundered by all manner of dastardly derring-do.

Capitalism can't be regulated out of excess, as it is so intensely competitive, there is always an advantage to be sought in circumvention of 'restrictions on trade'. It can never be based on social justice principles for the majority, (the majority are effectively waged slaves) it will have such aspirations (fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work nonsense as exploitation at the point of production is essentially the part of capitalism where surplus value is created for the capitalist), all the more to gain your support, but regulation is for capital and properties advantage alone, as its raison d'être is profit and accumulation. It is workers who presently run and manage capitalism, from top to bottom and it is workers who innovate and invent new methods and techniques. Why, when it is in their interests to produce a superabundance of necessities to satisfy human needs should their creative spark be dimmed? The difference with this in capitalism, as one example ,when technology which could save labour hours is introduced, it is often accompanied by a pitch as to the merits of its introduction 'freeing labour', but in effect it is used to 'increase' the rate of exploitation, but the competition with other capitalists jumping onto the new technological bandwagon, leads eventually to gluts of unsaleable commodities, (capitalism doesn't exist to satisfy human needs, but for profit of a few) lay-offs and more production with labour then languishing upon the dole.

Capitalism requires, actual and relatively, poverty stricken workers to exploit their need for rations by the wages system, in order to profit from their (Capitalists) ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

The post-capitalist society not only frees us from the last great slavery (of wage slavery) and ends social classes with elite parasitical relationship to the wealth producing majority, but allows us to begin produce in ecological harmony with the needs of the living planet on which we reside, instead of trashing it with wasteful by-products and war. It has been a feasible proposition since the start of the last century and is even more so now. All that is required is a majority of politically aware workers to utilise the Achilles heel of capitalist democracy to abolish government 'over' us and elect the people.