Train For No Job?

An SPCer recently asked a friend whose daughter had graduated from Ryerson University, Toronto, how she was doing. He said she works in human resources and is the only one in her department that the company has not yet fired. Each individual is required to train someone in India through the internet to do their job. When training is completed, the trainer is fired. However, the company isn't all bad – they send the ex-employee home in a taxi. 

The moral is to expect the worst under capitalism and it will happen! 

John Ayers.

The Need for a New Economic System

We have imprisoned ourselves by not looking at making the post-capitalist commonly owned future. It is a question of seizing the present ownership and control of the means and instruments for creating and distributing wealth, in combination with production for sale on a market, in conditions of waged-slavery, for the immense majority, from minority, private, corporate or state ownership and control. By making them the common property of all, with production for use, in conditions of democratic re callable delegated organisation with free access and doing away with wages and prices altogether, whether social wages or any other rationing of access we can make a society of relative superabundance. It is in our own hands. We don't need leaders to lead us up the garden path, but thinkers. We have a world to win.

Capitalism cannot be made nicer and reforms will always be clawed back as the busts are just as much a part of capitalism as the booms. Unions are a part of capitalism. Necessary though they are, they are not yet revolutionary until we become revolutionary, in our outlook and begin to realise the building of the post-capitalist future we wish to see. We need to move to a genuine commonly owned society, not some top down nationalised statist relic of the past, retaining waged slavery, but one where all wealth production and distribution is for use and owned in common, not privately, by corporations or by the state, with democratic control of resources in conditions of free access. Real common ownership is effectively non ownership. In a production for use society money will be redundant, as wages and prices are a part of the market system of production for sale. Money will be unnecessary in a commonly owned, post-capitalist, production for use society.

Away with your capitalist catechism of received absolute truths. Capitalism inevitably divides humanity through wars, racism, sexism, and class antagonism Poverty, absolute and relative, is entrenched within the capitalist system in the enrichment and service of the economic parasite capitalist class whose watchword is Accumulate, accumulate!. War in capitalism, is 'business by other means', a consequence of capitalist competition, and arises out of competition between rival capitalist entities organised in nations, trade blocs, spheres of geo-political interest in the battle for , raw materials, securing of trade routes and economic and politically dominant privilege to further, all those ends. Nothing is forever, there is no absolute truth, social systems come and go, just as chattel slavery gave way to feudalism and feudalism in turn was superseded by capitalism , so too will capitalism's obsolete excrescence of waged slavery perish in arrival of its post-capitalist nemesis. The revolutionary antithesis of capitalism is a post-capitalist society, socialism, not as an idealistic panacea, but as a sensible process of overcoming humanity’s divisions and building economic and social democracy, where the resources and productive capacity of the world belong to its people, who use them to meet human needs rather than to generate private profits for a few owners.

The post-capitalist revolution will be the task of the immense majority, using the flawed , 'representative' democratic means available, (democracy, capitalism's Achilles heel, if you like) to usher in the new society and as it is a commonly owned one, seizing all the advances of capitalist technology and communications structures, with an educated, politically aware working class, (who already run capitalism from top to bottom) then proceeding to delegatory democracy, without ruling elites with free access to the social product, we eliminate the flaws which characterized minority led revolution. We have a productive capacity capable of feeding clothing and sheltering and protecting all of the inhabitants of this planet in conditions of superabundance deployed in the service of a minority parasite class. Capitalism is based on exploitation, on paying workers less than the value they produce, and pocketing the difference, the surplus value.

Wee Matt

The Rich Lie, the Poor Die

Britain's oldest socialist party (SPGB) has always thrown open their platform to debate with opponents however distasteful their views. Over the decades we have challenged the British Union of Fascists, the National Front and the British National Party on the platform.

The idea that immigrants can only have a negative effect on wages and living standards is a common one. Nigel Harris in ‘The New Untouchables’ quotes research that argues that ‘modern econometrics cannot find a single shred of evidence that immigrants have an adverse impact on the earnings and job opportunities of natives of the United States’. And he gives the example of the Los Angeles economy which expanded in the 1970s, largely as the result of increased demand caused by legal and illegal immigration.

Likewise the increase in immigration in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s did not lead to increased unemployment – rather the massive explosion in unemployment levels in the 1970s and beyond was caused by the boom-bust cycle of the capitalist system itself. Secondly, immigrants and refugees are not a drain on the social security system – in fact, as Harris shows, they contribute far more to the ‘system’ than they receive in return. Whether you look at Caribbean immigrants who came to Britain in the 1960s, few of which drew retirement pensions, or whether you take Mexican migrants to California, where a 1980 study found that less than 5 percent received any assistance from welfare services, and in all sectors, except education, they paid far more than they received – a net balance sheet shows that the ‘host’ nation gains far more than it gives in return.

Furthermore, migration has another very favourable benefit for the ruling class in the ‘host’ country – namely that they don’t have to contribute to the cost of raising and educating the immigrant worker.

It is the system of capitalist production that produces unemployment, homelessness, destitution and crumbling health services, – not workers, be they ’indigenous’ or foreign. The bosses hope to keep the worst-off sections of workers fighting with each other over shrinking pieces of a small pie instead of uniting to fight for a decent life for all.

The rationale of immigration control is that such chauvinist legislation is founded on the nation state and the feverish competition in which that nation state is engaged. It splits and divides workers from their main objectives, and, in the long run, weakens their strength all over the world. It cannot be contemplated by a world socialist. The only possible attitude of progressive workers, is opposition to immigration control. We have to reject all laws that divide the working class into legals and illegals. It is the height of treachery to our class and we would do well to remember that the working class stretches far beyond Britain’s borders. It is blatant racism, and opportunism to opt for a policy of blaming the immigrant for all British workers’ woes, even if this will strike a chord with the basest instincts of many workers.

War and poverty existed before capitalism but the forms they take are different. They were previously as likely to be waged by the ruling class themselves, participating in dynastic conquest and getting arrows in their eye, or rewarded with kingdoms.

The means of eliminating poverty did not exist then, so famine and shortages will have a bearing upon the precarious state of the largely peasant population, but they would have had their own parcels of land or commons, upon which they could subsist. Capitalism was an advance upon this, as it made possible the vast production capacity upon which we can presently draw, but it is stifled within its potential by private, corporate and state ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, with its market system dictating production for profit for the benefit of the new aristocracy, the capitalist class. This is also further exacerbated by the need for waged-slavery, to keep the wealth being produced by the productive underclass, from whom all wealth springs, they can only gain access to a waged ration of the social product in order to keep them showing up for employment. Therefore exploitation takes place at the point of production. Poverty inevitable as a consequence. This is further exacerbated by the intense competition between rival capitalists over market share, leading to alternating booms and busts of the business cycle. Leads to lay-offs with the capitalist taking the spoils and the worker subsisting upon whatever hand-outs, he has won during the boom times from capitalist government. Thus poverty, absolute and relative, is entrenched within the capitalist system in the enrichment and service of the economic parasite capitalist class, whose watchword is Accumulate, accumulate!.

However, war in capitalism, is 'business by other means', a consequence of capitalist competition, and arises out of competition between rival capitalist entities organised in nations, trade blocs, spheres of geo-political interest in the battle for , raw materials, securing of trade routes and economic and politically dominant privilege to further, all those ends.  The nature of war has changed in this regards. The last two world wars evidence of this decadence of capitalism, with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the 'good guys', for the sake of science.

War and poverty are 'essential' features of capitalism. Socialism is a post-capitalist system which has still to be brought into being.

Wee Matt

More Water Crisis

In Western China, scientists are busy tracking the melt rate of the Mengke glacier. Between 2005 and 2014, the glacier melted 16.5 meters a year, twice the average rate of the previous decade. This is causing the opposite effect to that in Iran, i.e., too much water causing floods, erosion, and mud slides. Temperatures in China are expected to rise 1.3 to 5 degrees Celcius by the end of the century, faster than the global average. Between 2008 and 2010, sixty-two per cent of Chinese cities experienced flooding.

As above, the solution is well beyond the scope of one country. 

John Ayers.

Water Crisis

While business interests may be salivating over Iran's re-emergence into the world economic community, especially over oil and the aircraft industry, a large area in southern Iran is experiencing a severe seven-year drought. Seventy per cent of Iran's ground water has been used up in the last fifty years and drying rivers and desertification of lakes is common.

 While much will be made of the oil and its potential for profit, little seems to be done about the water crisis. It is a problem that needs urgent world-wide attention, the type of solutions that can never materialize in a divided and competitive world. 

John Ayers.

A Movement for the Many

"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor" - Voltaire

Why should workers, who produce all the wealth in the world be denied the right to go where they please to engage in economic activity, or be restricted in their movements, while the parasite capitalist class can export their capital or exploit workers in wealth making opportunities for their self-enrichment, anywhere they damn well please without let or hindrance? Why should workers on benefits (reserve army of wage-enslaved labour for future exploitation by the capitalist class) have to jump through bureaucratic red-taped hoops, for the basic human need of a place to live, while the capitalist parasite class can have luxury homes all over the world? Why should the world’s workers, who produce all of the wealth, have to put up with inferior housing, while the leeching class live in mansions? Immigration is hardly the reason why governments, Labour and Tory stopping building council houses and encouraging their sale, with no 'like for like' new builds.  Immigrants are not the cause of the housing crisis. They suffer the consequences just the same as we all do. The problem is capitalism's production for sale with private, corporate and state ownership of resources by the minority global and national capitalist parasite class. Food, housing, heating and clothing could be freely available as tap water used to be in a sane, democratic, production for use, free access, commonly owned post-capitalist society. We should not need to afford housing. It is a human need and should be a right.

The immigrant workers are not scabs. It is the system of capitalist production that produces unemployment, homelessness, destitution and crumbling health services, – not workers, be they ’indigenous’ or foreign. The bosses hope to keep the worst-off sections of workers fighting with each other over shrinking pieces of a small pie instead of uniting to fight for a decent life for all. Workers have no country. We have a world to win. Every country now is part of an integrated global economy and class structure. It is the capitalist class's country and the capitalist class's world. Before anything constructive can be done, capitalism must go and, with it, the artificial division of the world into separate, competing states. This leads inevitably to war, when the capitalist parasitic class thieves fall out. (Business by other means). War and poverty are inevitable concomitants of capitalism. We need to abolish the out-moded and old-fashioned division of the world into nation-states. Instead we need to cooperate on a world basis to meet our material needs and energy requirements. Capitalism must go and workers must make it go. A plague on all parties who wish to retain capitalism. Only workers themselves can bring to fruition the post-capitalist revolution of free-access, delegated democracy, production for use, a price-free, wageless, moneyless, society. Business is not 'people friendly'. Real socialism will do away with the business of exploiting workers in return for a wage or salary and channeling profits to the few.

Socialism should be hostile to all the parties of capitalism, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Tartan or whatever flag they drape over their wage-slavery administration exploitative activities. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It comes into the world oozing blood form every pore. Dissolve all government 'over' you and elect yourselves into common ownership and democratic control over all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth. Don't whinge that life is not fair. Instead organise with fellow workers worldwide for the overthrow the capitalist system before we sleep-walk into the next world war. There will be no government over people in the post-capitalist commonly owned world. This is an essential feature of minority ownership in capitalist class society. In a classless, commonly owned society, government ceases to exist as an oppressive necessity, loses this feature and becomes an administration of resources. People will organise wealth production and distribution themselves, locally, regionally and globally. In a real delegatory democracy rather than a representative government on behalf of a ruling elites. All wealth will spring, as it does presently, from labour. The difference will be as it is a production for use society, utilising the technological potential capacity of the present, to produce a superabundance of necessities, instead of rationing it, stifling production through the market necessity to profit for a few. There will be no means of exchange as markets cease to exist, when all wealth is owned in common.

The socialist alternative to the profit system is:

• common ownership: no individuals or groups of individuals have property rights over the natural and industrial resources needed for production.

• democratic control: everybody has an equal say in the way things are run including work, not just the limited political democracy we have today.

• production for use: goods and services produced directly to meet people's needs, not for sale on a market or for profit.

• free access: all of us have access to what we require to satisfy our needs, not rationed as today by the size of our pay-cheque or state hand-out.

The lesson in the ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ by Robert Tressell, is we workers need to combine, stop being slavishly philanthropic and providing the wealth for a parasitic minority employer class, take all wealth into common ownership and democratic control, abolish the wages system, waged slavery and establish a free access society.

Capitalists greedis the natural outcome of capital accumulation, within an intensely competitive system, where war is 'business by other means'. It has outlived any socially useful function, having developed the means of production and distribution to its present stage, with an increasingly educated, wage enslaved class now able to run the system from top to bottom .

We can proceed to a democratic, socially equal, commonly owned, post-capitalist society where production is for the use of all, to satisfy human needs and distribution can be free, without any necessity for monetary transaction, within a super-abundance of the necessities of life. Housing to be lived in, food to be eaten, medicine to treat illness rather than as at present, commodities to be sold for the enrichment of a minority owning class, with the vast majority rationed in their access by the present wages /salary /prices system. We only have to remove ownership and control by, corporations, states, private individuals and replace it with common ownership by us all, with production for use. Then we can proceed immediately to having free access to the commonly owned wealth thus dispensing with money and all the paraphernalia which goes with money. Abolish wages and prices. Opt to work for a post-capitalist, commonly owned, (not private, state or corporation) money-free, wage slavery-free, free access, production for use, future. You are only 3 salary cheques from a food bank.

Wee Matt

Don't Fence Men In

Countries are becoming increasingly walled in. At the end of WWII, the number of borders blocked by fences and walls could be counted on one hand.

 Today, sixty-five borders are sealed off. Republican candidate in the US, Donald Trump has endorsed completing a fence between his country and Mexico, a distance of 3,200 kilometres.
Many European countries are erecting razor wire to keep migrants fleeing war, oppression, and poverty out.

In capitalism, this could be a good thing as the shares in and production of wire takes off. Let the concept of one world, one people become a reality asap.

John Ayers.

Isn't Capitalism Wonderful

A while back, many economists thought that BRIC (an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, and China) would soon be the leading and most prosperous capitalist states.

However, under capitalism prosperity is fleeting, especially for the workers, and, as far as Brazil is concerned, there is already trouble in paradise. It's economy lost one million jobs last year; police clash with students on the streets of Sao Paulo over school closings; the president, Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment proceedings owing to accusations she used funds from state banks to cover budget shortfalls; the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who started the impeachment proceedings, is fighting calls to resign over undisclosed Swiss bank accounts and charges that he accepted millions of dollars in bribes in connection with Petrobras, the state oil company. Forty per cent of the 594 members of congress are facing charges of one type of or another. Four members of the highest court in the land are under investigation.

Isn't capitalism wonderful?

John Ayers.

Towards A Better World

The capitalist system is behind all the ills that burden humanity today. Poverty, deprivation, discrimination, inequality, political repression, ignorance, bigotry, unemployment, homelessness, insecurity and crime are all inevitable products of this system. For sure those problems that ails society were not invented by capitalism and existed before capitalism but importantly they have found a new meaning in this society and found a new lease of life, corresponding to the needs of capitalism. The draw their rationale from the needs of the system that rules the world today and serve specific interests in this world. The capitalist system itself has continually and relentlessly resists people's effort to eradicate and overcome these ills. Whenever people rose to take charge of their lives, the first barrier they face was the capitalist who stand in the way a society worthy of human beings and thwart efforts to change the system. Present society is based on the exploitation of direct producers — the appropriation of a part of the product of their labour by the ruling classes. Exploitation in capitalist society takes place without yokes upon the shoulders and shackles around the ankles of the producers. It is through the medium of the market and free and exchange of commodities, the fundamental features of capitalism.  The surplus value obtained from the exploitation of the working class is divided out among the various sections of the capitalist class essentially through the market mechanism and also through state fiscal and monetary policies. Profit, interest and rent are the major forms in which the different capitals share in the fruits of this class exploitation. The competition of capitals in the market determines the share of each capitalist branch, unit and enterprise. Violence and coercion have driven the expansion of capitalism from its start, and continue to be an indispensable glue holding together what has become a world economic system. Yet no level of brutality can itself keep a system, or any ruling structure, in place for a long period of time, much less for centuries, unless there is some level of cooperation.

That cooperation must rest, at least partially, on belief. Why did so many people in the past believe that God picked one dynastic family to rule in perpetuity? What peasants believed helped keep monarchs on thrones. Today, with education so much more available, such a belief would be laughed at. Ideology accordingly must be much more sophisticated. We must distinguish between governing and ruling. Presidents and prime ministers may govern for set periods of time, giving way to new officials, but these men and women do only that: govern. They manage the government on behalf of the dominant social forces within their borders, and those dominant social forces are in turn, depending where on the international capitalist pecking order the governed space lies, connected to and/or subordinate to more powerful social forces based elsewhere. It is capitalists — industrialists and financiers — who actually rule. The more power capitalists can command, the more effectively they can bend government policy and legislation to their preferred outcomes. More aspects of human life are steadily put at the mercy of “market forces.” Those are not neutral, disinterested mechanisms sitting loftily above the clouds, as the corporate media incessantly promotes. Rather, market forces are nothing more than the aggregate interests of the most powerful industrialists and financiers. Thus capitalist fundamentalism is telling us that a handful of exceedingly powerful industrialists and financiers should decide social and economic matters; that wealth automatically confers on them the right to dominate society. Not so different from feudal beliefs in monarchs. Without people believing that the rule of capitalists is a natural law, capitalism would not endure. When people ceased to believe in monarchs, that system of rule crumbled. With capitalism it is no different. “Socialism,” is no longer a bogey word. But capitalism is as strong as ever today, the mantra “There Is No Alternative” still prevails in the popular psyche.

Capitalism is what people know and believe in  and until that belief is broken through persuasion and people are compelled to confront the cause of their deteriorating living conditions capitalism will be nearly impossible to dislodge. Even allowing for the rise of the Internet, and the better ability for dissenting news and viewpoints to be circulated it is indisputable the corporate media remains dominant and allows only a narrow range of perspectives to be given a hearing. So many different media outlets report the same news item in a nearly identical way, that “spin” can easily gain wide acceptance as truth. The same dominant set of presumptions underlie them, those dominant presumptions, products of ideologies widely propagated by elite institutions, serve as ideological reinforcement. Public opinion is shaped by repetition, and not repetition in a handful of obviously biased publications or networks, but rather repetition of viewpoints, reporting angles and underlying themes and assumptions, across the entire corporate media. This propaganda does not fall out of the sky; its seeming pervasiveness flows from the ability of capitalists to disseminate their viewpoints through a variety of institutions, those they directly set up and control. Something as fundamental as who generates the wealth of society, and how wealth is generated, is obscured as part of this process of opinion formation. It can’t be otherwise, for this is the building block on which capitalist ideology rests. Incessant spin claims that profit is the result of the acumen of the capitalist and the capitalist’s magical ability to create profit out of thin air, when in actuality corporate profit comes from the difference between what an employee produces and what the employee is paid. Many people must be poor for one person to be rich, because the private profit of a few is taken from the underpayment of work to the many.

Can “socialism” be part of the mainstream political vocabulary? Can it displace the “There Is No Alternative? Is it a term we can fight for. The only way we can be true to our principles is if we are willing to fight for them. If our goal is to change the world then we work to create a new one. It comes down to a choice:

1) Work to change the personnel of the oligarchy

2) Work to create a new structure that represents people/planet over profit

It is time to stop tinkering around with a deeply broken system and time to now pursue radical transformation. Many more eyes will need to be opened, with a concomitant willingness to struggle and organize, if a better world is to be created. A better world is not only possible but can be created once a sufficient portion of society comes to believe in ourselves and that cooperation rather than dog-eat-dog competition is the route to a sustainable economy with enough for all.  

When We Fight, We Will Win

Peacefully if possible,
Forcibly if necessary

Our culture is dominated by a set of beliefs that make us think that it's human nature for people to subjugate each other. It's become "common sense" that capitalism is the only way. But it isn’t true. Occupy was forcefully evicted by the state in collaboration with the complicity of the media. But it was incredibly successful in getting the message of the 99% and 1% out there. It was a training ground for many activists and it created a "psychological break" that allows us to more easily discuss capitalism and anti-capitalism and socialism. You never really know how close you are to freedom. We need to see ourselves as part of an interconnected worldwide movement that can win. We need to understand more and more the incredible forces of capitalism and how to oppose it. We don't always win every battle for sure, but when we fight we win our humanity. We build community. If we don't fight, we have already lost the war. We cannot miss any opportunity to fight for a new world. For sure, we lose in many cases but we have to fight because we have no other option. At least when we fight, we have the possibility of winning. In the act of resistance, we empower ourselves and our community. We develop the kind of organizations and strength that we are going to need to change this world. As Noam Chomsky has said, we choose optimism over despair. We know that movements make men and women, but men and women make movements. Movements cannot exist unless they are carried on by people; in the last analysis it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions.

We, revolutionists, seek the emancipation of the working class and the abolition of all exploitation, not another rivet in the chains of wage slavery. The revolutionist recognises that the organization that is propelled by correct principles. The revolutionist will not make a distinction between the organisation and the principle. The principle and the organisation are one. In order to accomplish results or promote principle, there must be unity of action. Charlatans, one after the other, have set up movements that proceeded upon lines of ignorance; movements that bred hopes in the hearts of the people; yet movements that had to collapse. A movement must be sound in its ideas or it cannot stand. A falsely based movement is like a lie, and a lie cannot survive. All these false movements came to grief, and what was the result? - disappointment, stagnation, diffidence, hopelessness. If bluff and blarney could save a movement, the Left would be imperishable but alas the left-wing parties rise and fall with the utmost frequency. These false movements have confused the judgment of people, weakened their hope and their courage. Hence the existing apathy in the midst of misery; hence despondency despite opportunities for resistance.

Revolution is the inevitable response of the world’s people to exploitation and oppression. It is an irreversible trend in history. No great event nor revolutionary change in society is possible without the active participation and support of the people. Out of their own interests the exploiting classes blurred the historical role of the masses whom they looked upon as knaves and fools. Historians record only the feats of individuals, heroes and kings, or well-known generals, overlooking the role of the common people. It was not until the birth of Marxism that the masses were recognised as makers of history. This discovery was one of Marx’s important contributions. Socialists have been accused for many years of wanting to overthrow capitalism by force and violence. When they accuse us of this, what they are really trying to do is to imply that we want to abolish capitalism with a minority, that we want to force the will of the minority on the majority. The opposite is the truth. We believe we can win a majority of the people to support a change in the system.

Everything you use, everything you eat or wear, your car, your housing — you didn’t make any of these things. We don’t produce these things as individuals. We produce socially. We have a division of work in the whole world for that matter. People in one part of the world make things which people in another part of the world use. But, even though we produce socially, through co-operation, we don’t own the means of production socially. And this affects all the basic decisions made in this society about what we produce. These decisions are not made on the basis of what people need, but on the basis of what makes a profit. Take the question of hunger. There are people going hungry all over the world. Farmers don’t make their decisions by saying: “We need a lot of corn to feed people, so I’m going to plant a lot of corn.” They never say that. They say: “How much money am I going to make if I plant corn?” Did you know that if decisions were not made on this basis, then there exists the potential to feed the whole world…plus more?  Take the question of housing, we could build beautiful free homes for every family. We could wipe out every slum in a few years. The potential exists, not only in the factories and materials for building, but in the potential to build new machines and factories. Yet, they are not going to solve the housing question because it’s not profitable.  You have the unemployed who are not hired because it’s not profitable to hire them. Then you have the people in the army, not to mention the police, and others who consume a great deal but don’t produce anything. Then you have things like the people in finance, in sales and in the advertising industry. They don’t do anything really useful or necessary. In addition, business ignores the environment. If you designed a vehicle for the car industry that would last 50 years, they wouldn’t use it. Because that would destroy the purpose of making cars, which is to produce profits. So built-in obsolescence and shoddy consumer goods. Another example of how the potential for meeting human needs is destroyed because of the profit system. Say you are a capitalist, and you’re about to build a factory. Do you say: “I’ll build it where it’s nice, where there are trees and fresh air, and where the workers will have nice homes and will be able to go mountain climbing or hunting or swimming?” No, that’s not the way you think. You say: “Well, where’s my market, where are my raw materials coming in, how can I make the most profit?” And this means you might build the factory where you will pump even more poison into the air. Air pollution is another example of a problem which stems directly from this system. Remember when they first discovered smog. They said: “Hey, look, there’s smog.” And they warned that if the smog increased to a certain point it would be dangerous. But, when they got past that point, they changed the danger level. And the smog is still getting worse. And now they tell us that all the rivers are polluted. In other words, it’s not that they just can’t meet the problem that exists. Things are getting worse.

How do we go about changing this situation? How do we make it so that we can really fulfil our potential as human beings? First, it is necessary to realise that we have a ruling class. And it’s very important that everyone should get to know and recognise their ruling class. The ruling class is very small. In fact, proportionately, it is the smallest ruling class in the history of any society yet they have the real power. All the institutions under capitalism are ideological institutions in the sense that all of them maintain and demand support for the system. So it should be no surprise to you that the higher you go in a corporation the people become more and more reactionary, more and more pro the system; they are more and more for whatever crimes the system has to commit. They simply wouldn’t be there if they weren’t. Many believe that the ruling class has unlimited power. We cannot be naive about the ruling class. They will suppress opposition to them insofar as they can get away with it. And they will use whatever means available if it suits their needs. But they will try to keep the repression in the bounds of what they can get away with without waking up the mass of the people, without destroying the illusion of democracy. Because, if the mass begins to wake up, that’s a big danger. Instead, the ruling class simply picks two people, or three, and they say: “Okay, everybody, we’re having elections. You have the choice of who.” Then they have their candidates have a debate. But the debate isn’t entirely phony. The debate often represents a real living struggle between different positions within the ruling class. The ruling class resolves many of the smaller tactical differences they have among themselves through means of elections. Obviously, such elections do not in any way mean that the people have a voice in ruling this country. At the same time, the masses of people believe in democracy. And this belief in democracy is something that actually weakens the rulers. And it is something that gives us real power. There is a power relationship between the masses and the ruling class based on the potential power of the working class. Because of this power relationship, you can do many things. It gives us what we call free speech. It gives us free assembly. It gives us the right to organise political parties legally. The newspapers can published legally even though they attack the system. They don’t suppress these newspapers because they know that the minute they start suppressing papers, it’s going to wake people up and bring a reaction. The only hope the ruling class has is if it can isolate the revolutionaries completely from the rest of the people. That is why the number-one task of all revolutionaries who really want to change the system is to know how to reach the people. the ruling class has also had experiences, from which they have gained knowledge. They’ve been running the United States without even any major political opposition for years and years now. They know how, when an opposition develops, to try to suppress it, to knock it down, while at the same time how to co-opt and absorb it and buy it off.

Let me explain what a reformist is. A reformist is someone who doesn’t like what capitalism does, but likes capitalism. They try to solve the problems created by the system by supporting the system. They were trying to change the system from within. They hope a Bernie Sanders victory will be a substitute for building an independent political movement of the working people against the ruling class. What they are looking for is a shortcut. . But they’re not going to change it by themselves. You can’t change it without the American people. And you certainly can’t change it against them. What is happening is that the left are merely expressing frustration. Just like those who support Sanders, they don’t have the patience and the understanding of the need to mobilise the people, to win them over, to involve them in the struggle through mass movements. They have to be won over, and our whole strategy, everything we do, has got to be directed at winning them. Are we going to be able to do it?

The case for socialism is based on democratic ideas. The word “socialist” doesn’t even need to used. Because what socialism means is not simply that socialists come to power but that a class — the masses of the working people — come to power and act in their own interests, self-empowerment,  self-liberation, self-emancipation. The key to victory is motivating the majority. Any struggle that neglects this will only end in disaster. There is no shortcut to change the system.

Life's Lottery

Wealthy women in Glasgow are now living more than a decade longer than their poorer counterparts – and the gap is widening.

A new report from the Glasgow Centre for Population Health on health in Glasgow, shows the average life expectancy of affluent females is 85.2, while women living in the city's most deprived areas are only expected to reach 74.5. The gap has increased from 8.1 to 10.7 years over a 15-year period - a finding described as "unacceptable" by anti-poverty campaigners who argue life expectancy should not depend on wealth or the lottery of where you are born and live. The report shows that while life expectancy has increased for women from most socio-economic levels, those in affluent areas have seen a bigger increase, creating an 11-year gap between rich and poor neighbourhoods for the period 2008-2012. Four communities also saw a reduction in female life expectancy - Drumchapel, Maryhill Road Corridor, Croftfoot and Anniesland and Jordanhill and Whiteinch. Life expectancies across the city now range from a low of 73.1 years in Ruchill and Possilpark, to 84.3 years in affulent areas such as Kelvindale and Kelvinside.

The research also reveals that women in Glasgow are still more likely to die sooner than those in other Scottish cities, although the gap is narrowing. A girl born in Glasgow is likely to live for 78.7 years - 2.4 years less than girls in Scotland as a whole. For men, the gap in life expectancy in the city is wider than for women, with 13 years between the most and least deprived. This has remained relatively unchanged over the last 15 years.

Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, said: "It is unacceptable in 21st century Glasgow that the life expectancy between the richest and poorest remains so wide, and is in fact continuing to grow for women. We know that women are more likely to be in poverty than men, and there are many reasons for this including lower wages and a higher dependency on the social security system. The negative impact of poverty on health is well documented, and this research shows that we are still not making the progress we need to in this area. People's life expectancy should not rely on their postcode."

Glasgow anti-poverty group WestGAP said they regularly see women from deprived communities working into later life despite ill-health and disabilities, with many also caring for relatives. Advice worker Sinead Dunn said: "It’s upsetting but not surprising to see the increase in the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor women in Glasgow. This is another example of the devastating effect that government policies are having on the poorest in Glasgow."

John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group, added: "There is a huge body of evidence that demonstrates that a decent income is vital for good health, yet the incomes of the poorest, and women in particular, are being squeezed even further as low wages and benefit cuts bite into family finance.

"It’s vital now that the health service and government at every level build on the positive work already underway to integrate income maximisation across public health services."

We have a Dream

“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.

Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism in the world. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. With socialism, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Because the working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. Today we often hear of government control of the railroads or post office as socialism. But under capitalism the state serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Government involvement in the economy is a form of state capitalism. When the government intervenes in the economy, it does so to help, not hurt, capitalism.

What, then, will socialism look like? The specific exact features of socialism will emerge as the struggle against capitalism develops and evolves but our vision of socialism can be generalised. There will be no basis for billionaires or paupers.

The means of production – the factories, mines, mills, workshops, offices, agricultural fields, transportation system, media and mass communications, medical facilities, retailers, etc., will be transformed into social property – common ownership. Private ownership of the main means of production will end. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible. Rational economic planning will replace the present anarchistic system. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by administrative agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people, and steadily advance. Because capitalism already has a developed and centralised economy, socialism’s main task will be to reorient this structure towards social needs. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and some experiment. There could be a combination of central planning and local coordination. Working people will assume administration of the economy, manage democratically through workers’ and community councils. The people will elect officials and delegates at all levels. There will be the right of recall and referendum. Various policies might be used, depending on what will be appropriate to changing conditions. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of common ownership, production for the people’s needs, and the elimination of exploitation. The protection of the environment would be ensured.

Standing in the way of social progress and socialism is the capitalist class, composed of the owners and administrators of the huge multinational banks and corporations that control the economic life and whose power extends far beyond the boundaries of nation-states to control the destinies of millions of others around the globe. These capitalists are very wealthy and live off the exploited labor of others.

The working class is the class that is most systematically and brutally exploited by capitalism, and is the most revolutionary class. The working class is composed of all wage earners – mental and manual, urban and rural – whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public, or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. Some workers may make more money than some in the petty bourgeoisie, but they are still members of the working class because they do not exploit the labor of others and must sell their labor power to survive. The vast majority of people belong to the working class. The working class produces the wealth appropriated by the capitalists and its basic interest lies in the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. It will be the leading class in the socialist revolution. The working class is worldwide, composed of workers of many different nationalities. Their common identity is that they are all exploited by the capitalist class.

Although the promise of capitalism is that it is colour-blind and a system that provides equal opportunities for all to attain upward social mobility, the empirical reality across the globe has been anything but the promise. The market system has always taken advantage of race, gender, and ethnicity to divide the working class. What a better way to co-opt a segment of the disgruntled masses and keep them divided than to have such right-wing populists who point to working people of a different race, ethnicity and religion? Divisive tactics based on race, religion and ethnicity were commonly used by European colonialists to co-opt the native population and to keep it divided, whether in Africa, India or the rest of Asia, especially in the 19th and early 20th century. In short, the tactics of European imperialists remain alive and well in 21st century. Class solidarity is the only hope for blacks, Hispanics and all working people. Solidarity exists among the black and white capitalists but not necessarily among the black and white working class. 

We are calling for a new world civilisation

Want a world without poverty, war, hunger or suffering? Sounds incredible, doesn’t it, yet it could be possible, in just a matter of decades. The Socialist Party proposes an alternative vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilisation. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our political and economic social system in which the age-old curses of war, poverty, hunger and unnecessary human suffering are viewed as totally unacceptable. Anything less will result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems inherent in today’s world.

The Socialist Party mission is to inspire change for the common good. Socialism prioritises the well-being of people and the planet. Socialism is based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. A new economic system is to be built, raising production to a higher level, ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. Science and art is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. The socialist commonwealth liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, will provide real liberty for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

The world today is full of stark and bewildering contradictions. The greatest industrial and agricultural capacity in history cannot feed, clothe and provide a decent livelihood for millions. Countless others work away their lives to survive, while billionaires squander fortunes on mansions and fly around the world in private jets. The capitalist system has concentrated the ownership of the tremendous productive forces in the hands of a small group of big capitalists. Poverty and economic insecurity exist alongside extravagance. What is the reason for the potential of this society, and its stark reality? Why is there such a gap between what is and what could be? The answer cannot be found in "human nature" and simply that is the way things are. Capitalism, the social system under which we live, is responsible for the unfulfilled promise of society. A system of exploitation, violence, racism and war stifles our lives.

In capitalist society, the capitalists own the means of production and engage in production for the sole purpose of making profits and satisfying their private interests. Therefore, though there may be planned production in a few enterprises, competition is rife and lack of co-ordination prevails among the different enterprises and economic departments as a whole. Adjustment based on a unified plan is completely out of the question and anarchy in all social production is the order of the day. Cyclical economic crises which break out in capitalist society are the inevitable result of anarchy in production. They not only greatly undermine the social productive forces, but also are disastrous for people.

Capitalism thrives on the private control of society’s wealth and production – production involving the interconnected efforts of millions of working people. Workers are wage slaves who survive only by selling their labour power to the capitalists. Capitalists own the means of production and pay workers for their labour power. But the working class produces far more wealth than it receives in income. The difference is the source of capitalist profits. The rich have one basic goal in life: to make more and more profits, and they accomplish this by dominating the economics, politics, and cultural life of the world. The employing class will throw their workers out into the streets to starve, promote violent racism, and build a military arsenal that can destroy the world several times over – anything for profits! This is an irrational and unjust system. But the world does not have to be this way. If the working people, and not the ruling class, controlled the great resources of our society, we could better all our lives.

Our aim as democratic socialists is to build an independent movement for the achievement of socialism that awaits the building of a mass consciousness in factories and offices. The Socialist Party is presently primarily concerned with pointing out the defects of the capitalist system and advocating its replacement by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. The success of creating the cooperative commonwealth will depend very largely upon the education and enlightenment of fellow workers. 

We can change our society, and eliminate capitalist exploitation and injustice, by overthrowing the capitalists. We can replace capitalism with a humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit of society; where the common good, not profits, becomes the chief concern; where the everyday working people become the rightful masters of society. Sounds radical, but a radical solution is what is needed to remove the miseries we all face in our daily lives. There is no other choice today but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day, win socialism. Socialism will qualitatively improve the lives of the working people. Socialism will be built on the powerful productive capacities now suppressed by capitalism. Each person is faced with the choice of either enduring the suffering of unemployment, globalisation and war; or taking the path of struggle, joining with the millions of others who are dissatisfied and know that a better society is possible. Women and men, young and old, and people of all nationalities are realising we must unite and struggle to survive, to be able to work, eat and live as decent human beings. We could enjoy a society that is not preparing constantly for war and self-extinction. This is the hope that encourages us forward. The Socialist Party is dedicated to realising that day when the exploiters, racists and warmongers will be thrown from power forever, and a new world for the people can begin. Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Men and women can and will bring about this historic transformation.  

Many of us elderly socialist campaigners may well not live to see socialism but we foresee it with confidence. We witness all the strains and stresses around the world that inevitably must result in this development. What we leave undone will be done by others. The things we did not see will be seen by others. When people say a socialist revolution is unlikely, be that as it may, socialism is vital to our long term survival as a species.

Capitalism must go

Workers have no country.

We have a world to win

Wipe the nationalist, xenophobic, slavers away from your mouth. Immigrant workers are not scabs. Every country now is part of an integrated global economy and class structure. It is the capitalist class's country and the capitalist class's world. Why should workers, who produce all the wealth in the world be denied the right to go where they please to engage in economic activity, or be restricted in their movements, while the parasite capitalist class can export their capital or exploit workers in wealth making opportunities for their self-enrichment, anywhere they damn well please without let or hindrance? Why should workers on benefits (reserve army of wage-enslaved labour for future exploitation by the capitalist class) have to jump through bureaucratic red-tape hoops, for the basic human need of a place to live, while the capitalist parasite class can have luxury homes all over the world? Why should the world’s workers, who produce all of the wealth, have to put up with inferior housing, while the parasite class live in mansions? Stuff the landlords. Immigration is hardly a factor in governments, Labour and Tory stopping building council houses and encouraging their sale, with no 'like for like' new builds.  Immigrants are not the cause of the housing crisis. They suffer the consequences just the same as we all do. The problem is capitalism's production for sale with private, corporate and state ownership of resources by the minority global and national capitalist parasite class. Food, housing, heating and clothing could be freely available as tap water used to be in a sane, democratic, production for use, free access, commonly owned post-capitalist society.

The idea that immigrants can only have a negative effect on wages and living standards is a common one. Nigel Harris in ‘The New Untouchables’ quotes research that argues that ‘modern econometrics cannot find a single shred of evidence that immigrants have an adverse impact on the earnings and job opportunities of natives of the United States’. And he gives the example of the Los Angeles economy which expanded in the 1970s, largely as the result of increased demand caused by legal and illegal immigration.

Likewise the increase in immigration in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s did not lead to increased unemployment – rather the massive explosion in unemployment levels in the 1970s and beyond was caused by the boom-bust cycle of the capitalist system itself. Secondly, immigrants and refugees are not a drain on the social security system – in fact, as Harris shows, they contribute far more to the ‘system’ than they receive in return. Whether you look at Caribbean immigrants who came to Britain in the 1960s, few of which drew retirement pensions, or whether you take Mexican migrants to California, where a 1980 study found that less than 5 percent received any assistance from welfare services, and in all sectors, except education, they paid far more than they received – a net balance sheet shows that the ‘host’ nation gains far more than it gives in return.

Furthermore, migration has another very favourable benefit for the ruling class in the ‘host’ country – namely that they don’t have to contribute to the cost of raising and educating the immigrant worker.

It is the system of capitalist production that produces unemployment, homelessness, destitution and crumbling health services, – not workers, be they ’indigenous’ or foreign. The bosses hope to keep the worst-off sections of workers fighting with each other over shrinking pieces of a small pie instead of uniting to fight for a decent life for all.

The rationale of immigration control is that such chauvinist legislation is founded on the nation state and the feverish competition in which that nation state is engaged. It splits and divides workers from their main objectives, and, in the long run, weakens their strength all over the world. It cannot be contemplated by a world socialist.

The only possible attitude of progressive workers, is opposition to immigration control. We have to reject all laws that divide the working class into legals and illegals. It is the height of treachery to our class and we would do well to remember that the working class stretches far beyond Britain’s borders. It is blatant racism, and opportunism to opt for a policy of blaming the immigrant for all British workers’ woes, even if this will strike a chord with the basest instincts of many workers.

Before anything constructive can be done, capitalism must go and, with it, the artificial division of the world into separate, competing states. This leads inevitably to war, when the capitalist parasitic class thieves fall out. (Business by other means). War and poverty are inevitable concomitants of capitalism. We need to abolish the out-moded and old-fashioned division of the world into nation states. Instead we need to cooperate on a world basis to meet our material needs and energy requirements.

A choice of extreme Tory cuts or less extreme Labour cuts. No, it is no choice. Capitalism must go. A plague on all parties who wish to retain capitalism. Socialism should be hostile to all the parties of capitalism, Red, Blue, Green, Tartan or whatever flag they drape over their wage-slavery administration exploitative activities. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It comes into the world oozing blood form every pore.

Only workers themselves can bring to fruition the post-capitalist revolution of free-access, delegated democracy, production for use, a price-free, wageless, moneyless, society. Business is not 'people friendly'. Real socialism will do away with the business of exploiting workers in return for a wage or salary and channeling profits to the few. Dissolve all government 'over' you and elect yourselves into common ownership and democratic control over all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

The socialist alternative to the profit system is:

• common ownership: no individuals or groups of individuals have property rights over the natural and industrial resources needed for production.

• democratic control: everybody has an equal say in the way things are run including work, not just the limited political democracy we have today.

• production for use: goods and services produced directly to meet people's needs, not for sale on a market or for profit.

• free access: all of us have access to what we require to satisfy our needs, not rationed as today by the size of our pay-cheque or state hand-out

The socialism we are espousing takes care that no elites can emerge, with a majority revolution. 

Firstly: Production for use creates a superabundance of necessities, so hoarding will be silly) when we all have the collective power and any democracy is delegatory, with recall-able delegates, when we need to use them, locally , regionally and globally. This, rather than representative democracy as presently where we surrender power to elected or unelected political elites. Secondly: Socialism is administration 'of resources' rather than, capitalist government, 'over people.

Capitalist bourgeois democracy is flawed in this regards as you seem to have figured, but perfectly adequate, to run top down administrations 'over' people, thus entrenching power, as all previous revolutions have been minority led ones to establish minority class dominance, although they used the majority to achieve their aims. There will be no government over people in the post-capitalist commonly owned world. This is an essential feature of minority ownership in capitalist class society. In a classless, commonly owned society, government ceases to exist as an oppressive necessity, loses this feature and becomes an administration of resources. People will organise wealth production and distribution themselves, locally, regionally and globally. In a real delegatory democracy rather than a representative government on behalf of a ruling elites. All wealth will spring, as it does presently, from labour. The difference will be as it is a production for use society, utilising the technological potential capacity of the present, to produce a superabundance of necessities, instead of rationing it, stifling production through the market necessity to profit for a few. There will be no means of exchange as markets cease to exist, when all wealth is owned in common. Don't follow leaders. Elect yourself instead to a democratic post-capitalist system of production for use and free access.

"From each according to their ability to each according to their needs".

Wee Matt

Eight years of CND (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

For CND the great days are over. Nowadays, almost the only sign that it ever existed is the annual Easter demonstration. And yet, in its day the campaign made a terrific impact on the British political scene. Its slogan and adopted symbol were universally recognised; it was half of an argument which split the mighty Labour Party from top to bottom and which consistently hogged the headlines and correspondence columns of the National Press.

CND was the marvel of a time notorious for its political apathy, but the wonder is not that it happened at all, rather why it took so long to materialise. From the moment Rutherford split the atom it became simply a question of time before the warlike, capitalist society would utilise this new source of energy for its own destructive ends.

Nevertheless, those thirteen years between Hiroshima and the formal launching of CND need some explaining. After 1945, most people felt that the Bomb would never be used again. The “aggressors” had been vanquished and anyway only the USA possessed the secret. The outbreak of the cold war plus Russia's entry into the Nuclear Club aroused fears which were aggravated by the Korean conflict and the development and subsequent testing of the vastly more powerful H-Bomb.

With the Lucky Dragon episode the volume of protest gathered force during the early 'fifties. Later on, literature and the cinema reflected this trend; Robert Jungk’s book Brighter Than A Thousand Suns, set many a mind working, while the film, Hiroshima Mon Amour, evoked horror by its display of grossly mutated children born of parents who were radiation victims.

Anti-nuclear groups sprang up everywhere and the Suez affair in 1956, helped swell the ranks. The same year, Khrushchev’s revelations about Stalin’s Russia, followed by the brutal suppression of the Hungarian uprising, brought new recruits already well versed in the business of protest. Likewise, disgruntled “left-wingers” saw in the disarmers a lever with which to alter Labour’s defence policy. Add to these religious groups, Anarchists,etc., and we have the ingredients of what eventually emerged as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in February, 1958.

But the majority were not politically involved at all. Mostly, they came from what is wrongly called a “middle-class-background”—Teachers, Students, Clerks. They were not even social reformers, accepting the world more or less as it was, with one reservation—Nuclear weapons Many did not even oppose conventional weapons, considering these, at any rate, necessary to defend “our” country. Alex Comfort, a prominent Campaigner, summed up this attitude at the inaugural meeting when he said .. .

“If we are asked, as we will be, ‘What is your alternative? How else do you think this country should be defended?' We may indeed propose alternative policies. But we are bound to reply, ‘Whatever policy may be right, this one (Nuclear weapons) is wrong'.” This simplicity of aim was epitomised in the slogan which, today. CND is trying to forget—“Ban the Bomb.”

So CND was united by the slenderest of threads and even then only sometimes. The Communist Party, for instance, was prepared to march against the Bomb—provided it was British or American. When Russia resumed testing in 1961, CND held a protest demonstration in Glasgow culminating in an attempt to hand a petition to a visiting Russian Diplomat. The Communists were conspicuous by their absence.

And although the British Party’s Report of its 1963 Conference could say ... “We deplore the tendency of the peace movement to divide, to break up into rival groups on questions of tactics in the struggle,” it did not mention that the Japanese Party had just split the movement in Japan by refusing to condemn Russian tests as well as American.

It seemed to them that they must succeed, as even the famous—scientists, entertainers, clergymen—added to the clamour for Britain to unilaterally renounce nuclear weapons.

Indeed, the point was reached where CND could claim that a third of the population shared their view, but significantly this opinion was never tested at the Polls. The reason is not hard to find. Many of the campaign's supporters were committed to the various political Parties and it was to these, in the final analysis, that they owed their allegiance.

A Mr. Feltz discovered this when he considered standing as an official unilateralist at Barnet at the General Election. He subsequently stood down because he found . . . “CND supporters' loyalties greatly divided. After I had addressed them, I received a telephone call saying they had decided not to alienate themselves from the Labour Party.” (Guardian, 21/2/64). More recently, various CND'ers were engaged in a public squabble over whether or not to support the Labour candidate at the Hull North By-election.

This pre-occupation with the Labour Party provides the key to the Campaign’s efforts to win that Party over to its point of view. If 1960 was CND’s high-point then this was because of its “victory” at the Labour Conference that year, when a unilateralist resolution, backed by leaders of several of the largest Trade Unions, won a majority of votes.

Those CND supporters in the unions were illogical. They knew that, in this jungle-world of conflicting economic interests Nation and Nation, Employers and Employers, are engaged in an endless struggle. All very well Ted Hill of the Boilermakers prattling about Britain facing the world “armed only with moral dignity of purpose,” but he had no answer to his opponents’ invitation to try negotiating with the Employers on the same basis.

Predictably, Gaitskell and the majority of Labour MP’s, recognised a sure-fire vote-loser when they saw one, refused to accept the verdict and by organising a little more efficiently easily reversed the vote the following year. Many CND'ers, dismayed by this, turned to non-democratic action such as sabotage, and when this failed to produce results, dwindled away to the extent that a much-ballyhooed National demonstration at Faslane in 1964 could muster a mere seven hundred supporters.

To-day, CND simply does not know where it stands. The initial idea of unilateralism has been replaced by policies which are extremely vague; its one-time adherents are hiving-off to the futility of reformist politics or to frustrated inactivity.

Has CND achieved nothing, then? What about the Test Ban Treaty? Campaigners like to think that their activities influenced the great powers to agree to a cessation of testing, but the facts are that both sides stopped testing only because each saw it as being in its own interests to do so. Mr. MacNamara, the American Secretary of Defence, claimed that the Moscow Treaty meant that the USA . . . “can at least retard Soviet progress and prolong the duration of our technical superiority.’' The Russian Government denied this, insisting that it was they who stood to gain in a military sense from the Treaty (Guardian, 14/8/63).

Whatever happens, if one side feels it is losing on the deal, then the tests will be restarted notwithstanding the most solemn pledges.

Can we not even agree that whatever its faults, CND fulfilled a useful function by drawing attention to one of Capitalism’s horrors? But the Bomb was too big an issue to be ignored forever and for CND to claim all the credit for the growing awareness is to emulate the Rooster who imagined his crowing brought the Sun up every morning.

And could we not, by joining the March, have used the opportunity to gain recruits? Actually, we did gain new members without marching a single step; we did this by simply selling our literature and discussing. More important, we played no part in perpetuating an organisation which we knew to be wrong and would inevitably lead to disillusion on a grand scale.

Always, there are groups in protest against some aspect or other of this social system. CND’ers come into this category. They leave intact the very thing which spawned nuclear weapons—the private property basis of Capitalism—so their cause is hopeless.

Supposing the Bomb could be banned. If two Nations, possessing the necessary technical knowledge, should quarrel seriously enough over the things wars are really fought for— markets, sources of raw materials, strategic Bases, etc—and even supposing they commenced fighting with “conventional,” “moral” weapons, would not the losing side set its scientists to producing nuclear weapons in order to stave off defeat? If history is anything to go by, the side which was winning would use the Bomb and justify this by claiming it had brought hostilities to a speedier conclusion.

It would require several volumes to deal with every “solution” which CND’ers have dreamt-up over the years. From World Government or alignment with the “uncommited Nations” (some strange bedfellows in this lot), to “disengagement” and the farcical “Steps Towards Peace,” every straw has been clutched at.

Anyway, even if it were possible, Capitalism minus the Bomb would not solve the problem of war; a world based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production, alone, will do that. So, being after something fundamentally different, we have no alternative but to oppose CND.

One final point. We do not deny the sincerity of many campaigners; the energy and ingenuity they displayed in tackling a job they considered important provided further proof that once working men and women get on the right track Capitalism’s days are numbered.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Br.

Upside-Down World

Capitalism is not serving the majority of humanity. Capitalism is an economic system which has as its goal the production of capital. This capital is then used to produce more capital, ad infinitum. Anyone who tells you that socialism can be just a cozier, nicer version of capitalism, must be considered suspect.

Capitalism divides the persons engaged in work - producing the goods and services upon which life depends - into two basic groups: employers and employees. In capitalism, the former buy the labor power of the latter. Employers hire employees in two distinct groups. One group (production workers, blue-collar workers etc.) is set to work with tools, equipment and work-spaces to transform raw materials into finished products, both goods and services. The other group (enablers, white-collar workers etc.) is set to work doing the necessary clerical, supervisory, security and managerial tasks that support the first group to produce those finished products. Employers make all key production decisions - what to produce, how and where - with little or no input from employees. Employers likewise make all the key decisions about what to do with the enterprise's profit or surplus. Employees again have little or no power over the disposition of the profits their work achieves.

Let’s say that you’re getting paid $15 an hour by a business owner in a stable, profitable firm. You’ve been working there five years, and you put in about sixty hours a week. No matter what your job is like — whether it’s easy or grueling, boring or exciting — one thing is certain: your labor is making more (probably a lot more) than $15 an hour for your boss. That persistent difference between what you produce and what you get back in return is exploitation — a key source of profits and wealth in capitalism. And, of course, with your paycheck you’re forced to buy all the things necessary for a good life — housing, health care, child care, a college education — which are also commodities, produced by other workers who are not fully remunerated for their efforts either.

Socialists want a world without private property. We don’t want a world without personal possessions— the things meant for individual consumption and enjoyment. Instead, socialists strive for a society without private property — the things that give the people who own them power over those who don’t. That’s the socialist vision: abolishing private ownership of the things we all need and use — factories, banks, offices, natural resources, utilities, communication and transportation infrastructure — and replacing it with social ownership, thereby undercutting the power of elites to hoard wealth and power. And that’s also the ethical appeal of socialism: a world where people don’t try to control others for personal gain, but instead cooperate so that everyone can flourish.

The power created by private property is expressed most clearly in the labor market, where business owners get to decide who deserves a job and who doesn’t, and are able to impose working conditions that, if given a fair alternative, ordinary people would otherwise reject. And even though workers do most of the actual work at a job, owners have unilateral say over how profits are divided up and don’t compensate employees for all the value they produce. Socialists call this exploitation. Exploitation is not unique to capitalism. It’s around in any class society, and simply means that some people are compelled to toil under the direction of, and for the benefit of, others. In a socialist society you and your fellow workers wouldn’t spend your day making others rich. You would keep much more of the value you produced. This could translate into more material comfort, or, alternatively, the possibility of deciding to work less with no loss in compensation so you could go to school or take up a hobby. That may sound like a pipe dream, but it’s entirely plausible. Workers at all levels of design, production, and delivery know how to make the things society needs — they do it every day. They can run their workplaces collectively, cutting out the middle-men who own private property. Indeed, democratic control over our workplaces and the other institutions that shape our communities is the key to ending exploitation.