Real Scottish Socialists

It would a most wonderful experience to live in socialism, yet, many workers cannot see socialism coming in their lifetime. However, the Socialist Party says to our fellow-workers that the next best is to fight for it.

It certainly does not require a great genius to understand that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owners and a minority who are owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large businesses whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world. Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" companies merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.

Scottish workers don't have to attend a university to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "Clearances" are any less brutal and avaricious than their English counterparts. The Scottish nation, whether independent or united with England, is divided into classes, as is society elsewhere. It is this division which accounts for the existence of the evils from which the Scottish workers suffer. English rule did not account for the fact that the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands led to the congestion in its industrial slums. The Scottish chieftains themselves turned out their own clansmen in order to make way, first for sheep and later for deer, in order to fill their own pockets. The notorious Duchess of Sutherland, for example, had 15,000 people hunted out in the six years 1814-20 and called in British soldiers to enforce the eviction. The political union merely facilitated the development of capitalist robbery with violence.

Capitalism was born and flourished on brutality, both at home and abroad. The history of Scotland, while differing in detail from that of England, followed the same general course. By their divorce from the land, a nation of peasants were converted into wage-slaves, exploited by a class ready to convert the world into one gigantic market. The forces of competition thus let loose may be held in check to some degree by national legislatures, but no final solution for the havoc they create can be found along such lines. The problem is essentially an international one, and must be internationally solved. That, however, calls not for nationalist parties, but for parties in all countries which clearly recognise the common interest of the workers of the world, namely, to achieve their emancipation as a class. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one.

The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fact of life and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and the seat of government. Their anti-working class nonsense and buffoonery rests upon the political ignorance of the Scottish workers whose political and social interests—like their fellow-workers everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy. Capitalism in Scotland, in England, America, Germany, Russia, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on. These problems arise with sublime impartiality as to forms of government, climate and previous political history, they arise in democracies and dictatorships in the two hemispheres and in big and wee countries. Scotland is only a small part of an economic system which embraces the whole world. It could never enjoy any real autonomy or self-sufficiency in the face of the world market. From day one it will be buffeted by hostile economic forces entirely beyond its control.

The defence against this stratagem is, as always the re-statement of the socialist case and an iron confidence in the working-class ability eventually to solve their own problems without the assistance of any Lairds. The duty of the Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise democratically to take political power to establish socialism.

There are many parties claiming to be socialist who ally themselves with the capitalist class for temporary gains, ignoring the fact that working men and women will not make a distinction between those parties. If their votes are asked for in support of reforms which do not make any fundamental difference to their social position or problems, the workers naturally tend to support the political party that will make the most enticing promises, whatever be the label. Those who do not fulfil their promises are simply deserted. Too often, so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘radicals’ publish a mish-mash menu of wishful goals as an election manifesto. Such electioneering opportunism tries to give a movement size without substance and only raises false expectations and leave the way open for the inevitable disillusionment and collapse. On the other hand, had those parties based their case on sound principles, had all compromise been excluded, the parties in question would have been smaller, but would have raised no false hopes nor brought to many the inevitable despair.  Socialist education demands that besides advocating the establishment of socialism, the obstacles that stand in its path must be pointed out. So they offer their support and their vote for political parties that offer them half-a- loaf instead of the bakery and the wheat-fields.

When the workers get on the right track of understanding their position they will cease to worry over comparatively trivial differences in their conditions, whether as between nations or between districts or separate towns. They will recognise that they suffer varying degrees of poverty because at present they exist merely to produce profits for their masters and that it is a matter of comparative indifference to them whether these masters are English or Scots, Germans or Japanese. Their aim will be to abolish masters of every nationality and to organise the production of wealth for their common good.

The socialist case will continue to be heard and advocated in this part of the world despite our few numbers.

Why the SPGB?

In 1904 a small group of workers got together and formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain, aiming to bring the message of the necessity of a socialist solution to the gathering world crisis. That small group did have a few things going for it. They knew where to start and based their principles on the experiences of Marxist thought and action. The Socialist Party named the enemy—the capitalist profit system organised around the world. While supporting the workers’ organisations, the trade unions, the socialists in the SPGB saw their task as advocating action to establish socialism, the need for a socialist revolution, and for politically conscious working class to be the agent of social change. Members of the Socialist Party still hold that revolution is required if humanity is to survive the ever-present threat of extermination. There is nothing more threatening to the rule of the corporate oligarchs and plutocrats than the prospect of a party of hundreds of thousands that fearlessly tells the truth to the people. Only such a movement can in time become millions, then tens of millions and eventually win.

The Socialist Party can and will win the hearts and minds of people when they see us as reliable and unshakeable if we stand our ground. In due course, it will lead to respect and then support. Truth can only be ascertained upon the battlefield of ideas. The Socialist Party does not consider itself a substitute for other movements, such as peace groups and other single-issue organisations but seeks to unite people around one specific platform – the establishment of socialism. We continue along the road of political independence, building a party of, by and for the people. We disown the most well-trodden path of “lesser evil” politics. Those who call for a “lesser evil” make possible the greater evil. It has always been a dead-end strategy for working people.

In modern times the privileged groups are neither capable enough nor numerous enough to do the work of suppression themselves and so they beguile sections of the oppressed into the belief that the interests of all are identical with the continuance of privilege and they endeavour to weaken the movement for change by setting other sections at loggerheads. Such being the position the only thing that will combat capitalist movements is clearness of understanding—the spread of knowledge among the workers. Temporary expedients that give a movement size without solidity only raise false hopes and leave the way open for the inevitable disillusionment and collapse. While parties claiming to be “socialist” ally themselves with capitalist groups to gain temporary ends, working men will not draw a line of fundamental distinction between any of the groups that solicit their support. While their votes are asked for in support of reforms that do not make any fundamental difference in their social position, the workers naturally tend to support the group that makes the most enticing promises, whatever be the label—in fact, the newer the label the better. Those who do not fulfil their promises are temporarily deserted. The capitalists know this quite well, hence, their misuse of the term "socialist” so much lately.

Capitalism was born and flourished on brutality, both at home and abroad. As far as Britain is concerned, what a record of brutality is contained in the history of the treatment of its factory and agricultural slaves during the last century, of the treatment of the Irish, the African and the Indian. While there is no justification for a conclusion that capitalism can be knocked down with a feather, there is more and more evidence that people no longer hold their old confidence in capitalism. All around us all around the World, we have signs of a changing attitude towards capitalism. But there is an undeniable gulf between the objective revolutionary conditions and the political consciousness of workers that requires being bridged. Agitating for minimum demands realisable within the framework of capitalism has now outlived its usefulness, if it ever had one but we can affirm with absolute certainty, the working class will meet with disillusionment.  Our task is to build the socialist movement. The central issue is the burning need to replace the present profit system with socialism — a society geared to human needs. The Socialist Party uses its election campaigns to explain causes of the fundamental problems confronting working people today. It is the irrationality of the profit system.

Poverty, Cancer and Processed Meat in Glasgow

Glasgow has long been notorious for the astonishing gap in life expectancy between rich and poor. Men who can expect to die at the age of just 54 live within a few miles of those who will survive well into their 80s.

Now researchers believe they have found a key reason for this disparity – the regular consumption of cheap, processed meat, particularly by the city’s poorest men. Last year the World Health Organisation warned that processed meat caused cancer and red meat was also “probably” carcinogenic. 

High levels of phosphate in red meat was linked to premature ageing and kidney damage. And the study found that phosphate was much more easily absorbed by the body from meat containing additives. Phosphate occurs naturally in many foodstuffs, such as meats, fish, eggs, dairy products and vegetables. But consuming too much of the substance wears down telomeres, vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes that help protect against a range of diseases -- from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer's and cancer. Telomeres are so important that some scientists even believe they can be measured to give an accurate prediction of when someone will die.

The researchers found the link between high phosphate levels and more frequent consumption of red meat only in men. The most deprived men had 7.4 per cent higher phosphate intake than the least deprived. The type of meat appears particularly important. Someone eating red meat might absorb 60 per cent of its phosphates, but would take in 100 per cent from red meat with additives, Professor Shiels said.

The Glasgow study analysed people from the most deprived and the least deprived areas covered by NHS Greater Glasgow. The results, reporting in the journal Ageing, suggested that phosphate from red meat consumption increased a person's biological age in contrast to their actual age. While some people in less deprived areas ate a similar amount of red meat, they also tended to eat more fruit and vegetables which helped offset the effect.

One of the researchers, Professor Paul Shiels, of Glasgow University's Institute of Cancer Sciences, said the main reason people were eating a bad diet was because they could not afford a better one. 

“It’s poverty, it’s not a personal choice. Addressing poverty is the route to tackling this properly,” he said. “You need to be able to afford to buy good-quality food. If you don’t and you can’t get quality red meat without additives, you’re going to have an issue.” [Socialist Courier emmphasis]

End Capitalism Now

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, a party of the World Socialist Movement, addresses itself to fellow workers. We stand for a socialised economy in which the profit system will be replaced by the cooperation of people. If you don't want a classless world of common ownership then the Socialist Party doesn't want your support.

 Between droughts and floods, it appears that vast sections of this planet are becoming uninhabitable. Millions of people are driven from their homes and plunged into dire suffering before the onslaughts of nature. While we call it `nature’, it is well known that behind the present destructive developments of natural forces, lies the responsibility of the capitalist class. This planet has been a great treasure house of nature, which the capitalists the owners of the natural resources, have despoiled. The environmental ravages of today are directly traceable to their activities. They cut down the forests and made great profits in selling timber and raising cattle or soya. With the forests has gone the undergrowth and root-system and thus the soil has been deprived of the natural spongy character it originally possessed, which absorbed the excess water of melting snows and spring rain. Hence, the floods which now afflict many parts of the land.  The great industrialised monoculture farms have been stripped of their natural protective covering of grasses in order to plant great fields of grain and then sprayed with fertilizer and pesticides. The top soil, necessary, has been blown or washed away.  Scientists do not hesitate to show that capitalism has destroyed the, has reduced the size of the lakes, has eroded the soil, has dried up the rivers and so forth.

Temperatures today are far more severe and subject to more violent changes than ever before. The dire results of the capitalists’ wastefulness and destruction are now effecting capitalist property as well as working class lives so now some governments are sitting up and taking. Private property must be protected. But any plan undertaken today to cope can only be based profits, not in the benefit of humanity as a whole. Such capitalist planning can be carried out only at the expense of the working class and by means of the exploitation of the working class. It is not for us to propose plans for the capitalists to solve their problems, nor to support any of their plans. We know that when the workers of this country take over the means of production, they will inherit the aftermath of capitalist mismanagement. But they will be able then to tackle these problems in the interests of humanity as a whole, not of a tiny minority. Science will then be freed from the main functions, which are shackling it today, namely profit making and warfare and full face can be turned to solving the ills that beset mankind. It will be understood then that natural resources will be treasured and used carefully. The great cities, those urban-centres of today, will disappear and with them the barren, unproductive waste-lands. The ancient harmony between man and nature will be restored, but on a much higher plane in which man will not be the victim of nature but its steward and trustee.

Today this profit system is old and decrepit, infected by incurable diseases, demented by delusions of grandeur and vain hopes that it can succeed in solving its ailments. The cure is not easy, and anyone who thinks it is, will be fooling him or herself. These are not easy times in which to make progress. The nature of the struggle is political. Socialist will not remain a minority; because our ideas conform to reality and are right, they will attract the majority of the people, and they will triumph. The ruling class cannot stop ideas or their spread because it cannot do away with the conditions of life that produce those ideas and it cannot prevent the rise of new generations of activists whom the future rests and who will not want the future to be like the past. Our confidence in the future is not the result of wishful thinking or of an ability to delude ourselves, but the product of study and understanding of society and history and the class struggle. Some people believe it is hopelessly impractical and idealistic to continue a struggle to end capitalism against such seemingly great odds yet experience with capitalism is going to have consequences. It is going to teach the people that if they want to survive, capitalism must die

 and that if they want peace and dignity they will first have to take power away from the capitalists. It is not the Socialist Party, primarily, who will teach these things, but capitalism itself. We’re educating all whom we can reach to the best of our ability — but capitalism is educating them too and in a way that will have deeper, more lasting, profound and revolutionary effects than any words we can speak or write. Whether they like it or not, capitalism is forced to continue to produce all kinds of opportunities for awakening people and driving them into a struggle against the conditions they endure. If socialists know how to stick to their guns and seize the opportunities offered them, then they will win over to their side all the other workers and then it will be goodbye forever to capitalism. 

Don’t be Duped by Religion

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” - Marx, (Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law)

Today the spread of atheism is unrelenting, so much so that Christianity itself is becoming increasingly  secularised. That far fewer people believe in God or Christ nowadays is some sign of progress. There is no “true” Islam or pure Buddhism, there is just the endless variety of ways humans try to interpret their world in order to act in it. Religious groups have a notorious history of stifling dissent by any means possible, even if, in Britain, nonbelievers are no longer persecuted, tortured and killed and that is because the superstitious myths and rituals with which religion cloaks itself are no longer taken seriously by the majority of the population. But there are countries where the heads of religion are still able to wield considerable power and influence. To belong to a different faith or to question that religion and try to have a reasoned discussion instead of blindly accepting its "rules" is to take great personal risks. To be a good Muslim is to possess a religious outlook that offends against the most elementary requirements of reasonable thought. And a society inhabited by unreasonable workers is one which is safe for the minority who prey on ignorance.

Religion is the badge of the mentally enslaved. It uses a cloak of mystification to reinforce its authority by promising a mythical afterlife as a reward for blind obedience and by making threats of eternal punishment, backed up by intimidation and persecution for those who do not submit. It has been a useful tool in the hands of the ruling classes to keep their subjects subservient. With their beliefs based upon “holy scriptures”, the religious looks at the world, embracing that which reinforces the beliefs, retreating from experience which conflicts with them. New knowledge, untried feelings, novel perspectives must be first mistrusted, then banned. Nothing must interfere with the dogma. But dogmatism is fragile. It is upheld by denying all other images than those which reinforce it.

Sharia-compliant Islamic banking is apparently expanding with even non-Muslims switching to Islamic banks. Islamic theologians, following in the footsteps of their end-of-Middle Ages Catholic and Protestant counterparts. In the Middle Ages, the dogma of the Catholic Church banned usury, defined as charging money for a loan. Well, but not quite. Sharia law condemns the appearance but not the substance. Capitalism is sharia-compliant.

There are no reasonable grounds for belief in the supernatural, or in gods, just as there are no grounds for belief in the existence of pink elephants, leprechauns, fairies or flying pigs. Socialists actively oppose all forms of religious superstition not only because such beliefs are unscientific and act as a barrier to understanding the society in which we live and its historical development, but also because of the socially divisive nature of religion. Workers who suffer from the delusions of religion are prepared to kill their fellow-workers in time of war; there are churches in America where blacks are not allowed; women are often considered subordinate to men and the Catholic Church will neither allow its women to become priests nor decide how many children they will have (although many Catholics now ignore the Pope's ruling on the latter).

Let us for a moment entertain this religious fantasy that the world and all of us who inhabit it are the children of a Holy Father (very rarely Mother) — never seen, but ever feared — who rules over us and must be obeyed to the letter of his commandments. Now, it tells us something about the condition of millions of workers if they can be persuaded that they are little children in need of an invisible Father, but let us examine the Christian conception of fatherhood. God, The Father (he also works as a Son and a Holy Ghost) tells us that certain forms of behaviour are wrong. Some of his children disobey the God-Father and do what is "wrong". His fatherly response is to invent a fearful, painful disease which will wipe out vast numbers of his children, thus teaching them to obey him in future. But according to the Christians, this is precisely what we should expect a father to do: the only way to teach workers the right way to behave is to kill off a few of them for behaving the wrong way.

 If God was a real parent he would need to be given help by others less deranged than himself; his children would need to be taken into care. That is what those who think they are God's children need: to be taken into care — not the care of another phoney god-image but of themselves. Transcending religious folly means learning that we are not little children destined to obey a master, but that we are capable of controlling our own lives. The Marxist materialist method allows us to understand both how humans come to create the ideas they hold, and how to change the world for ourselves. Workers must one day learn to believe in themselves. That they can really make a new and better world. And that nobody else can do it for them. We need to look to a genuine worldwide movement that offers the prospect of establishing a genuine global community through common ownership of the wealth of the world. Our materialist understanding is that by changing the way we live will change ideas and that will be liberating. Religion has always been about forcing people to conform in their ideas. The conformity required is that which meets the needs of the profit-stealing ruling class. No self-respecting worker will fall for it for long. Let us exercise our freedom to live as brothers and sisters and learn to live together as a human family of equals. As well as referring to religion as "the opium of the people", Marx called it "The self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again". The religious mentality exists in those workers who have not yet discovered the essential, exhilarating fact that we are the gods. We must make the future out of the material conditions which surround us: gods, prophets, bishops, gurus and mullahs are the illusory masters who people invent to tower over them. The socialist transformation of society will banish the capitalists from the earth and the gods from the skies—or to be accurate from the minds of men and women, where they have exercised their pernicious fantasies for too long. Those who choose to believe in powers beyond will be free to do so in a socialist society. Indeed, without the state to adopt this or that religious dogma as the official one, religious believers will be freer than they are now. Freer, but never free to tell others what to do. It will take more than a divine injunction from one of the “anointed” to tell socialists what we can think, say or write.

Nevertheless, the danger presented by religious fundamentalism is a real one. It threatens us as socialists at least as much as it threatens all other “servants of Satan”. Our ability to spread our ideas depends on the tolerance of minority opinions. Moreover, people whose minds have been addled by belief in magic, miracles and divine texts are unlikely to be receptive to socialist ideas. So we cannot say: “It doesn’t matter which group of theologians rule; they are all equally bad.” Of course, it matters. Socialists share a certain amount of common ground with non-socialists concerned to defend democracy and secularism. However, we must not jeopardise our identity as socialists by joining broad atheist blocs that accept the continued existence of capitalism. Only socialists, by holding out the prospect of real community, can act effectively to undermine the illusory religious community.

A world of free access and production for use not profit is ours for the taking. Make it so!

Socialism and a humane world

Most people consider "politics” boring, because what is generally thought of as politics is one set of professional politicians claiming to know how to make the lives of the majority even more profitable for the minority who employ us; another set quarrelling over how to do the same without it showing, and yet another set trying to do both. But politics is about power and the Socialist Party is about “people power”.  Politics is not profound or mysterious; it is the expression of class interests. The Socialist Party stands for the interests of the working class and therefore has as its policy the abolition of world capitalism and the establishment of common ownership. The profit system is hard to defend by rational argument and so many myths are used as a gloss over a system based on instability and violence. The struggle for a world of common ownership is the only struggle with a future and involves the end of mystification and the beginning of history made consciously by people free from dogma. Capitalism’s cover and camouflage have been blown away many years ago by Karl Marx.

The vital work of the Socialist Party is to encourage people to face the reality that their problems can be solved, and they can live a full, humane life, only through a social revolution which will overthrow the society of class ownership of the means of life. When these are the property of the entire human race there will be a world free of war, poverty, repression, of the tensions and ugliness which we live with today. In socialism, human beings will work and live together in harmony for the common well-being. Social relationships will be fashioned by the basis that wealth will be produced for its usefulness to people and not for the profit of a minority. In an unprecedented freedom, humans will be able to discover their true abilities; there will be a veritable explosion of creativity and people will look back on capitalism, with its wars, its poverty, its fear, its posturing leaders and the compliant, suffering people, as a black nightmare. To achieve such a new society, the world’s workers must look beyond the deceits of the leaders, to confidence in their own ability to run society in the interests of the majority. They must grasp the fact that capitalism is decadent, reactionary and repressive and that progress lies with the revolution for socialism. All the evidence encourages this conclusion; the ideas of socialism fit in with what we know of history, with the facts of our experience now, with all reasoned prospects for society tomorrow. Socialism will work and bring a humane world because it is based on reality. Socialists are the true realists. Socialism is a question of the entire re-organisation of society where the abundance of possibilities and potentialities is translated into reality.

 Neither cybernation or automation determine the direction which capitalism must take; only profitability does that and technological complexity can act to reduce profitability. But new technology may make more workers want to realise the potential through a political solution. We can welcome the new technology as another example of capitalism’s abundant productive potential which could be used to make free access easier in a socialist world while attributing to capitalism all the social conflicts such as unemployment and alienation that are arising. Capitalism has solved the problem of production; it has built up a stock of means of production capable of eliminating hunger and poverty throughout the world and even of providing plenty for everyone. But what capitalism has not solved, and cannot solve, is the problem of distributing this potential abundance. It is incapable of doing this as its economic laws decree that priority has to be given to accumulating capital, or growth. Production under capitalism is geared to making profits, and not to satisfying needs. The only way to solve this problem is production solely for use, but this can only be done on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the earth’s resources, both those made by people and natural resources; in other words, by abolishing capitalism and replacing it with socialism. Only on the basis of common ownership can the aims of the activists in the environmental movement be achieved. Only in a society in which goods are no longer produced for profit can the problems of climate change, pollution and adulteration be eliminated. Only in a society where goods are no longer produced for sale can high-quality, long-lasting goods be produced. Only on the basis of the common ownership of the earth’s resources can humans restore the balance which capitalism has upset between them and nature and live in harmony with their natural environment and live sustainably. We have been taught to organise co-operatively to produce wealth for a minority, and only the bare essentials for ourselves. There is nothing but our own fear of freedom preventing us from organising co-operatively to establish socialism, to produce for the use of all.

Socialism does presuppose a certain level of consciousness: before it can be established there must be a majority that wants and understands it. Such a socialist consciousness clearly does not exist today and that is why socialism can’t be established straight away. In fact, this is the only reason why it can’t, since everything else is there: a world-wide productive system capable of providing abundance for all and trained and qualified workers able to operate it. Those people who called themselves ‘socialist’ should devote all their efforts to helping a socialist understanding to develop. 

Let’s Change

Have we learned nothing from history? Has all the sacrifice and suffering for a better world been for nothing? We precariously perched on the edge of an abyss. The time has come when big changes are necessary. The profits of the capitalists and corporations are higher than they have ever been. The sham measures of government regulation have only increased exploitation and put still heavier burdens upon the workers. The boss class has done exceptionally well and, indeed, they have never been better off. Only by the establishment of Socialism can the World’s problems be finally solved and its people guaranteed a good life, lasting peace and decent living standards. Socialism means an end to capitalist profit and exploitation, for it will deprive the capitalists of their ownership and control of the factories and offices, mills and mines, farms and landed estates, transport, and ensure that production is organised for the use of the people and not for the profit of the tiny minority of property owners.  Because it abolishes the capitalist profit system socialism means an end to slumps and unemployment. Socialism means peace and an end to the danger of wars because under Socialism there are no longer capitalists who want to conquer new markets and capture raw materials and resources. Socialism ends all the restrictive policies of capitalism, ending the gulf between poverty and plenty, and frees the creative energies of the people and the productive resources of the world for gigantic economic, social and cultural advances on the basis of a planned socialist economy to create abundance for all to share in. Socialism means freedom for the people—freedom from poverty and insecurity, freedom for men, women and children to develop their capacities to the full, without fear or favour. The people cannot advance to socialism without real political power, which must be taken from the hands of the capitalist minority and democratically grasped by the majority of the people. The power of working people, united and who recognise the need for social change and participation in carrying it through, is capable of building socialism through an elected Parliament, creating the conditions for the establishment of socialism.

We are living in a society which is geared not to serving human needs but to producing goods, or rather commodities, to be sold on a market with a view to profit. In these circumstances food, and indeed everything else, can only be obtained in exchange for money. All social systems erect a moral, legal and intellectual superstructure suited to the interests of the ruling class. But at the same time, a social system develops a conflict between its mode of production and its social relationships, which can be resolved only through changing those relationships. Day by day, the experience of capitalism works to convince the world's workers that problems such as war and poverty will be eliminated only through a radical, fundamental change in society — by revolution.

Is the plight of humanity inevitable? No. Supposed eternal “truths” can be exposed and revealed for what they are, ideological justifications for the status quo. One attribute socialists possess in abundance and that is tenacity. We have the will, the determination and the power to overcome. Let us use our intellectual gift of problem-solving. When the socialist idea is sufficiently widespread the working class will need a political apparatus to implement their will for a revolution. That apparatus will be a world socialist movement which, when socialism is established and its historic function has been fulfilled, will go out of existence. Until that happens, socialists everywhere work to speed the change in ideas, to increase the pressures of persuasion on the workers that a class-free, money-free, poverty-free, peaceful society is the only way to eradicate all that is feared and hated and despised in modern — that is capitalist — society.

 The Socialist Party is not yet the mass socialist party that is needed to transform society. The Socialist Party are in no way trying to lead or cajole the world's people to socialism. We endeavor to raise political awareness, to alert the workers to the need to replace capitalism with socialism and to the fact that socialism must come about through our own conscious action. In the socialist revolution, and the society which will follow, the world's workers will be sisters and brothers together in a co-operative, abundant, peaceful and free human family. Will you help us grow? Let’s change.

A world socialist commonwealth

The capitalist system, not workers were responsible for the economic crisis. The present government does not represent the interests of the majority. It is dominated by agents of the big banks and corporations. All are committed to maintaining the profit system. The ‘reformers’ offer no alternative to big business control. Only the working class have the power to overturn capitalist rule and their profit system. Capitalism must be abolished. Working people need to overthrow the capitalist parties. The needs of people can only be met by creating a planned economy, where ownership and control of the means of production are taken from the tiny minority of capitalists and placed in the hands of the people, to be run democratically. Reorganised on a socialist basis, the world can be free of racism, sexism, poverty, economic insecurity and exploitation where the vast resources available to us are used to serve the needs of all instead of the profits of the few. We seek a world socialist commonwealth with an unparalleled growth in culture, freedom and the development of every individual. Such a society is worth striving for. Socialists often hear the comment that "socialism is a good idea but it’s not practical." But today it’s becoming more apparent than ever that it is the present system — capitalism — that is impractical and unworkable. The standards and quality of life are deteriorating. Reforms and individual ‘reform’ candidates will not change the condition of working people and they won’t provide society that serves workers’ interests

The Socialist Party wants to change society. But we think that problems will not disappear by wishing or hoping them away. The only way we can get a rational society, based on the needs of the majority, is by organizing for it. We host public meetings. We distribute our magazine the Socialist Standard, hand out leaflets, answer questions and just generally talking about socialism. We don’t close up shop after election days. We participate in the struggle to change the world the year round and  replace this society with a socialist one, where production and resources are controlled by the majority to serve our human needs and where every individual will have the opportunity to develop his or her potential to the fullest extent. We know that a better world is not only possible but absolutely necessary. Everywhere there is a searching for a solution to the problems confronting people.

The Socialist Party stands for a socialist society: where ownership and control of the means of production are taken out of the hands of the tiny minority of capitalists and placed in the hands of the majority. The capitalist system is run for the profits of the few, not the needs of the majority. Workers are thus continually forced to fight to defend their interests. Through these struggles, many will come to see the need for socialism, to replace capitalism. The Labour Party seek only to make capitalism work more effectively.

Capitalism, your place is in the cemetery

It follows from an analysis of capitalism that the primary task of a socialist party is to wage an intensive campaign of agitation for change by a revolution to the power and wealth of society which is transferred from one class to another. In our time, there are two fundamental classes within society, the working class and the capitalist class. The minority class owns the wealth, profits from it, keeps down the standard of living of the majority class which has no wealth. The theory of socialists is that if the enormous wealthy of society, controlled by the few, were controlled by the majority of the people poverty could be eliminated, an end could be made to war, and mankind could live in peace and plenty. To achieve its goal, this kind of revolution would be necessary on a world scale. Many real socialists today rally to the Socialist Party, the bearer of the traditions of Marx and Engels. It stands for the abolition of the profit system, social ownership management of industry, the end of wars growing out of the profit system – peace and plenty for all. Hard times for us means good times for the rich. Capitalism is proving every day that it can offer the world’s workers nothing but endless horrors. The “triumph” of the legacy of the profit system is poverty war and disease. As has been shown many times, the bosses can survive any number of crises. What they cannot survive will be the socialist revolution. The widespread discontent with the existing social order which is manifesting itself in the many voices raised against the evils of this system. But without an understanding of what is wrong and the sources of these wrongs, it is impossible to formulate a reconstruction vision which will end the problems from which we suffer. It is necessary that we have a clear understanding of what is evil and whence its source if we are to take intelligent action to remedy the situation. Among the very first of the things that are wrong and must be righted, we will set down the great uncertainty in regard to securing the necessities of life. From this anxiety only the favoured few are free.

In the past when people went hungry it was because sufficient food was not produced. A harvest failure or blight brought scarcity. Today’s problem is of a different character. We have an elaborate transport system, we have wonderful technology and we have freed ourselves from the danger of lack of food, clothing, or houses to live in because of the inability to produce them. We have solved the problem of production. We can produce all that is needed to supply the necessities of life, as well as the comforts of life — education and the opportunity for recreation — to all the people. Yet around the globe people cry for food, for homes, for healthcare and for education for their children. The ruling class would like us to forget these things. We know that the business organisations do not exist primarily for the purpose of supplying human needs. Their purpose is to make profits for their shareholders. If they cannot make profits for their shareholders, they go out of business. They are interested in producing wealth as a means of securing wealth for the limited number who share in their profits. The motive which drives the vast industrial machine which has grown up under capitalism is the desire for profits. The work of supplying human needs has become mere incidental to the process of realising profits. The evils of the present social order — insecurity and misery - are the product of the capitalist system in which the supreme purpose is the making and taking of profits. Society divides the people into two classes. Anyone with common sense will have to admit that. There are people who work for wages and those who employ wage workers. There are the people who own the industries and those who must go to the owners of industry for the opportunity to earn a living. The ownership of the means of production is the source of the power of the profit-seeking class. It gives them control over people to secure the necessities of life. The millions of men and women who are dependent upon the wages they earn for a living are economic serfs or wage-slaves. The power to hire and fire the workers, to give and take away the opportunity to earn a living, carries with it the power to compel the workers to work for such wages as will leave the capitalists a profit from their labour. The business of making profits and the source of profits is no mystery.  The capitalists’ source of profits and their great wealth was not created out of thin air. They make profits because they purchase the labour-power of the workers for less than the value of the goods the workers produce; that is, they do not pay the workers the full value of their labour. There is no other way of making profits out of industry. The lower the wages for which the capitalists can purchase the labour-power of the workers or longer they make employees work or by their increased productivity by new technology, the greater will be the capitalist’s profits. Naturally the capitalists will try to pay the lowest wages at which they can induce the workers to work. Since they are in a position to deny the workers employment if the workers do not accept their terms, they have been able to keep the wages at the point where they yield the workers a mere subsistence, or even less than a mere subsistence.

The workers naturally seek to increase their wages and reduce their working hours. They endeavour to secure for themselves better working conditions. The capitalists resist. They see their profits menaced by the workers’ demands. The workers organise their power and refuse to work unless their demands are granted, and we have a strike with all its accompaniments of stopping of production, misery and suffering for the workers.

If the goal is to build a better world, to bring them “life, liberty, and happiness”, the aim must be the abolition of the profit system. It must come hand in hand with industrial democracy and accompanied by the abolition of the rewards of private ownership — rent, interest, and profit. Together with the establishment of common ownership of industry there must be the democratic management of industry by the workers. The workers of the world will enjoy the wealth they produce. If, after supplying every family with good food, good clothing, a comfortable home, and the opportunity for culture and leisure, we find we have a surplus and an abundance, we will simply cut down the hours required to work. We can through the collective cooperative organisation and coordination of our powers of production, eliminate waste and increase in our productive capability. It will enable us to bring into existence more than enough wealth to give a high standard of living, which means good food, good clothing, good homes, well-being, peace and happiness, to every family in the world. We can eliminate all the social conflicts which are the constant accompaniment of production under the profit system. We can assure to the workers that joy which comes through creative effort when men and women are not drudges and slaves, but free. There is no hope for the working class if they continue to support the political parties representing the interest of the capitalist class. Socialism will not be established through a series of legislative acts but will be established by a mass movement of the working class. The task the workers have to do for freedom, is through building a class-conscious political movement which will carry on the work of educating the workers to an understanding of the system of exploitation which now exists. The struggle of the working class will henceforth be a political struggle for control of the State because it must gain control of the machinery of government to wrest control of the State out of the hands of the capitalist class before it can hope to establish economic democracy.  The Socialist Party is the medium through which this work can be done. At the same time it is an essential workers build up organisations in the work-places themselves, having as their goal to supersede the capitalists in control of industry and to expand and grow until they have become a huge cooperative organisation of  control and management of the work of production and of all matters pertaining to the communities common interest.

We won't be slaves any longer

Capitalism has failed miserably to provide the basic necessities of life for hundreds of millions of workers around the world. Millions of workers are unemployed, hungry and homeless.  Older workers are thrown out like garbage when they no longer have any value to employers. Capitalism is the dictatorship of the bosses. In the capitalist society, only the bosses are free - free to hire and fire, free to pillage and plunder, free to make our class fight for their profits. We will allow no freedom to exploit workers. They hold power through their political parties, their cops, their courts, and their military. Like all thieves, bosses have no honour among themselves. They are constantly falling out.

The entire labour movement should concern itself with eliminating ignorance through increasing knowledge to the working class. Men and women must transcend the narrow limits of capitalist thought  if mankind is to be saved from barbarism. Socialists look for every opportunity to turn things around. Socialism means an end to capitalism through the means of planned methods of production for use in the interests of all. We want a society whose workers run everything in the interests of the world's workers. We want a system that encourages every worker to become involved in running society; that trains everyone to act for the common good and does not indoctrinate people to "look out for number one;" that opposes placing selfish interests above the social needs. We want society to help each person grow as individuals. We want a system that stamps out such capitalist ideas as racism, nationalism and sexism. We seek to render religions unnecessary. Religion serves only the interests of the rulers, who use it to mystify workers so that conditions stay as they are.

Socialism will abolish the wage system and the sharing principle "to each according to need" will be as basic as the selfish principle "every man for himself" is to capitalism. For the first time in history, workers will receive a fair share of society's wealth, regardless of the work they do. People will work because they want to because their brothers and sisters around the world need their contribution. They will share in decision-making, including the distribution of goods and services according to society's needs. They will be abundance. Socialism will abolish socially useless forms of work that exist now only for capitalist profit. Communism will not need millions of lawyers, advertisers, or salespeople. In one stroke, it will do away with layers of needless government bureaucrats, as well as the hordes of petty supervisors and administrators who oversee and manage us for the bosses. It will free everyone to perform socially useful work, which is the source of true creativity. Socialism will not succeed unless people understand it, agree with it, and vow to make it succeed.

Ending the wage system will reduce the problems capitalism causes inside the working class. Racism, one of capitalism's greatest evils, exploits one worker to a greater degree than another.  Marx said over 100 years ago that, "the worker in white skin can never be free as long as the worker in black skin remains in chains." An egalitarian society ends the exploitative wage system and ends racism once and for all. Having rid itself of the wage system, society can also end the oppression of women and end male chauvinism, which serve only capitalism. We oppose nationalism and fight for world socialism. By nationalism, the bosses mean that workers must respect capitalist borders. These borders are artificial; they exist to divide workers and keep different sets of bosses in power. Workers need no borders. Workers in one part of the world are not different from or better than workers in another. Nationalism creates false loyalties. Workers should be loyal only to other workers, never to a boss. Our views on the war are clear, too.  We oppose all wars. We endorse the revolutionary slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!"

Homes not Hovels

“A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But if a palace arises besides the little house, the little house shrinks into a hut. The little house now shows that its owner has only very slight or no demands to make; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilisation, if the neighbouring palace grows to an equal or even greater extent, the dweller in the relatively small house will feel more and more uncomfortable, dissatisfied and cramped within its four walls.” Marx, (Wage Labour and Capital)

The problem of securing a roof over one’s head is one of the greatest uncertainties for most working people, subject as they are to the vicissitudes of the capitalist business cycles. Those who have sufficient savings for a down payment on a home stand to lose it during the depressions. Renting tenants unable to pay are mercilessly evicted. The need for homes is never satisfied, precisely because the profit system bars the way.

Assuredly it is urgent to make a change here – a change to production for use, to rational planning. The housing shortage is becoming more and more acute with no real relief in sight. The mounting cost of living and the shrinkage in housing are the twin burdens that weigh most heavily upon the mass of the people. And they can lead to the most serious upheavals. We are not speaking about some developing country where millions of suffering human beings must seek shelter among urban slums and shanty towns. We are speaking about one of the richest countries in the world. In the UK skills are available and so are the raw materials. Technology has made new and great strides. And yet, there is exist a housing shortage where young no longer believe they can get on the first rung of ownership. Nor do people believe they can have the security of long-term rentals. The housing crisis is not a new phenomenon in Britain.

Decent housing, as well as the problem of other necessities of life, is indissolubly linked with the social and economic conditions of the working class. Nowhere in the world can capitalism point to having provided adequate housing for the people. Nevertheless, in contrast to the hovels of the poor, we have the luxurious palaces and mansions of the rich in their gated communities. To escape the pollution and acquire clean fresh air many of the rich own their country estates far from the prying eyes of the poor.  On the one hand, limitless luxury and affluence – on the other, want and misery. The housing problem, as well as all other social problems, reflects the distinction of class, of economic position, of wealth and poverty. As we all know, in a system whose production is governed exclusively by the profit motive, the needs of the people must of necessity be left utterly disregarded. Production for profit and peoples’ needs constitute two opposite poles. That housing is one of the basic needs of people nobody denies; and yet every housing programme and project has been stymied by the profit motive and by the attitude and actions of the government and city councils, and by the conduct of the mortgage bankers, the real estate sharks, all the way down to the building contractors. Why is there a housing crisis? How can there be a housing shortage with so many houses left empty and unused? Why, with stockpiles of bricks, cement, timber, and roof-tiles are houses not being built in sufficient quantity? Why, after centuries of progress in construction and building technology and the passing of masses of housing legislation by successive governments do poor dwellings continue to be built and unhealthy, uninhabitable older buildings still stand? The lesson is inescapable. The housing market is so irrational and unplanned that even those who own and control the industry cannot now make a profit without the state helping them out. Subsidies, tax-relief and other forms of government inducements are all intended to make the housing market profitable enough for capitalists to invest in.

The capitalist profit system itself remains the greatest obstacle in the way of adequate housing for the people, just as it stands in the way of satisfying all the other peoples’ needs. Hence our determination to fight for the socialist solution. Such a system would put an end to speculative land owners, to the land-owners and rent-gougers, not to mention the profit hungry mortgage brokers and financiers. Profit returns would no longer enter into calculations for home building. Houses are not built to alleviate the very real problem of a housing shortage. They are built solely in order that the speculator and the house builder can squeeze the last penny-worth of profit out of a small site. Some rooms are so small as to be unusable for the routines of nuclear family life and fences “protect” tiny, private patches of lawn. On the contrary, the needs of the people would be the highest concern. Society will apply to the fullest extent new building materials and more efficient construction methods. Healthy and comfortable homes would be the rule.

The working-class should not delude themselves by thinking that there is anything basically different between rented and mortgaged accommodation for the quality and quantity of both types are, in the end, determined by the very same market. Both depend on the conditions under which those with money, land and materials are prepared to lend, invest or build in the housing market. Those with capital to invest do not mind whether it is used to build council houses or houses in the private sector; they participate in the housing market to make a profit. The market determines what is available and at what price — which means that the capitalist class gets the housing they want and profits come before the housing needs of the community.

Engels, writing in the nineteenth century, wrote of the housing crisis in these terms:

“The so-called housing shortage which plays such a great role in the press nowadays, does not consist in the fact that the working-class generally lives in bad, overcrowded and unhealthy dwelling. This shortage is not something peculiar to the present, it is not even one of the sufferings peculiar to the modern proletariat in contradistinction to all earlier oppressed classes. On the contrary all oppressed classes in all periods suffered rather uniformly from it. To put an end to this housing shortage there is only one means: to abolish altogether the exploitation and oppression of the working class by the ruling class . . . The housing shortage from which the working class suffers today is one of the many evils which result from present-day capitalist production.”

The problem remains the same today as it did for Engels

Churches in retreat (1987)

From the February 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christian churches in Britain have lost half a million members in the last five years. According to the UK Christian Handbook, Christian church membership has declined to under seven million people, which is about fifteen per cent of the population. But other religions have shown an increase. In particular the number of Muslims has increased by over a third to 852.000 and many churches have been converted into Mosques. Other religions to have increased their membership, on a smaller scale, were Sikhs. Hindus, Buddhists and Satanists while the number of Jews showed a slight decline.

Although there has been a change in the type of superstitious nonsense being peddled, on the whole religion is a very minor activity in Britain. There will be a greater number than the above who still profess a belief in a god of some kind but who don't want to be confined to the absurd behaviour patterns these churches demand.

In fact, Christianity has been in decline for some time. It has also continuously retreated from what it claims to be able to explain. At one time it said that the world was created by god in six days and that the sun revolved around the earth. Although there are still some who claim a literal translation of the bible, most Christians now accept the theory of evolution and other scientific facts. Instead they now try to stress the "symbolic" nature of god and the bible — how god is about love and kindness — and play down the roasting in Hell bit. Hardly a week goes by without some trendy bishop on the telly saying that religion is fun and positive and not about saying no to the things people enjoy.

The churches have always felt able to say that, despite god being all-powerful and creating the world (even if he used evolution to do it) when anything unpleasant happens it's always the fault of human beings. So he takes the credit for humanity at its best when we are being loving, kind, creative and successful. But when it comes to Hiroshima and Auschwitz, pyorrhoea and Aids it's got nothing to do with him - unless he is moving in mysterious ways.

Religious ideas and socialist ideas are incompatible. Socialism is about understanding the way society operates with a view to changing it. Religions preach submission, basically saying that a superior being controls our destiny and we must accept our lot. Such beliefs grew up to explain away large gaps in human knowledge. But as our knowledge has widened, the religious explanation is shown to be increasingly untenable.

The persistence of religious ideas can be understood against the background of an insecure world where, due to the class- divided nature of society, people feel powerless. Religion, with its promise of a pie-in-the-sky afterlife, may offer some hope and comfort. But as Marx said, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions".

Religion has often been used by ruling classes to justify their dominance and the subjugation of the poor. Kings rule by the grace of god, it is supposedly ordained from on high. Often the first shock troops of the British Empire were the missionaries, who sought to convert the natives and teach them their proper (servile) place in the world.

The Catholic Church has made deals with fascist dictators in the past and is often a force for reaction in Latin America, although some priests have embraced "liberation theology", perhaps in an attempt to be on the right side of any new ruling class.

In Ireland, religion has been used to viciously divide workers to fight for their employers' interests, and many of the wars and disputes in the Middle East use religion and the idea of a holy war to get workers spilling each other's blood. Millions of deaths in capitalism's bloody wars have been blessed by religion.

Religious ideas are political and must be defeated. Only when workers are free from such illusion will be we able to set about the real task facing us, transforming the world into a place fit for people to live in. It is the only world we will get and we should make the most of it. And not let any trendy bishops or long-haired preachers get in our way.

Ian Ratcliffe

We aren’t fodder for the bosses to feed on

The Tories and the Labour Party are two sides of one coin. The only difference between them is that the Tories are in office and Labour are in opposition. If one understands this, then it is not difficult to grasp the meaning and purpose of the two parties. They are both employed by the same master – the City of London corporations. But, of course, these parties do not say the same things or act identically. There is a division of labour between them. The fact that they have special and different duties to perform towards their common master. The Conservative party directs all its statements and actions towards maintaining the status quo (the capitalist system) but also to defend the methods employed during their tenure of office, to perpetuate the system. The task that falls to Labour is to take charge of discontent and to steer it into harmless channels. But both parties make no bones about their job is - to ensure people don’t see things as they actually are. Both will claim it is not the capitalist system that is responsible for the unprecedented and the unparalleled misery. The profit system, they explain, is perfect and eternal. They will, however, concede that some greedy capitalists have misused and abused their “precious” system. And this is the main plank in Labour’s opposition. The crisis is due to the Tories austerity, wage cuts and unemployment policies – Tory maladministration. Vote the Tories out, put us in, and everything will be hunky-dory, Jeremy Corbyn proclaims. Yet he will stand by capitalism to his dying day and pose as a saviour of the workers. He will restore employment, improve present conditions and afford permanent relief to the people. There is nothing in his programme that could accomplish such a miracle. Labour have nothing but fake promises and polished words.

The duties of a socialist are to probe, to criticise, to fight exploitation of man by man, to stand on the side of social justice and the common good. That wealth exists on this planet in abundance is well known. But the distribution of this wealth proceeds according to the social relations of society. These are capitalist relations, resting upon the capitalist ownership and control of the means of production. Jeremy Corbyn proclaims in grandiose style for the redistribution of wealth, but he is equally vociferous in his proclamations for the maintenance of the present social relationship. The Labour Party plan is for these relations to remain, and the wealth would be redistributed by cutting down on the big fortunes and adding to the small ones or giving to those that have none. But this is impossible under capitalism since the ownership and control of the means of production determines the form of distribution of all wealth. So far this has meant and can only mean ever greater riches for the parasites and ever greater impoverishment for those who toil, who have nothing but their labour power to sell – and to sell only when the bosses see fit to buy. What is the cause of this condition; what is the cause of this unequal distribution of wealth? The cause is to be found in the ownership and control of the means of production. This system secures the right to exploit workers by leaving in the hands of the capitalist class also the ownership of the surplus value produced by the employee over and above what he or she receives as wages. This is how profits are acquired. Moreover, under the conditions of mass production, and in order to continue the process of production. In other words, sufficient only for their bare upkeep when they have jobs. Of course, the abundance of wealth available could easily guarantee to each family, as some reformist politicians propose, a guaranteed universal income of whatever. But this is equally impossible under the profit system and decent living standards can be obtained only when the profit system is abolished.

The “progressive”programme assumes the continuation of the right to exploitation, however, with the added hope that an increase of the purchasing power of the consumers returns to investors so unearned incomes may continue; so that dividends on shares may be paid and profits continue to be taken out of the exploitation of labour that now may proceed uninterrupted. There are no other sources for profits to come from. What is this but the stabilisation of the system of exploitation? To stabilise the system of exploitation means to stabilise the economic power of the class that owns and controls the means of production. Furthermore, it is well to remember that political relations are governed by this economic power which is another way of saying that those who own are also those who rule. They use their economic power to build up their political state, to build up their government and to reinforce it by courts, by police and by military forces, always ready to be used against the workers when on strike or in other forms of struggle and on a whole serving for the purpose of keeping the masses in subjection. This government, Corbyn proposes to entrust with the redistribution of wealth. They will not consent to any redistribution of their wealth acquired by exploitation without a fierce struggle. They will not even permit the workers to organise into unions so as to obtain a living wage without the most stubborn resistance. They will not yield their economic power, as represented by their accumulated wealth, or give up their privilege to exploit workers without a life and death struggle. They’ll use their economic and political power to determine who will be elected to the public office.  A real redistribution of wealth and a real social security can be carried out in no other way than by the overthrow of the system of capitalism. That is not at all the purpose of the Labour Party and its leftist followers. Only the working class revolution can accomplish that.

No man is good enough to be another man's master

Meantime, “in the meantime”

The capitalist system continues in existence, not because it is efficient or beneficial but because the people who suffer under it let the system exist. The working class support for a society which relentlessly deprives them of the fruits of their work which represses and degrades them. What is needed is the working class to stand up against capitalism and no longer permit itself to exploited and oppressed. Instead of at election times when workers duped with the pledges of political parties and politicians, forgetting all the broken campaign promises of the past mark their X  for a pro-capitalist candidate despite the election debate on the “issues” of the election have in fact been fact been a sham. and that the promises they are debating have little more chance of being kept than those they have debated in the past. When it is all over there are tens of millions of votes waiting to be counted, urging capitalism to carry on as before.

One reason for this continual acceptance of capitalism we are told is the problems such as the environmental destruction we face today are just too compelling, too urgent to be ignored. Let’s tackle these first. Then we can get round to establishing socialism. If we don’t, if we allow these issues to overwhelm us, this could rule out your socialist alternative altogether. How for instance could your socialism take root in the barren landscape of a world devastated by climate change. Reformism is designed to alleviate specific social problems arising within the framework of the capitalist system which doesn’t include abolishing capitalism. But the Socialist Party argue, that the cause of these problems are a direct manifestation of the way the system operates and has to operate. They are the unavoidable by-product of its economic conflicts in its remorseless search for profit. They will not disappear until the system itself has been scrapped by making the means of producing and distributing wealth the common property of everyone in society. It means, therefore, ending the exchange relationships of buyer and seller with their conflicting interests. As an attempt to treat the symptoms of a disease while keeping intact its cause has all the efficacy of scraping away the spots in a case of measles.

Postponing socialism “in the meantime” to try to resolve the serious social problems facing humanity, implies that such problems can be solved within capitalism, that they do not derive from the capitalist basis of society. They are not seen as the direct outcome of the competitive pressures capitalism imposes upon politicians and business-owners that constrains them to act in the way they do or removing them if they don’t. Politicians would give the voters all they wished just to remain in power and the corporation would do anything to satisfy their customers. They fail to do so in spite of, not because of, their efforts.

Believing that “in the meantime” we can remedy all the social ills and strife, invite us to accept the improbable: that these problems have just recently sprung into existence just yesterday, or alternatively that nothing previously had ever been done “in the meantime” about them. It is because such problems have survived all manner of attempted remedies throughout capitalism’s history, that the futility of reformism is evident. And it is precisely because of this that the need for socialism is especially urgent, in this age of potential plenty, in which the technology and productive powers at our disposal can now be placed at the disposal of the whole of society ad is no longer straight-jackets by redundant social relationships. Socialism must entail the rejection of reformism for all its will-o’-the-wisp attractions. The divergent aims of reform and revolution cannot be harmonised, that one cannot at the same time help patch up and perpetuate the very system one intends to overthrow.  It is wrong to see socialism as an ultimate and long term aim while “in the meantime” seeking the solution of existing social problems. Reformists are forsaking socialism altogether for capitalism will never present the opportunity to convert that ultimate aim into something immediate. The whole purpose of capitalist ideology and its proponents and apologists is to persuade workers to identify with ruling class interests, to distort social reality, to draw a smokescreen over the basic class cleavage of society; rather than to get workers to see themselves as a class united by common interests against their exploiters.

Beneath the ashes of past movements, embers are burning again. The objective conditions have come together once more for revolution.

A World to Win or a Planet to Lose

We all live under capitalism. It operates in every country all over the globe without exception. It is the capitalist system itself that is the basic cause of nearly all the problems human beings face all over the world: homelessness, misery, mental illness, violence, greed, envy, general dissatisfaction and war. No one person or group of persons is at fault for this, however. No blame can he attached to individuals personally. It is neither the rich man’s fault nor the poor man's fault. It is the fault of the system itself. The crux of the problem revolves around ownership. But not just personal ownership on a small scale, like one person owning a coat or a washing machine or a car. These are relatively unimportant. The problem is larger, yet quite simple to see. In other words, we are talking about the ownership of factories, transport, offices, mines, machines, tools, energy resources, raw materials. And we all depend on these means for food, clothes, warmth, shelter, travel and entertainment. In short, we depend on them for life itself. The problem at present lies in the fact that these means —which we all need to live — are owned and controlled by a small minority of the world’s population, which means that the rest the vast majority are dependent for their livelihood on this minority. Desperation and despair are by no means uncommon in the world today. The problems of starvation or malnourishment are rife in capitalism. For every tragedy, there is someone with a proposed palliative—a protester, a reformer, a counsellor—who are often described under the derogatory label of “do-gooder”. No matter how sincere or genuine they may be, “do-gooders are blind to the fact that every city slum and every mental hospital ward the problems are inter-connected; they have a common root and can be eradicated only by attacking that root. Capitalism is responsible for so many of the illnesses common to-day, either directly as their cause or because funds are refused for research into their origins and possible cure. Capitalist society cannot eliminate the stresses and strains which are responsible for many of today’s illnesses, nor can all the resources necessary to cure such illnesses mend the damage done by capitalism.

People around the world are experiencing a descent into chaos and uncertainty. There is a crisis of humanity. The level of global social polarization and inequality and is out-of-control as capital accumulates ruthlessly. Scapegoated communities are under siege. The ecological system is fast reaching several tipping points. Given capital's impulse to accumulate profit and to commodify nature, it is difficult to imagine that the environmental catastrophe can be resolved within the capitalist system. Capitalism is like riding a bicycle: When you stop pedaling, you fall over. If the capitalist system stops expanding outward, it enters a crisis and faces collapse. "Green capitalism" appears as an oxymoron, as capitalism's attempt to turn the ecological crisis into a profit-making opportunity. Social inequality is exemplified by gentrification, gated communities, surveillance systems, and state and private violence. The privileged few avail themselves of privatized social services and conspicuous consumption. They can work and communicate through internet and satellite sealed off under the protection of armies of soldiers, police, and private security forces. Global capitalism holds wages down everywhere. The global working class is the increasing "new precariat" which refers to workers under unstable and insecure labor relations – informal employee contracts, casualisation, part-time, temp-work, and zero-hour contracts. As communities are uprooted everywhere, there is a rising reserve army of immigrant labor. The global working class is becoming divided into native and immigrant workers. The latter are particularly attractive to transnational capital, as the lack of citizenship rights makes them particularly vulnerable, and therefore, exploitable. The capitalists only hire us when they need to increase their production (first of all by taking on more workers on the same machinery, by round-the-clock shifts, before taking on more workers on more machines) on condition of meeting a solvent market with a sufficient rate of profit. Outside particular sectors (seasonal work, construction, etc.), they don’t need any incentive to hire or fire, except when the productive cycle is falling or weakly recovering, as is the case at the moment.

Capitalism sets worker against worker and whips up wild nationalist sentiments, deceptively trying to associate the interest of propertyless workers with that of the owning minority. Scapegoat minority groups are singled out to be blamed for capitalist problems. Capitalism breeds racial hatred. Nationalism and racism makes the task of socialist unity much harder. A humanity divided against itself cannot organize to create socialism. A humanity linked by solidarity, friendship and respect can do just that.  The revolutionary route is now well signposted. The job of the Socialist Party is to speed the process, and not the impossible task of trying to make wage-slavery more palatable. The reformers have had their day and there is nothing to show for it. The time for the change to Socialism is long overdue and we urge you to work to that end. It is no longer utopian or unreasonable to expect that society should be able to provide the basic needs of people.

Neither gods, nor masters, nor states, nor bosses

Socialism or Common Ruin for All

The history of capitalism is its quest for profits. The profit system is the horrific and soulless essence of capitalism. The Socialist Party sets itself the aim of spreading socialist ideas to expose the consequences of this profit system we live under. The emancipation of the working class will be achieved only by the transfer to common ownership by the working people of all means and products of production and the organisation of all the functions of social and economic life in accordance with the requirements of society. This radical economic revolution will entail most fundamental changes in the entire constitution of social relationships. The Left no longer thinks in terms of “socialism” as a society that will some-day come into being, but only of improvements upon present-day society. Few on the left now accept that out of the struggle between capital and labour, which means between those profiting and those suffering from exploitation, there will arise a non-exploitative society. They believe that if capitalists learn to think socialistically and the socialists learn to think capitalistically then it will lead to a harmonious new world. They seek an equitable re-division of income and re-distribution of wealth and willingly compromise the original goal of the socialist movement to achieve this. The line they offer is that government can take from Paul to give to Peter in order to safeguard the existence of the capitalist system of labour exploitation.

The Labour Party is based on the premise that there is no irreconcilable contradiction between labour and capital and that concessions and the gradual transformation of capitalism into socialism are possible. It has led to to-day’s Labour Party's only platform that is to be able to manage the capitalist ship of state better than the Tories. It has failed to use its position within working class to popularise any real vision of socialism distinct from capitalism. And none of the current arguments around Corbyn and the question of party democracy or policy has raised the slightest prospect of what could be achieved by socialism but, rather, advance arguments for improved efficient management of capitalism. Nowhere do they indicate how the fundamental contradiction within the capitalist mode of production can be resolved by the establishment of a socialist society. It is significant in their definition of the enemies of the working class generally consists of the greedy bankers and financiers  in the City while industrialist and manufacturing capitalists are largely excluded from their criticism but are, indeed, seen as the lifeblood of the nation. The nature of production for profit is not questioned. If the Labour Party holds out no solution, what are the alternatives?

To most reform-minded politicians the socialist vision of the future with a modern technological cornucopia of abundance has always seemed either too unreal or too remote to be taken very seriously. The left imagined that socialism would re-model capitalism rather than abolish it. Marx and Engels assumed, however, that economic phenomena which they saw as being peculiar to capitalism would vanish with capitalism. Wages, profit and rent represented such social relationships, peculiar to capitalism and unthinkable in socialism. The same was true of the modern division of labour, especially the separation of brain work from manual labour.  Workers in their opinion are able to end class relations by abolishing their own class position, thus clearing the way for a further unfolding of the social forces of production. This would result in further technological development leading toward the abolition of human labour or, at any rate, of unwanted and disagreeable human labour. Capitalism is an obstacle to technological advance. The capitalist “solution” to the problem of automation is to be found not in higher wages and a shorter work-week for employees but in higher profitability expressed in increased capital and will try to secure its profitability at the expense of the work-force. Each entrepreneur, or corporation, employs the minimum of workers relative to capital investment; each, of course, tries to increase this minimum by a correspondingly larger investment. They are interested, economically speaking, not in a larger or smaller work-force but in the one which proves most profitable. They are not, and cannot, be concerned with the unemployed who are the government’s responsibility.

Workers in democracies have the right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. This right they exercise through the secret ballot. Thus each voter exercises his or her ‘power’ in isolation from any community, as an individual in a polling booth. Voting is not a matter for public discussion, or for meetings. It is utterly individualised. Many have always argued that mass assemblies are more democratic than secret ballots, since they permit the exercise of wider kinds of political reasoning than can be applied by the isolated voter. At a mass assembly, issues can be discussed, arguments refuted. In a mass meeting, estimates can be made of the general level of support for some proposals for action, and thus of the likelihood of that action being successful. This is not possible with the secret ballot.  Nor do voters have no real control over their elected ‘representatives’. There is no effective right of recall, no effective mandate which voters can exercise over MPs, etc. The voters elect the MP as isolated voters, and as such have no control over him or her. The MP is protected from control by constituents by a whole gamut of ‘parliamentary privileges’ once he or she is elected. The MP ceases to represent anyone once elected. Thus, in the parliamentary system, the exercise of political freedom and power consists in the few seconds, every few years, it takes the voter to express a choice between parliamentary misrepresentatives – marking a ballot paper with a cross, like an illiterate. Legislature are elected by powerless parliamentary constituencies who exercise no control over the remaining part of the state machine: We do not elect our judiciary or ‘civil servants’. Nor have we effective means of control over them. It is exceptional for the legislature itself, i.e. Parliament, to exercise real control over the state bureaucracies. The non-elected part of the state is protected from popular control by a whole variety of institutional means and official. Even the MPs are excluded from scrutiny of large parts of the bureaucracy’s personnel and actions. Many will declare that parliamentary democracy and peoples’ power are incompatible. For the Socialist Party the mechanics of voting and getting elected exists and despite its limitations political power does lie in the chambers of the legislatures, otherwise the squabbling factions of the ruling class would not be so intent upon taking control of them by using chicanery to dupe the voters. It is the knowledge behind the ballot rather than determines power in the end. We must not let an uncontested profit system bring about the common ruin of all.