Why we are socialists

If we are socialists, what are we actually fighting for? Many understand the need for social change, but why do we need a revolution? What is socialism, and why is it necessarily better than capitalism?  Where is there socialism today? The answer is that it does not exist anywhere and hasn’t done. Many dismiss socialist ideas as Utopian. It’s a good idea, they say, but people are too greedy and selfish for it to work in practice. They forget that each and every day we work together co-operatively on a massive scale. They forget too, or perhaps have never been lucky enough to experience, the co-operation and solidarity that are displayed in every strike. Socialism sets out to provide security for all human beings.

We can produce what people need – but we don’t.  Socialism releases the creativity of the common people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not labouring under a system of exploitation. When socialists talk about ending “exploitation,” we mean the process of capitalists not paying workers the full value of what they produce. The capitalists withhold as profits part of the wealth that workers produce, a process called “exploitation.” Capitalism organises and exploits workers collectively. Our work is organised on the basis of social co-operation and the division of labour. Capitalism has in fact given workers tremendous collective power, power which runs factories, hospitals, schools, transport systems. This power creates all the things that we need as human beings. Many people today across the planet are involved in issues and struggles to improve their situation or stop injustices that they face. In practically every community, there are struggles and efforts by workers to obtain a living wage.

Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as in the world today where 1 per cent of the population owns practically all property, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

By revolution, we mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the problems of this society – the economic problems of inflation and recession, national oppression, social ills – are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the wealth of society, a handful of capitalists control all the wealth – the factories, mines, railroads and fields, and all the profits that are produced. The ruling class prospers at the expense of the vast majority of the people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only more problems and suffering for the people. We believe that no amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements, security or stability for the masses or fundamentally alter their position in society. Great reforms won by the people, reforms such as the winning of the franchise, trade union rights and certain welfare guarantees such as free education and free healthcare were major victories but they have not fundamentally changed things. Furthermore, the ruling class always tries to limit or negate those concessions that have been won. The ruling class will always do this so long as it holds the power of society; it will try to milk everything it can from the working people to enrich or protect its own interests.

Under capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production makes society-wide planning impossible and leads to a socially anarchistic process of social reproduction. At the same time, socialised production leads to an increasingly complex, interdependent, large-scale division of labour in all modern industrialized societies. This is the basic problem and the essence of the destructiveness of capitalism. Capitalists not only do not direct the capital but in fact are themselves directed by and enslaved by capital. Capital spontaneously flows wherever the most profit can be made. There is no society-wide overall planning under capitalism, nor can a capitalist economy as a whole be a planned economy. The interests of the capitalists are individual interests. Under the system of private ownership of the means of production, the capitalists all fight for their own immediate interests, the interests of a particular company or sector. By their very nature, that is their sole consideration. Thus they come into antagonistic conflict with other capitalists, other sectors and other industries. Under capitalism there is nothing to prevent anyone with capital from producing identical products as long as the goods can be sold. Conflicts and waste inherently exist because products are duplicated. And there is even a contradiction in artificially creating demand and falsely advertising simply to sell these hyped products. So it is clear the private ownership precludes planning. This is true within each sector as well as for any sector’s relation to other sectors. Capitalists don’t sit down together and plan (except to monopolize pricing and markets, which further destroys the basis for capitalism), and there’s little interest for them to do so. As long as many different corporations exist, there is competition among them. As long as there are different domestic and foreign corporations, they are constantly driven to compete with each other. Without the profits, they cannot compete.

If someone is building a house excavating and laying the foundation is the key task. Other tasks, such as selecting the building materials, are undertaken simultaneously but are influenced by the type of foundation being laid. All these tasks must be accomplished, but laying the foundation is the central task at that moment. The same is true in making a socialist revolution. In any particular period, one task must be the central task, the accomplishment of which will enable the entire process to move ahead. Deciding the central task does not mean that that task is the only thing one does, but rather clarifies the key thing that will help along all the tasks in making a revolution. Today the central task must be forging a socialist party to widen socialist influence in society. Every successful revolutionary movement in history has had organisation. The working class needs its own party. The capitalists themselves are organised to defend their own interests. Without its own organisation, workers would be unable to resist the attacks of the oligarchs and plutocrats, let alone overthrow their rule.

Socialism and nothing less

Socialism is rule by the people. They will decide how socialism is to work. The task of socialists is to help and steer the transfer of power from capitalists to the people. To use the word “socialism” for anything but people’s power is to misuse the term. 

The Socialist Party argues that it is capitalism, not over-population, which is responsible for the "scarcity" we experience in our lives. Many in the Green movement accept the idea that the planet is full and there are too many people in the World, and that we need to do something about it. The Socialist Party position is it is not people who are the problem, but the way our social life is organiSed: capitalism. Those who support the ‘overpopulation’ argument quite simply play into the hands of governments, nationalists and anti-feminists who are quite happy to step up demographic controls, people management and anti-immigration policies. Also by interpreting population growth as the root cause of the environmental crisis they completely disregard the systemic nature of the problem and thus let capitalism off the hook. Throughout history, the overpopulation argument has been used to present people and children as the source of inherently social problems. Whether it’s the poor, the blacks or Asians all have been used strategically as scapegoats for an irrational and unproductive use of space and resources within a capitalist economy. Closing the borders while presenting immigrants as swarms of migrants exhausting national resources like locusts are common images for racists and nationalists. We should be attacking capitalism, not families. It isn’t surprising that newcomers will eventually be blamed for capitalism’s failures. Capitalism doesn’t make sense and neither do capitalist solutions. The ‘overpopulation’ proponents ask not for a new form of social organisation (that might see land and resources accessed and shared more evenly, contributing to less poverty, more sustainable lifestyles and fewer wars) but takes the shameful and hopeless route of blaming people, the victims.

Socialism will very likely dramatically improve people's life-spans and higher standards of living are likely to lower birthrates, leading to longer-term population stability. Once we are living in socialism, the release of human creativity to solve the problem of a finite planet and potential ever-expending population will provide many strategies that we can't even begin to imagine. New technologies of food production and medicine will be able to do more and more to remove the 'problem' in the first place. The major thing is the re-organisation of society.

Food availability depends on a number of factors. The first one is the purchasing capacity of the people. We should not forget that, during the 1974 famine, Bangladesh's per capita food availability was the highest to date. Even then, over 30,000 people died of starvation and millions suffered from malnutrition at that time, as the poor didn't have access to food grains for lack of purchasing capacity.

In 2010 a food crisis hit West Africa but it has nothing to do with shortages of food. From the Guardian.

The Guardian reported:

"When you walk through the markets, you can see that there is food here. The problem is that the ability to buy it has disappeared. People here depend on livestock to support themselves, but animals are being killed on the edge of exhaustion, and that means they are being sold for far less money. And on top of that, the cost of food basics has risen".

Basically market mechanisms are failing to allow people to get the food they need.

Latin America (1971)

From the May/June 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part 1 

Economy and Investment (1971)

Latin America is the Cinderella of world politics. In comparison with Africa and Asia it has been neglected, as a glance at the shelves in the libraries and bookshops will show. Penguin paperbacks, for example, have published a whole African Library but nothing comparable on Latin America, and even the left wing have been relatively silent on the subject. Why is this? The main reason is that while Afro-Asia’s struggles of “national independence” are either current or very recent, Latin America’s similar struggles occurred over a century ago. And while the left has seen “socialism” in just about every Afro-Asian state, Latin America has been a United States colony, ridden with rightist governments and dictators. The Cuban revolt caused a momentary flutter but interest soon waned when the whole continent didn’t follow Cuba’s example and when the inevitable “degeneration” set in.

The rise of the Tupamaros plus Allende’s electoral victory have produced a reawakening of interest, so it would be a good opportunity for us to assess the situation in Latin America and the prospects for the growth there of socialist ideas. And what a task this is! We are dealing with 14 per cent of the world’s land mass containing 7 per cent of its population and with greatly varied technology and culture. A continent dominated by a mountain range which severely restricts communications, a continent with the world's greatest jungles and even a desert, and yet with an extremely high level of urbanisation and great cities on the scale of London, Paris and Milan. Alongside this are remnants of feudalism in the rural areas with master and serf relationships, not to mention those pockets where people are still living in primitive tribal societies.

The modern history of Latin America starts with independence from Spain and Portugal at the beginning of the 19th century. The continent was, and to a lesser degree still is, ruled by landowning oligarchies. America, Britain and France soon made it an area of investment and a market for their manufactures. Today, America has largely ousted the others and made the continent its own preserve. Of course American domination has tended to keep Latin America industrially backward in order to maintain it as an outlet for exports. Even now, when American big business sets up large scale industry, such as car factories, it does so only to protect existing markets from foreign rivals and local entrepreneurs. It is this situation which has thrown up the growing bourgeois and military nationalists plus the would-be imitators of Castro and Guevara, all determined to end “Yankee Imperialism”.

The major problem for Latin America is, how can it become industrialised to the extent that is required? The need is for the accumulation of capital to finance expansion carried out by one means or another — through military juntas as in parts of Afro-Asia; through “revolutionaries” using highly centralised government action as in the “communist” world; or through a home-grown recognisably capitalist class perhaps utilising some of the methods of the other two groups. The first two groups have already made their presence felt in Peru and Cuba respectively, and the signs are that the last group is at long last coming through. Whichever aspirants come to power in whatever country their most important task must be to tackle the antiquated and inefficient methods of agriculture caused by the system of landowning.

Until now this system has severely hampered industrialisation. The big landowners often trace their ancestry back to the conquistadors and regard wealth through feudal eyes — as ownership of land providing, above all, social status. As a result the land is often badly and underused so agriculture remains static with too many people producing only enough — and usually not even that — for themselves. Consequently, there can be no surplus for investment in industry nor a rural population with any money to become emergent industry’s consumers.

Undoubtedly Latin America’s system of landowning is archaic. Land is owned mainly in large estates (latifundios) and the rest in dwarf holdings (minifundios). On the large estates can work wage slaves plus a variety of peasantry categorised as follows

(1)          Tenant Farmers: works part of landlord’s land for himself giving a money rent in return.

(2)          Sharecropper: gives part of produce in return.

(3)          Labour Tenant: gives personal service (labour) in return and is an out and out feudal throwback. [1]

It is these three groups that the rural guerillas set their sights on. The following figures show the extent of big landowner’s holdings: Between 3 and 8 per cent of landlords own between 60 and 80% of the continent’s cultivable land. In Paraguay eleven lots cover 35% per the eastern region. In Chile 63% of arable land is owned by big owners, the remainder being dwarf holdings. In the Peruvian Highlands 1.3 per cent of estates control more than 50 per cent of land. [2]

So agriculture must be modernised by getting it onto a capitalist basis in order to stimulate investment, free a major portion of the population to become workers in industry and commerce, and create the mass of consumers necessary for a home market. Right, but who is to carry out the role of accumulators? Obviously the Castro-type solution is out, as the guerilla movement — where it even exists — is being given short shrift by the U.S. trained Latin American military. Witness the experience of Guevara in Bolivia. Also, the peasantry is fatalistic in its outlook and will only join in a revolt after it is seen to be winning. Besides, any idea of splitting up the land amongst the peasantry is, in the long run, opposed to modernisation in that while it may produce happier peasants it does not lead to a surplus for investment.

Can military dictatorships of a nationalist complexion fill the bill as in, say, Egypt, Indonesia, or Nigeria? This is likely in some of Latin America’s less developed nations where the bourgeoisie are still too weak or disunited, but in the more advanced nations a native bourgeoisie is emerging strong and determined enough and has been flexing its muscles of late, particularly in Chile and Venezuela.

Of course their potential has always been there as was shown during the depression years when, paradoxically, a considerable degree of industrialisation was achieved. As the flow of foreign funds dried up then the state and local capital stepped in to fill the vacuum. And during world war two, when Latin America’s normal suppliers of manufactures were otherwise engaged in mutual mayhem, a profitable opportunity beckoned for home investors. Then there is the 5 billion dollars of Latin American capital which is invested overseas, [3] so it’s not as if there is simply nothing in the kitty. Given the right climate for home investment (political stability) the continent’s capitalists could be induced to plunge heavily. Until now the state has had to do the job of laying the foundations of industrialisation. In what is virtually America’s backyard 30 per cent of all investment is by the state!  [4] Nationalisation, so beloved by the left, is embraced by conservative regimes easily enough. Oil, railways, steel, electricity, mining, are either wholly or partly state owned in many Latin American countries. And why not? It is often the logical way for an as yet economically weak owning class to run things by combining into a community of capital.

So far we have been reviewing Latin America’s past and present. In the next article we shall be considering the prospects for the future.

Part 2  Tomorrow’s prospects 

The modernisation of Latin America will be a fantastic task for whoever takes it on. Despite the existence of several nations with a more or less European culture and level of technology, the continent is generally appallingly backward. In the mid 1960’s its industry accounted for only 24 per cent of the gross domestic product and employed only 14 per cent of the native population. Only half the population ever receives any primary education and in some parts the rate of illiteracy is 100 per cent. In 1965 the income of General Motors was 20.7 billion (thousand million) dollars which was more than the gross national product of any Latin American nation including Brazil. In case the message still isn’t clear, one man, Paul Getty, owned more personal wealth than the yearly income of Ecuador. Moreover, many millions live outside a money economy: In Brazil’s north east alone 10 millions are reckoned to come into this category.

The most awesome statistic about Latin America is that from a total of 226 million in 1965 the population is expected to be around 316 million by 1980, 40 per cent of whom will be under 15 years of age. This means that the vast majority will be non-producers. Here, rather than China or India, is where the so-called population explosion is at its worst and an annual increase of 3 per cent in the economy is required just to keep living standards as they are.

In the face of all this can there really be any hope for Latin America? The answer is “yes”. In fact it is precisely this state of affairs which must galvanise capital into action, whether using the methods of democratic government or military juntas, for failure to act will ensure that the situation becomes utterly chaotic, and that can’t be good for business. What use is a continent seething with discontent and crawling with guerrillas in the countryside and in the cities? We dealt last month with the poor prospects of the rural guerrillas. As for their imitators in the cities, they have no basis of support among the working class class and can really only have nuisance value. A resumption of constitutional rights in Uruguay will undoubtedly cut much of the ground from beneath the Tupamaros. Indeed, the only possible contribution the guerrillas might be able to make is by prodding tardy regimes into some concessions that little bit sooner.

The working class of Latin America has already been written off as the “revolutionary” force by the would-be emancipators at the meeting of the Latin American Solidarity Organisation (OLAS) in Havana in 1967. It is true that the continental working class is still very weak and is actually declining as a percentage of the population. There are only about 7 million members of the trade unions and these mostly in the more developed nations. But in Latin America, as elsewhere, the Socialist movement must be essentially working class.

A popular explanation for the political backwardness of the Latin American working class is that it brings with in into the cities reactionary rural attitudes among which is the desire for a strong-man such as Peron was. In short, they look to a “Patron” to solve problems rather than their own political or industrial action (see S. Mander Static Society: The Paradox of Latin America). There is some truth in this explanation but it has to be seen against the fact that millions of city dwellers in Latin America aren’t, strictly speaking, workers at all. Each year destitute rural inhabitants drift citywards to end up in the shanty-towns such as the “Favelas” of Rio. Some drift back to the countryside for a variety of reasons but many of those who remain never really get involved in the relationships and disciplines of wage-labour, so the size and attitudes of Latin America’s working class cannot be accurately judged merely by looking at the urban populations.

Nor will the idea of the “Patron” endure outside of the semi-feudal hangover which throws it up. As capitalist expansion really gets underway the workers will be forced by an intensification of the class struggle to look to unions for help and to the various political parties. This has been the pattern in Italy, Japan, and other countries which have recently undergone large scale industrialisation and it is no accident that Latin America’s trade unions are strongest in those countries where capitalism has already made considerable progress, such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela.

The evidence is that Latin America’s capitalist class is awakening to the possibilities. Their theorists have long extolled the need to control foreign investment and interference, particularly American, and the current denunciations of the “imperialists” are belated recognition of this. Covering the election by the Chilean Congress of Dr. Allende as President, Lewis Duguid reported that “. . . the bourgeois congressmen, some of them bitterly anti-American and convinced that Chile’s problems are imported, have voted in a man who repudiates many institutions of Chile while glorifying its distinctiveness”. Of Allende’s alleged Marxism, Duguid quotes Allende explaining this as meaning "he accepts the Marxist interpretation of history”. (Guardian 25 October, 1970) So what? This is purely academic and the fact remains that Allende’s government is committed to and was elected on a mere ragbag of reforms, and far from opposing US investment is soliciting it, only this time for "fair returns”.

Meanwhile the government is forcing foreign companies which are wholly controlled from abroad to sell the majority of their shares to local investors. In Venezuela the bourgeois government is progressively increasing its share of the profits of the largely US owned oil companies and is extending its overall stake in the oil industry. This bourgeois confidence stems from the sure knowledge of their newfound unity.

As we have already said, our interest in Latin America lies in the prospects for the growth of socialist ideas there. These ideas will go hand in hand with the strengthening of the conditions which have produced them elsewhere — mainly the development of capitalism and all that stems from that, including its ever increasing problems and contradictions. Of course as socialist ideas grow in the rest of the world then, with the existence of today’s sophisticated means of communication, Latin America cannot fail to be affected by this. Indeed, even if the continent continued indefinitely in its backward state it could not escape Socialism when the developed world put it into operation. It would fall in line with the superior social system, so we don’t have to wait for every backward part of the world to be modernised before production for use becomes possible. The fact is that capitalism has come to Latin America and is rapidly expanding its techniques and relationships.

We confidently look forward to the day when growing interest in our ideas will be reflected in the number of enquiries from Latin America. What should socialists there do in the meantime? Certainly not to engage in movements of "anti-imperialism”, demands for agrarian reform and the like, but instead to propagate whenever possible the case for Socialism — worldwide common ownership and democratic control of society’s resources.

Vic Vanni

Revolution – Why we need it

Ideas stand no longer against ideas, but against a PR machine ruthlessly worked from ulterior motives. The notion that the end justifies the means has become a dogma of all the main political parties. Their principle consists in having no principles, propagating policies in which they do not themselves believe.

The crises of capitalism have made the re-organisation of society on socialist lines an imperative necessity. The theory of reformism is very different from the actual struggle for reforms. It is that repeated success in achieving reforms could, over time, will completely transform society, peacefully and without the sharp break represented by revolution, into another type of society. The idea was that capitalist society could grow gradually into a free socialist society. Socialist critics of reformism are not, of course, opposed to the struggle for reforms. But they do understand that no gain is permanently guaranteed so long as the means of production remain in the hands of the capitalist minority. But the struggle for socialism is not for something far-off. The first obligation of the Socialist Party is that its adherents should explain its aim and its essential characteristics clearly so that they can be understood by everyone. We must do away with many misunderstandings created by our adversaries and some created by ourselves. The main idea of socialism is simple. A multitude of human beings possesses nothing. They can only live by their work, and since, in order to work, they need an expensive equipment, which they have not got, and raw materials and capital, which they have not got, they are forced to put themselves in the hands of another class that owns the means of production, the land, the factories, the machines, the raw material, and accumulated capital in the form of money. And naturally, the capitalist and possessing class, taking advantage of its power, makes the working and non-owning class pay a large forfeit. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class.

Wages are a badge of slavery. If to-day workers receive wages, it simply means that they are slaves. It is true that the capitalist cannot sell the body of his employees to another capitalist; it is true also that a worker may refuse to work for his or her present master and leave him. But, if they do, what happens? Like the plundered peasant, he or she is compelled to seek someone else to employ him, for we workers are propertyless and cannot live on air. Therefore, the wage earner is dependent on the capitalist class and the slave of that class. If the working class wishes to end its slavery, it will have to take those means of production from the present owners and convert them into the property of all society, i.e., establish socialism. But in doing this the workers will abolish the wages system, for then there will be no employer to say: “Sell your labour power to me and I'll give you enough money to buy the necessaries of life."

“How will the members of the Socialist commonwealth get food, etc., if they have no wages?" someone usually asks. Here is the answer: Since private ownership will be done away with, no one will be able to say, "These goods are mine, I'll sell them.” On the contrary, the wealth produced (like the means of production) will belong to all society and every member will have free access to that wealth.

One last objection is possible. Will there not be a scramble? Production, having advanced to its present level, has made it possible to produce goods in abundance and in quantities enough to satisfy everybody. Furthermore, since profits will not be the aim of production under Socialism (there being no profits), goods could be turned out in still greater quantities without fear of a crisis.

Everyone is an expert on human nature, especially politicians, who make remarks about the nature of people such as that humans are an inherently greedy, selfish, violent, nasty species. This is both wrong and unscientific. When most people talk about human nature, they are referring to human behaviour—two different concepts. The selfish, cruel, anti-social conduct that is laid at the door of human nature is really only the outcome of systems based on private property, which compels people to engage in predatory conduct in order to survive. We cannot afford to let an erroneous view of ourselves as human beings prevail. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot live in peace and harmony. That this will mean that we must make a fundamental change in our system of society is something we will come to when we know about ourselves as humans.

The Socialist Party’s aim is socialism because socialism is the only way to solve the problems of capitalism is to end the class divisions in society. The Socialist Party has therefore always been focused to take the means of production and distribution out of the hands of individuals, and to transfer them to the ownership of the people as a whole so that they can be used for the common good. Common ownership means an end to the chaos and wasteful competition of production for profit. Socialism does not mean the levelling down of living standards. Nor does it bring bureaucracy and tyranny. On the contrary, socialism draws more and more people into planning and making their own future, and frees their creative energies for great economic, social and cultural advances. We mean by Socialism what the pioneers meant—the ending of the exploitation of man by man, the abolition of the system of rent, interest and profit, planned production for use instead of private profit, and the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the working people.

“The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change in the basis of society." —William Morris (How We Live and How We Might Live.)

Domestic Tensions

 In April the annual Shelter Voices Survey from the Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses reported that on one day last year 234 shelters in Ontario had torn away 305 women and children who were fleeing domestic violence because they didn't have the space or resources to take them in.

Take heart folks the upholders of capitalism have risen to the occasion. The Federal Government have promised $89.9 million over 2 years to create 3000 spaces, meaning 2 new shelters for every province. This will be done through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which already oversees a shelter fund.

Obviously, the Government isn't trying to address the cause of domestic violence, the tensions people live under in this delightful economic system.

We can't say there would be no domestic violence in a socialist world, but we can say with the removal of tension it would be considerably less and all involved would quickly receive the help they need. 

John Ayers.

Prospects Under Capitalism?

In 2013 Fortress Development had mortgage brokers offer eight per cent interest rates to those who would invest in the Mady Collier Centre in Barrie, Ontario, which many did throwing in their R.R.S.P.'s. In all hundreds of investors sunk $16.9 million into a syndicated mortgage scheme which they were told was secure, which high interest paying and R.R.S.P eligible.

In April, the Mady Collier Centre filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors. Investors who want their money back will have to get in line behind banks and the construction trade.

Fortress claimed the failure to deliver was due to "bad weather, an extra floor added, and the failure of some subtrades."

All this means is that no matter how attractive the prospect, under capitalism, there is no sure thing.

 John Ayers.

Everything Must Go!

Socialists have been saying for a very long time that workers must wake up to the enormous threat of environmental damage which the profit system poses to the world around us. For decades, it has been cheaper for capitalists to pollute the air workers breathe than to adopt clean techniques and practices. Methods of production which are unsafe, disease-spreading and potentially explosive have long existed. Workers' food has been adulterated for as long as there have been wage slaves. Animals are made to suffer and die needlessly; endangered species which have no exchange value in the market are free to become extinct. There is nothing new about any of this. The planet belonged to us. We, the workers who produce everything and run the planet from top to bottom, have given it to the ruling class. Our task is to take it back from them; to reclaim the planet. The Green Party, which does not stand for the socialist transformation of global society, cannot take the planet away from the capitalists.

Capitalists only adopt new technologies, working methods or products when it is profitable to do so, not because the existing ones happen to be polluting the planet or killing workers. A society which was not constrained by private property, commodity production and buying and selling would use, as a matter of course, the best possible technology at hand to ensure the safety of those working in the plants and the protection of the natural environment. The social cost would be the deciding factor, not commercial cost. Capitalism is unable to do this. Those who believe that the threat to the environment can be dealt with within the capitalist system are hopelessly wrong. These dreamers imagine that politicians whose task it is to run the production for profit system can be persuaded to recognize and act on the danger which pollution brings to the planet.

The Socialist Party opposes the Green Party as it is a party which stands for the continuation of the capitalist system, albeit a different version. Those who vote for the Greens are doubtlessly sincere and caring people who want something different. In their own lifestyles, perhaps some of them have made genuine adjustments which are in line with a socially more co-operative way of living. So have many socialists, but we are well aware that individual lifestyle changes, whether they involve not eating meat or using what are called “environment-friendly" products, are not going to change the fundamental nature of the social system which oppresses us. A few million workers might give up using products which destroy the environment, but what power do we have in comparison with the minority who own and control the means of wealth production? The ruling class, be they multinational companies, state-capitalist bureaucrats or small manufacturers, have an interest in keeping their costs down. If their profits come before the long-term interests of workers, who can blame them for sacrificing workers’ needs? After all, workers voted for the profit system. Only by abolishing the system which is the cause of these problems can the effects be eliminated. The Greens, both in their own party and in the major parties, put out an on appealingly radical message, but when examined it becomes clear that it is a case for the market with a green tinge.

Let us imagine that a Green government is elected. What would it do? To begin with, it would govern. The job of governments is to run the coercive state on behalf of the capitalists who monopolise the means of life. So, like all previous governments, a Green one would be compelled to ensure that the workers are producing profits. In another sense, a Green government would not really govern at all: it would be governed by the profit system. Its Ministers would be constantly coming before us, like Labour reformists in the past, saying "Look, we honestly did want to reform this and that but, you see, with the capitalist economy being what it is..." And so the old story of reformist promises coming to nothing, followed by working-class disgust and disillusion, would go on. A Green government would be no freer than any government before it to carry out changes which would conserve what is worth keeping in the world around us.  It is simply impossible to humanise this capitalist system. They would argue that politics is about pragmatism, that is a cynical compromise. It is about “lesser evils". But why vote for the Greens to administer the lesser evil when capitalism, which creates the evils, can be abolished altogether? The usual answer is that the lesser evil will take less time to achieve than the grand socialist aim. It is a foolish myth that partial objectives are more worthy of support than realisable big ones. There is unlikely ever to be a Green government, and if there is, then its greatest critics will be present Greens who will complain that it has sold them out. It is inevitable with reformism; it must sell out in order to fit in with the needs of the system. Capitalism will pass a few minor reforms to win a few green votes, and also because the capitalists themselves realise that their investments are being damaged by the filth created by a lack of environmental concern. Needless to say, these laws will be evaded by those rich and powerful enough to do so. Even when the capitalists are agreed on their common interest, there will always be one or two who will try to sneak behind the others’ backs and make a quick buck. Derek Wall, once a Green Party spokesperson put this rather well:

‘A Green government will be controlled by the economy rather than being in control. On coming to office through coalition or more absolute electoral success, it would be met by an instant collapse of sterling as 'hot money' and entrepreneurial capital went elsewhere. The exchange rate would fall and industrialists would move their factories to countries with more relaxed environmental controls and workplace regulation. Sources of finance would dry up as unemployment rocketed, slashing the revenue from taxation and pushing up the social security bills. The money for ecological reconstruction – the building of railways, the closing of motorways and construction of a proper sewage system – would run out’ (Getting There)

The Green Party may not like capitalism in its present form and want to ‘rebalance’ it, but they still see no alternative to capitalism as a system of production for profit based on wage-labour and are resigned to working within it. It is true that the sort of capitalism they envisage would not be dominated by tax-dodging multinationals but one in which the profit-seeking enterprises would be small and eco-friendly. But there is no more chance of an eco-friendly capitalism than there is of going back to small-scale capitalism. Transforming the capitalist economy so that ‘it works for the common good’ is precisely what cannot be done. Capitalism is a class-divided society driven by the imperative for those who own and control the means of wealth production to make a profit. It can only function as a profit system in the interest of those who live off profits.

Clobber the capitalist parasite class bastards

Time for the post-capitalist, production-for-use, commonly-owned, free-access society. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It has to be replaced. It won't come from a party organised in the interests of capital with their plans for the retention of waged slavery. It has to be the work of the people themselves, the conscious act of the vast majority. The Labour Party has never been a socialist party. The new society has to be made by ourselves and we can dissolve all governments 'over' us and elect ourselves to run a commonly owned world.

"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.’ (1879, Marx and Engels)

In 2014-15 the richest fifth of British earners received 45.5% of all UK income, and the richest tenth received 29%. The top 1% received around an eighth (12.7%) of gross income, and the top 0.1% – around 65,000 people – almost a twentieth (5%). Of course, given the recent revelations about offshore tax affairs revealed in the Panama Papers, it’s likely that this admitted income is considerably understated.

Between July 2012 and June 2014, the most wealthy 20% of households accounted for 62% of all private household wealth, whereas the top 20% of earners received 40% of the total disposable income (as adjusted for the size and composition of the household). As with income, much of the wealth of the richest few is likely to be hidden from view. (Doing that by quintiles is distorting in itself, across that 20% the wealth will be unevenly distributed.)

There is a class war going on, whether you like it or not and the dominant economic parasite capitalist class are winning it.

Big Business or Little England? That's the choice in the referendum the Tory Party has organised to try to settle its internal differences. So, to that extent, it is not the concern of the rest of us. The trouble is that, if things go wrong and there's an unexpected vote to Leave, we risk being collateral damage in the temporary economic and financial crisis that would follow. The nostalgic dreams and rosy future promised by the Leave campaign won't happen. On the other hand, leaving wouldn't be as dramatic a change as the Remain side is suggesting -- it can't be as the British capitalist economy is so intertwined with that of the rest of the EU that it can't withdraw from it. So there'd be a deal with Britain ending up something like Norway. The rest of us won't notice the difference.

Both sides are being criticised for exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims, but what do they expect? The protagonists on both sides are professional politicians used to telling lies and making false promises. They are not going to change their spots just because it's a referendum and not an ordinary election.

British workers should take their cue from French workers and join up in the unions to clobber the capitalist parasite class bastards, regardless of the political hue of the respective governments 'over' us, for eroding welfare, working hours and pension age retirement. Governments exist to manage capitalism in the interests of the economic parasite class. It is time to stop begging slavishly for governments 'over' us to ameliorate our waged slavery by reforms and organise collectively to take the whole world and everything in it and on it into the common ownership and democratic control.

The one small favour the EU referendum debate has done for us is to nail once and for all the lie that there is a "national interest" we all share.

Some businesses depend on exports, some depend on imports, some don't depend on either, but resent any regulation or interference in their business. For them, tariff barriers and trade deals are important.  All the business leaders try and convince the rest of us that their interest is our interest that their profits are our jobs. Yet we know that despite years of continued growth (and profitability) our wages are not growing along with their profits. Desperate to persuade us we have a dog in the fight, their hirelings scream about migrants, our fellow workers who move home for work. Yet, study after study shows that migratory workers don't depress wages. It's the bosses who depress wages, and the employers who cause unemployment. A working person in London will always have more in common with a worker from Slovakia or Peru than they ever will have with a British capitalist, or anyone else who wants to divide the world up for profit.

Wee Matt

This is Socialism

The necessity for the Socialist Party still exists to arouse the passive and apathetic from their political slumber, to point the way to industrial and social harmony. There can be no slackening of effort in the rigorous denunciation of the terrible evils arising from capitalism and competition with its development of greed and its burden of toil. The Socialist Party must agitate, agitate, and agitate. Socialists must condemn the competitive profit system. We must advocate the industrial commonwealth founded upon the common ownership and collective control of the world’s wealth and resources, and economic system whereas the planners and managers, workers allocate resources and democratically determine priorities themselves. It is easy to see how the capitalist world is a world that is topsy-turvy.

Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last, freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development. Much can perhaps be added to this definition, but anything less you can call whatever you wish, but it will not be socialism. Socialism has unfortunately been presented as a system not of abundance but of scarcity, as a system not of increased leisure and comfort, but of unusual sacrifice and back-breaking toil. Socialism for us, yesterday, today, tomorrow always means the end of class rule; the end of class privilege; the freeing of the people from all chains and all coercion, the fullest realisation of democracy, the emancipation of men, women and children with abundance for all, and therefore liberty for all. If the working class does not take into its own hands the power to achieve this new social order, it will pay the penalty of its own destruction. We, the people, must take over society, remould it, reshape it, in the interests of the people, on a rational basis; otherwise, society will decay into barbarism. It will mean our ruin.

In socialism, States, territories, or provinces will exist only as geographical expressions, and have no existence as sources of governmental power, though they may well be seats of administrative bodies. Society is a global society. National boundaries and divisions will disappear and give way to a universal human identity. Socialist society is a society free of religion, superstitious beliefs, ideology and archaic traditions and moralities that strangle free thought. The political State of capitalism has no place under Socialism. The disappearance of classes and class antagonisms makes the state superfluous. In socialist society, the state withers away. Socialist society is a society without a State. The administrative affairs of the society will be managed by the cooperation, consensus and collective decision-making of all of its members. Common ownership must not be confused with public ownership. In public ownership, the State or local political body is master of the production. The workers are not masters of their work, they are commanded by the State officials, who are leading and directing production. Whatever may be the condition of labour, however, human and considerate the treatment, the fundamental fact is that not the workers themselves, but the officials, dispose of the product, manage the entire process. In short, the workers still receive wages, a share of the product determined by masters. Under public ownership of the means of production, the workers are still subjected to and exploited by a ruling class. Common ownership by the producers can be the only goal of the working class.

To change the world and to create a better one is the aspiration of the Socialist Party. We hold a deep-rooted belief in the possibility of a better future, free of today's inequalities, hardships and deprivations. We believe unshakably that people can, individually and collectively, influence the shape of the world to come. We need to start building a socialist alternative now. This is what we in the Socialist Party are trying to do. This will not be an easy task, but achieving it carries the promise of a transformation of society. However, the Socialist Party are not a bunch of utopian reformers and heroic saviours of humanity. We’re not know-it-alls but part of a movement that reflects the vision and ideals of socialism the revolutionary movement of the working class for overthrowing the capitalist system and creating a new society without classes and exploitation.

The socialist revolution is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and their conversion into common ownership of the whole society. Socialist revolution puts an end to the class division of society and abolishes the wage-labour system. Thus, market, exchange of commodities, and money disappear. Production for profit is replaced by production to meet people's needs and to bring about greater prosperity for all. Work, which in a capitalist society for the overwhelming majority is an involuntary, tedious drudgery to earn a living, gives way to voluntary, creative and conscious activity to enrich human life. Everyone, by virtue of being a human being and being born into human society, will be equally entitled to all of life's resources and the products of collective effort. From everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need — this is a basic principle of socialism.

Socialism is not a dream or utopia. All the conditions for the formation of such a society have already created within the capitalist world itself. The scientific, technological and productive powers of humanity have already grown so enormously that founding a society committed to the well-being of all is perfectly feasible. The spectacular advances in communication and information technology have meant that the organisation of a world community with collective participation in the design, planning and execution of society's diverse functions is possible more than ever before. A large part of these resources is now either wasted in different ways or is even deliberately used to hinder efforts to improve society and satisfy human needs. But for all the immensity of society's material resources, the backbone of socialist society is the creative and living power of billions of men and women beings freed from class bondage, wage-slavery, intellectual slavery, alienation and degradation. The free human being is the guarantee for the realisation of a functioning socialist society. Socialism is not a utopia. It is the goal and will result from the struggle of an immense social class against capitalism. Capitalism itself has created the great social force that can materialise this liberating prospect. The staggering power of capital on a global scale is a reflection of the power of a world working class. Unlike other oppressed classes in the history of human society, the working class cannot set itself free without freeing the whole of humanity. Socialism is the product of workers' revolution to put an end to the system of wage-slavery; a social revolution which inevitably transforms the entire foundation of the production relations.

Why not join us? 

Life Goes On As Abnormal Under Capitalism

The Ontario Provincial Government is considering changes to the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act which will allow landlords to more easily evict tenants for smoking or owning pets. Other proposals include changes in how eviction appeals are handled and a review of rental increase guidelines.

Under the present law landlords in Ontario cannot evict tenants for owning a pet unless the animal is causing damage or a severe allergic reaction.

A spokesperson for the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations in Toronto said, "People are furious, the phones in our office haven't topped."

The likelihood that the laws may be changed has, obviously, put tenants on edge and fearful of eviction; just another example of insecurity in an insecure system – in other words life goes on as abnormal under capitalism. 

John Ayer

World Socialism

Political parties are forever proclaiming their support for or opposition to some new proposal or other. The Socialist Party is unique in standing aside from that kind of contest. We do not campaign for or declare our support of schemes of reform. We do not struggle to get this or that law amended or repealed or whatever.

Some folk think that the Socialist Party’s attitude to reforms means standing aloof from the workers’ struggles. They are quite mistaken. It is a question of the Socialist Party being concerned with a different struggle, the fundamental struggle that has as its aim the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. What sort of conviction would we be exhibiting if the message we carried was telling the workers to postpone the idea of working for socialism and devote themselves to working for reforms? Decades of reforms have not brought socialism one day nearer.

There is a false idea behind working for reforms, the idea of rallying the supporters of capitalism behind a proposal to reform capitalism. To the Socialist Party, capitalism is a class-divided social system; at the top the owners of wealth and the means of producing and distributing wealth and at the bottom the working class who produce the wealth. Any improvement that the working class may get under capitalism they get at the expense of the propertied class. The owning class know this, hence their unceasing resistance to claims for higher wages and better conditions; and every government knows this when it presses, as every government does, for “wage restraint” and “austerity.”

One factor will move the ruling class to surrender some of their wealth. This factor is the growth of the socialist movement. The capitalists do not fear the reformist movements but when the world socialist movement grows in numbers, threatening the existence of capitalist class and foreboding the end of capitalism, then the capitalists will be eager to make many reform concessions, designed to gain a further lease of life by trying to bribe the workers away from the socialist cause. Paradoxically, the policy of the Socialist Party of standing uncompromisingly for socialism would induce the capitalists to offer up palliatives and ameliorations.

Their hope, however, of thereby stalling the progress of the socialist movement would be an empty one. Workers will understand as the poet and writer, Oscar Wilde, did. "It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institutions of private property and that their  "Their remedies do not cure the disease; they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease".

Capitalism is a class structured society, divided between the working and capitalist classes, whose interests are always in a state of conflict (hidden or open) with one another. Strikes, lock-outs etc. prove it. The capitalist system is economically and politically organised so that the means of life—the natural resources, the industries and the wealth produced (goods and services) are owned and controlled by a minority, and not by all the people.

 Those who own do not produce. Those who produce do not own. Obviously, the major social decisions are made to benefit the owning, capitalist class. Governments (who are the servants of the capitalist class) process these decisions, enforce them by law, and the working class does the leg-work to carry them out. The vote is incidental because as yet the working class always votes in favour of capitalism. They have been so trained. All the current claims of a democratic society by both the rulers and the ruled are spurious. Meanwhile, there are none so appallingly enslaved as those who think they are free. The age-old right of the few to exploit, expropriate. The use and abuse human beings is never seriously challenged by most people. A free society is for the future—not of the present. Governments are always in the business of liberalising or imposing restrictive laws, and the rights of the capitalist class always come first, which includes the right to make war. We live under a plutocracy—not in a democracy. Yet among those with the least understanding of the capitalist system are invariably those who are appointed to “manage” it.

Today many on the Left feel defeated. The Left are marginalised and irrelevant because they are an embarrassment, echoing the lies of the past and spouting the old nonsense. It is quite obvious that all the old struggles of the Left have failed. But now is certainly not the time to give up on opposing capitalism. What we need is clearer thinking and more genuinely revolutionary organisation. If ever Marx’s analysis was being proved correct it is now. This is no time to cast aside Marxian analysis. Global production for profit must be replaced by production solely for use. The ownership of society's productive resources by the super-rich minority must give way to common ownership. The dictatorship of capital, which tramples relentlessly upon human lives, must give way to democratic control. These are not new ways of running capitalism. These are ways of running a sane society without capitalism. The socialist alternative cannot be imposed by leaders or gradually legislated into existence by reformers. The revolutionary act of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism must be the conscious and democratic act of the working class: the vast majority of us who do not live on rent, interest or profits. The Socialist Party seeks to win a majority of workers for socialism. We assert that the future belongs to the working class majority and that only world socialism offers the hope of democracy, security, comfort and dignity for all. 

Non-socialists cannot imagine the World where profit does not rule, a world where goods are created according to need and not according to sales figures. A World that is not based on the exploitation of labour for the profits of a few; where the accumulation of wealth has no meaning. It is our task in the Socialist Party to help provide a vision of a World without capitalism. We offer analyses that not only imagines such a World but proves it is possible. The fundamentals of socialism have existed for the ever since the day the Communist Manifesto was first published. We must organise with the understanding that capitalism is the culprit when it comes to practically all our social ills. We must organise with the understanding that capitalism must be defeated. There are those who say we can’t build a socialist movement because there are not enough socialists. The answer to that is simple: we must create more socialists. As members of the Socialist Party, that is our job. How do we do this? That is also part of our task. To determine how this might be accomplished and this is where debates and discussions are of vital importance.

The Glasgow Effect

Glaswegians have a 30% higher risk of dying before they are 65 (considered a premature death) than people in comparable de-industrialised cities such as Liverpool and Manchester. They die from the big killers: cancer, heart disease and strokes, as well as the “despair diseases” of drugs, alcohol and suicide. And though they have a higher chance of dying prematurely if they are poor, deaths across all ages and social classes are 15% greater. Economic advancement alone will not save your life here.

Research based on newly released 1970s policy documents suggests Glaswegians’ higher risk of premature death was caused by ‘skimming the cream’ – rehousing skilled workers in new towns, and leaving the poorest behind. The research based on Scottish Office documents released under the 30-year rule shows new towns such as Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Irvine were populated by Glasgow’s skilled workforce and young families, while the city was left with “the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable”. The research has been endorsed by Sir Harry Burns, formerly the chief medical officer for Scotland, Tom Devine, professor of history at Edinburgh University, and Oxford University geography professor Danny Dorling.

The city’s big four peripheral estates, Pollok, Easterhouse, Drumchapel and Castlemilk at first seemed a good way out of squalor. But it was not the paradise they’d hoped for. Children had to be bussed to outlying areas for their education and there were no shops, pubs, dancing halls or picture houses. Those left in Govan also felt the loss. Families were split up; shops left with fewer customers closed. The heart was ripped out of the area.

For those loath to leave the city’s beating heart there was another option – high-rise living. Once seen as a utopian vision, for many the dream quickly faded. Sighthill was a sought-after area in 1969. But in the 80s drug dealers moved in, working families fled in fright and there was a lack of investment in the flats, which were damp, cold and stigmatised. Eventually, Sighthill became known as a sink estate; somewhere only the desperate would accept a house.  

This was a situation replicated around Glasgow. Almost a third of the city’s high-rises have been cleared in recent years and rebuilding has not kept pace. While many deprived cities suffered from the policies imposed by Margaret Thatcher’s government, the response of Glasgow’s local authorities – which prioritised regeneration of the city centre with style bars, shops and executive flats over repairs and building in the housing schemes – meant it received a double dose of neoliberalism. Home ownership was prioritised over social housing in the 80s. “You would have expected this level of home ownership to have come up against resistance, which it does not,” explains Professor Florian Urban, head of architectural history and urban studies at Glasgow School of Art “And I would have imagined a staunchly leftwing council would have opposed it, but this is not the case.” The city was rebranded, Glasgow’s Miles Better.  But the glossy image didn’t stop people dying young.

In Drumchapel amenities are in short supply; Iceland is the only supermarket in the rundown shopping centre and an application by another chain to move into the area has been blocked. There are plenty of bookies though. And a couple of loan places. Basically they put people into ghettos. That led to problems with gangs because there was nothing else for the young people to do. This area once housed 34,000 in the early 70s. Now with an estimated population of under 13,000 there are swathes of vacant and derelict land. The sense is one of isolation. The schemes of modern Glasgow are often desolate and surrounded by vacant land: 91% of people in Springburn – in the north of the city – live 500 metres from vacant or derelict land; Maryhill – in the west – it’s 85%; and in Shettleston – the east – 74%.  A statistical analysis of Glasgow by Juliana Maantay and Andrew Maroko of City University of New York (CUNY), found a link between poor mental health and the proximity to vacant or derelict link. They also found the effect was lessened when communities had a role in the urban planning process. In Parkhead and Dalmarnock, some of the city’s poorest areas, everyone lives less than 500 metres from vacant or derelict land according to the latest GCPH data. In this area some 40% are claiming out-of-work benefits, 61% are single parent households and almost a third have a disability. The life expectancy for an average man is just 68.

Jim Clark, a senior manager of the Clyde Gateway partnership, tasked with a 20-year regeneration programme, admits vacant land has been one the main challenges. “The sheer cost of decontamination and bringing it back into use was going to take a massive amount of money and the market was never going to take that on.”

In 2014 Glasgow adopted a new slogan – People Make Glasgow. “The slogan says that People Make Glasgow, and the fact is that they do, but Glasgow has not been made for its people,” says co-author of the report and professor of applied social sciences at the University of the West of Scotland “If it had been then we would not see the excess mortality that we do.”

Defend humanity everywhere

The whole thing about nationalism is its stupidity where because of  some accident of birth which  gives us our language, accent or local customs, we become resolved to exclude and reject anybody else, not sharing  those traits. Of course, every human being on earth today enjoys community. We all love to sing together. We all love to dance together. We are human. This doesn’t mean that we spurn those who are different. We enjoy differences. That makes us human. The things we should be rejecting are nationalism and racism. Instead of spending a great deal of our time pointing out how people may differ in small ways such as in the type of clothes or food they eat we expose how detrimental the buying and selling system of capitalism really is for us, creating such desperation that leads men and women to suicide.

Scapegoating of foreigners is never done on the level of interfering with governments or rich businessmen. Quite the contrary, it has always been directed against migrant workers, refugees, workers, and the poor. It is exactly this that exposes its class nature. In an environment of economic scarcity, hardship, and poverty, questions about who is poorer and  needier, among the poor, are directly and indirectly attempting to hide a more important and more crucial question, which is why do native-born and migrant in-comer have to live in poverty and hardship, at all? In the meantime, projects for constructing designer-label shopping malls and sky-high expensive apartment buildings are always ongoing. Few question the poverty and scarcity that allows and drives the development of racism and xenophobia. As a result, it is the indigenous poor and the new-comer who pay the price. The media commands how people understand and interpret reality to a large extent. Thus, the short-sighted biased explanations contribute, in one way or the other, to diverting people’s focus away from the real problems. They create a culture of misinformation rather than win people over  from the xenophobic racist and sectarian discourses and ignore the real issues that people face and the shared experience both are facing and have faced in the past, in their struggle against exploitation and survival under oppression, exploitation, wars, and social injustices.

The worldwide growth of poverty is disastrous, leading to catastrophe. There is widespread malnutrition involving insufficient consumption of vitamins and minerals. Women and children especially have these deficiencies. “Socialism or barbarism” - this is not a question of the future; the barbarism has already started on a huge scale. Humanity is facing frightful threats to its physical survival. People are saying it is already too late and doomsday is now unavoidable. Socialists, however, believe that mankind is not yet doomed. This is not wishful thinking but based on the fact that the present perverse and corrupt social system need not remain. The problems to be solved in this case are not a technical, natural or cultural ones but a social economic one. In order for this solution to prevail, power needs to be in the hands of the toilers willing to let solidarity, cooperation and generosity prevail by democratic means over short-sighted and irresponsible capital accumulation and market growth. It is not a question of awareness. The capitalists and corporations are not stupid. Many are fully aware of, for instance, the ecological damage. They try to take them into consideration, include them in their economic planning and projections, but under the pressure of competition, they are forced to act in such a way that the overall threat remains. Industry and technology are not independent entities but tools of the social class who apply them and bend them to their interests as they see fit, rather than directing their benefit to the democratically established interests of the great majority of human beings. What socialism is all about is placing the organisation and structure of society to be subjected to democratically determined, conscious control of communities rather than a class -  the freedom of people to decide in a democratic way which priorities to apply to production and how to produce and distribute our collective wealth.

Socialism is when people decide their own fate in a free manner. Only the democratically organised self-activity of everybody can achieve that. The task of socialists today is basic socialist education and propaganda. Humanity cannot be saved without substituting for this present society a fundamentally different society. You can call it anything you want to, the label makes no difference, but its contents have to be specified, the contents of socialism as it will be accepted by the majority. The image of socialism can only be one of radical emancipation and radical protection of the environment. Socialism will be accepted only if it is considered radically emancipatory on a world scale without exception. Whoever commits crimes against human rights under whatever pretext in whatever country should be condemned by the socialists of this world. Socialists struggle against any condition in which human beings are despised, alienated, exploited, oppressed or denied basic human dignity.

We make no predictions about the future. Everything remains open. But understand that you cannot be happier than if you have dedicated your life to defend humanity everywhere in the world. There is no better way than to devote your life to this great cause. That’s why the future is with socialism. 

Less poor get to uni

The number of students from Scotland's poorest areas going to university has fallen, new figures have revealed. Data from the university admissions body Ucas showed a drop in applications and places awarded to those from the most-deprived 20% of areas. There was an increase in Scots from the most-affluent communities going to university.

An economics lesson

Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as today where the 1 per cent owns more than half the national capital, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life. Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. When they sell similar goods, their competition is obvious. Even when they sell altogether different goods, like TV sets and houses, they still compete for the limited wage-packet of the worker. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. Others will gain his buyers.

To succeed as a capitalist it is necessary to defeat competitors and add their capital to you own – centralization of capital – or make as much profit as possible from his current sales and reinvest it – accumulation of capital. The first method is of no direct interest to the worker as it matters very little who the boss is. If the capitalists want to fight things out amongst themselves, it is their business. It is of little interest for another reason: it adds nothing to the productive powers of society; real wealth does not grow as a result of it. In fact, all it leads to is the concentration of the same amount of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. We are interested mainly in the second form of capitalist growth: the accumulation of capital. It is accumulation which has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. This is what affects the worker most directly. How do capitalist firms accumulate? Where does the money which they reinvest come from?

In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials, and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value).

That part of the capitalist’s expenditure which is spent on machines, raw materials, and unfinished goods goes the rounds from one capitalist to another in a perpetual circle – this is the social wealth that has already been created. If the productive forces of capitalism were to remain static and not increase, this expenditure would appear like a constant, fixed fund thrown from hand to hand in an endless relay race of production, each capitalist handing on to the next the exact amount required to renew his stock of machines and raw materials. No profit would be made on such sales as each capitalist would swap exactly that amount of machines, etc., for an equivalent amount, and, when all the exchanges were done with, everyone would be where he started.

There is, however, one item of expenditure which makes all the difference, namely, wages and salaries – the expenditure on labour-power. This expenditure is the only one which is not a transfer of goods already produced from one capitalist to another. It is the only item of expenditure which is productive in the dual sense of producing the wealth of society and in the sense of producing profits for the capitalist. Labour alone produces wealth.

The capitalist controls the physical means of production; the workers control nothing but themselves, the capacity to work. They are driven to work, to sell their labour–power to the capitalist, in order to keep themselves and their families. When they sell, they demand a ‘living wage’ for their labour-power, and, if unions are strong and there is not much unemployment, they usually get it. Of course, there are exceptions, but by and large, for the working class, as a whole, this is true.

If the worker produced exactly that amount of products which he could buy for his weekly wage plus what would replace the raw materials and machinery used up in its production, the capitalist would clearly not make a profit. Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

An article in the Toronto Star of April 30th focused on the craze for Luk Thep Dolls which is sweeping Thailand.

These are large lifelike dolls people take everywhere with them, even to restaurants where they have their own menus. Owners treat them as if they are human, especially as they receive blessings from monks. Prices range from $60.00 to $1900.00 per doll.

Adam Ramsey, a journalist based in Thailand, said, "Maybe they provide comfort during rough economic and political times. Perhaps people are longing for a little bit of stability. Something in their life that gives them that sense things are going to be alright."

It is a sad reflection of the time that anyone should resort to such a ridiculous illusion that all will be well within capitalism. It's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

 John Ayers.

Rail Disaster

 On May 2 the Canadian Federal Government spent $75 million to settle with the victims and creditors affected by the Lac-Megantic rail  disaster; a contribution which protected it from lawsuits resulting from it. 

According to Transport Minister Marc Garneau, "we don't acknowledge that we had any responsibility; however, we did want to make a contribution because of the impact of this terrible tragedy in Lac-Magantic."

The government denies responsibility while it attempts to administrate an economic system that creates cost cutting schemes which result in such disasters.

This does not mean Mr. Garneau and his fellow ministers are hypocrites. They can't see an alternative to capitalism. But we can.

John Ayers