Eight years of CND (1966)

Eight years of CND (1966)

Today is Hiroshima Day and so it is fitting that we -re-publish a past article upon nuclear weapons and how to rid us of them. 

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vic Vanni

The Socialist Party will not falter

The fundamental purpose of the Socialist Party is not to preserve capitalism in any shape or form. But do we have a blueprint for a socialist society? Not in detail or the specifics of all the minutia but we can envision generally what such a society looks like. Socialism means expanding democracy, not just in the political sense but also in an economic sense – freedom from want and deprivation. The only real solutions to the attacks on the working masses by capitalism, is the socialist revolution. The defence of even the present working class living standards comes because capitalism will yield its minimal sops and reforms only out of fear. Under capitalism human society is condemned to a series of bitter struggles; class against class, nation against nation, and individual against individual. Inevitably, therefore, the great majority of the people, instead of being inspired by a common social purpose, are forced to struggle for their own individual and selfish interests. Moreover, since capitalism condemns the majority of people to poverty or insecurity, there is a continual waste of human talent and ability. The first and fundamental contrast between socialist and capitalist society is that with socialism all the means of production and distribution are owned in common. Production, that is to say, has become socialised. Thus the exploitation of one class by another is ended and no longer can one small class to live on the labour of the majority of the people. Inside socialism, production is organised to meet the needs of the people and not to provide profit for a single class. It will, therefore be possible to plan production; and so to increase enormously the amount produced.

The task of the Socialist Party is to help to turn our socialist aspiration into a socialist reality. Many of our fellow workers are under the influence of capitalist ideas, therefore the battle of ideas is an important part of the class struggle. The exploitation of wage labour by capital and the extraction of surplus value is the essence of capitalism. The working class had no alternative but to overthrow capitalism.  It is the workers of all countries, who have the cure for the crises of the capitalist system, it is workers who are the gravediggers of capitalism and the builders of socialism. The mission of the working class is not to line up behind their ruling class and fight for the interests of our exploiters. It is not to preserve the capitalist order and reduce its struggles simply to the gaining of reforms. The mission of the working class is to destroy the old social order and usher in the new world of socialism, to rescue society from the sufferings of capitalism, to emancipate all the oppressed, and end the exploitation of man by man. The working class must wage its day-to-day struggles; if it does not, the workers will be, in the words of Marx, “degraded to one level of broken wretches, past salvation”. But these everyday struggles must not be over-exaggerated; they must be waged with an objective in mind - the aim of accomplishing the socialist revolution. The compass for where we are headed should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end in sight and not to lose our way. This socialist system is not a utopia or dream, as many try to suggest. It is often argued that, however desirable such a society may be, it could never be made to work, because, whatever changes are made in the form of society, human nature will always remain fundamentally the same: there must always be rulers and ruled, rich and poor, employers and employed. This argument springs from ignorance of the facts. The study of history, and the observation of primitive communities still living in the world, prove that in the earliest kind of society not only were the land and the tools (what are called the means of production) regarded as the common property of the tribe, but everyone shared in the common tasks of production, as well as in the product of their labour. There was common ownership, and therefore no classes. 

Socialism will be a classless society, in which all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” For this to be possible, socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses, and so on, to satisfy material needs so that people can lead fulfilling lives. Socialism is not something which can be established in one country, isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary it must be embrace by all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to war. Many institutions which we accept today as essential, such as police and prisons, employers and workers, soldiers and civil servants, will have disappeared. Because no wars can take place in a truly global society there will be no need for armies. Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts and police will have disappeared. In other words, the State, which is the sum of all these institutions and organisations, will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men and women will have grown accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion. Work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of men’s lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science and technology much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman will develop their mental and physical capacities to the full. Thus, for the first time, humanity, will be united in a world-wide family.

Let us pledge ourselves to work towards this goal. 

We follow ideas, not men

The essential theories which Marx and Engels developed have been proved correct again and again. The Socialist Party adhere to the basic conceptions of Marxism because they have proved to be true. No better set of ideas has been shown to be superior and not through lack of trying to think of better ones. On the contrary, these attempts have been numerous but have failed to improve on the original. Unemployment and poverty neither radicalises the working class nor pushes it towards socialist solutions. The overwhelming majority of unemployed workers can be categorised as ‘resigned’ or ‘broken’. Without objectives and well-developed ideas of their own. The chronic un- and under-employed tend to support any social movement that offers assistance or make the best promises for a better future.  The left had little to offer besides education and enlightenment.

The kind of “socialism” under which everybody would receive the same pay, an equal quantity of meat, an equal quantity, of bread, would wear the same kind of clothes and would receive the same kind of goods and in equal quantities—such a kind of “socialism” is unknown to Marxism. Rather the principle is from each according to ability, to each according to self-defined needs. It is obvious that people’s needs vary and will vary in socialism. Socialism never denied that people differed in their tastes, and in the quantity and quality of their needs.

We have seen that the capitalists all over the world try to solve the crisis for themselves by throwing the burden of the crisis upon the workers through wage-cuts, reductions in welfare benefits, speed-ups in industry, lengthening or shortening of working hours, tax laws to benefit the wealthy and by intensifying their competition against foreign competitors through trade wars, etc. The major social contradiction of the capitalist system is the conflict in interest between the owning capitalist class and the producing working class. This gives rise to class struggle, the capitalists always seeking to more intensely exploit the workers, and the workers struggling to retain the products of their labour. The class struggle, as we have already seen, becomes ever sharper with the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism, and it eventually culminates in the socialist revolution. The capitalist class has always endeavoured to soften this contradiction. But the facts demonstrate that it is no more successful in accomplishing this than it is in its efforts to wipe out the other basic economic contradiction of capitalism, the conflict between the capitalist modes of production and distribution. In spite of all the efforts of the capitalists to quench the class struggle, by damping down or beating out the workers’ opposition, it flares up ever broader, more vigorously and more menacingly to capitalism. It has always been a policy of the capitalist class, especially in the imperialist countries, to split and weaken the working class.

The problems of the impoverished and deprived cannot be solved by charity and the benevolence of the privileged. There is no solution to the social problems of the working class other than their emancipation from the poverty and deprivation itself as a whole. Even if the charity organisations multiply a hundredfold and work non-stop day and night, they can still not sufficiently tackle the sufferings and miseries of humanity. There can be no salvation within the capitalist system. Charity is no solution to this calamity of hunger and homelessness. The charity of the rich and powerful is like that of a thieve who rob a home at night and before fleeing, leaves a few coins on the table for the house-holder to buy some crumbs in the morning and because of this kind gesture of the robbers, the victims should feel indebted and grateful. We who create and produce all the wealth are the ones being plundered by the capitalist class. Our knowledge, our skills and our grasp of science and modern technology, if all that is brought under the democratic control and management of those who toil, the whole humanity can be gifted with bountiful abundance. The liberation of mankind would eliminate want once and for all. Those billions now struggling for food, shelter, and clothing will start to explore new horizons. That is socialism. It is a simple solution. Charity is a demeaning symptom of capitalism's failure to adequately provide for everyone.

Capitalism is the motor now driving the world towards ecological collapse, threatening us all. Insatiable growth and consumption are destroying the planet and will doom humanity in the long run -- but without ceaselessly growing production and insatiably rising consumption, we would have economic collapse in the short run. The problem is that the critical decisions that affect the environment, decisions about what and how much to produce, about resource consumption, about pollution -- are not in society's hands and not even in the hands of the government. Those decisions are in private hands, mainly in the hands of large corporations. CEOs have no choice but to make systematically wrong decisions. Corporations aren't necessarily evil. They just can't help themselves. The unplanned, anarchic production for the market, single-minded pursuit of profit maximisation at the expense of all other considerations is running at full throttle filling the world's water and air with toxic and warming pollution, and propelling us towards extinction. The common good of society is ignored for the pursuit of individual economic self-interest.

Global wealth is created by the combined labour by hand and brain of hundreds of millions of people. The current economic and political system allow a tiny minority to own and control that wealth. That is why we have billionaires while most of us struggle to make ends meet and hundreds of millions live in abject poverty. This system allows a massively disproportionate share of wealth to be narrowly concentrated. The resources of the billionaire philanthropists are created by the social effort of the producers, and in a rational economic system, those resources would be available as of right for the good of society and not dependent on the whim of private individuals. Instead of relying on any billionaires to distribute the wealth created by the labour of millions of workers that wealth should be allocated democratically according to need. Moreover, by socialising the means of producing such wealth, massive extra resources could be generated to meet all the needs of humanity for food, shelter and a decent life.

Commonly the word “socialism” is used as a political trick. Reformers of capitalism often call themselves “socialists” or are frequently accused of being “socialists”. It is suggested that countries with large government welfare programmes are socialist or where industry is nationalised makes them socialist. State ownership is not socialism because  the workers are still not the masters of their labour conditions and they still are separated from the production process. The workers remain wage-earners; wage- slave. The capitalist relationship is not abolished. The Socialist Party will not deem its work done till capitalism is removed and replaced.

The People’s Platform

With socialism, we can use the world’s resources, and the accumulated knowledge and skill of our fellow workers to change the face of the planet, to create a world in which poverty, exploitation, and war are just bad memories. It is with that goal in mind that we in the Socialist Party set out. The Socialist Party have no illusions of grandeur. We are a small political organisation with a limited audience at the moment. We have no illusions about the scale of the task, or about the limitations imposed by our size, influence, and talents. We don’t regard ourselves as the elect, the bearers of the truth. We know that only the working class can transform society. We don’t seek to put ourselves in place of that class. We seek only to make workers conscious of their interests and their power and to direct that power at the capitalist system. We appeal to all who agree with us, to join us. People have two roads to follow: Either the road of capital, towards steadily worsening living conditions and increasing misery or the road of revolution and socialism.

A socialist revolution worldwide will mean that the problems of world poverty can be tackled and overcome in a coordinated way and that people will move freely over the face of the globe. It will mean harnessing of all the world’s resources for the benefit of united humanity, will become a reality. Few can deny that the world today is in a constant state of upheaval. That is reflected in the widespread turmoil and conflict not only in the developed industrial nations but also in developing nations throughout the world. The Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated that the capitalist system does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. It is a social system in which society is divided into two classes—a capitalist class and a working class. The capitalist class consists of a tiny minority—the wealthy few who own and control the instruments of production and distribution. The working class consists of the vast majority who own no productive property and must, therefore, seek to work for the class that owns and controls the means of life in order to survive. The relationship between the two classes forms the basis for an economic tyranny under which the workers as a class are robbed of the major portion of the social wealth that they produce. Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organised on the same basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism.

For many on the Left, the working class can’t understand the idea of socialism: only the party can. And socialism is not judged by whether the working people rule, but by whether the new rulers can plan the economy in the name of the “objective interests” of the people where the intellectual Leninist elite battles the capitalists with the goal of better managing the economy for the ignorant masses. We need socialism more urgently than ever. But it won’t come through the vanguardist parties of the Left.

Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation. Despite the many threats to workers’ lives, liberty and happiness today, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realised only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising, politically and industrially, for socialism. We can sympathise with any organisation, party, or group that sincerely advocates the self-emancipation of the workers. Even when they themselves are not yet interested in revolutionary ideas, radical groups could discuss on their own how the working class might organise, production, distribution, and control over society. Socialist ideas and the socialist revolution are still evolving.

Workers Can Build a Better World

Why do you wish to be governed over? All government is over us in the interests of the minority capitalist parasite class, regardless of the Left/Right spectrum of the political parties. Why do you need a leader? If you need a leader you are a slave. The Socialist Party, Britain's oldest socialist party, and its second oldest political party, does not have, never has had and never will have, a leader. It is a slavish, sheep-like, and an abdication of one’s personal responsibility to require one:

 “I would not be a Moses to lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you into it, someone else could lead you out of it.”― Eugene V. Debs

"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.’ - Marx and Engels

The Socialist Party doesn't support either Corbyn or the notions of leadership and has damn all to do with Momentum or the Labour Party. It doesn't matter whether the politician is an honourable person or a shit one. They are only in charge of you, as you have abdicated responsibility by agreeing to be governed over. They are not in charge of economic events. That is left to the anarchy of the market system.

Trying to work out why the ruling class and their paid for and bought media should be so apparently unfairly opposed to Corbyn (when he's only a harmless reformist advocating what Harold Wilson did 60 years ago), we wonder whether the vote in parliament on Trident gives a clue -- they don't want the main opposition party, which has a chance of forming a government, to be unilateralist? It might be a coincidence, but they encouraged the SDP breakaway in 1981 which effectively ruled out a possibly unilateralist Labour Party from getting into government in the likely future. They want nuclear weapons because, in the capitalist world of competing states, "might is right", so this is of vital interest to them.

This charade of democracy doesn't alter the relations of production, doesn't alter waged slavery, doesn't alter the 90-95% producing all the wealth and the 5-10% profiting from this to become stinking rich, with a waged ration for the 90-95%.

All capitalist economies are determined by the realisation of profit … Profit is the raison d’être. As a result, if profits are declining, or by scrapping unprofitable plant or machinery profits will increase, it is quite usual for productive capacity to be scrapped. Profit can ONLY come from the exploitation of the vast majority. The illusion of democratic control over ungovernable economic forces scarcely addresses this point. It doesn't alter outcomes one iota though. The rich will still be rich and the rest of us will still be waged slaves producing all the wealth.

As long as you keep settling for a reformed capitalism, you will get waged slavery, if you are lucky, a food bank if not. A ration or a hand-out. The capitalist parasite class will be laughing all the way to their conspicuous consumption of the wealth you produce, while you go to work.  Capitalism cannot be reformed or tamed to work in the interests of the majority.

A commonly owned and democratically controlled, production for use, shared planet run by ourselves with free access and recallable delegation where administrative tasks require some specialisation does do so. We don't need money in a production for use society.

Capitalist democracy even with reforms, doesn't address the intense competition between rival capitalist blocs, locally, regionally and globally over markets, trade routes and raw materials which ultimately leads to war, either in the global confrontations of the last century, the war science arising from those at Nagasaki, Hiroshima, or the ever ongoing proxy wars. It doesn't address the limited apparent 'normalisation' of acceptance of the only 'choice', as being between two evils, as natural outcomes, nuclear annihilation or conventional annihilation.

A commonly owned and democratically controlled , production for use, shared planet run by ourselves with free access and recallable delegation where administrative tasks require some specialisation does do so. It is past time for a societal upgrade to a post-capitalist system. Cuba, Sweden? Still capitalism with waged slavery for the majority and riches for the minority. The Daily Mail and every other capitalist newspaper, don't even acknowledge what communism is. They think state capitalism is communism. Communism and socialism, essentially mean the same, is a democratic, production for use, post-capitalist society, with common or social ownership (not the state ownership) of all the means of producing and distributing wealth in conditions of free access and democratic control by us all without elites. Government over the people will cease to exist and instead we will have administration, by us, locally regionally and globally, over things and resources with recallable delegation where specialism is necessary.

"From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs"

Wee Matt

Break the Chains of Wage Slavery - Fight for Socialism

There is a worldwide yearning for human dignity. The majority of people are disillusioned and have deep questions about the prospects of life under capitalism. It’s easy to play on people’s fears and prejudices and to point fingers at certain groups. In the past, it has been ‘the Jews’, ‘the Irish’, ‘the blacks’, ‘the Poles’ or some other easily identifiable target that was blamed for society’s ills. Imagine what life would be like if capitalism was no more and had been replaced by a genuinely socialist society. Imagine a society in a sustainable ecological balance, with material abundance and social equality, a society where social relations were premised on human solidarity, not capitalist exploitation and competition where people are set against each other, but a world where production for profit, driven by accumulation of capital, has given way to production for use. With the establishment of socialism, for the very first time in history, the greater our knowledge, the greater will be the direct benefits to the majority of society. Our aim in the Socialist Party is to reach out to the majority to create an independent, mass workers movement for socialism. We put forth the socialist case that revolution is the only alternative to more suffering and misery.  The working class must emancipate itself. No one can do it for them. We in the Socialist Party cannot function as “social workers” who, instead of advocating that the workers themselves fight for their interests, try to patch up the problems of capitalism and make life a little “better” for the workers. To avoid social, environmental and economic collapse, the world needs to move beyond capitalism. Socialism is where we all put all our resources together and work for the common good of us all and not just for the benefit of the few. We are sharing the wealth within society. We need to stop robbery. We need to free ourselves from this system based upon wage slavery. Capitalism cloaked itself in a libertarian guise by proclaiming that the freedom of the market is the only realistic way to achieve this more general liberty. What we need is economic democracy or we will never be free.

You hear union members and their leaders demand fair pay for work. If you walk into a store and buy something for ten dollars you would expect to get back something worth that ten dollars. You wouldn’t expect to buy a single stick of bubble gum; it would have to be something of the same value. At the same time, you cannot expect to get a brand new iPhone for that money. The labour market works in a similar fashion. Those who are there to make the purchase are the employers, the bourgeoisie, who have capital and are in need of workers to manufacture their products and provide service. Those who seek to be hired, who seek an opportunity to sell their “commodity,” are the workers. This “commodity” that they sell to the capitalist is their labour power. This seems like it could be a fair trade, yet workers continue to demand fairer wages, and the capitalists continue to make higher and higher profits while they refuse these demands. How can this be?

Profits cannot be made from the increasing prices of goods alone, the “free market” rules this option out. After all, if a single capitalist increases his prices, he will soon discover that others sell the same goods of the same quality but for less money. Naturally the majority will go for the cheaper offer and the one selling at a more expensive price will have serious trouble getting rid of his goods and making money. If all the others decide to or are forced to increase their prices, this will affect the single capitalist as well, being that he can’t live off his money alone but has to buy commodities like everybody else. We can conclude that increasing prices can be a temporary means to gain profits for a short time in certain sectors of the economy, but they can never be the sole source of capital.

Let us again consider the labor market. The capitalist invests a certain amount of money to hire the worker $56 for 8 hours of work, a wage of $7 dollars an hour. However, the value of the product of this labor will net his boss $200. So is this extra $144 the work of magic? Of course not. The Marxist Labor Theory of Value explains that value is created by labor power. The amount of spent labor power is measured in time, therefore the value of a commodity is determined by the time necessary to produce it. This means that the value of the worker’s labor power can be measured in the amount of goods and, thus, money he needs to keep himself alive and going, to maintain and restore his ability to work after a long day on the job. Therefore the capitalist is compelled to pay him the bare minimum wage needed for survival (sometimes more, sometimes less), $56 in this example, yet the ratio of the amount needed for the basic maintenance of the worker to the hours needed to earn this much is unlimited. Essentially, the capitalist is able to extract more hours from workers while only compensating them to a minimum and reaping the larger part of the value created by the worker.

In our example, the worker would only need to work for approximately 2 hours and 14 minutes to produce a value of $56, but the capitalist hired the worker for a certain period of time, 8 hours here, and during this time all value produced belongs to the capitalist. The workers are paid not for their labour, but for using their labour power to perform work for the capitalist, and they do so with his means of production. The moment they start working, the product of their labor belongs to their employer, no matter if less (which would most likely get the worker fired) value or more value is produced in that period of time than is embodied in the money the workers have received.

This additional, unpaid labour, is called surplus labour and the value it produces without the worker being compensated for it is called surplus value. The extraction of surplus value from the working class is the basis of the capitalist system. Every capitalist’s goal is to extract as much surplus value as possible as it is the basis of their profit. The only way to press more and more surplus labour from a worker is to either reduce the time he works, to gain capital through investment and/or to increase the time the worker works “for free,” without receiving any payment. To put it bluntly: the higher the wages are for workers, the lesser the profit for the capitalists, and vice versa.

Now the question raised at the beginning can easily be answered: are fair wages possible under capitalism? Can a worker receive the full equivalent of the work he performs in a capitalist society? The answer is no; it is entirely impossible as it would leave no surplus value and thus no profits for the capitalist class, and thus render their existence impossible. It would become obvious that they are superfluous parasites, feeding off of the blood and sweat of the working people and living on the unpaid labor of others. The wealth of a selected minority is based on the exploitation of the majority’s hard work. To expect fair wages under this system is like expecting the abolition of slavery in a slaveholder society, as Marx points out. The moment the slaves are freed, we can no longer speak of a slaveholder society; the moment the working class receives the full value it produced, our society has ceased to be capitalist.

Taken from here

Time for revolution

Capitalism has generated within itself a socialised process of production. It has laid the actual, material foundations for the socialist transformation of society. Ideas arise from actual life. They are not innate in man. Their basic determinant is in the material conditions by which man gets his living. Thus all epochs of society have had their own system of ideas, their own belief-system. Ideas have a powerful influence on events. That socialist transformation of society will not come about of itself. It will come about by stages through the actions of men. Those actions will be guided by theory. All facts, natural and social, show that absolutely everything is in the process of movement, of coming into being and passing out of being.  Marx and Engels could not have arisen in times of feudalism because the social process had not yet reached the stage where there was sufficient development. The mass impoverishment generated by capitalist industry gave birth to socialist ideas. Marx and Engels who introduced the idea of development into socialist thought, and perceived the working class not only as it was but also as it was becoming. Through the development of industry the working class would grow in numbers and organization, while gaining constantly in intellectual and moral power. In this way workers would achieve the power to emancipate themselves. To be sure, it would have to be educated to this. But this education, as Marx and Engels understood, could not be brought about by men who proclaimed themselves the schoolmasters of the workers, the vanguardists but through the experience of the class struggle, forced upon the wage earners, by the conditions under which, they lived. The task for socialists was to help it understand the nature of capitalist society.

The working class, under capitalism, are all the people in this society who do not own property or investments or a business from which we can make money from, and therefore we have to sell our time and energy to an employer - a boss. We are forced to work from necessity of requiring the means to survive – to pay for our food, clothing and shelter. Work takes up the majority of our lives. Our work is the basis of this society. Employment and the society that grows out of it are alienating and miserable for us. Even if we enjoy parts of our job we experience it as something alien to us, over which we have very little control. Employers and bosses want to get the maximum amount of work from us, from the longest hours, for the least pay. We, on the other hand, want to be able to enjoy our lives: we don't want to be over-worked, and we want shorter hours and more pay. We are constantly fighting against the imposed conditions of our lives. This is class struggle. Work being forced on us like this compels us to resist. Simply standing up for our own interests brings us into conflict with bosses, and bureaucrats everywhere. By resisting the imposition of work, we say that our lives are more important than our boss's profits. These everyday struggles are a requirement for our survival. The experience of those who are forced to labour and who struggle against the society based on toil, creates certain kinds of ideas. A class conscious working class are those worker who struggles to do away with employment and class divisions, and the society built around them. This attacks the very nature of capitalism, where profit is the most important reason for doing anything, and points to the possibility of a world without classes and privately-owned means of production. We are the working class resisting our own existence. We are the working class struggling against work and class. When we are actively fighting for our own interests, these ideas solidify into an anti-capitalist perspective. We are in an emergency. This is no time for gradualism. Urgency is now of the essence.

Across the world, the capitalist class through its ownership of wealth holds economic and political power. Apart from a few personal possessions and perhaps, if lucky enough, a house without a mortgage attached to it, the vast majority of workers own nothing but their labour power, their ability to work. The wealth is produced by those who work by hand and brain, far in excess of the wages they are paid. The surplus goes to the capitalist owners or shareholders as profit. This is capitalist exploitation, the basis of all forms of rent and interest. A capitalist system is inevitably marked by gross inequality. People are divorced from the process of decision-making.

Two courses are open. Either the present trend will continue. Or steps must be taken to secure full command of the world’s resources, wrest power from the few, end exploitation and use the wealth produced by the people for the welfare of the people. There is no middle way. The only path of advance is towards socialism. Socialism is logical. Socialism means democratic control and common ownership of economic resources, of means of production and distribution. Politically it is power in the hands of the people. Socialism will enable the community as a whole will share and gain from all increases in productivity, all the progresses in science and application of technological discoveries. By ending exploitation it allows people to make their own future. The goal of socialists is to establish the rule of the working people in place of rule by the owners of property.  

How can you vote for any capitalist party?

" 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)

We are not left wing. Left-wing, right-wing are all capitalism. They retain the waged slavery system and amount to, "meet the new boss, same as the old one". The Socialist Party is Britain's oldest socialist party. Socialism is the post-capitalist society and not some tinkering about with an irreformable capitalism.

The purpose of any capitalist government is to manage the affairs of the capitalist class. Its moral root is fertilised by the search for profit. By enabling the continued extracting of as much surplus value from those in work and reducing the maintenance costs of those, not in work they full fill their civic duty, moral compasses fully set, for the service of Mammon.  Capitalism is well past its sell by date. Time for a world, commonly owned, a society of free access. State control is state capitalism. It is a left-capitalism and not a communist or socialist proposition. Socialism/Communism/Marxism is a post-capitalist society, where the means of production and distribution are owned in common, by us all and not the state. There is NO means of exchange, as it is a free access society and the absence of a leading economic elite, renders the state also, obsolete.

Abolish the wages system and take everything into common ownership. With common ownership, production for use and free access, there will be no commodity production of goods for sale for the profit of a minority. Therefore no need for prices, wages are but the price of the workers, commodity "labour power". Some trade union banners have the slogan, "the abolition of the wages system" written on them. With real common ownership, (not state or government ownership) democratic control by us all and crucially, production for use, we enter the post-capitalist society or socialism/communism as correctly understood.

The wage is basically a ration which provides subsistence for the wage slave. It consists of so much food, clothing, shelter and an amount for bringing up the next generation of wage slaves to toil or even die in war for, the parasite owning capitalist class. So the workers commodity, (labour power) not only produces all wealth but reproduces itself, exceptional for a commodity, as a source for further future exploitation. As there is no such thing as a "Fair day's pay for a fair day's work", in a market system, where wages as a price conform to market principles for the purpose of profitable exploitation, seemingly advantageous situations for workers, as in the example of across the board £ increases rather than percentage ones, are just a reflection of workers bargaining strength at the time. We should focus our attention on getting rid of capitalism. There are no “fair do's” in a capitalist market system. It is time long past for a brand new post-capitalist social system. One which is owned by us all, in which production is for use and not for sale.

We have been accused of using jargon. Sorry if it appears so. Some also get the idea that we are happy to decry people who call, themselves socialists. But we are delighted if they identify with socialism as the way forward for humanity. However, socialism has been misrepresented sufficiently, not only by the ruling capitalist class, but by some who would consider themselves its adherents.

For instance the Labour Party which was never a socialist party but existed a a combination of Liberals and trade union reformers, with the purpose of gaining reforms for working people, rather than the overthrow of existing social relations of production, some with the view that capitalism could gradually be reformed into something it was not, known as “gradualists”, provides a convenient stick for unabashed supporters of capitalism to show that socialism doesn't work when the inevitable crisis of capitalism emerges from the trade cycle of capitalism. Effectively a failure of capitalism and its unreformable nature becomes a propaganda tool to beat socialists with, yet socialists of my kind have pointed out since 1904 the inevitability of gradualism becoming absorbed into the capitalist political mainstream. It is incumbent upon socialists to point this out, as it would be a gross dereliction of our educational responsibility not to do so.

Similarly, when the Russian revolution occurred, it was also incumbent upon us to show how this could NOT be a socialist revolution. But an attempt to kick start capitalist development upon a largely rural, peasant and feudal system. We welcomed initially, the ending of Russia's involvement in the slaughter of WW1. Yet, by August 1918 we had cut through the crap,"....Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place, or an economic change has occurred immensely more rapidly than history has recorded, the answer is “No!”

The explanation for this conclusion is here.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1918/no-168-august-1918/revolution-russia-where-it-fails

Socialism isn't 57 varieties despite politically manipulated appearances. It has a definition. i.e. the common ownership and democratic control of all the means and instruments for creating and distributing wealth.  (NB, no means of exchange as it is a free access society.) As it requires the support and active participation of the immense majority who are politically aware of its implementation being indeed, a revolutionary break with the capitalist mode of production for sale and introduction of the socialist/communist/post capitalist mode of production for use.

Socialism/Communism/Marxism is a post-capitalist society, where the means of production and distribution are owned in common, by us all and not the state. There is NO means of exchange ,as it is a free access society and the absence of a leading economic elite, renders the state also, obsolete. In a socialist society, a real one, not a capitalist reformist pretend one, we won't need any classes or political leadership, as we will have local, regional and global control over all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, in a commonly owned world, of production for use and free access, "From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs", with recallable delegates where we need to delegate administrative tasks.

Why settle for crumbs from the tables of the rich. We have a world to win.

Dissolve governments with their weasel words and their political management of us. Any reforms brought in will be dismantled in an 'inevitable' economic downturn, as capitalism cannot be managed, except in the interests of the economic parasite class. All government is over you. Elect yourself to own the world in common with your fellow workers worldwide. In a socialist society, a real one, not a capitalist reformist pretend one, we won't need any classes or political leadership, as we will have local, regional and global control over all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, in a commonly owned world, of production for use and free access, "From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs", with recallable delegates where we need to delegate administrative tasks.

A cartoon version of Robert Tressell's classic, "The Great Money Trick".

Text version 

Wee Matt

Introducing the WSM (video)

Our flag is the red banner of socialism

Since the 19th-century thieving capitalists have used philanthropy to pose as social saints, to shape society in their image and to create confusion about the nature of capitalism. In 1998 Bill Gates’ company Microsoft was charged with illegal practices, and Gates, the world’s richest person, was condemned as a ruthless monopolist. A mere four years later, after launching a charitable foundation, Gates was praised as a generous philanthropist. The media lauds Gates for his compassion. He presents himself no longer as the scourge of mankind, using patents and intellectual property laws to acquire and increase his wealth, but now as humanity’s benefactor, even its saviour because of his perceived charitable giving. The ruling class have even re-invented war as philanthropy, now calling it “humanitarian intervention”.

Frederick Engels long ago explained charitable giving by the wealthy:

“The English capitalist class is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but regards its gifts as a business matter, makes a bargain with the poor, saying, ‘If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery. You shall despair as before, but you shall despair unseen…this I purchase with my subscription of twenty pounds for the infirmary!’ It is infamous, this charity of a Christian capitalist! As though they rendered the workers a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then placing themselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when they give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!”

Members of the working class are the only true philanthropists by producing a surplus that is taken by the employers instead of being used to meet human needs. Marx pointed out in Capital, value is not created simply by owning something, but only through the application of human labour. By owning the productive forces - i.e. the factories, the land, the mines, and all the science and technique that is necessary to utilise them - the capitalists appropriate all that is produced by the working class. Only a fraction of the value created by the working class is then paid back in wages. The rest, what Marx termed “surplus value”, is divided between the capitalists (as profit), bankers (as interest), and landlords (as rent). As companies grow bigger and bigger, so do the profits that can be appropriated by their owners. Thus for every billionaire, their wealth is based on exploiting the unpaid labour of millions of workers. That a handful of these billionaires decide to give away some of their amassed fortunes should come as a surprise, when you consider that there is absolutely nothing else they could do with such money. There are only so many mansions, yachts and private jets, that one person can buy. Once their bellies are full of caviar and champagne the only options facing these billionaires are to a) invest the money as capital in order to receive more money; b) pass their fortunes down to their children; or c) give the money away to “philanthropic” ventures.

What right have a handful of individuals such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg to decide the priorities in tackling the many social problems of the world, whether it should be healthcare or education, or in industrial production generally? Surely these decisions should be made collectively, as part of a democratic process involving everybody? We must also ask ourselves whether it is necessary that in order to eradicate poverty and diseases we should rely on the “generousity” of such wealthy individuals to donate some of their vast fortunes at these problems, in an unplanned and uncoordinated way? Surely, no-one can seriously be suggesting that social problems will be solved in this manner, at the whim of a single person. If this wealth was socially owned and democratically planned, we could make tremendous advances, far surpassing what is currently achieved. We must question if the attempts to “eradicate poverty” and “create a more equal society” can ever be achieved by the charity of these billionaires? We must ask: what causes poverty? Why is there inequality? Poverty does not exist due to a lack of education, or a lack of hospitals. Just ask the millions of people in the USA without access to healthcare, in a country that contains some of the world’s finest, best-equipped hospitals.

 Poverty and inequality are in fact fundamental features of the capitalist system, and are a necessary result of an economy based on wage labour. Since the vast majority of the world’s population do not own their own means of production, they are forced to sell their labour power, i.e. their capacity to work, as a commodity to the capitalists, i.e. those who do own the means of production. The value of this commodity is determined more or less in the same way as for any other commodity, i.e. with reference to the socially necessary labour power required to reproduce the worker (and their family) at a certain standard of living. This standard can be raised or lowered as a result of the class struggle, but generally the “going rate” tends to sink to that just necessary to keep workers alive.

We need to expose philanthropy for what it is — a means to deceive and confuse workers. Before a wealthy benefactor can give away his wealth, he has to first accumulate it. Capitalists fight for profits on two fronts. One is against their business competitors. The other is against their workers, the source of their wealth. Marx and Engels noted in the Communist Manifesto, “A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.” If any were to denounce capitalism, and make the case for socialism, they would quickly find themselves ridiculed and ostracized. A society in need of philanthropists is one rooted in inequality. The writer Balzac argued that behind every great fortune lay a great crime. This does not mean that the fortune-maker, in his personal make-up, is disposed to depravity. No, his actions may very well be driven only by the soundest business principles. But no one accumulates billions with clean hands. There is no reason to demonise members of the capitalist class as individuals, on account of their great wealth for in the final analysis, the issues raised by their private fortunes don’t go to the personal and moral qualities of their character.

Following in the footsteps of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, to-days philanthropists believes in a special form of democracy, otherwise known as plutocracy or an oligarchy. Social engineering by these elite philanthropists is not compatible with real democracy. The real issue is that philanthropy does not actually change the most fundamental inequality in our society. It is no more a solution to poverty or inequality as a blood transfusion is a solution to a severed jugular vein. No amount of philanthropy or charity can solve the basic problem in society: the theft of most of the value produced by the working class by a tiny capitalist class. Even though workers run the assembly lines, drive the trucks, stock the shelves and build the homes, it is their employers who profit. Recirculating a proportion of that stolen wealth back to the poorest and most vulnerable in society does not solve the basic issue: that the fruits of our labour have been stolen from us.

Putting the "NOW" Into Socialism

“The economists have changed Marx, in various ways; the point is to interpret him — correctly.” Andrew Kliman

Socialism is not a too complicated doctrine to understand. Socialism is a theory of a system of human society, based on the common ownership of the means of production and the carrying on of the work of production by all for the benefit of all. In other words, socialism means that the land, the transport networks, the mines and mills, the factories and offices, and all such things as are necessary for the production of the necessaries and comforts of life should be public property, just as our public roads, our public parks and our public libraries are public property today, so that all these things should be used by the whole people to produce the goods that the whole of the people require.

The most obvious obstacle to the socialist transformation of society is the simple fact that most workers are not socialists. Indeed most workers accept capitalism, believe it can’t be changed, and view socialists who want to change it as idealists.  Capitalist society is founded on the principles of private property and the profit motive – and therefore is thought of as ‘natural’. Capitalist ideas seem to make sense because they reflect the world as we experience it. Businesses are run for profit and society is divided into owners and the property-less classes – so to believe these things are ‘natural’ seems simple commonsense. As Marx put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’.

Socialism cannot be created on behalf of workers, but must be the act of the working class itself, how can this happen when the working class is dominated by capitalist ideas? Workers’ ideas clearly cannot simply be changed on a mass scale by socialist propaganda. A socialist journal such as Socialist Standard even if it became a daily newspaper can’t match the operations of the millionaire-owned press. This doesn’t mean attempts by socialists to spread their ideas through newspapers, pamphlets and books is irrelevant or unnecessary. They are vital elements of the battle of ideas.

The basic premise of socialists is that the operation of capitalism itself drives workers into revolt against the system. The spread of socialist ideas must also have a material base; just as capitalist ideas dominate workers’ thinking because they reflect their daily experience, so the spread of socialist ideas will reflect changes in that daily experience. It is often supposed that the more people suffer, the more revolutionary they become. But if this were so, then the revolution would have happened long ago. In fact it is not suffering, but the experience of resistance against suffering that forms the material basis for the growth of socialist ideas. If the intensity of class struggle is high, then socialist ideas can spread like wildfire as workers’ confidence in their ability to change their own lives rises, and they become more able to see that alternatives to capitalism are possible. The transformation of working class consciousness is astonishing. All the mental energy that workers previously frittered away on a hundred and one diversions is suddenly directed towards trying to deal with the problem of how to change society. Millions of people working on such problems produce solutions of amazing ingenuity.

But socialist ideas have to be there, ready to inform those class struggles, to articulate and generalise and ready to prove their practical relevance by pointing to the way forward. The trade unions fight for shorter working hours, higher wages and better working conditions for their members but socialist parties fight for the liberty, equality, fraternity of all human beings. The world will only be guaranteed security, democracy and peace only when it is run on an entirely different basis than it is now; only when a socialist system replaces the present capitalist one. The capitalist ownership of the means of production and distribution means the exploitation of the great majority by a small minority; that brings recurring wars and constantly undermines democracy. Therefore the aim of the Socialist Party is the ending of capitalism and the building of a new socialist society. Its features are unique, not shared by any other section of the labour movement. They enable it to make an essential contribution to the growth of socialist understanding.

Contrary to the ideas spread by some on the Left, it is not the aim of the Socialist Party to undermine, weaken or split the labour movement. As Marxian socialists we sincerely desire the strengthening of the working class. We believe that to consistently explain socialist ideas will help its development. Without clear socialist aims the class struggle will lose significance. The dominant ideas continue to be the ideas of the ruling class. One way to oppose this is by education in socialist ideas. Fellow workers who are new to socialism require to be taught the rudiments of the its analysis of how society has developed and can be changed, to learn the lessons of past working class struggles, how we can understand the modern world, and the basics of the capitalist economy. While workers who are already socialists need continually to deepen their understanding of these matters, so that they can cope with all the arguments thrown against them.

 There are two roads open to the people of the world today. We can continue along the route of capitalism or we can take the socialist path.

Student Costs

Edinburgh is the most expensive city in the UK for students to live and work in, according to a survey. Above average rent costs plus lower than average term-time income made it the least affordable.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-36904289

Socialism Is Our Goal

Socialists admire that slogan “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” but assert that ONLY by carrying on the fight for socialism can it be achieved. It will ONLY be accomplished by the declaration of labour’s independence and the proclamation of labour’s coming emancipation. There is  a multitude of reasons why socialism is not much of a force than it is today. We must understand, first of all, that revolution is not a simple process of raising the crimson red banner and rallying everyone who is exploited and oppressed to muster under it and rise up. Capitalism is a very sophisticated enemy. It is a system which knows how to bribe and buy-off those who challenge it. It knows how to absorb reforms and innovations that offer a pretense of solving the people’s problems. It knows how to create a culture that makes it appear there are no bitter class antagonisms under the surface of society. And it is also very good at discrediting and slandering the ideas of social revolution and socialism in the minds of the people. In trying to change this system, we should never forget that these factors constitute an important part of the objective conditions under which we work. There are no short-cut schemes to alter them, only painstaking, and prolonged educational work of illumination and enlightenment.

People are seeking an alternative to the situation. They are disgusted by the capitalist politics. The world is divided not between “good men” and “bad men,” not between black, brown and white, not between foreign-born and native-born, but between working people and their capitalist exploiters. The government pretends to be the impartial umpire of the social struggle. This is a lie. The capitalist class has shown itself unfit to rule because it cannot even feed its slaves. To establish democracy is the aim of the Socialist Party. Not the fake limited political democracy but the real economic and social democracy which comes from a society where men and women collectively own their own means of livelihood, the factories and industrial machinery where “we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” In the view of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.”

The theory of socialists is that if the enormous wealthy of society, controlled by the few, were controlled by the people, poverty could be eliminated, an end could be made to the mass murder of war, and mankind could live in peace and plenty. In a revolution, the power and wealth of society change hands. They are transferred from one class to another. In our time, there are two fundamental classes in society, the working class and the capitalist class. This kind of social revolution would be necessary on a world scale this kind of revolution would be necessary on a world scale. Since capitalism is a global system, to be successful, socialism must replace capitalism globally. The minority class owns the wealth, profits from it, keeps down the standard of living of the majority class which has no wealth. The workers are cajoled and propagandised to protect the wealth owned by the ruling class and to maintain the profits and privileges of the ruling class.

Socialism can be constructed only on the basis of a highly productive economy capable of producing abundantly. Where there is scarcity, with the consequent scramble for the meagre necessities, the fight for privileges takes place; the material basis for a privileged bureaucracy appears. Genuine socialists have confidence in the ability of the working class to overthrow capitalism and do not have the slightest doubt of the ability of the workers to dispose of the capitalist class.

Thanks to the extraordinary development of industrial technology, the world’s vast resources and the existence of skilled workers, the organisation of socialist production on such a scale as to ensure plenty and thereby economic equality for all, can be assured almost immediately. Once workers have made their revolution, the decisive factors of resources and technology will provide the material basis for the broadest workers’ democracy, leading to the fulfillment of the revolution in the classless socialist society. But the thing now is to make the revolution.

The Socialist Party's Road to Socialism

The Socialist Party has set out its essential doctrines and has formulated its case for the future so that its principles of socialism should enter the minds of fellow-workers and prepare them for the new society. The Socialist Party declares itself to be the only genuine socialist party in the United Kingdom, and acting on that view, it opposes every other party and fights them at every election.

Our party is proud of the fact that it looks upon the free discussion of party problems, party principles and policies, not as an occasional luxury but as an integral part of its daily life, as an indispensable element in its development. Any controversy that arises, whether it be a matter of internal organisation or the application of socialist principles to some problem of the moment finds its way into our Annual Conference at Easter (or our Autumn Delegate meeting.) There it gets analysed, investigated, debated and argued and then put to the full membership of the party to vote upon in a party-poll.

The Socialist Party is a revolutionary organisation. It has perhaps come into being along a different road from your own. Also in many ways, it traditions and its methods differs from yours. We know that many of you have significant differences with ourselves, particularly on questions relating to history, more specifically on the question of Leninism or Trotskyism and of aspects of the Russian Revolution. Since 1917, we believe our original analysis has been the correct one and now argue that history has confirmed this fact.  Take no one’s word, but find out for yourself, and after this has been done we feel that our conclusions will also be yours.  

By bringing men together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and pecuniary gain in place of humanity, capitalism has always been inherently alienating, contributing to  mankind's sense of  insignificance and impotence. A socialist transformation of society will return to mankind a sense of human solidarity, to replace this sense of being a commodity. A socialist democracy implies control of his or her immediate environment and in any strategy for building socialism, community democracy is as vital as the struggle for electoral success. To that end, socialists must strive for democracy at those levels that most directly affect us all — in our neighbourhoods, our educational centres, and our places of work so to control all our own destinies. The process is the raising of socialist consciousness to create workers' participation in all institutions to release creative energies and restore human and social priorities. The Socialist Party want not only a society in which people’s needs are provided for by an abundance of goods and services, but in which their great and varied capacities can be fully developed. The path to socialism is through a fundamental change in class relations.

 Changing the economic system is not an end in itself. It is a means of creating conditions in which human beings will be able to realise their full potentialities and work together for the common good, instead of being divided by sex or race. Capitalism distorts human individuality, subordinates men and women to the needs of the profit system, sets them against each other. Socialism aims to develop their individuality by creating a society in which exploitation and poverty are ended, and the resources of science and technology used to reduce the time spent in monotonous and mundane jobs to a minimum, and vastly increase the amount devoted to leisure and creative work. Modern technology itself would be rationally planned and applied. It is the people themselves who have to build socialism, become involved in its administration, and be responsible for the development of society. The success of socialist planning will depend on a detailed and intimate knowledge of the enterprises concerned, and on the commitment of the workers involved. With the advent of socialism and the ending of the conflict between worker and capitalist employer, the function of the trade unions would change. Through the development of industrial democracy, they would play a vital role in creating the economic basis for socialism with workers’ participation at all levels, in planning industry as a whole and in every enterprise and department. The workers would have a dominant say in determining the conditions of work. New attitudes to society, to work and to culture will develop. New relations, based on co-operation instead of domination and exploitation, will come into being between the sexes, between generations, between peoples.

A flourishing socialist economy would be able to meet the social needs of the people and improve the quality of life. Socialism is based on the principle ‘from each according to ability; to each according to needs’. Such a society requires the production of an abundance of goods to satisfy the needs of all, and a new outlook of co-operation and concern for the common good, with the ending of attitudes and habits associated with the class-divided society of the past. It will be a society without classes and in which the need for the state as an instrument of class rule will have disappeared. It will be free of exploitation, using science and technology to liberate people from drudgery and toil, extending leisure and education and culture, so that human capacities are developed to the full — a society in which, in the words of the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, ‘the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’.

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About 400 North Sea oil workers have gone on strike for 24 hours over plans to cut their pay and allowances. Members of the RMT and Unite unions employed by the Wood Group on Shell platforms have walked out. The seven Shell platforms involved are Shearwater, Gannet, Nelson, Curlew, Brent Alpha, Brent Bravo and Brent Charlie. Wood Group provides maintenance and construction services to the installations

The unions claim workers could suffer a cut to their pay and allowances of up to 30%. Workers are also disgruntled that a two-week working cycle has been changed to a three-week cycle. leaving many away from their families for a longer time.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "After savage redundancies and attacks on workload and working conditions, this group of offshore workers are now told that they are going to be railroaded into accepting pay cuts of up to 30%. We are well aware that the company chief executive has had a pay increase of 28% to bring him up to £600,000. It is obscene that while the top bosses are lining their own pockets they are kicking the workforce from pillar to post. This brave group of workers are taking a stand against the greed and savagery that is a mark of corporate Britain in 2016."

John Boland, Unite regional officer said: "This dispute is the first in the North Sea in three decades and shows the strength of feeling of our members who feel backed into a corner and left with no other option but to use their industrial strength to make Wood Group listen. Our members have been faced with changes to shift patterns which have seen them working longer offshore for the same pay, as well as having three rounds of redundancies imposed on them. This attack on their pay and allowances has pushed our members too far this time."

We are THE Socialist Party

A function of the Socialist Party is to ensure that our fellow workers are educated into realising that their industrial power must back up a political or general class fight. This struggle can only be accomplished by the working class through their own influence and sticking to uncompromising socialist principles. We cannot expect results unless the masses understand and organise. We have to overcome the power of the state, which is an instrument of capital against labour. This should be done by criticising and exposing the real character of the state.  The Socialist Party seeks to organise all workers into one great PARTY OF LABOUR. Our method is of political organisation at the ballot box to secure the election of representatives of the Socialist Party to all the elective governing public bodies and thus transfer the political power of the State into the hands of those who will use it to further and extend the principle of common ownership.  We, therefore, appeal to all workers to throw in their lot with the Socialist Party and assist it in the gathering the working class to achieve its great object – the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing all wealth.

For the working class of the world, the lesson is plain. Socialism is the overthrow of the capitalist system, and the establishing in its place of a co-operative commonwealth. Our goal of social revolution is the abolition of capitalist private property, the abolition of all exploitation of man by man, the common ownership of the means of production and their planned use for the benefit of the whole of society. The Socialist Party does not put forward this goal as a mere utopia but as a goal the practical attainment of which is made necessary by the actual conditions of modern society. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue? But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs since man makes his own history and chooses what to do. What is determined is not his choice, but the conditions under which it is made, and the consequences when it is made. The meaning of scientific socialism is not that it tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to choose. Not one who really believes in socialism can afford to come to terms, in any shape or form, on vital principles with the class enemy. We do not ally ourselves with those who shy away at the very notion of the co-operative commonwealth being established in his or her day, and who rather propose that socialism can only be an ultimate aim where  everything will go on just as it is in your life-time, my life-time, and the life-time of your children; but sometime in the dim and distant future, perhaps in our grandchildren’s grandchildren life-time when it does not very much matter, socialism may come about. The Socialist Party is dedicated to the revolutionary socialist principles and to the struggle for socialist freedom in the here and now.

Are the Socialist principles and its fundamental ideas unsound? If so, we have been on the wrong track all the time. The Socialist Party is founded on three cardinal principles:

1. that society is divided into classes with conflicting economic interest;

2. that economic considerations is the mainspring of human action;

3. that surplus values are wrested from the working class through the private ownership.

Socialism can scarcely be better expressed than by Marx and Engels that the basis of the new society will be the administration of things, as opposed to the existing order which consists in the coercion and exploitation of persons. Socialism means the freeing of the individual from the fetters which weigh upon ourselves under the capitalistic system. And this is not to be understood as meaning that while the old fetters are removed new chains will be riveted. All direct coercion of the individual, as such, is contrary to the principles of socialism. Coercion will be the task of socialism to get rid of, if not immediately, as effectively and speedily as possible. One of the aims of the industrial and political organisation supposed by socialism is the guaranteeing of the freedom of the individual for good or ill. Socialism comes not to destroy individual freedom, but to fulfil it.

The Socialist Party, part of the World Socialist Movement to establish a new society appeals to you to join it and engage in the noble fight for working-class emancipation and socialism. We have the right to call upon you to enter our Party, for we have never flinched from the struggle against capitalism and never forsaken the principles of socialism. Given favourable conditions our activities will spread to where we live and work, awakening the consciousness and stimulating the militancy of fellow workers, winning them over to the banner of the party of the socialist revolution, the Socialist Party.