2017 – The year of revolution?

Just as capitalism is a world system, so must the alternative to it be a world system. In capitalism, the means of living are owned and controlled directly or through the medium of companies, corporations or the state, by a minority class, and function solely for the purpose of enriching that class and protecting its ownership. In socialism, the entire means of producing and distributing wealth will be owned and controlled in common by the whole of society and will function solely for the purpose of satisfying the needs of humanity. Since all will be owners of the productive processes and the resources of the world, and all will freely participate in the production of all the things the human family requires, so all will have free and equal access to their needs. There will be no requirement for a market or the use of money as a measurement of wealth or means of exchange.

The appalling waste and destruction of capitalism will disappear. There will not be a need for armed forces or millions of people to spend their working lives producing the instruments of death and destruction. There will be no need for the vast armies of people who service capitalism's market economy in banks, finance, and insurance palaces, in shops and stores; no need for armies of salesmen chasing one another around the blocks or for ad-men or the mass of people in the 'social' services doling out rations of money and crumbs of comfort. Certainly, there will be no shortage of people to do the work in Socialism, and, unlike now when computer and robot technology threatens the mean security of a worker's wage packet, the application, and development of technology will simply ease the general burden of producing and distributing society's goods.

HUMAN NATURE

The priest and the parson will tell you that such a scheme of things is against what they call 'human nature'. According to this theory, 'God' created us as a weak species without the co-operative instincts of many lower forms of life and, as a result of our weakness, greed and envy - our 'human nature', - we could not have a society based on human co- operation. The theory is not very flattering to 'God', but it has always won the approval of ruling classes and they have not been slow in encouraging the priests and parsons in their work of convincing the great mass of 'have-nots' in society - the people who produce all wealth and own virtually none - that their condition is the result of their greed and weakness, and that these defects put the idea of a sane society based on harmony and co-operation beyond their reach. We do not have to look far to discern the reason for the invention and promotion of this quite untenable theory.

The success of mankind is found in its ability to co-operate in overcoming the obstacles presented by nature, and there is an abundance of evidence to show human beings living co-operatively and harmoniously in a condition of social equality before the advent of a society based on class ownership of its means of wealth production. What we call 'fresh air' is the most essential prerequisite of human existence, but no one complains about another's respiratory consumption of it and no one attempts to hoard it. In most urban communities there is easy access to the second most important requirement of human life, clean water. As long as it flows freely, people avail themselves of it rationally and do not fight over it or hoard it. People who have consciously opted for socialism would not be compelled by their nature to hoard, steal and kill. In a world of socialist co-operation, men and women will give according to their abilities and take according to their needs.

The vision of a world without poverty, without slums and unemployment, without crime, racism, and war, without the starvation, degradation and alienation of most of the people on our planet almost defy the imagination. The insanities of capitalism have become a way of life to us; we can immediately see the absurdity of starvation in a world of potential plenty, the absurdity of collecting charity for research into diseases while devoting multi-billions to research into more sophisticated methods of dispensing death. These and the other myriad contradictions of capitalism make it a system that is incapable of being rationally defended and yet, because we have been conditioned into believing that this is all life has to offer, our initial reaction to the idea of Socialism is incredulity. And, when that incredulity is analysed, it usually boils down to the objection that, while Socialism is a highly desirable condition of life, it is not feasible because others, not ourselves, would be unable to co-operate to bring it about or make it work.

Given the death and destruction that capitalism now causes and the vastly greater destruction that it holds in readiness, can any rational human being argue that socialism, the only alternative to capitalism, is not worthy of examination and effort?

THE MEANS

It is true that there are many groups, organisations and political par1ies that use the word 'socialism' to describe their policies or ultimate aspirations. But only rarely do they define what they mean by socialism and, when they do, they use the term to enlist the support of workers for some scheme which they hope will improve capitalism by removing one or more of its grosser features. We do not need to go into any political or economic theory to demonstrate the fallacy of thinking that the problems caused by capitalism can be eradicated while the system itself is left intact - that an effect can be removed without its cause. The fallacy of such reasoning is amply demonstrated in the number of Labour, Social Democratic and 'Communist' parties that have presided in government, and continue to preside, futilely grappling with the same old problems and legislating for the continuation of those problems and not their abolition. The first thing we should notice when we consider how society will be changed is that capitalism does not exist simply because the capitalist class wishes it to. On the contrary, it is the great mass of capitalism's victims, the working class, who allow it to exist. Not only do they run the system from top to bottom, producing its wealth and policing their own robbery but, because they have no knowledge of any practical alternative to capitalism, they vote for political parties and leaders committed to its continuation. Capitalism simply could not continue to function without the support, active and passive, of the working class.

We cannot over-emphasise this point for it demonstrates not only the path forward to socialism but the lunacy of those who preach violence or opportunism as a means of overthrowing the system. Those advocating political violence or subterfuge are in practice saying that they will force or deceive the workers into socialism. But this is impossible, as socialism is a system of free and voluntary co-operation dependent for its success on the precondition of the majority consciously opting for it in the full knowledge of the implications of such a form of society.

There are two classes under capitalism: a majority non-owning class who produce all the wealth; and a minority capitalist class who monopolise the resources of the earth and have the legal right to appropriate rent, interest, and profit as a result of the exploitation of the wealth-producers. It is worth emphasising the legality of capitalism because it illustrates the point that it is the state machine, with its legislative processes, its judiciary, its police forces and, ultimately, its armed forces, which endows the capitalist class with the right, the authority and, if required, the coercive capacity to carry out its exploitative function. The role of the state as the force behind the private or corporate ownership of wealth production and distribution or, in starker terms, the state's role in excluding the great majority of human beings from ownership and control of their means of living - to the point where they often perish from starvation in the rich, or potentially rich, lands of their birth - is one that has to be concealed, mystified and generally obscured from the working class. The law, with its judges, policemen and soldiers, must be made to appear as the guarantor of the just to sleep peacefully in their beds and enjoy their freedom; in fact the law that enshrines the right of capitalist ownership denies millions a bed to sleep in and keeps the great majority of people in the position of wage slaves.

It is the task of the World Socialist Movement to combat the political ignorance on which the foundations of capitalism rest. It is the task of Socialists to show that capitalism, with its market economy, its wages and money system, its anarchy of production and appalling destruction of the earth's resources, can only hold the promise of poverty, unemployment, war and all the other evils which are an undeniable and permanent result of that system. It is the task of the World Socialist Movement to expose the fallacy spread by Labour and 'Communist' parties, and the myriad disaffected offshoots of such organisations, that they can run capitalism in such a way as will alleviate or eliminate its problems. Those problems originate in capitalism; they are an inevitable consequence of capitalism and the idea of political reformers trying to run a system based on the exploitation of the working class in the interests of the working class is laughable in theory and tragic in fact. And it is the task of the World Socialist Movement to show that a wage-free, class-free, money-free world, in which the resources of the earth are owned and controlled in common by all and used to satisfy the needs of all, is a practical and pressing alternative to the miseries of capitalism.

THE VOTE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION

In many parts of the world, workers are afforded the opportunity from time to time to vote for the type of society they want. Up to the present, they have used that vote to determine the political complexion of the party or personnel they wish to administer capitalism. With socialist understanding and organisation, they can use the vote as an instrument of social revolution - to elect socialist delegates mandated to abolish capitalism: to end government over people and establish the democratic administration of things. It is a monumental task, one that strains the imagination and credulity of many who see the need to replace the poverty and cruelty of capitalism with socialism. It seems an impossibly daunting task for a small Socialist movement to acquire the strength to offer a serious challenge to the mammoth organisations that defend and promote capitalism. But the socialist movement is only part of our strength. The rest of that strength is in capitalism itself; capitalism proving by its own anarchy and caprice that it is a system not fit for human beings. The evidence grows more abundant every day.

When we look at the impotence of all the political parties and reformers today and at the bankruptcy of the slogans we can only be impressed with the urgent necessity of socialism. The working class throughout the world can waste their time supporting parties that openly stand for capitalism; they can delude themselves into believing that there is a half-way house between capitalism and socialism; or they can bury their heads in the sand and say they are not interested in politics, even though 'politics' is interested in them and condones their exploitation and impoverishment. Alternatively, they can study the case for socialism and help to build a strong socialist movement. How that movement will progress and when socialism will be achieved will be important questions which they will then be helping to resolve. More immediately relevant than these questions, however, is the fact that, if they were pursuing any other political course, they are wasting their time.

Accumulation equals destruction and annihilation

Unlike both the Hayekians (who say slumps can be avoided by governments adopting a laissez-faire monetary policy) and the Keynesian (who say that appropriate state intervention can end the boom/slump cycle), Marx held that there was no formula for steady growth without booms and slumps. For him these were endemic to capitalism, being, in fact, its “law of motion”. They will keep on recurring as long as capitalism does and there is nothing governments could do to stop this. All credit to Marx for his intellectual honesty as he did insist we critically evaluate it and doubt everything. Hardly any time has passed in historical or economic terms.

For world socialist revolution to occur two interrelated conditions must mature – the subjective condition i.e. the revolutionary will and organization of the working class on a world scale and the objective condition i.e. a comprehensive material maturity of the productive forces for abundance. Until the end of the 19th century, the revolutionary replacement of capitalism was impossible since these necessary conditions were not yet ripe.

However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the situation reversed. Capitalism entered into its era of decadence. Decadence – because, from then onwards, the revolutionary situation (objective condition) remains ready but the revolution has not happened owing to immaturity of working class consciousness and organization (subjective condition).

Humankind has reached the ‘era of social revolution’ but the revolution is yet to begin. Capitalism has gone into its phase of global crisis cycles and anarchy leading to world wars involving capital against capital, fomenting national prejudices and pitting workers against workers to slaughter one another, destroying productive forces on all contending sides and producing misery, poverty, waste, pollution and environment destruction. This is, however, not to say that capital has come to a dead halt. Capital’s nature of exploitation, appropriation, and accumulation of surplus value continues as long as it exists.

Capital develops unevenly through concentration and centralization. And for that matter capital is still going on accumulating globally whereby one capital kills many giving rise to gigantic conglomerates. Accumulation is going through destruction and annihilation. This is reactionary. This is decadence

Productive forces have developed to the stage of both actual and potential abundance for all. But the working class consciousness and organisation have remained subdued under the domination of capitalist ideas and interests – constantly and crushingly campaigned by all pervading 'right', 'left', 'centre' chronicles and ideologies.

They comprise all various belligerent factions of capital. Although they use different names and slogans on their banners, they don’t have any scientific alternative to capital’s devastatingly continued reproduction. They are mere reformists of all various hues. We have experienced enough of such things. And enough is enough! They have given capitalism a century-long anachronistic existence. Measures which were once very necessary and useful for maturation of the system have already more or less accomplished their tasks and grown old and outdated.

The state, 'necessary and logical product of the [given] social conditions', is always in the last analysis 'the executor of the economic necessities of the national situation'. Thus it is always the organizer of society in the interests of the class (exploitative) structure taken as a whole. (Engels)

This remains so, even when governments take the form of dictatorships. This phenomenon—where the capitalist class has been prepared, sometimes even compelled (sections of it, at least) to surrender political control of the government through representative institutions in exchange for the law and order imposed by a strong dictatorship — has been fairly widespread since, from fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Franco Spain to the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina. The Soviet Union was another example of a post-feudal development of capitalism in the absence of a large enough capitalist class.

Of course, such dictatorships are still governments of capitalism and have to run capitalism in the only way it can be; as a profit-making system and so ultimately in the interests of the capitalist class.

The material productive forces of society have come into conflict with the existing relations of production. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations have turned into their fetters or, in other words, the productive forces have outgrown the production relation. But nothing will stop an idea which time has come. There can be no 'freedom' when the immense majority are 'compelled' to waged slavery upon pain of penury.

Wee Matt

Councils in debt

According to the Scottish Greens Scotland's 32 councils owe £11.5bn between them. The money is owed to banks and a scheme set up by the UK Treasury. In the last financial year, Scottish councils spent almost £1bn on repayments to the Public Works Loan Board of the UK Treasury and still owe the board a total of almost £9bn. 

A typical council spends the equivalent of 42% of its council tax money servicing the debts. Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Highland, Inverclyde, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire councils all spent at least half of their council tax revenue servicing debt.

 Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) spends more servicing its debts than it raises in council tax locally. 

How poor are the Scots?

Of the £714bn of wealth held by Scots at the start of this decade, the wealthiest 1% of people owned 11%. In other words, just over 50,000 people lived in households where wealth amounted to nearly £80bn. Half of households in the least wealthy group were headed by somebody in work.

The wealthiest 10% of households owned 44% - more than £300bn - while the least wealthy 10% owned little or no wealth. The least wealthy 30% owned merely 2% of the total. It is only above that level - households which are above the bottom 30% - that wealth begins to accumulate, a little. Home ownership begins to have an impact, so the least wealthy half of Scots owned 9% of the total. The least wealthy 30% have almost no wealth held in homes, and the share rises from the fourth decile, getting much steeper for the wealthiest 10% of households. You can be wealthy, by owning your own big house, while having a low income (typically, a single retiree who didn't move out after the kids left). Or you can earn a lot while renting your home.

The property market in the south-east of England is the main explanation of the average Scots household having £186,600 average wealth while the average household across the whole of Britain had £225,000. It was south-east England that pulled up the English figure, at £342,400.

Inequality is much greater in financial wealth. The most wealthy 10% of households owned almost three-quarters of financial wealth, while the least wealthy 50% owned less than 1%. Within the least wealthy third of people, less than a quarter had a savings account, and hardly any had shares.

Physical wealth, or belongings, was more fairly spread about, though the wealthiest 10% of households owned 33% of it, and the least wealthy 50% had amassed only 20%.

27% of people have no source of pension other than the state pension.

The wealthiest tenth had amassed 55% of the nation's total pension pot, while the bottom half had less than 3%. (This does not include entitlement to state pension.) At the risk of bamboozling with numbers, the top 10% had 964 times more saved in pensions than the bottom 30% of households.

From the 2010 to 2012 figures, the wealthiest 20% of homes in Scotland owned 87 times more than the least wealthy 20% of Scots. Across Great Britain, the top fifth owned 105 times more than the bottom.

Handicap-italism

You are either a capitalist – an owner of means of producing and distributing wealth (land, factories, offices, transport, media, etc.) – and can live without working by receiving unearned income; or you are dependent on a wage, a salary or state benefit, in which case you are in the working class. Present-day society across the globe is the capitalist system where all goods and services are produced to be sold for a profit. The capitalists monopolise the means of life, whether through private or control of the state, and they are not concerned about satisfying human needs, but about selling commodities on the market at a profit. There would be no profit without the labour of the working class, for if we did not apply our mental and physical energies to nature there would be no wealth produced to sell. The production of all wealth results from workers’ effort, but we are paid a price for our working abilities which is less than the value of what we produce; it is this difference between the value of our labour power and the value of what we create which is surplus value, the source of profit. So, profit derives from the unpaid labour of the workers. The capitalist accumulates profit by a process of legalised robbery. It follows obviously enough that there is an inevitable antagonism of interests between the capitalists and the workers: they need to get as much as possible out of us and we need to minimise the extent to which we are exploited. Capitalism creates an unceasing class struggle between workers and capitalists; strikes are one expression of that struggle. Workers have still to realise this power – to abolish exploitation and not merely to plead for the chance to be less exploited or to have the right to be employed as wage slaves."

It is our job in the Socialist Party is to stand with our fellow-workers in their necessary battles to defend themselves, but to point out at all times that the real victory to be achieved is the abolition of the wages system. We as socialists also need to say plainly that you cannot run the system of exploitation in the interests of the exploited. Suppose you are the employee of a business whose profits are dropping and you are to be made redundant in order that the boss can recover his profit with fewer workers to pay. It might seem unjust, but, unfortunately, it is not a question of what is just or unjust. The hard fact is that your employer is acting in accordance with the perverse, anti-working-class rationality of the capitalist system. And most accept this logic. We see this type of economics and politics of capitalism as ‘common sense’ and not as the inevitable effect of the contradiction between profit and need which is built into the buying and selling system. The mass media play their part of this. They are owned and controlled by the capitalist class and can confuse and mystify workers’ minds by turning them against their fellow workers. The only way to destroy political illusions is to expose them.

Our fellow-workers must see through the illusion that all that is needed in the class war are good generals. Leaders are good at making speeches, but their words are usually empty platitudes. Instead of assuming that great leaders are needed, it must be recognised that only on the basis of class consciousness will workers show their power. Class-conscious workers will no more need leaders than the sighted need guide dogs. Workers who are politically educated will not see themselves as miners or electricians or teachers or nurses or dockers or doctors; nor will they see themselves as British or French or Russian or white or black. Workers learn from history. Learning the lesson requires workers to understand that they can never win decent lives out of capitalism. It is a hard truth to accept but no matter how many times you strike you will always be a wage slave; no matter how radical a government you elect, its job will always be to over-see your exploitation; no matter how many reforms are passed, the same old problems will soon be afflicting you and your fellow workers again and no matter how often you protest and demonstrate , the state will continue to possess the power of coercion on behalf of the privileged minority; no matter whether capital is owned and controlled privately or by the state, it will always rob you; no matter how much ‘better off’ the workers become, we will never be as well off as we could be in a class-free society. In short, as long as we are wage slaves competing in capitalism, trying to make our situation a little more tolerable, our defeats will be many and our victories few and they won’t even really be victories at all.

The Socialist Party aims aim for a society in which the Earth is the common property of all. We call upon our fellow workers to end this insane system. There is nothing to stop us from making revolutionary use of the ballot box to strip the capitalist class of their property titles. Once socialism has been brought about we can set about the exciting and practical work of running society for the benefit of all. Democratic decisions will need to be made, not by leaders or by governments, but by all interested people. In a socialist society there will be no market, no buying and selling, and no money. Exchange can have no function where everything belongs to everyone. All people will have free access to the goods and services available. No human being need ever starve in a world of potential food for all. Production will carry on with all people contributing according to their abilities and taking according to their needs. Wage labour will not exist, as nobody will be selling their mental and physical energies to anyone else, and enforced idleness (unemployment) will be a thing of the past. The sole concern in producing and distributing wealth will be, do people require it? Never again will human needs and communal interests be ignored for the sake of profit. Production for use will mean the liberation of humanity from the social problems which dominate the news every day, but which can never be solved within capitalism. Only this will be victory for the working class.

Putting A Brave Spin On Things.

On October 19th the Toronto Star happily reported that manufacturing sales had increased by 0.9 per cent in August, according to Stats-Canada. The increase in the volume of sales, overall, was even bigger at 1.2 per cent, with sales up in 15 of 21 industries. T.D. bank economist Dina Ignjatovic said,''This is welcome news for the Bank Of Canada, which is patiently waiting for the manufacturing sectors to pick up the growth baton. That said, we continue to expect interest rates to remain on hold for the foreseeable future.'' Well whoop-dee do isn't life wonderful? The Star neglected to mention unemployment was down in August from 7 percent to 6.9. So there is still plenty of people without a job. Putting a brave spin on things fools nobody. John Ayers.

What is Socialism?

The word socialism means many different things to many different people and it is used in many different contexts in the media. No wonder there is confusion. We are often asked what our platform is (establishment of a socialist society), are we Trotskyists (no), Leninists (no), and so on.

The interpretation of socialism runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous so it may be appropriate for us to investigate its meaning as far as we are concerned. Some see the Left Wing agenda as socialist, i.e. fighting for reforms such as raising the minimum wage, lower student fees, taxing the rich to pay for social programs etc. Obviously, the deduction from this is that there will always be student fees, minimum wages, and the rich. While we are happy to see the working class get any advantage in living conditions, we see that reforms will never bring us closer to a socialist society and reformers accept that capitalism is the only game in town.

To us, the Left Wing and the Right Wing are but two wings of the same bird – capitalism. In other words, both are part of the current destructive system. Some see unions and their activities – collective bargaining, work-to-rule campaigns, strikes, the struggle for better pay and conditions – as part of socialism.

While we agree that unions are a necessary institution for fighting against the worst excesses of capitalism and that they benefit the working class under capitalism, they do nothing to create a revolutionary activity, promote socialism, or any alternative to capitalism and, over time, they have been drawn closer and closer to accepting capitalism. In “Value, Price, and Profit, Marx wrote on unions: “They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it (i.e.capitalism) imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economic restructure of society. Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wages system!..Trades Unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

 Unions, then, are not revolutionary, they react to capitalism’s actions, and they are specific to their members, favouring one group of workers over another group, such as their members over workers in other countries, rather than taking a world-view of the class struggle.

Some people and the media see socialism as the central planning of the economy by the state government. This would include the nationalization of some major industries on the premise that if it belongs to the state, it belongs to the people. This would also essentially describe what occurred in the former Soviet Union and what is happening today in so-called socialist countries like Cuba. China, as is obvious, has abandoned even this pretence of this particular brand of socialism and opened its doors to capital investment from abroad although the ‘communist party’ remains firmly in control of the country.

Nationalisation was used as a tool to keep the economy running smoothly with the necessary services to capital that the capitalists couldn’t do for themselves. Massive undertakings in roads, railways, health care, shipbuilding, steel production, coal mining, and other aspects of infrastructure were often too big an undertaking for the capitalist class in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was difficult to raise the capital involved for the project and the risks  were enormous. In effect, the state was minding the service until agglomerations of capital became big enough for privatization.

Since that time, most nationalized industries have been privatized or are under heavy pressure to do so. A nationalized industry is run like any other business – capital is advanced, raw materials and labour hired, and a commodity produced and sold at a profit, thanks to the theft of the surplus-value of the workers. Like private industry, the workers have no say whatsoever in the production process, do not own any of the commodities produced, and work at the pleasure of the owners, in this case the state. Workers must bargain collectively with state officials and often have to go on strike to preserve the gains that they have made previously. Throughout the twentieth century, beginning with the Russian Revolution of 1917, several countries declared themselves ‘socialist’ and were/are run by so-called communist parties.

 The parties of the World Socialist Movement, and many other analytical Marxists around the world, soon saw that these revolutions were simply bourgeois in nature, transferring power from the landed aristocracy to the new elite that functioned as a capitalist class. All revolutions were carried out by small groups snatching power, i.e. were undemocratic, and forced on the majority who did not understand socialism. Police forces, secret terror organisations, and the army were needed to maintain power for the minority. Their economies were set up like those in the capitalist countries but run by the officials of the state, the ‘communist’ parties.

Some politicians and political parties brand themselves or are branded by the media, as socialist. They are all simply vying with all other parties to run the capitalist system, to become its executive council. Some may genuinely want to improve conditions for the workers, but only in the context of the exploitive system that produces profits and enriches the minority from the unpaid labour of the workers. The New Democratic Party in Canada and the Labour Party in the UK, among many, started out with the idea of replacing capitalism with socialism. Both have dropped that idea, have concentrated on small palliative reforms, and rightly take their place among the pantheon of capitalist parties at election time.

Then there is the truly ridiculous. US president, Barack Obama is frequently described as a socialist by his opponents, particularly over his minuscule amendments to health care. He has never hinted, by word or deed, that he is anything of the sort. Newt Gingrich, positioned about as far away from socialism as you can get, was called a socialist by his opponent, Mitt Romney, for saying, “If we identify capitalism with rich guys looting companies, we are going to have a very hard time protecting it.” Gingrich had accused Romney of plundering floundering companies, tossing workers onto the street, and personally pocketing $250 million as head of a successful private equity firm. No further comment necessary!

So what is socialism?

To us, socialism means the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth, democratically managed in the interests of all mankind. That means the land, the resources, the factories, the transportation systems, would all be held in common and managed by democratically elected councils. It means everyone stands in the same relationship to production – no owners and non-owners, no employers and employed, no class system. Everyone would have access to decent shelter, food, education, health care and all other necessities of life. It would mean production for use, not profit, free access for everyone to the goods and services they need. All this would be accomplished with voluntary labour. Imagine, we could produce durable, quality goods with clean energy, practice real green initiatives and devise ways to clean up the environment, use scientists to further the progress of mankind instead of producing military hardware, and so on, because we, the people, would decide democratically what should be done. No more bosses, no more leaders telling us what needs to be done when we already know, no more media lies to obfuscate the truth.

Can it be done realistically?

Yes, because we, the workers, do everything now and don’t need anyone to tell us how to do it. It must be done only when the vast majority understands what socialism is and vote for it. Getting to that point will be the hardest thing yet achieved in human progress but we are convinced that if the truth is presented to the world, it will be accepted. A socialist system has never existed but it is obvious that it is the next step forward in human progress and is not only worth working for, it’s a necessity.

Capitalism

1. A class-based society

2. Minority private ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution.

3. Production and distribution for profit.

4. Access to necessities of life by economic demand i.e. by your wallet.

5. Two classes – those who own the means of production but do not produce, and those who produce but do not own.

6. Employment – employers employ workers as they need them, workers sell their labour-power

7. Markets (buying and selling) for most goods and services, including labour

8.  Activities necessary to support the profit system, e.g. banking, insurance

9. Emphasis on competition

10. Leaders and followers

11. Mostly hierarchical organizations giving and taking orders

12. Periodic elections to choose professional politicians. Government over people.

13. Nation states, armed forces, wars

14. Education and health care for those who can pay

15. Crime (mostly property), a legal system to uphold private property rights

16. Environmental problems (pollution, global warming) caused by the manic drive for profit

Socialism

1. A society without classes

2. Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution

3. Production to meet human need

4. Free access for all, each determining their own needs

5. No classes – all people stand equal relation to the means of wealth production

6. Necessary work – all those fit enough volunteer their services as preferred and needed

7. No buying, selling, or exchange - only giving and taking.

8. Work for necessary and useful production

9. Emphasis on democratic co-operation

10. Participants meeting on an equal basis to make decisions

11. Mostly lateral organizations (co-operation between equals).

12. Elections as required to choose representatives or delegates. Administration of Things.

13. No nation states, no armed forces, no wars.

14. Education and health care for all, as needed.

15. No property crime, any residual crime (against the person) dealt with humanely.

16. Cleanest technology for production for use, not profit.

Scotland in statistics

Rodger Nisbet is executive chairman at Walter Scott Asset Management in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square earned £8.2m.

The top 2% of Scots have an average weekly income of £2,000.

The top earning 1% has been pulling away, at nearly four times the rate of growth of the next highest percentile. The share of total income taken by the top 1% of earners rose in Scotland from 6.3% in 1997 to 9.4% twelve years later. In turn, that second percentile has seen wage growth twice as fast as the third percentile.

Below the top earning 10%, Stirling University analysis shows there has been very little change in the share of income between 1997 and 2009.

Emancipation and freedom

Let us imagine something different. Let us imagine that our children have been born into a society where life is not organised around the need to produce goods for profit but where people co-operate freely, irrespective of sex or ethnicity, to produce the things they need in such a way that everyone contributes what she or he is able. In such a society children are given adequate opportunities to develop their skills and abilities, whatever these might be, without consideration of what is or is not 'natural' to their gender. Thus some who show an aptitude for, say, metalwork will be encouraged in this direction while others who shows an interest in the care of young children will have the opportunity to participate in that. Education is organised not on the basis of tests, competition and the acquisition of a narrow range of skills of use to the labour-market but rather as a continuing and life-long experience of giving and receiving skills and knowledge which enable people to pursue whatever kind of life they think most likely to result in their own happiness. Work in this kind of society - socialism - will not be wage-slavery. People will not have to sell their energies to the minority who own the means of production and distribution - the factories, offices, transport systems, shops, etc. - in return for a wage or salary. In socialism - a society based on common ownership - people will co-operate to produce those things which they need as a community- useful things, which will be freely available to all members of society. With the profit motive removed, men and women will be able to choose their work in accordance with their talents, skills, and preferences, contributing as much or as little as they feel able. The criterion for choosing one kind of activity rather than another will no longer be which one pays the most, has the best perks, the best prospects for promotion or the most job security. All these considerations will be obsolete in a money-free socialist world. Work will no longer be the activity we do to obtain the wage which enables us to survive.

The mere replacement of private ownership by state ownership is not socialism and cannot bring about emancipation. Socialism is a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.  Socialism will be a very different society from capitalism. Whereas in capitalism goods are produced for profit and sale on the market, which means that many people go without the things they need because they cannot afford to buy them, in socialism goods will be produced for people to use, without the need for buying and selling. And because there will be no buying and selling, there will be no need for money; instead, people will take freely what they need from the common store

Work will no longer be the exploitation that it is in capitalism where the majority of us - the working class - sell our labour-power to an employer, who owns the machines, factories, tools, land, etc., in return for a wage or salary. In socialism, because goods will no longer be produced solely for profit, there will no longer be the division of society into classes whose interests can never be reconciled. Work will take the form of co-operative effort, freely entered into by people who will be aware that ail of society is benefiting, and, as a result, they benefit.

In capitalism because of the need for the ruling class to protect its own interests against the opposing interests of the workers, the majority have very little say in the decision-making process - in central government, at a local level, or at work. In socialism, however, each individual will be able to participate fully in the making of the decisions which affect their lives. Democracy in socialism will not be the sham that it is in capitalism but a meaningful process which recognises the worth of everyone and through which people will be able to contribute fully to society in accordance with their particular skills, knowledge or experience.

In capitalism the world is divided into nation-states, reflecting the territorial interests of the capitalist class. This is the cause of patriotism, nationalism, and futile wars in which the working class are sent to be killed themselves, or kill other workers in order to protect the interests of their masters. Socialism will be a world-wide system without arbitrary and divisive distinctions between one area of the world and another.

Socialism is a liberation project for human emancipation. This will not come about in an automatic or inevitable way. A political organisation whose object is socialism cannot permit sexism or racism within its membership on the grounds that nothing can be done now and that the problem will be resolved 'after the revolution'. For a political organisation to be credible, it must embody the attitudes, values, and practices that it seeks to institute in society at large. Socialists believe that all people, men and women, are equally worthy of respect - and the Socialist Party the following clause:

“.. as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.”

People need to want socialism

The abolition of capitalism will be followed by the establishment of a different social system. Socialism will be based on common ownership. While capitalism's wealth takes the form of commodities - things produced for sale and profit - socialism's wealth will be use values, things made solely to meet human needs. While capitalism is a society of class privilege, socialism will be one of the equal rights of free access. While capitalism is a coercive repressive society, socialism will be democratic, with full participation by its people. Just as capitalism promotes and aggravates conflict such as racism so will socialism be organised on the basis of human co-operation for the common benefit. Capitalism is an inefficient society. All sorts of things which ought to be done - like feeding hungry people, housing the homeless, or merely ensuring that old people do not die of cold in the winter - are not done because it is not “economically viable”. Capitalism wastes resources. Not just in building up armed forces and huge arsenals of weapons, whose only function is to destroy but also wastes the abilities of tens of millions of people who are in jobs which may be necessary in a society of commodity wealth but which are unproductive and socially useless - for example, jobs as sales-persons and bank workers. Socialists point to the absurdity of a world where computers and automation are commonplace and where we can send probes to Mars yet also allows tens of millions to die every year of starvation and untold millions from avoidable diseases. Resources under capitalism are actually used in such a way as to be detrimental to people - polluting the land, water and air.

Socialism will be a basically simple society for it will operate solely and completely on the basis of human needs. Everything which socialist society makes and does will be related to those needs and will, therefore, be to everyone's benefit. Socialism will be free of capitalism's profit motive, which causes the market to take precedence over human need. It will be a society in which people can behave just as humans would was it not for the restrictions and insecurities of capitalism. Human talents will be set free, to design and make the best that is possible, on the single incentive of satisfying human needs and so of benefiting the community. Socialism will mean the greatest flowering of imagination, creativeness and achievement in history. The nature of socialism will mean that climate change and natural disasters will be dealt with in the most urgent and efficient way. Socialism's production will harmonise with human interests because free of the chaos and restraints of commodity production for the market, the new society will be able to plan its work, what it makes and how it must be distributed to meet human needs.

Socialism will not happen, and cannot work unless the world's people want it. They must understand how and why it operates and must opt for it in that understanding. It cannot be imposed on society by a minority or by a group of political leaders. By the same token when a majority of people have established socialism no minority will be able to take it away from them. Having set up socialism the majority will not lose interest; they will continue to operate society on the same basis of informed democratic decisions. This is again something which has already been facilitated by capitalism, through the development of the internet and mobile phones which enable opinions to be assessed worldwide literally in hours. Decisions could be taken only when everyone is fully informed; socialism's democracy will entail the free availability of all information and knowledge. It will be a society vibrant with discussion and debate. From one generation to another the strengths of a society of communal ownership, free access, co-operation and harmony will be handed on. People will relate to each other as equals, as caring sisters and brothers. Co-operation will be the norm, an everyday, established reality and not an impossible dream.

This is all possible, virtually at once, if the working class were to recognise their own immense power to transform society. At present they deny themselves this power, effectively handing it over to the capitalist class by their support for capitalism and cruel delusions such as racism and nationalism. Socialism will be the end these to make it a world free of social conflict in which human beings live and work in unity without distinction of sex or race.

Marx in Space

Asteroids have a high density of precious metals such as platinum or rare-earths, which are also needed in a number of key technologies. Entrepreneurs are speculating about the prospect of high returns on investments in obtaining resources beyond Earth for which shortages are soon to be expected and causing concern. It may eventually be possible to mine valuable minerals from asteroids cheaply enough for it to be worth bringing them back to Earth. Apart from the technological hurdles that is still to be overcome if commercial asteroid mining is to become practically possible and economically viable, another snag to resolve is a legal one. “The way a private company would enforce their right to mine is through a national court,” says space law expert Dr. Chris Newman of the University of Sunderland. “In making a ruling, that court would exercise sovereign rights, contravening the OST. We will only know how this would play out if it is tested in court.” Perhaps, the court in question may well turn out to be the Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals which are being incorporated into many global trade agreements.

Space mining can be described as similar to fishing in international waters. No one owns the fish until they are in your possession, and then you own the catch. The Outer Space Treaty (OST)  of 1967, prohibits nations from exercising territorial sovereignty over celestial bodies. No country can own the moon or any other part of space, no matter how many astronauts have placed flags there. The treaty’s Article 1 states:

 “The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind. Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.” (our emphasis)

But the treaty is being interpreted to as permitting asteroid mining but as is well-known legal opinion can differ widely.  The Moon Treaty of 1979 declares in Article 11, section 1, that the “The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind” and effectively bans private property by any organization or person unless that organisation is international and governmental. The Moon Treaty has an additional weakness -  the signatures of China, Japan, Russia, and the United States are notably absent.

The US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 decrees any materials American individuals or companies find on an asteroid or the moon is theirs to keep and do with as they please. It establishes the rights of investors to profit from their efforts under US law. Luxemburg has enacted a similar law to come into effect in 2017 intended to protect future outer space investments worth billions of dollars. Two US enterprises, Deep Space Industries (DSI) and Planetary Resources (PR), already have their European headquarters in Luxembourg, with Luxemburg, itself, becoming a shareholder in PR.

Commercial activity in space could easily cause international conflict as it does on Earth. There are precedents for working together such as the multi-state International Telecommunication Union which approves the orbits of satellites. The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the UN in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security, and development. These bodies could well be adapted for administrating space inside a socialist society

Socialism Not Bolshevism

The Socialist Party has always held the view that socialism can only be brought about by the democratic and class-conscious political action of the majority of the working class. It has consistently opposed Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and all their followers. Far from advancing and hastening the development of the socialist revolution they have greatly hindered this movement. Their contempt for the intellectual abilities of the working class led to the claim that the vanguard party should rule on their behalf, even against their will. The tragic consequences of adopting these ideas have proved the correctness of the Marxist principle of “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”. The core belief of all socialist theory and practice is socialism will only be brought about when a majority of women and men of the working class understand, desire and organise democratically for its achievement. Ours is a movement with a clean and honest record where dictatorship is concerned, a critical stance maintained over many decades has been shown to be right.  Never has the appeal for workers of the world to unite been more relevant or urgent. Together we can eliminate the waste of human capacities and material resources which exist under capitalism. Together we can achieve an abundance of the means of life to which everyone will enjoy free access. Together we can nullify the risk of another capitalist world war. Having seen world capitalism stagger on decade after decade, we could get the impression that it is so firmly entrenched that it will remain forever. In fact, confronted by a socialist majority, the lesson is that it will prove so fundamentally weak that its abolition will be a mere formality causing it to dissolve into history. The urgent task for workers everywhere is to unite in their own interests and establish world socialism.

Socialism does not exist in any part of the world, and nor has it existed in the past. Achieving a socialist society will be a complete social change - a revolution. For many people, the word 'revolution' conjures up the image of armed insurrection, as in the capitalist revolutions of the past. In these past revolutions, the minority rising capitalist class was overthrowing another minority, the feudal aristocracy, using peasants and workers as pawns. In Lenin's Russia and Mao's China, Marxist slogans were used. One result of this has been that many calling themselves socialists, have taken the capitalist revolutions in such countries as the model for what they see as a future socialist revolution. They plan to lead the working class in a violent uprising aimed at overthrowing the state by force. But socialists are emphatically opposed to all those who advocate violent minority uprisings. A regime which is set up by minority violence can only be maintained by violence or the threat of it. A socialist society can only be established by the clear will of the great majority. Wherever parliaments of one sort or another exist, delegates will be elected with a simple instruction: to abolish the minority ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution so that they no longer belong to a class but to the community as a whole. In the event of a minority trying to violently disrupt the plans of the majority, socialist society would have to defend itself. Socialists are not pacifists but simply do not advocate violence unless it is absolutely necessary to defend the democratic will of a socialist majority. We have adopted the old Chartist principle of “Peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary”. The socialist revolution will be the outcome of majority socialist understanding combined with democratic political action.

Socialism means the whole community owns the factories, the transport, the farms in common and because we own in common all the produce of each other's labours, we are all entitles to take freely from the fruits of all that collective cooperation. Socialism does not need barter, money or any other kind of exchange. All will be the common heritage of all and each can enjoy free access to the common store of all that can be produced. Humanity will relate to one another not as economic categories but as social equals. They will pool their resources and talents to provide the best possible goods and services for all. The framework of a world community will allow cultural diversity to be maintained. All this is possible, and much more besides. It is there for the taking. It will be the start of a new era of conscious control and free creation whose results we can hardly imagine. It depends on the political organisation of a majority of workers determined to establish a socialist society and not to waste their time trying to modify and reform present-day capitalist society. What will happen is up to the people to decide. Tomorrow's history will result from what we think and do today. So long as human beings are characterised by the ability to plan their actions and think with reason, there is no inevitability that capitalism stays. For socialists, the only answer to the threat of social and environmental destruction is social innovation. And that means a completely new way of organising society based not on the dictatorship of an owning class but on the common ownership of the earth's resources.

Call A Spade A Spade

Some people in Toronto go to air-conditioned malls to escape hot weather. 

One said,''I can afford to buy an air conditioner, but not the electricity to run it.''

 Poverty affects people in many ways, so why not get rid of what causes it.

The Toronto Transit Commission are giving subway musicians a boost by providing bold black backdrops for their performances. This is to help focus attention on them, in other words so subway users can give then more money. 

To call a spade a spade, buskers are beggars who provide entertainment. It may be all very well to help a beggar, but wouldn't it be better to have a world where no one has to beg?

John Ayers.

The Joy of Work

The greatest problem awaiting solution in the world to-day is the existence in every country of extreme poverty side by side with extreme wealth. How is it that the men and women who till the land, who toil the mines, who operate the machines, who construct the factories and build the homes, or, in other words, those who create the world’s wealth, receive only sufficient to maintain themselves and keep their families on the border line of bare necessity, while those who do not produce --the employing class--obtain more than is enough to supply their every comfort, and luxury? The prospect before the workers of all the world is that they will continue to suffer hardships of the capitalist system until they actively interest themselves in understanding socialist principles and assisting in socialist re-organisation. Capitalist production rests upon keeping those who produce in subservience and economic exploitation. Work under capitalism means selling labour power in a labour market which is alien to their interests as individuals and alien to their interests as a class. Under capitalism work and the division of labour in the cause of profit turn people into the appendages of machines and slaves to the assembly-line that is physically and mentally destructive and which proves to be a life time of personal frustration. Workers sacrifice their individuality and lead double lives, only becoming their true selves in their home-life and during their leisure hours. Work is not an end in itself but a distasteful and repugnant means to a pecuniary end. Capitalism makes impossible what William Morris called "The expression of man's joy through his labour"

 Socialism will it will be a society free of classes in which the exploitation and oppression of man by man will have been abolished. All human beings will be social equals, freely able to co-operate in running social affairs where the means of life will be owned in common by the entire community. At one time socialism was known also as 'social democracy', a phrase which expresses that decision-making would extend to all aspects of public life, including production where  'government over people' gives way 'to the administration of things'; meaning that state power of government coercion will have no place in socialism. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is in fact an instrument of class oppression. In socialism there will be no classes and no built-in class conflicts: everybody will have the same basic social interest. There will be genuine social harmony and community of interest. In these circumstances there is no need for any coercive machine to govern or rule over people.  Those who wrongly assume that government and administration are one and the same will have some difficulty in imagining a society without government. A society without administration would indeed be impossible since 'society' implies that human beings organise themselves to provide for their needs. But a society without government is both possible and desirable. Socialism will in fact mean the extension of democratic administration to all aspects of social life on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. There will be administrative general assemblies for settling social affairs by majority decision. Democratic organisation will involve delegation of functions to groups and individuals. Such people will be charged by the community with organising specific necessary functions. They will be chosen by the community and will be answerable to it. Those who perform the administrative functions in Socialism would be in no position to dominate. They will not be regarded as superior persons, as tends to be the case today, but as social equals doing an essential job. Nor will they have at their command any force to impose their will. There will be no opportunity for bribery and corruption since everybody, including those in administrative jobs, will have free access to the stock of wealth set aside for individual consumption. The material conditions for the rise of a new ruling class would not exist. The purpose of socialist production will be simply and solely to satisfy human needs. Under present arrangements production is for the market with a view to profit. This will be replaced by production solely and directly for use. The production and distribution of sufficient wealth to meet the needs of the socialist community as individuals and as a community will be an administrative and organisational problem. It will be no small problem but the tools for solving it have already been created by capitalism.

Capitalism has developed technology and social productivity to the point where plenty for all can be produced. A society of abundance has long been technically possible and it is this that is the material basis for socialism. Capitalism, because it is a class society with production geared to profit-making rather than meeting human needs, cannot make full use of the world-wide productive system it has built up over the past two hundred or so years. Socialism, making full use of the developed methods of production, will alter the purpose of production. Men and women will be producing wealth solely to meet their needs, and not for the profit of a privileged few. Using techniques for predicting social wants (at present pressed into the service of capital), a socialist society can work out how much and what sort of products and services will be needed over a given period. Men and women will be free to discuss what they would like to be produced. So with research and discussion an estimate of what is needed can be made. The next problem is to arrange for these amounts to be produced. Capitalism, with its computer power and input-output analysis, has developed the scientific techniques which a socialist society can use.

When the wealth has been produced, apart from that needed to renew and expand the means of production, all will freely take what they feel they need to live and enjoy life. This is what we mean by 'free access'. There will be no buying and selling, and hence no need for money. What communities and individuals want does not vary greatly except over long periods, and it will be a simple administrative task to see that the stores are well-stocked with what people need. If any shortages develop they will not last long. Planned reserves will be held as a safeguard against unforeseen natural disasters.

'From each according to their ability, to each according to their need' is a long-standing socialist principle. It means what it says: that men and women will freely take part in social production to the best of their abilities, and freely take from the fruits of their common labour whatever they need.

Confronted for the first time with such proposal for free distribution and unrationed consumption, many people are sceptical. What about the lazy? Or the greedy? Who will do the dirty work? What will be the incentive to work? These are understandable objections to those who have never thought about such a startling proposition. Work is a social must for human beings. The point at issue is how work should be organized and for what purpose. In capitalism work is reduced to a monotonous drudgery for most people, instead of allowing it to provide the pleasure it could, and would in a socialist society. Working for an employer is always degrading, often boring and unpleasant and sometimes unhealthy and dangerous. But we should not continue with misleading association of work with employment.  There is no reason at all why the work of producing useful things cannot be as enjoyable as pastimes and hobbies are. The conditions under which work is done can be vastly improved. The  relationships between people at work will change for the better. Free and equal, members of a socialist community will no longer have to sell their mental and physical power to an employer for a wage. The degrading wages system will be abolished so that there will be no such thing as employment. Instead work will be done by free men and women co-operating and controlling their conditions of work, getting enjoyment from creating things and doing socially useful tasks. In a socialist society there will be no social stigma attaching to any kind of work. Nor will there be pressures, as exist at present (because they are cheap and therefore profitable to the capitalists) to continue industrial processes which are harmful or dangerous to those engaged in them. There will be no need for anybody to be tied to the same job continuously. People will have rotating careers. The opportunities for men and women to develop and exercise their talents and to enjoy doing so will be immense.

Socialism must be world-wide because the productive system which capitalism has built up and which a socialist society will take over is already international. There will be no frontiers and people will be free to travel over the whole earth. Socialism will mean an end to all national oppression - and, indeed, in its current political sense to all 'nations' — and to discriminations on the grounds of race and sex. All the people of the world, wherever they live, whatever their skin colour, whatever language they speak, really will be members of one vast human family. Socialism will at last have the age-old dream of the Equality, fraternity and liberty.

Production for needs

A socialist society requires that production as a whole should meet the needs of people and be sustainable for the rest of nature.  In other words, what humans take from nature and dispose of them after use, should all be done so as to leave nature to go on supplying and reabsorbing those materials after use. In the long run this implies stable consumption and production levels. Production would be simply to meet current needs and to replacing and repairing the stock of means of production. The only rationale for accumulating means of production would be to be in a position to satisfy all reasonable consumption needs, not as at present to manufacture ‘wants’ for marketing and profits.  Once achieved then further expansion of the stock of means of production, could stop and production levels be stabilised. The proportion of people’s time devoted to ‘production’ would be correspondingly reduced and stabilised, leaving them free to indulge in whatever pursuits they fancied. So if human society is to be able to organise its production and other activities in an ecologically acceptable way then it must abolish the capitalist social, economic and political system of profit accumulation and replace it with a system which gears production to the direct satisfaction of needs.

To produce the things that people need in an acceptable and ecologically benign manner presupposes that society as a whole must be in a position to control production and direct its purposes.  This cannot be done in a society where the means of production are owned and controlled by the privileged few and governed by the blind economic laws which impose their own priorities.  Production for needs, therefore, demands an end both to capitalist control and the market. Production for needs requires that direction over the means of production (nature, materials, and machinery) should be available to all.  Everyone must stand equally with all others in relation to the means of production.  Also, production for needs demands the end of buying and selling; the end of the market. It means that goods are produced, and services made available, simply for their use-value, that is, capacity to satisfy human need. Production for the market is an expression of the fact that the means of production and therefore the products are owned not by all the members of a society in common but by individuals or groups such as corporations. Exchange would completely disappear in a society where there were no property rights over the means of production.

Democracy and common ownership

Production for needs can take place only on the basis of common ownership.  With common ownership, what is produced is no longer the property of some individual or group, which has to be purchased before it can be used or kept, but becomes directly available for people to take in accordance with their reasonable needs. We say that it is common ownership which provides the framework for the development of a balanced relationship between human society and the rest of nature.  We are talking about the common ownership of all the Earth’s natural and manufactured resources by the whole of humanity.  We are talking about a world socialist society which would recreate, on a world scale and on the basis of today’s technological and other knowledge, the communistic social relations of freedom, equality and community which many humans have aspired to since the coming of property society.

Humanity is now in a position, and has been for some time, to supply, in a sustainable way the needs of the population.  The means of production and the knowledge at its disposal are more than sufficient to enable this to be done. The problem is capitalism.  Common ownership on a world scale means that there will be no property or territorial rights over any part of the planet or over any of the technology.  The Earth and its resources will not belong to anyone.  They would simply be there to be used in accordance with democratically-decided rules and procedures. We can imagine the local community being the basic unit of such arrangements.  People could elect a local council to co-ordinate and administer local affairs.  Delegates could be sent to regional councils to decide matters concerning a wider area, and so on.  Possibly a world council would be the best way to deal with matters on a world scale (for instance, the supply of scarce minerals, the protection of the biosphere, the use of the oceans, and space research). On the basis of common ownership and democratic control, the world-wide network of productive and administrative units can be geared to meeting human needs.  This need not involve the organisation of a bureaucratic world planning authority.  Instead we could set up production and distribution mechanisms at different levels to respond flexibly to demands communicated to them.

Free access

Gearing production to meeting needs means making arrangements for individuals and groups to have free access to what they need.  Socialism not being a society in which goods and services are produced for sale, people would not have to buy what they needed.  They would be able to decide for themselves in a socially responsible way what their needs were and then take from the stock of products set aside for individual or group consumption.  In the case of services, advance booking, priority according to need, or ‘first come, first served’ arrangements could apply. Information to the network of productive units as to what to produce would thus come from what people actually chose to take or order from distribution stores under conditions of free access.  This would essentially be a system of stock control in the first instance at local community level.  Needs would be communicated to the productive network as demands for given amounts and types of specified products, materials and services.  This information would then be communicated throughout the system, where necessary to other regions or to the world level.

Goods and services would be produced and distributed as useful items intended to satisfy some human need.  Because they were no longer being produced and offered for sale on the market, they would not have a price.  Instead, estimates of what updated information suggested was likely to be needed over a given period would be expressed as quantities of specified products, materials and human time, not money. There would be no need for any universal unit of account to measure need, supply or demand.  Other more important factors than cost could be taken into account in making choices about which materials and productive methods to use or what services to supply. Instead of minimising the cost of production being the only criterion, other factors such as the health, comfort and enjoyment of those doing the work, the protection of the environment and a sustainable ecological system could be given the prominent place they deserve.

Protecting the environment

In a society oriented to meeting needs the concept of profits would be meaningless, while the imperative to ‘growth’ would disappear.  Instead, after an initial period of increase in useful production to provide the whole world’s population with basic amenities, production can be expected to reach a level sufficient to provide for people’s current needs and the future viability of their society.  A sustainable relationship with the rest of nature could be achieved. Needs on a world scale could be in balance with the capacity of the biosphere to renew itself after supplying them. As the only life-form that can act in a way conscious of the wider impact it can have on other species and on the planet as a whole, humans have the potential to act as planet’s ‘brain’, consciously regulating its function in the interest of present and future generations.  But before we can hope to play this role we must first integrate our own activities into a sustainable natural cycle on a planetary scale.  This we can do only within the framework of a world socialist society in which the Earth and all its natural and material resources have become the common heritage of all humanity.

We humans are part of nature, not external to it.  We are one with nature; we must nurture it if it is to sustain us. Socialists work for a revolution in society from world capitalism to world socialism.  The revolution we want is a social revolution that will change the basis of society from the present monopoly of productive resources by rich individuals, corporations and states into one where the Earth and its resources belong to none but will have become the common heritage of all humanity. This revolution can only be carried out democratically by the majority class in society, those forced to work for a wage or a salary in order to get a living, with a view to freeing themselves from exploitation for profit and from the restrictions and problems that the capitalist profit system imposes on them.  At the same time socialists understand that such a revolution has also to achieve a sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature. Together we can be architects of the future rather than victims of the present.

Only socialism can end capitalism

The Socialist Party lays down a thoroughly democratic procedure for the conduct of its affairs. Control of policy is in the hands of the members; there are no leaders and never have been. Democratic procedure has been maintained throughout the Party's existence and is a practical refutation of those who argue that all organisations must degenerate into any bureaucratic rule. In fact, a democratic structure without leaders is the necessary form of any real socialist party. Everyone who applies for membership of the Socialist Party is asked to show that they understand and agree with what we are aiming for and how we expect to reach our goal. All sorts of false ideas still exist about how to bring about the change to a socialist form of society. The Socialist Party has worked consistently to make socialist principles known and to expose the many erroneous and dangerous theories that have attracted support among the working class - foremost among them being the notion that capitalism can be reformed to run in the interests of the workers. There is no magic formula that can by-pass the process of building a democratic world-wide socialist movement. The process is slow because workers still have faith in capitalism and trust in a political party’s reforms to improve it when it fails them. The Socialist Party presents an analysis so that our fellow-workers can begin to think differently. We seek a change in their attitude to take place.  It all hinges upon the readiness of the working class for the change that is to take place. If the great majority do not have a clear idea of what needs to be done and a firm resolve to do it, then it does not matter what methods are used--they will fail.

Many have sympathy with the socialist idea of a world of common ownership and free access to replace the present system of buying and selling but say that such a transformation is such a long way off that in the meantime we must still aim for improvements within the framework of the existing system. They point to the changes that have taken place in people’s lives since the nineteenth century and that children no longer run around without shoes on their feet, no-one starves, medical facilities are available to all, everybody receives an education, and many people own things previously undreamed of - a car, a house, and a host of gadgets. It is worth trying to get more of these improvements, they say, and the best way to do it is to press governments for reforms. It may also seem that public agitation for reforms does a lot to help, as when abortion and homosexuality were legalised after many years of campaigning. While at other times very large reform movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the massive turn-out to oppose the Iraq invasion produces no alteration in government policy at all.

What distinguishes the Socialist Party from those who also want a class-free, state-free, wage-free, money-free society of common ownership and democratic control is our view that parliament can, and should, be used in the course of establishing such a socialist society. There is a strong sense of disenchantment with the world as it is which exists through the failure of the system to solve the many social problems. But still, the mistaken idea that the nature of the present system can be changed by reformism of one kind or another, or by state control continues to prevail. Governments have been formed with the intention of changing the nature of capitalism, so as to bring about a society which could work in the interest of the whole community. Far from being able to control capitalism, all governments have found themselves dancing to the tune played by economic forces. No government has succeeded in controlling the economy or the market system for the benefit of the whole community. To those who might think that political action could be better directed at “improving” capitalism, we say that those who took the same view in years past contributed by default to the present status of society. A sane society cannot be postponed without accepting the consequences of postponement.

The necessary means of achieving socialism are determined by the nature of socialism itself. A society organised as a result of conscious democratic control can only be established by conscious democratic means. The ends and means are inseparable. The only power which can change capitalist society is the democratic power of a majority of socialists acting in world co-operation.