The Socialist Party - For Socialism

A certain section of the Left never tire of hailing all demands for state ownership as a sign of the growth of the socialist spirit among the working class and therefore worthy of support. Reformists generally accepted that the State represented society as a whole; that its parliamentary institutions provided the means for popular opinion to express itself; and when that opinion became "socialist", or at least the majority of it, the State would become socialist automatically. 

The Socialist Party would point out that to call such policies socialist is highly misleading. Socialism properly implies above all things the common ownership and the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this the public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only state-capitalism. Those who worked most and hardest would still get the least remuneration, and the rank and file would still be deprived of all voice in the ordering of their industry, just the same as in all private enterprises. We repeat, state ownership and control is not socialism. The aim of socialism is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers.  Common ownership mplies, first, that the entire community is master of the means of production and works them in a well planned system of social production. It implies secondly that in all shops, factories, enterprises the personnel regulate their own collective work as part of the whole. Socialism is achieved not through nationalised public corporations, but through a fundamental change in class relations. Let there be no ambiguity about the use of the word socialism. We mean by it, and so does every revolutionary socialist entitled to the name, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution, a class-free society. The unambiguous aim of the Socialist Party is the cooperative commonwealth in which the supplying of human needs and enrichment of human life shall be the primary purpose of our society. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to the threshold of a second industrial revolution. But by bringing men and women together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and material gain in place of humanity and spiritual growth, capitalism has always been inherently alienating.

Socialism will yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. However, if the status quo is maintained the problems of capitalism will be multiplied in the future. The technological changes will produce even greater concentrations of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress through unemployment and the displacement of populations. The challenge facing our fellow-workers today is whether future development will continue to perpetuate the inequalities of the past or whether it will be based on principles of social justice. The Socialist Party holds firm to the belief that our society must build a new relationship among mankind--a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality of opportunity. In such a society everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging, and will be enabled to develop his capacities to the full. The Socialist Party will not rest until every person is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and an opportunity to live a rich and meaningful life as a citizen of the cooperative commonwealth. 

The achievement of socialism awaits the building of a mass base of socialists, in factories and offices. The development of socialist consciousness, on which can be built a socialist base, must be the first priority of the Socialist Party which can be seen as the parliamentary wing of the workers' movement dedicated to fundamental social change. Capitalism must be replaced by socialism. Rather than the current sense of  insignificance and impotence, a socialist transformation of society will return to mankind to its sense of humanity, to replace the sense of being a commodity.

Citizen Wage or No Wages

Every few years, so-called solutions spring up to end the many social problems of capitalism, in particular, poverty. One of those panaceas is called the citizens wage or universal basic income and from Kenya to Finland, governments are exploring its feasibility.

In Scotland, this miracle cure for destitution is being investigated at Holyrood. MSPs on the Social Security Committee were hearing from advocates and experts to see how it could work. The committee heard that there are various models. The models suggested would end the need for Job Seekers allowance but would still need Disability benefits and Housing Benefit because rent levels wary so much across the country. Trials in Gasgow and Fife are at early stages of being devised.

Howard Reed, Director, Landman Economics said a Citizens income would have great benefit. “It provides a genuine social safety net albeit at a low level. If it was unconditional it would stop people having to use food banks and nefarious ways of support like payday loans.” However, MSPs were also warned that there are some who advocate a Citizen's Income in order to reduce the state. Mr Reed said some want to use it to  "destroy the current welfare state, NHS and state education."


This blog has made its view clear, here
http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2017/01/ubi-again.html
And here
http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2016/11/citizens-wages.html


Whats noticeable is that since these schemes were first suggested as far back  the first Muslim caliph, Abu Bakr (573-634 CE), who introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams.

Thomas Paine advocated a citizen's dividend to all US citizens as compensation for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property" (Agrarian Justice, 1795).

Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine's sentiments and commented that 'man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence'.

And in the 1930s and the ILP, i believe, but maybe as far back as the Speenhamland system in the middle ages) no country has actually implemented UBI, the citizens wage, nationally.

It has always been localised pilot schemes or feasibility studies which the media then blow up into a major story.  

The Socialist Party argues for an end to the wages system overall. No citizens' wage but an end to wage-slavery. No mortgage, no bills, no tax, no debt. Production for use, not profit, and free access to the common wealth. Forget the futility of fighting constantly for reforms. 
Support Socialism.

Why the Socialist Party

The aim of the World Socialist Movement is the abolition of class rule and class conflict, with all their detrimental consequences, So long as society is divided into classes, in whatever form, the economics and politics as well as the ideas, culture, etc. of society will be dominated by one class or another–they cannot serve all classes, exploiter and exploited, oppressor and oppressed, master and slave, equally.


Once money becomes the aim of production, labour power has to become a commodity. In other words, a worker’s labour power can be bought and sold. Besides the fact that people must be legally free–that is, not slaves owned by others or serfs tied to the land–the labourer must have lost all means of production and thus all ability to produce either for consumption or exchange for himself. An example of this is peasants being driven off the land. Labour power as a commodity is the necessary complement of the private ownership of the means of production by the capitalists. Only by buying the worker’s labour power can the capitalist make profits. Workers produce more than what the capitalist pays them in wages and benefits. This is the basis of exploitation of the workers. What the workers produce over and beyond the socially necessary labour for keeping themselves and their families alive and working is surplus value. Surplus value is the only source of profits and is ripped off by the capitalists. Inside a socialist society, labour power is no longer a commodity.


To assure plenty, security, leisure, and freedom for all, it is necessary that the existing property system, the existing forms of economic control and distribution of wealth, be so changed as to adapt them to the conditions of modern life. Only by the socialized ownership and democratic control of such productive wealth, doing away with exploitation and making the satisfaction of human wants the ruling motive in production, can the ideal of a classless society be realized. The interest of the wage-working class imperatively demands this change. The choice before us is either to permit the uncontrolled development of capitalism to concentrate all power in the hands of an oligarchy and reduce the people to abject servitude or to assert the right and duty of the people to control and remodel their economic life. Any appeal to revolutionary violence must be repudiated. It is unnecessary and unjustifiable in countries where the orderly and peaceful methods of democracy are available. Our fellow-workers, if they but have confidence in themselves, to transform our society of non-producing owners and non-possessing workers into a socialist democracy in which all shall be all joint-owners (or non-owners) for the common good. Thus and only thus can class rule, with its attendant evils of social strife and international war, of undeserved poverty, of corruption and servility, be transformed into a truly free and democratic society, in which useful work performed by all through far shorter hours and under far more pleasant conditions than now generally prevail, will be able to produce the material basis of a livelihood for all far better than is enjoyed today by any except the very rich.


The Socialist Party takes the political field with one plank upon its programme—Socialism. It emphasises that only socialists must vote for its candidates. Every other vote is useless and dangerous. Alliances, compromises, and arrangements with other parties may easily mean the return of a candidate, but not of a socialist candidate. We do not consider that the strength of any party in the labour movement is determined by the number of individuals which compose it.  The class struggle reflects itself in the domain of ideas. In the name of freedom, in the name of honesty, in the name of civilisation itself, for the good of those now alive and of generations yet unborn, the Socialist Party call upon our fellow- workers of the city and country as a class to join us in winning the good new world which is within our reach.

The Great Emancipation

Capitalism is a system of commodity production (that is, the production of goods for sale and not for direct use by the producer) which is distinguished by the fact that labour power itself becomes a commodity. The major means of production and exchange which make up the capital of society are owned privately by a small minority, the capitalist class, while the great majority of the population consists of workers. Because of their economic position, this majority can only exist by selling their labour power to the capitalists and thus creating through their work the incomes of the upper classes. Thus, fundamentally, capitalism is a system of exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class. Capitalism, having its foundation in the slavery and exploitation of the masses, can only rule by corrupt means. The socialist revolution is the most profound of all revolutions in history. It initiates changes more rapid and far-reaching than any in the whole experience of mankind. The hundreds of millions of workers striking off their age-old chains of slavery will construct a society of liberty and prosperity and intelligence. Socialism will inaugurate a new era for the human race, the building of a new world. The overthrow of capitalism and the arrival of socialism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems. Some of these originate in capitalism, and others have plagued the human race for scores of centuries. Among them are war, religious superstition, sexism, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, alcoholism and drug addiction, unemployment, illiteracy, race and national chauvinism and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. Capitalism, based upon human exploitation, stands as the great barrier to social progress. Capitalist society is like a badly constructed machine, in which one part is continually interfering with the movements of another  Socialism releases productive forces strong enough to provide plenty for all and it destroys the whole accompanying capitalist baggage of cultivated ignorance, strife, and misery. Socialism frees humanity from the stultifying effects of the present animal struggle for existence and opens up before it new horizons. The message of socialism, which, a few years ago was spurned, falls today upon eager ears and receptive minds.  The day is not so far distant when our children and grand-children will look back with horror upon capitalism.

The basis of communist society must be the social ownership of the means of production. All the means of production must be under the control of society as a whole. What do we mean by 'society as a whole'? We mean that ownership and control is not the privilege of a class but of all the persons who make up society. In these circumstances, society will be transformed into a huge coordinated network of working organisations for cooperative production. No longer will one enterprise compete with another; the factories, workshops, mines, and other productive institutions will all be parts of one vast people's workshop, which will embrace the entire world economy of production. 

In a communist society, there will be no classes. But if there will be no classes, this implies that in communist society there will likewise be no State. The State is a class organisation of the rulers. The State is always directed by one class against the other. A bourgeois State is directed against the proletariat, whereas a proletarian State is directed against the bourgeoisie. In socialism there are neither landlords, nor capitalists, nor wage workers; there are simply people - comrades. If there are no classes, then there is no class war, and there are no class organizations. Consequently, the State has ceased to exist. Since there is no class war, the State has become superfluous. There is no one to be held in restraint, and there is no one to impose restraint. The State, therefore, has ceased to exist. There are no groups and there is no class standing above all other classes. The bureaucracy, the permanent officialdom, will disappear. The State will die out.

The Socialist Party is not begging for votes, nor asking votes, nor bargaining for votes. It is not in the vote market. It wants votes but only of those who want it - those who recognise is as their party, and come to it of their own free will. To be sure we want all the votes we can get but only as a means of developing the political power of the working class in the struggle for industrial freedom, and not that we may revel in the spoils of office. The workers have never yet developed or made use of their political power. They have played the game of their masters for the benefit of the master class - and how many of them, disgusted with their own blind and stupid performance are renouncing politics and refusing to see any difference between the capitalist parties financed by the ruling class to perpetuate class rule and the Socialist party organised and funded by the workers themselves as a means of wresting the control of government and of industry from the capitalists and making the working class the ruling class of the nation and the world.

There is but one issue for the Socialist Party - the unconditional surrender of the capitalistic class.  In the name of the workers, the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom, it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern technology, it condemns poverty and famine. In the name of peace, it condemns war. In the name of civilisation, it condemns nationalism, racism, and xenophobia. In the name of enlightenment, it condemns religious superstition. In the name in the name of humanity, it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child. The Socialist Party points out clearly why our fellow-workers' situation is hopeless under capitalism, how they are robbed and exploited. The education, organisation, and co-operation of the workers, the entire body of them, is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist Party. Persistently, unceasingly, and enthusiastically this great work is being accomplished. It is the working class coming into consciousness of itself, and no power on earth can prevail against it in the hour of its complete awakening. The social conscience and the social spirit will prevail. Society will have a new birth and humanity a new destiny. There will be work for all, leisure for all, and the joys of life for all. Competition there will be, not in the struggle for existence, but to excel in good work and in social service.

These are the ideals of the Socialist Party and to these ideals, it has devoted all its energies and all its powers. The members of the Socialist Party are the party and their collective will is the supreme authority. The Socialist Party is organised and ruled from the bottom up. There is no party leader and there never can be unless the party deserts its principles and ceases to be a socialist party. The party is supported by a dues-paying membership. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take part in all the party activity. Each branch is an educational centre. The party relies wholly upon the power of education, knowledge, and persuasion.

Onward, comrades, onward in the struggle, until triumphant socialism proclaims the Emancipation of Labour.

Capital Accumulation Results

Two events, separated by a century, came across this writer's attention recently and each underscore the fact that capitalism cannot change. On November 11, U.N. officials said that Daesh militants have killed "scores of civilians" in Mosul in recent days, sometimes using children as executioners and have used chemical agents Iraq and Kurdish troops. Videos posted by Daesh showed children between ten and fourteen years of age shooting civilians accused of disloyalty. A mass grave discovered on November 7 by Iraqi troops was only many of large scale killings. It contained at least 100 corpses, but it was reported Daesh fighters have dumped bodies down a well at a cement factory yard and at several other locations including the Mosul airport and in the Tigris.


As horrifying as this is it pales in comparison to the other "event." A recent book, A Future Without Hate or Need – The Promise of the Jewish Left in Canada, by Ester Reiter, focuses on the history of secular Jewish movements in Canada (www.btlbooks.com)


When children played with rubber balls in their schools, secular Jewish teachers taught them where they were produced, to quote, ". . . before colonialism, tribes in the Congo lived peacefully, surviving from cattle grazing and gathering. In the nineteenth century the Belgian whites appeared. They taught the "Negroes" how to extract precious metals such as gold and copper. The Congo became a colony of Belgium in 1884, although Belgium is less than half its size. From a population of twenty million in 1908, by 1911 there were only eight million Congolese. Twelve million people died in a three year period. The Belgians enslaved the Congolese to extract rubber, killing whole families who refused to comply. A contemporary report said ". . . if a worker tries to run away the Belgian overseer punishes not only the family, but the whole village. Children and women are whipped, entire villages are burned, in order to frighten the others. The Belgian merchants and the Belgian King are the richest in the country. When children use rubber they need to remember the life of the black slaves who live so far from us. "It's enough to make anyone with a love of humanity to cry out: "When will it end?" - the answer being it won't – At least not as long as the despicable apology for an economic system we lie under lasts.


Steve and John.

Bonuses for Failure

Loss-making Royal Bank of Scotland has awarded bonuses in shares to its top management team worth almost £16m. Since RBS’s £45bn taxpayer bailout during the financial crisis, it has reported nine consecutive years of losses amounting to more than £58bn.

The bank revealed the bonus awards to nine executives an hour after Philip Hammond delivered his budget and said he was “uncertain” as to when the Treasury would be able to sell off any of its 73% stake in the bailed-out bank.

Last month, when RBS reported losses of £8bn for 2016, the bank’s chairman, Sir Howard Davies, had attempted to justify the need to pay bonuses by saying staff should not be penalised for the “sins of the past”. A year ago, the management team were awarded bonuses worth £17.4m.

 Chris Marks, the head of the investment banking operation, NatWest Markets, who was awarded shares of more than £2m. Other awards include £1.8m to Alison Rose, who runs the commercial bank, and £1.2m for Les Matheson, the head of the high street banking business. The pay of Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, was disclosed last month at more than £3m for 2016. He was also awarded nearly £3m in shares that he will start to receive from 2021, provided performance criteria are reached. McEwan, has received 512,000 shares as part of a £5.9 million equity payout to nine executives despite slumping £7 billion into the red last year as part of a package of incentive awards.

Slum Edinburgh

6 Beaumont Place had threatened to fall down for decades. It was situated in St Leonards, a district of the city, which, along with neighbouring Dumbiedykes, had long been regarded as a slum. Even the building’s landlord, D. Rosie, knew it was doomed. He had attempted to sell it to a local MP for one penny after being faced with hefty repair order.

At 5am on the morning of 21 November 1959 the back wall of the Penny Tenement came down with a tremendous crash. Only by fortuitous luck that there was no deaths or serious injuries

One day after the accident, a complaint was sent to the Secretary of State for Scotland by Edinburgh’s Labour representatives. It placed the blame squarely on the city’s Tory majority for “procrastinating” for too long over the question of slum clearance.

Edinburgh’s authorities realised enough was enough, especially when told the Corporation would be liable if there were any deaths from collapsing buildings. Within a matter of months, 6,000 slum properties were cleared. One by one, the slum dwellings of St Leonards and Dumbiedykes would be demolished, with communities dispersed en masse to new peripheral housing estates dotted across the city.
http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/the-penny-tenement-collapse-that-changed-edinburgh-forever-1-4386368


But this blogger was a newspaper delivery-boy during the 60s in the area and can safely say that many dilapidated tenement room and kitchens with shared stair toilets did remain and lasted well into the 70s.

For more on Edinburgh housing from the period see this 1961 article

Our Demands

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party makes its appeal to all workers to join in promoting the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of a commonwealth of workers throughout the world. Today's society is dictated by modern capitalist production where the means of life are concentrated in the hands of a small privileged class, which exploits the propertyless working class, appropriates all the product of their labour reduces them to the lowest and most servile level of existence that will permit them to continue working and reproducing their kind, and in addition obtains, by virtue of that economic supremacy, control of the entire State. This regime has brought mankind into unprecedented conflict, misery, and chaos – a veritable abomination of desolation and terror. But it is fast approaching its overthrow by the a politically victorious working class, where the eventual outcome of which will be an emancipated world, a society of economic and social equals where class divisions and privileges will for the first time in history be impossible; a system of social ownership of the means of production administered by the workers under the motto “All for each and each for All”. 

This social revolution is the essential objective of the World Socialist Movement, the end towards which every step it takes must directly tend.  We hold aloft the crimson banner of the World Socialist Commune, when the class war shall have been forever stamped out, when mankind shall no longer cower under the oppressor, when the necessaries and amenities of life, the comfort, and the culture shall not be for who exploits and is called master but shall be for all fellow-workers in common. The Socialist Party calls upon the workers to muster under its red banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change, building class-consciousness among workers and projecting a program of organisation that the workers could implement toward this end. The Socialist Party calls upon all who realise the critical nature of our times, and who may be increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on socialist principles. Join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. 

How capitalism works today strengthens the case for socialism. We need a different form of society, one in which working people get together to decide collectively and democratically how the world’s resources should best be used. Productive resources shouldn’t be controlled by cliques and their cronies but by the people who actually do the work of producing the goods and services on which we all depend. Rather than an economic system that relies on capitalists betting on which way the market will go, we need one based on democratic planning whose aim is to match resources to the real needs of ordinary people.

The spirit of our time is revolutionary and growing more so every day. A new social system is struggling into existence. The old economic foundation of society is breaking up and the social fabric is beginning to totter. The capitalist system is doomed. The signs of change confront us upon everywhere. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails the toilers will be struggling in the hell of poverty. 

The Socialist Party is absolutely the only party which faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly that it has a definite and concrete goal for dealing with these conditions. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and trained minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental, moral and physical achievement. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people.

An Inanimate Debt

I listened to Phillip Hammond the Chancellor talking to Andrew Marr on Sunday the 5^th of March 1917 in which he said "our" debt was £1.7 trillion and it cost £50 trillion to pay the interest on this debt. This payment he said was more than the cost of total military budget. 

He calls it "our" debt but in the local newspaper 'The East Kilbride News' of the 1^st March 2017 it had an article under the title of "Drowning in Debt" in which it claimed that families with kids are on average £19k in red. The article went on to Comparing the family in East Kilbride with Central Scotland's family which it claims has an average debt being £13,753. 

I can relate to the "Drowning in Debt" article. People get into debt mortgaging a home, losing employment can be a factor. Illness and accidents can reduce income. The debt is theirs, should they not be able to continue payments on the mortgage they can be evicted. They must find the money someway, employment being the only way in most cases. A lottery win would be welcome but remote.

The Chancellor, of course,  will correct himself and point out it is the "country's debt" and this inanimate object must be paid by raising taxes and cutting benefits and clearing these debts by paying not this inanimate object but the people who the government borrowed it from. 

Who are these people? Well in case you didn't know, they are the people who own the means of production and of course the country as well.

 Spouvrier.

GUSTAV'S GEMS

In his work, "The Rise of Capitalism", Dr. Bang effectively deals with the myth that capitalist and worker have anything in common, economically.

"The claim is false, as are all the claims by which the capitalist class justifies its right to existence. Ignored is the fact that labour power is a nature-endowed possession that cannot be separated from the person of the worker, whereas, capital is dependent and in flux, never attached to any particular person. Labour power and its possessor, the worker, cannot be separated, while on the contrary, capital is only accidentally attached to the person of the individual capitalist. Under the present system of capitalism, the workers cannot do without capital, that is, the means of production. But, they can quite well do without the capitalists!

The latter, however, are powerless without the workers, that is, workers who produce surplus value for them. Every struggle by the workers against the introduction of improved means of production is reactionary and doomed to defeat in advance. The struggle against their capitalist application, however, is a natural and essential characteristic of the modern class struggle. The magnitude of surplus value points to the limitations within which the workers can achieve gains under the capitalist system. The socializing of the means of production points the road to their ultimate emancipation."

For socialism, 

Steve and John.

The Vanishing Posts On The Labour's Web Site

We've all heard about the allegations that the Russians interfered with the U.S. election and we know that Trump fired two guys in his cabinet. What the media haven't covered much is what he's done for the "little guy" who voted for him, considering, his was a populist victory.

Farmers and ranchers, though not little guys, did vote for him in hopes of less regulation and lower taxes. Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have reduced tariffs and strengthened economic ties with the capitalist class in eleven other countries, will cost the agriculture industry $4.4 billion a year in potential sales, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the biggest U.S. farmer group. As for the "real" little guy, let's hear from California-Based Worker's Rights advocate, Carmen Rojas, who says "If we had been living in an overcast period for working people in the U.S., we are about to enter into a dark, dark, period." Gone is Trump's first pick for labour, Secretary, Andrew Pudzer, who withdrew his nomination on February 16th, after hearing Trump trash minimum wage hikes and overtime protections.

A review of the Department of Labour's website reveal that many posts about protecting precarious workers, enforcing labour laws and cracking down on wage theft, have vanished from the website. Other disappearances are an executive order from the Obama administration that would have raised the minimum wage of Federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. This would have given 200,00 low wage workers a raise. Other links to the Department of Labor blog posts, also appear to be broken, especially on issues related to wage theft and employee misclassification, which is the practice of wrongly classifying workers as independent contractors to avoid legal obligations, like paying minimum wage. 

No one at the White House has asked why these pages have vanished. One thing you can be sure of, is that, the self-styled champion of the forgotten American, has forgotten him.

Steve and John.

In The Final Analysis

On April 16th, Turkey is set to hold a referendum on switching to a presidential system - a move critics fear would put too much power into the hands of Mr. Erdogan. The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said Turkey's lack of media freedoms and freedom of expression has reached "alarming levels." He also criticized the imprisonment of journalists, the erosion of the independence of the judiciary, the use of defamation laws used to silence critics, censorship on the internet and the use of state resources to favour pro-government media. Shades of Hitler and his thugs, subverting the Weimar Republic . . .

Though political and parliamentary democracy has its uses, in the final analysis, there is only one form of democracy worth working for - economic democracy. To achieve that, you must first abolish capitalism.

Steve and John.

Forlorn hopes in Govanhill

SOUTHSIDE Central contains what are two of the most notorious areas of the city – the Gorbals and Govanhill.

With high levels of poverty, overcrowding and fly tipping, it’s easy to overlook the many positives - community spirit, excellent amenities, great transport links. Jim Monaghan is a community campaigner who works for Govanhill Community Baths said: “The best thing about Govanhill is the mix of people. You’ve got the kind of hipster artists and working class people who have been in the area for decades and migrants who have just come here. The diversity is not just in terms of race but also social cultures, which makes it a really interesting place to be a place that no matter what your community or culture is, whether ethnic or social, you’ll find someone like you.” 

On the other hand, Jim says poverty is a huge issue.

He said: “What I like least is the poverty, which you see in the overcrowded housing. Because of the mix of housing here being low rent, poor quality and easy to get, people who struggle to get references or deposits gravitate here and so it becomes a cycle. 

“Poverty, lack of opportunity, poor housing – everything is linked. People will say the problem is the Roma or landlords but the issues are linked to the same thing: poverty.”

To fix the problems in Govanhill, and the ward more widely, Jim believes a joined-up political approach is necessary.

He said: “The ward needs housing. It needs people to be serious about it. People use the area as a political football most of the time...'

Looking to the future, Jim believes things can get better.“There’s an opportunity to make it that 20 years from now people will say ‘Look at that wonderful place’.”

Jim understands the problem but does he realise the cure? Can he trust that the capitalist system can fulfil what he hopes for.

Understanding socialism

The first condition of success for socialism is that its adherents should explain its aim and its essential characteristics clearly, so that they can be understood by every one. We must do away with many misunderstandings created by our adversaries and some created by ourselves. The idea of socialism is simple.

The Socialist Party proclaim its dedication to the cooperative commonwealth and has set out its alternative to the grinding poverty and stark injustices that confront our fellow-workers. We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent inhumanity, by a social system where exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated.Few can deny that the world today is in a constant state of upheaval. Never have we stood in greater need of fundamental solutions faced by a world in the grips of social, economic, environmental and political crises. The Socialist Party goal is a socialist world, based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of our people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. The socialist option is the only alternative. The deepening of the world social problems is inevitable as long as profits dictate the course of humanity.  The half-measures of offered by Big Business cannot meet the challenge. The stock-in-trade of government legislation—tinkering with monetary and fiscal policy has proven futile. Welfare state policies have done nothing to correct deep-seated structural inequality. Regulatory reforms, aimed at the most blatant abuses of corporate power, have not succeeded. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That failure puts a campaign for the socialist alternative on the immediate agenda. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society.

A multitude of human beings possesses nothing. They can only live by their work, and since, in order to work, they need an expensive equipment, which they have not got, and raw materials and capital, which they have not got, they are forced to put themselves in the hands of another class that owns the means of production, the land, the factories, the machines, the raw material, and accumulated capital in the form of money. And naturally, the capitalist and possessing class, taking advantage of its power, makes the non-owning class pay a heavy price.  It may be said that the worker does not even own his or her own body outright.  If labour is to be really free, all the workers should be called upon to take part in the management of the work rather than be mere  “hands” of the capitalist system, whose only use it is to put into operation the schemes which the capitalist has decided upon. All this misery and all this injustice results from the fact that one class monopolises the means of production and of life, and imposes its laws on another class and on society as a whole. The thing to do, therefore, is to break down this supremacy of one class.

  Socialism recognises no distinction between the various nations or “races” comprising the modern world. “My country, right or wrong,” is an expression that is the very antithesis of socialism. The position of the Socialist Party is one of hostility to the existing political order.  We are now poor and enslaved not because of lack of reforms made by politicians, but because the employing class own and control the means of production, without access to which we cannot live. So long as others control the means whereby we live so long shall we be slaves.

Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in 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 society 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.

The Market Fails Again

There has been a further deterioration in home affordability in Scottish cities with prices up 3%.

The average price in cities has now risen from £181,061 in 2016 to £186,002 in 2017, according to the figures from the Bank of Scotland and this has resulted in average home affordability in Scotland’s cities worsening in the last 12 months from 5.2 to 5.3 times gross average earnings. It is the fourth successive annual decline in home affordability and affordability in Scottish cities is, on average, now at its worst level since 2009.

Edinburgh is once again Scotland’s least affordable city with an average house price of £236,136 which is six times annual gross average earnings. Other expensive cities include Aberdeen and Perth at 5.7, and Dundee and Inverness at 5.5. Perth has recorded the biggest price rise of any Scottish city over the past decade with a gain of 31% between 2007 and 2017, compared to the UK cities average of 21%. Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen had the next highest price rise, with all seeing a gain of 16%. Perth house prices have seen the strongest recover since the economic downturn. Over the past five years, Perth has recorded the highest house price growth with a rise of 27%. Dundee has the second highest increase in average house price with growth of 25%, closely followed by Glasgow at 23%.

Stirling is the most affordable city for home buyers in both Scotland and the UK with an average price of £173,848 which is 3.7 times average gross annual earnings. This is much lower than the UK cities average of 6.9.

 ‘Rents and house prices are continuing to rise as demand outstrips supply, meaning many individuals and families are facing growing pressures and aspirations are being stifled,’ said Homes for Scotland, chief executive Nicola Barclay. ‘With housing production having fallen by 40% since 2007, but the number of households rising, it is vital that we see the bold action and investment needed to provide enough homes of the right types in the right locations to meet the diverse housing needs of our growing population.’

Bigotry in Scotland

Sectarianism still exists in Scotland, a new report says, and there is culture of denial about the extent of problems.

 The report, by Dr Duncan Morrow, said the focus should be on ending the behaviours, attitudes and structures which underpinned sectarianism rather than naming and shaming any individual or group. He also said there had been a disappointing lack of urgency from local authorities. Dr Morrow said football was only one part of the jigsaw of sectarianism.

He said he was sceptical as to whether government proposals to tackle the problem were sufficient to change the evident sectarian behaviour in Scottish football.

"I remain seriously concerned that the primary concern of the authorities remains to avoid responsibility rather than to take action."

"That Atrocious System"

On February 14, 2017, Toronto judge, Edward Belobaba, found in favour of survivors of the round-up of Indian children, in their suit against the Federal Government. Between 1965 and 1984, 16,000 Indian children on reserves, were placed in non-indigenous care. In his report, Belobaba said, "The uncontroverted evidence of the plaintiff's experts, is that the loss of their aboriginal identity left the children fundamentally disoriented, with a reduced ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. The loss of identity resulted in psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, unemployment, violence and numerous suicides."

Belobaba's next step will be to "assess the damages the government owes to the plaintiff." The real damage has already been done. The capitalist class forces everyone to conform to their scheme of things, regardless of the misery it causes. 

When Robert Tressel referred to capitalism as, "That atrocious system," it was a masterpiece of under-statement. 

Steve and John.

A Moral Question? Or A Fact.

On Valentine's Day, the RCMP appropriately warned anyone using APPS or websites in their search for love, to be cautious. Last year, 748 people lost more than $17 million to on-line dating scams. Some were cheated out of more than $100,000 and many were too embarrassed to report it.

Scammers create on-line profiles to gain someone's trust, then ask for money, often claiming to be faced with an emergency, the RCMP said.

It is despicable that the de-humanizing aspects of life under capitalism, would make anyone so devoid of conscience, they would prey on people's loneliness and then hurt them, but nevertheless, let's bear in mind that this is illegal robbery - there's enough legal robbery going on, every moment of every day.

 Steve and John

A Fast Way Oiut Of A Job.

In July, commuters in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, will still be taking taxis, but those that fly. Passenger drones capable of carrying a single rider will fly above the skyscrapers at the push of a button. This is part of the city's plan to increase driver-less technology. The city already operates the

world's longest driverless subway system. In October, the city signed a deal with the Los Angeles-based, "Hyperloop One", to study the potential for a Hyperloop, which is a vacuum-like tube, through which a vehicle travels faster than airliners, between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

It sounds great and the technology is great, but its effect won't be when, like so many of capitalism's inventions, it puts the working guy out of a job.

Steve and John.

Capitalism is a failed system

Many argue that poverty and climate change are being solved by capitalism, making the current system the best way for the world to continue to grow in a sustainable manner. In fact, those issues are a direct result of the capitalist system. Capitalism is the source of many structural issues in society as it promotes economic expansion – capital accumulation- at the expense of the well-being of society. The pursuit of profit is the capitalist's prime objective. Capitalism as an economic system relies on profit to the point where welfare falls to the wayside. Money begets money. Poverty begets poverty.   Capitalism promotes the idea of profit as the bottom line while ignoring the realities of poverty and failing to promote social welfare.

 In theory, profit and wage are set through competition so that both firms and labourers profit. However, theory does not necessarily represent reality. Firms can increase their profits by slashing wages as much as possible. While the basic rules of supply and demand clearly affect wages, the competitive equilibrium does not necessarily guarantee a livable wage. When the government does not provide protections like a minimum wage, companies will inevitably exploit workers through lower wages in order to increase their profits. The basic tenet of the capitalist system is that workers and companies have competing interests.

Before unions were widespread and established within the U.S., employees could not bargain collectively for wages that would allow them to live comfortably. In order to justify exploitative wages, capitalist society, especially in the U.S., encourages the narrative hard work and dedication as conducive to economic success. However, the vast majority of people will end up in the same income bracket as their parents. 

 Protecting the environment does not inherently lead to profit, so it is not a desirable goal for most companies. The Keystone and Dakota Access pipeline are predicted to cause massive damage to the environment, not to mention a massive amount of distress to indigenous groups, but are being implemented despite those facts for company profit. Similarly, Volkswagen was found to have created technology to lower carbon emissions while cars were being tested. This enabled the company to market their cars as environmentally friendly without investing in sustainable technologies, which would presumably increase costs. Many more major corporations actively ignore the environmental repercussions of their actions in order to profit, exemplifying the way capitalism prioritizes profit over long term sustainability.

If companies willingly shared their research, there could be huge beneficial implications for scientific and medical research. However, most companies cannot afford to lose the money spent researching by not patenting profitable intellectual property, be it in the form of lifesaving drugs or more efficient technology. A research culture that is not based off of the capitalist pursuit of profit could allow for a greater degree of knowledge sharing and innovation and increase the speed of progress.

Capitalism is not harmless nor progressive, and society must recognise the failings and inequalities inherent in the current system.

Adapted from here

Life expectancy on hold

Life expectancy in Scotland has failed to rise for the first time since records were established in 1861, research has found. 

It is the first time in more than 150 years life expectancy has not increased.

Statistics show that in three years from 2012-2015 the ages at which women and men could expect to live remained static at 81.1 and 77.1 years respectively.

Austerity measures introduced by the coalition and Conservative governments since 2010 may have contributed.

Scotland needs foreign workers

Scottish Chambers of Commerce chief executive Liz Cameron highlighted the need for 11,000 new vacancies each year in Scotland's digital and IT sector. She warned that they could not be filled entirely by British workers.

Cameron called for a migration system that responded to Scotland's lower population growth rate. She said Scotland's projected population growth to 2024 was only 3.1%, compared with a projected 7.5% increase for England over the same period.

"Dying from Inequality"

The poorest Scots are three times more likely to commit suicide than the richest, according to a new report by Samaritans.

The charity is calling for more to be done to tackle inequality which it says is an important factor when it comes to people taking their own lives.

The Samaritans said poor housing, debt, and bleak employment prospects were all factors in the suicide rate being three times higher among the most deprived 10th of the population compared with the least deprived 10th (22.1 deaths per 100,000 population compared with 7.3).

The report, "Dying from Inequality", highlights clear areas of risk to communities and individuals, including the closure and downsizing of businesses, those in manual, low-skilled employment, those facing unmanageable debt and those with poor housing conditions.

Samaritans' chief executive Ruth Sutherland said: "Suicide is an inequality issue which we have known about for some time. This report says that's not right, it's not fair and it's got to change.

Inverclyde has the highest suicide rate of any local authority in Scotland