Our lives, their profits

We live today in a world of potential abundance. Yet, while millions are in want and many starve, part of the world's resources are consumed in producing weapons of war and preparing millions of men and women to use them. Modern technology and production, which by its nature can be operated only by the labour of millions of people all over the world yet these millions do not work alone. They work together. No man makes anything by himself but only plays some part in the co-operative labour by which things are today produced. Factories and farms, mines, mills and docks, though spread throughout the world, depend upon each other like strands of a cobweb. They are but parts of one world-wide productive network. 

Commonsense would, therefore, suggest that to derive full benefit for all from this worldwide productive unit, it should be owned and controlled by all humanity; that it should belong in common to all mankind and be controlled by them to satisfy their own needs. In Capitalism, however, the means of production belong to a small capitalist class, and are used to make things, not primarily to satisfy needs, but to be sold to realise a profit on the world market. Those who own the world and its implements of production compete against each other to buy raw materials and in selling products. But competition is not only economic; political means are also used. The competing capitalist groups have at their disposal massive armed forces which exist to protect and further their interests. Capitalist economic conditions make them necessary. Any owning group which controlled no armed forces would be in dire peril and would go under. Not only would it be unable to protect its own wealth, it would also be unable to take and hold sources of raw materials, keep others out of a market, and to control ports and trade routes around the world. The owners, therefore, compete politically and economically for raw materials, markets and trade routes. When other political means fail, all that is left is brute force—organised, scientific killing and destruction— War. Owning groups are always under pressure to equip their armed forces with ever more destructive weapons. In this "arms race" enormous resources are now devoted to research into nuclear physics, biochemistry and space travel. In addition, millions throughout the world are conscripted or enticed into the armed forces and trained to kill, wound and destroy. This is what is behind the paradox of waste amidst want. 

The problem of war militarism and armaments is one of the many which arise from capitalism, from class ownership and production for profit. Militarism is the inevitable outcome of commerce, of the buying and selling that goes with the private ownership of the world's resources. To abolish militarism we must abolish commerce. To abolish commerce we must replace private property by common property; that is, we must establish socialism. This means a worldwide change which will harmonise social production with social needs. Only then will the resources of the world be able to provide the plenty they are capable of. instead of being wasted on such things as arms.

THE FUTURE IS WITH THE PEOPLE.

Humanity faces the danger of complete destruction. The old capitalist “order” can exist no longer. There is only one power which can save it – the power of the working class. The ultimate result of the capitalist mode of production is chaos – a chaos that can only be overcome by the producing class, the workers who must end the domination of capital, make war impossible, wipe out state boundaries, transform the whole world into one cooperative commonwealth, and bring about real fraternity and freedom. Decades have been lost in the swamp of reformism when generations of leaders, gave token recognition to the policy of social revolution but denied it in substance. Reforms generate conservatism. Nobody outside an insane asylum any longer believes that the Labour Party is going to put an end to the capitalist system and usher in the cooperative commonwealth. The purpose of the Socialist Party is not to demand any immediate reforms — for capitalism will grant that — but advocate revolution, and that only. What are we organised for? What is our chief bond of unity? What is our avowed object? It is the abolition of capitalism.  Our goal remains always the same — socialism, the substitution for the present capitalist system of the cooperative commonwealth.

The social revolution will never be achieved by solely elections. The revolution will be a success when we have the workers organised and conscious of their strength to run industry and civic society. Therefore it naturally follows that the workers must work to set themselves free. That means that there is no room in our movement for leaders. The words of Marx still ring in our ears, “that the emancipation of the workers must be brought about by the workers themselves.” The world socialist movement must be a movement of revolutionary workers. When the workers are politically and economically organised and made conscious of their power, then the foundation is laid for a successful social revolution. Let us weigh anchor and set sail for the cooperative commonwealth.

The fight is not going to be easy. We shall need men and women with a mind to think and a heart to do and courage to dare. Do not be pessimistic. We urge the workers to continue and strengthen their participation in the universal struggle for emancipation from the economic masters of the world and the establishment of the socialist commonwealth. The only solution of the many social problems confronting men and women is the abolition of capitalism. When every worker is assured of the full product of his or labour through the common ownership of the means of production, there will be no room on earth for division and prejudice. We call on all workers, regardless of coluor or creed, to organise politically and industrially, to win our emancipation from the chains of economic slavery that now bind us down and apart from one another. There is no more promising field for socialist activity than organising and crystallizing the sentiment that already exists against the private ownership. We are convinced that the people are ready for the approach of the cooperative commonwealth. The Socialist Party intends to use all its influence, (albeit, at this moment in time, that is very little) toward the socialist cooperative commonwealth and against capitalist ownership. As socialists we teach that the lives and conduct of men and women are governed by their economic interests, and we think we meet this principle when we point to the economic gain, the material reward involved in securing the establishment of the cooperative commonwealth which must be built; not by the magic of wishing but by the brain and brawn of the workers. The word “comrade” expresses worldwide brotherhood, stronger than the national or religious ties. There is no more urgent task today. There is no hope for fellow-workers except by the pathway mapped out by the Socialist Party, the advocates of the cooperative commonwealth.

The fetters of the slave and the lash of the master symbolise the reign of capitalism, that barbarous system we are suffered to endure. Not until slave and master have both disappeared, and forever can we lay any proper claim to civilisation. Cooperation presupposes that men and women work together in harmony for one another’s happiness. The socialist cooperative commonwealth, is entirely within the realm of the possible. 

Housing and Child-Poverty in Scotland

About 70,000 Scottish children have been pushed into poverty as a result of soaring housing costs, new figures reveal. One in four children in Scotland are now living in poverty and the problem is escalating. Rent levels have soared across Scotland in recent years, with hotspots in particular areas like Edinburgh. This eats into the incomes of poorer households and can push them into in hardship.

Some 260,000 Scots children found themselves in poverty last year – including an extra 70,000 who were pushed into this situation because of high housing costs, Scottish Government figures have shown. The latter figure is 20,000 higher than when the SNP came to office in 2007. It means 26 per cent of children in Scotland are living in relative poverty, up from 22 per cent the previous year.

Alison Watson, Deputy Director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Recent figures confirmed the devastating impact the lack of affordable housing is having on families and individuals living in Scotland, pushing more into poverty and damaging their wellbeing and life chances – especially children. That 170,000 more people have been pushed into poverty because of their housing costs should be yet another alarm bell for the Scottish Government that much more needs to be done right now to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis.”

Capitalism refreshes those parts that other beers cannot reach

BrewDog, the Aberdeenshire-based craft brewer, is now worth more than £1bn after selling a stake to a US private equity firm. BrewDog was founded on crowdfunded cash and has 55,000 small investors but now the brewer has raised £213m from TSG Consumer Partners, for a 22.3% stake. The deal will see about £100m paid out to the brewer's co-founders, a further £100m go into the business and the rest used to buy shares from early investors. BrewDog grew rapidly from its founding in Fraserburgh in 2007, with a £20,000 bank loan, and opened its first pub in Aberdeen in 2010. It had revenues of £71m last year and returned a pre-tax profit of more than £7m. The private equity cash comes at a time of further expansion for the firm, which is building a new brewery in Columbus, Ohio, and hopes to launch in Australia and Asia after that.

Founders James Watt and Martin Dickie had previously said they would never sell to a multinational beer maker,

The Old And Poorly Funded

With its usual reforming zeal, the Toronto Star called attention to the plight of seniors in nursing homes, informing us, in its issue of March 11 that they are fed on $8.33 a day. Some, run by the province of Ontario are not for profit homes, but nevertheless, have to break even. Some of these homes have contracted out to privately run nursing homes which do have to make a profit and therefore have tighter budgets. 

A 2015 report by the Dietician Of Canada concluded that Ontario homes are, ''serving cheaper protein foods and fewer fresh fruits and vegetables due to budget constraints. The 320 long-term care nutrition managers and registered dieticians surveyed in the report said that improved funding would result in better nutrition, which is a brilliant deduction.

One can hardly expect the Capitalist Class to give a damn about workers who are no longer productive, though they can always find money to spend on weapons for war. Since money, or lack of is the issue, wouldn't it be better to have an economic system where it wouldn't exist? Then such problems would not exist. 

 Steve and John.

Think About It.

A recent episode of ,''Museum Mysteries'', mentioned that from the 16th to the 19th centuries 8 million native American who had been enslaved by the Spanish section of the Capitalist Class, died working in their mines through the inhalation of mercury fumes.

 Nor can this be dismissed on the premise that it happened years ago; there are still millions of chattel slaves in the World today and millions more wage slaves.

 Yet still many think Capitalism is the best of all possible systems; wake up and smell the coffee folks.

 Steve and John.

Scottish Myths

In his book, Scottish History For Dummies, former-SPGB member and one-time Edinburgh branch secretary, Dr William Knox , highlights some lesser-known historical facts about Scotland. Dr William Knox is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Scottish Historical Research, University of St Andrews. He is the author of seven books and more than 30 articles covering the past 300 years of Scottish history

1) There is no genetically pure or original Scot

There is no common ancestral or genetic heritage that links the peoples of Scotland. The country was a patchwork quilt of various peoples grouped together in tribes who certainly never thought of themselves as Scottish. They owed allegiance only to their kith and kin, but in the campaigns against Roman imperialism they built federations that laid the basis of kingdoms. Ancient Scotland was made up of four separate groups: Angles, Britons, Picts and Gaels (or Scoti), who each spoke a different language. Latin became the common language of the whole country only after the Christianisation of Scotland in the 6th century AD.

2) Kenneth McAlpin (810–858) was not, as is popularly claimed, the first king of Scotland

What McAlpin did was in 842 take advantage of the Picts who had been severely weakened militarily by punitive Viking raids, and unite the kingdom of the Gaels with that of Pictavia. But while he ruled over the whole of Scotland north of the river Forth, large parts of the country were still in the hands of the Vikings in the north and Islands, and in the south the Anglo-Saxons ruled. But McAlpin was referred to as king of the Picts – a title conferred on him at his coronation on Moot Hill at Scone, Perthshire, in 843 AD. It was not until the reign of Donald II (889–900) that the monarch became known as the ri Alban (king of Alba). McAlpin’s achievement was to create a long-lasting dynasty that gradually extended the territorial borders of Scotland both north and south, but it was not until 1469 that what we know as Scotland today was established.

3) William the Lion (1165–1214) was not, as his name suggests, a strong and fearless king

Although he was on the throne longer than any other Scottish monarch, with the exception of James VI and I, never was a king so humiliated as William. Captured by the English, he gained his release only by signing the treaty of Falaise in December 1174. By the terms of the treaty he only ruled Scotland with the permission of the English crown. The treaty lasted 15 years and was repealed when the Scots agreed to pay a hefty sum of money. But the humiliation didn’t end there, as in 1209 he was again forced to pay homage to John I.  Therefore, his contribution was to heraldry rather than statecraft; he put the lion rampant on the Scottish flag.

4) William Wallace was not the only patriotic leader of the resistance to the English occupation of Scotland

Equally important was Andrew de Moray. In the winter of 1297 he escaped from an English prison and immediately began to organise the resistance in the north of Scotland against English rule. By the end of the year his forces were in control of Morayshire and had taken possession of the principal castles of the region, including Elgin and Inverness. De Moray’s success in the north was matched by Wallace’s in the south. After the defeat of the English at Stirling Bridge in September 1297 de Moray was mentioned along with Wallace in letters as ‘the leaders of the army and of the realm of Scotland’. However, victory came at a price: de Moray was wounded at Stirling and died two months later. Some historians have argued that too much of the credit for this has gone to Wallace, and that the successful campaign of 1297 owed more to de Moray than it did to his more celebrated contemporary

5) The Scots never won a battle when they were favourites

At Flodden Field in 1513 the largest Scottish army ever assembled to invade England was annihilated by a much smaller English army that inflicted 10,000 causalities on the Scots in just two hours. Again at Solway Moss in 1542 a Scottish force of 15,000 men was defeated by 3,000 English soldiers – and 1,200 Scots were taken prisoner. The defeat was so demoralising that James V took to his bed and died of shame. When the Scots were the underdogs they did best. At the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 a vastly outnumbered Scottish army inflicted a devastating defeat on the English. Just 17 years later at Bannockburn an English army three times that of the Scots was decimated by the forces of Robert the Bruce. In 1745 the rag tag army of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, walked through Scotland and in to England as far as Derby where it inexplicably turned face and marched home with London within its grasp.

6) The proud boast that Scotland has never been conquered is nonsense

This view is part of the folklore of the Scottish people handed down from one generation to the next. There are of course a few grains of truth contained in the assertion: the Romans were frustrated in their attempts to conquer Caledonia and so resorted to building walls to keep the warring tribes from attacking them. Likewise Edward I, the hammer of the Scots, occupied large swathes of Scottish territory, but that only sparked a resistance that ended with the defeat of Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314.

The patriotic Scottish boast regarding national prowess begins to look more than a little threadbare when we take account of the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland in the 1650s: Cromwell’s New Model Army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Scots at Dunbar in 1650, and followed it up with another at Worcester a year later – 2,000 Scots were killed and more than 10,000 were taken prisoner, including almost all the Scottish leaders. Scotland was incorporated into 'the free state and Commonwealth of England', with 29 out of 31 shires and 44 of the 58 royal burghs assenting to what was known as the ‘Tender of Union’.

Under the terms of the Cromwellian union, the Scots were given 30 seats (half of them held by English officers) in the Westminster parliament. With General George Monck in charge, the conquest of Scotland was complete, and it was only Cromwell’s death in 1658 and the political chaos that followed it that allowed Scotland to regain its sovereignty.

 7) Flora MacDonald [who became famous for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to France after he was beaten at the battle of Culloden, the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising] died a Unionist and Hanoverian

MacDonald was and is a Scottish icon ever associated with the romantic but essentially doomed attempt by the Stuart dynasty to reclaim the throne of Great Britain in 1745. After the adventure collapsed following defeat at Culloden in 1746, Charles Stuart took refuge on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. Dressed as Flora’s Irish maid, Betty Burke, Charles made his escape.

MacDonald was arrested for her part in the escape and spent some time in the Tower of London, but it was only temporary. Under the amnesty of 1747 she was released from captivity as a prisoner on parole, and lived with Lady Primrose in London. She became a celebrity, and among the many fashionable people who visited her was Frederick Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II.

At the age of 28 Flora married Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh and moved to the Isle of Skye. Difficult economic times saw the couple emigrate to North Carolina in 1774. When the American Wars of Independence broke out in 1776, her husband and five sons fought not on the side of the rebels but for George III’s royal British army! This gives some credence to MacDonald’s claim that she had helped Charles Stuart out of compassion rather than politics.Her husband was taken prisoner and she left for Scotland. He joined her two years later, and the family took up residence on Skye once more where she died in 1790 a British patriot

8) The Labour Party was not a wholly working-class party in Scotland

Although working people constitute the largest section of society north of the border, they were not always supporters of Labour. Most workers in Scotland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries voted Liberal and it was only after the First World War that the vote went to Labour. However, it was never hegemonic, as the religious divisions in Scotland ensured there was always a sizeable Protestant working-class Unionist (a party that merged with the Conservatives in 1965) vote. The party itself in Scotland was an alliance of skilled male workers and the middle classes – as such it preached against class-based politics, such as those advocated by the far left. A study of the social backgrounds of inter-war Labour MPs found that around 45 per cent of them were from non-manual backgrounds; a social trend that was to intensify after 1945.

9) Sectarianism was not just a west coast phenomenon

Most people would identify Catholic and Protestant rivalry with Glasgow and its satellite towns. But the bitterest conflicts in the 20th century took place not in Glasgow, but in middle-class Edinburgh in the 1930s.

Led by rabble-rouser John Cormack, leader of the Protestant Action Society, Catholics faced harassment and violence. Employers were pressurised into sacking Catholic employees, priests were spat on in the streets, and Sunday congregations were subject to verbal and physical assault.

On top of this, huge demonstrations were held to disrupt important events in the Catholic Church’s calendar. The high water mark was the riot of 1935, when Cormack led a mob of 20,000 Protestants baying for blood against the Eucharist Congress that was taking place at the Catholic priory in Morningside.

The activism was rewarded with seats on the Edinburgh Town Council; indeed, Protestant Action in the municipal elections of 1936 won 31.97 per cent of the Edinburgh vote, pushed Labour into third place and returned nine councillors.

But the popularity of Cormack and Protestant Action was short-lived, as the outbreak of war in 1939 pushed sectarianism on to the sidelines of politics in Edinburgh. In spite of this, Cormack held his seat on the Town Council until his death in the 1960s.

10) Outside of Canada, the central belt of Scotland was the highest recipient of American inward investment anywhere in the world between 1945 and 1970

This little strip of land in the middle of Scotland saw the influx of giant American corporations such as IBM, Timex, National Cash Registers, Caterpillar and many more besides. Why did they come? For three good reasons: firstly, it opened up British and European markets; secondly, there existed a highly skilled and educated pool of workers earning historically relatively low wages; and, thirdly, there were no linguistic barriers, as English was the common tongue

Fact of the Day

Greenpeace concluded that Coca-Cola sells in the region of 108 to 128 billion thowaway plastic bottles each year, 3,400 a second.

Some 16 million plastic bottles end up in the environment every single day in the UK, according to Greenpeace.

There is no better time than now

The basic cause of capitalist ills is the right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right of a few to own and control the means by which all must live, the right of the owners of the means of production to use it to exploit the rest of the community in the interest of their personal profit, the right to determine what shall be produced and how, regardless of the suffering and deprivation of those who produce it.  Today we see a world in which huge numbers of people cannot get enough to eat and are literally perishing in the streets for lack of food. Millions are steeped in the misery and wretched living standards. The vast majority of the working class live in constant fear of the effects of a new global economic crisis. The Socialist Party answer to all this is the case for socialism. The Socialist Party is not out to create a bloody revolution but work for the fundamental improvement of the conditions of the people, understanding that that improvement can only be attained by changing basic social relations, by a shift in ownership and control from the few to the many – an all-embracing socialisation when the whole of society is changed by the elimination of the private ownership of the entire means of production, socialism. Capitalism produces its own grave-diggers, the masses of the wage workers and they reach a point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity. Private ownership must go, common ownership must take its place, socialism.

The ABC of socialism teaches that the socialist system is not some sort of poetic ideal society, thought out in advance, which may be reached by various paths in various more or less imaginative ways. Rather, socialism is simply the historical tendency of the class struggle of the workers in the capitalist society against the class rule of the employers and investors. Outside of this struggle between two completely discrete social classes, socialism cannot be realised   neither through the propaganda of the most ingenious creator of a socialist utopia nor through peasant insurrection or revolutionary conspiracies.

All employers, “good” and “bad,” share one all-important thing in common: they are owners of the means of production or exchange, and derive their income from this ownership. By virtue of this ownership, they are in a position to dictate to the employee the conditions of his existence. They therefore have in common a basic class interest. It is to maintain capitalist private property, and the social system built upon it by which the relationship between capitalists and workers is preserved. “Good” and “bad” capitalist, “friendly” and “unfriendly” capitalist – all are united in the effort to maintain the private ownership of the means of production and exchange and the power that is derived from it.

This ownership keeps the workers at the mercy of the capitalist class. It makes them dependent upon the capitalist class for their livelihood and therefore for life itself. Without this ownership, the capitalists would not have the power, the wealth, the privileges and the ruling position they now enjoy. Without it, there would still be personal distinctions among people, but there would no longer be a basis for social or class differences, for class rule and class conflict. This fundamental division of capitalist society into economic classes is often obscured by other divisions which cut across it, or seem to do so. The worker sees members of his class antagonistic to each other and sometimes even tom by violent conflict. He sees the same thing in the ranks of the capitalist class. He sees employers who favour workers of the same religion, or nationality, or sex, or colour, or age, and who discriminate against all other workers. He even sees workers of the same color joining hands with their employers against workers of another colour, or another religion, or another nationality. These are all facts. Naturally, the capitalists, who are a small minority ruling over the big majority, do not want the workers to grasp the truth about the real class division in society. That would not be in their interest. If the workers understood that they are part of one class, with common basic social interests, then the days of the rule of the capitalist minority would be numbered. The capitalists therefore create, stimulate and exploit every possible difference, every prejudice, in the ranks of the working class. 

If the native-born worker can be led to believe that the basic antagonism in society is between those born in this country and those born abroad, that will make it easier for the capitalist to rule undisturbed by a united working class. The same is true if the capitalist can make the worker believe that the basic antagonism in society is between white and black, or Catholic and Protestant, or Gentile and Jew. If the working class is fighting among itself along such lines, capital, whose only real religion is capital itself, and which has neither colour, nationality, age or sex, can continue to rule society and to keep labour at its mercy. The worker who understands his class position in society has already freed himself from the most oppressive and misleading idea that capitalists seek to pump into his head from childhood on. With this understanding comes the first big step toward freedom. Only if you know what society is based on, what position you occupy in it, what your relations are to other classes, can you begin to transform society into what it can and should be. Above you, ruling society and ruling you, is the capitalist class. 

Fact of the Day

The Tomahawk cruise missiles the United States used to devastate a Syrian air base were made by Raytheon, the fifth-largest arms firm in the world, an arms firm located in Glenrothes. 

A World Citizen.

In the TV Guide it said CNN were showing,"The History Of Comedy", so when this twit switched on, expecting to see something about comedy, it was always something about Trump. I may have missed the point, is there a connection?

Another, ''unlikely'', connection is, on March 25, at Toronto's Royal York Hotel, there was a seminar instructing American citizens on how to give up their U.S. citizenship. It was titled, "Make Sure You Renounce the right way." The aim of the organizers, The Moodys Gartner Tax Law Company, is alright as far as it goes, which isn't far enough. 

It would be a fine thing if everyone gave up their citizenships in every country in the world. It's private property society that divides people into countries, races, nations, in fact, divides people against each other to compete with and fight each other in wars: all in the interests of the capitalist class in those countries, which are competing with each other over markets and raw materials.

 By all means, let's give up our citizenships and have one world for all people. As Charlie Chaplin said when asked if he had taken out U.S. citizenship, "I am a citizen of the world." 

Steve and John

Dying alone

In June 2015 police in Edinburgh were called by a GP because an elderly patient named Henry Summers had not been seen for several years. The police went to Henry's address on Easter Road, one of the most densely populated areas in Scotland. When the police knocked the door down they found a mountain of mail in the hall and Henry Summers was inside, dead. He had been dead for three years, undiscovered, because all of his bills were paid by direct debit. A few years before that, a woman had been found dead in Rodney Street, undiscovered for five years. Isabella Purves, was also understood paying her bills by direct debit. It is a story every town and city has shared. As long as you pay your bills, who cares about you. 

The alienation and atomisation of capitalist society.

United Scotsmen Revisited

George Mealmaker 

The revolutions in America and France found extensive support among the Scottish working classes. Corresponding societies, groups in favour of peaceful but radical constitutional reform, grew in the Scottish lowland cities.  The outlawing of the corresponding societies did not bring an end to radical political activity in Scotland, it merely drove it underground. The main secret society which emerged in the wake of this repression was the Society of the United Scotsmen, formed In the late 18th century and sought widespread political reform throughout Great Britain. It grew out of previous radical movements such as the Friends of the People Society. Their aims were largely the same as those of the Society of the United Irishmen. The aim of the Society was universal suffrage and annually elected parliaments, with a strong streak of republicanism running through it as well.  In fact this was a totally new development in Scottish politics, for it was a truly revolutionary body advocating a French-style armed revolution and the foundation of a Scottish Republic.

By the mid-1790s the society had around 3,000 members, which was then more than the entire electorate of Scotland. This membership continued to grow rapidly beyond that level. Precise membership figures are not available, since the organisation kept no records at all, in the interests of security. Some estimates of as many as 22,000 have been made by modern historians. The two Fife villages of Strathmiglo and Auchtermuchty alone has over 2,000 members. The membership was comprised overwhelmingly of working men; handloom weavers, artisans, small shopkeepers, and the like.

The weakness of the corresponding societies had been their openness and transparency; penetrated by government spies, their compromise had been inevitable. As an illegal organisation and owing to its aims and activities the United Scotsmen had to remain a secret society, and organised themselves into cells of no more than 16 people which would send delegates to larger bodies on occasion. This way it meant the organisation was more difficult to penetrate, but it also meant that many members did not know other members of the organisation. The society was further boosted when the Parliament passed the Militia Act 1797 which allowed for the conscription of young men into the army. This proved vastly unpopular with many ordinary Scots, and in August 1797 there were large protests across the country which were brutally suppressed, with many protesters killed (e.g. Massacre of Tranent). Ordinary people hated the Act.  It was seen as a direct attack on workers because members of the bourgeoisie could always buy their own exemption.  The United Scotsmen got involved and began to foment resistance.  Working class people soon declared that they would "not risk their lives for the gentry and their property."  They would "rather die to a man than be pressed for soldiers." 

The United Scotsmen hoped to get support from the Dutch as well as the French, and there were plans for the Dutch to land in Scotland with some 50,000 troops and to take over the Scottish Central Belt. Such a force would almost certainly have succeeded had they appeared, given the widespread opposition to the Militia Act. However the Royal Navy intercepted a Dutch fleet and defeated them at the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797. Further hopes for French assistance were ruined when a French fleet was dispatched to England in the hope of encouraging English radicals to rise against His Majesty's Government. However, radical activity was not as entrenched there as in Scotland, or Ireland in particular. If they had dispatched the fleet to either of these countries then they may have met with more success. The United Scotsmen still organised a rebellion against the government in 1797, but despite initial successes for the insurrectionists, government troops quickly drafted in from England soon quelled the rebellion.

 The United Scotsmen's aims in the rebellion were to establish a new Provisional Government with Thomas Muir as President. Various leaders of the United Scotsmen were arrested and tried.  The most prominent activist arrested was Dundee weaver who had re-formed the Dundee Sons of Liberty group, George Mealmaker who had published a pamphlet called, "The Moral and Political Catechism of Man."  In it he articulated the United Scotsmen's key demands i.e. universal suffrage and annual parliaments.  He was now regarded as a dangerous revolutionary.  George Mealmaker was sentenced to 14 years transportation to Australia. Others such as Robert Jaffrey, David Black, James Paterson and William Maxwell were all found guilty of seditious activity. The last record of a United Scotsmen member having been tried before the courts was the trial in 1802 of Thomas Wilson.

Our future, or theirs?

The Socialist Party can perceive a future where there will be neither wages nor prices. By socialism we understand the system of society the material basis of which is social production for social use; that is, the production of all the means of social existence — including all the necessaries and comforts of life — carried on by the organised community for its own use collectively and individually. Socialism does not mean governmental ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class and, has, in the interests as employers, to treat the employees just as other employees are treated.

By socialism, the Socialist Party mean the establishment the common ownership and control of the whole of the world’s industry. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied employing class to make a profit out of the workers swat and toil, or the interest on loans or in any other way, and then classes themselves would disappear.

Mankind is facing threats to its physical survival with the growing risks of destruction of the environment. That’s why we need socialism, and that’s why many remain in the Socialist Party.  The real choice will be not “socialism or barbarism”, but socialism or the physical extinction of the human race. The working class cannot solve the global warming crisis because it has no belief in an alternative social order.

We in the Socialist Party believe that mankind is not necessarily doomed.  The problems to be solved in this case are not technical or cultural ones. It is a social one. Political power needs to be in the hands of the workers willing to let solidarity, cooperation and generosity prevail by democratic means over the short-sighted irresponsibility of the profit-system. Science and technology have no power independent of the social groups who invented them, apply them, and bend them to their interests as they see them.  The key decision is to subject science and technology to conscious social control in the democratically established interests of the great majority of human beings. To free them from submission to special pecuniary interests, which abuse them regardless of the long-term interests of the human race. For that purpose the organisation and structure of society itself must be subjected to democratically determined, conscious control. What socialism is all about in the last analysis is the conquest of human freedom for the greatest possible number to decide their own fate.  Only the democratically organised self-activity of the masses can achieve that. Socialism is a social order in which these masses decide their own fate in a free way.

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

The Socialist Party opposes any condition in which human beings are despised, alienated, exploited, oppressed or denied basic human dignity. Understand that you cannot be happier than if you have dedicated your life to this defence of humanity everywhere in the world: the defence of the exploited, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the despised. There is no better way to be a decent individual in this world than to dedicate your life to the cause of socialism and that is why the future is with the socialists.

Capitalism At Its Cruellest

On March 10, Stephen O'Brien, the UN's so called Humanitarian director, said the world faces its greatest humanitarian crisis since the UN was founded in 1945, with more than 20 million people in 4 countries,Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, facing starvation and famine. To quote,''Without collective and co-ordinated efforts, people will simply starve to death and many more will suffer and die from disease." 

This is a typical example of Capitalism at its cruellest; if food, or anything else for that matter, can't be sold for a  profit the people who need it go without. As for those who face death by starvation very soon, they can be saved very soon, by the establishment of Socialism which can come as soon as people want it. 

Steve and John.

Another Reason Why Capitalism Should Be Abolished

The International Peace Research Institute in March released figures on the world's arm sales. 37.9% of the world's arm sales comes from the United States: 20.5% comes from Russia, the number two exporter. There's been a 43% increase in U.S. arms sales since Obama took office in 2009. The estimated value of U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia during the Obama administration, was $115 billion. Pretty good for a peace-loving country.

Some may argue that arms sales keep the economy working (to whatever extent it does work) and gives employment to lots of people. 

This must be the most sickening thing about capitalism: for it to work, it has to murder millions of people in the interests of competing sections of the capitalist class. Is there any better argument for capitalism's abolition?

 Steve and John.

Bloody Capitalism

The civil war in Syria took on a new turn when the US in revenge for an alleged chemical weapon attack on civilians launched scores of Tomahawk missiles against the Syrian government.

You don't create peace by making war.

We cannot just decide to end war. What we can do, though, is decide to establish a society in which war is inconceivable. Wars can be stopped forever by simply removing the reasons for their existence. What is needed is a clear analysis of why humans go to war. It is never too late, even now, for people of this and other lands to ask themselves WHY? Many people believe they have got the answer. “Liberty and freedom is at stake," they say; “that precious freedom for which our forefathers fought.” Others maintain that “dictators and despots must be stopped, else they will seek to dominate the world.” With such fine-sounding sentiments do men and women delude themselves.

It is not because of our genes, our natures or our beliefs. It is because capitalists make themselves richer and more powerful by obtaining more and more markets and trade routes and exploitable populations and raw materials. And until capitalism is abolished, its ruthless, competitive drive for profits will condemn workers to die needlessly in wars. Conflict over access to and control of vital resources by competing nations have for the past one hundred years been rendered respectable by the cloak of capitalist ideology. They are no longer capable of being so masked.

Since the formation of the Socialist Party in 1904 our opposition to all wars has clearly distinguished us from other organisations claiming descent from Marx and Engels and the early socialist pioneers. For the Socialist Party, capitalism and war are inseparable. There can be no capitalism without conflicts of economic interest. Our consistent view has been that it is the duty of socialists to oppose the wars of the ruling class of one nation with the ruling class of another, and refuse to participate in them. So long as the working class continues to support capitalism so long will its wars, and preparations for war, continue.

  Because wars are the outcome of economic and strategic conflicts between the capitalists of the various nations any attempt to abolish war while those economic conflicts remained will be futile. And as such, anti-war campaigns from the working class standpoint is absurd. Just as the class struggle cannot be abolished save by abolishing classes, so it is impossible for capitalist nations to get rid of the grim spectre of war, for Capitalism presupposes economic conflicts which must finally be fought out with the aid of the armed forces of the State. The only solution to war is to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism.  We do not single out one or two aspects of war – atomic or chemical weapons, or land mines or cluster bombs or white phosphorus shells or the use of child soldiers – we oppose the system that give rise to these things.

The great tragedy of to-day: the workers have not yet learned their most important lesson, the lesson of CLASS. They allow themselves to be lined up as Britons, Americans, Russians or Chinese, never as workers and capitalists. Capitalism puts everyone in his or her place, not according to language or nationality, but according to the economic position. That is the fundamental fact for the workers to consider, and all other questions mean little in comparison.  When socialists allow themselves to be recruited for a war they do not only commit suicide physically but ideologically as well. For they renounce completely the fundamental axiom of socialism, namely, the directly conflicting interests of workers and capitalists, a conflict that, so far from being abrogated during a war, stands out in sharper contrast than ever.

 For that war, although it will be fought mainly by the workers, will not be RUN by the workers; it will be run by the ruling class, and their method will be to crush ruthlessly any attempt to express any working class opposition, whether in the factory or politically. In other words, the workers will have to place themselves wholly under an iron control of militaristic capitalism, and who is going to argue that if and when such a war is ended workers can start again where they left off? The tactics advocated for the defence of democracy in the War Against Terror has led to the severe curtailment of civil liberties and the establishment of a virtual dictatorship.

 We do not preach passive acquiescence to populism and fascism any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the Class Struggle for Socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future.  As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists, whether they be of so-called “peace" or even those of war. Let there be signs to-day that more and more workers are becoming class-conscious enough to understand the real causes of capitalist wars and see just how quickly our rulers forget their internecine quarrels.

 We want to remind those people of what happened during World War One in one country—Russia. The workers and peasants there were not socialists. But they refused to fight and turned their attention to their real enemy at home. And what was the result? Not only did they drive out a most reactionary regime, but their move helped to play a decisive part in the collapse of German imperialism, and thus hastened the end of the war. How much better could a strengthened Socialist Party in this country play its part in bringing home to workers everywhere die madness of fighting each other in the interests of the class that oppresses and exploits them. Let British workers set an example to their fellows in all lands by proclaiming that the interest of the working class is in internationalism, not in wars for markets.


 We call upon you, fellow workers, to help us. Are you ready take the first steps to end war?