Let it blossom

We need little proof of the barbarity of capitalism, the parasitical system that exploits humanity and nature alike. Capitalism is the enemy of nature and of labour alike. Its sole motor is the imperative toward profit and thus the need for constant growth. It wastefully creates unnecessary products, squandering the environment's limited resources and returning to it only toxins and pollutants. Under capitalism, the only measure of success is how much more is sold every day, every week, every year – involving the creation of vast quantities of products that are directly harmful to both humans and nature, commodities that cannot be produced without spreading disease, destroying the forests that produce the oxygen we breathe, demolishing ecosystems, and treating our water, air and soil like sewers for the disposal of industrial waste. Capitalism's need for growth exists on every level, from the individual enterprise to the system as a whole. The insatiable hunger of corporations is facilitated by militarist expansion in search of ever greater access to natural resources, cheap labour and new markets. Capitalism has always been ecologically destructive, but in our lifetimes these assaults on the earth have accelerated. Left unchecked, global warming will have devastating effects on human, animal and plant life. Crop yields will drop drastically, leading to famine on a broad scale. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by droughts in some areas and by rising ocean levels in others. Chaotic, unpredictable weather will become the norm. Air, water, and soil will be poisoned. Epidemics of malaria, cholera and even deadlier diseases will hit the poorest and most vulnerable members of every society.

Ecological devastation, resulting from the insatiable need to increase profits, is not an accidental feature of capitalism: it is built into the system's DNA and cannot be reformed away. Profit-oriented production only considers a short-term horizon in its investment decisions, and cannot take into account the long-term health and stability of the environment. Infinite economic expansion is incompatible with finite and fragile ecosystems, but the capitalist economic system cannot tolerate limits on growth; its constant need to expand will subvert any limits that might be imposed in the name of “sustainable development.” Thus the inherently unstable capitalist system cannot regulate its own activity, much less overcome the crises caused by its chaotic and parasitical growth, because to do so would require setting limits upon accumulation – an unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die! Mankind cannot serve two masters – the integrity of the planet and the profitability of capitalism. One must be abandoned. History leaves little question about the allegiances of the vast majority of present-day policy-makers. The reforms over the past thirty-five years have been a monstrous failure. Isolated improvements do of course occur, but they are inevitably overwhelmed and swept away by the ruthless expansion of the system and the chaotic character of its production. In order to affirm and sustain our human future, a revolutionary transformation is needed, where all particular struggles take part in a greater struggle against capital itself. This larger struggle cannot remain merely negative and anti-capitalist. It must announce and build a different kind of society, and this is socialism.

Socialism is not a utopia with which reality should comply. It is the reasoned human answer to the social problems in which humanity is now locked because of the modes of production and consumption of our times which are exhausting human beings and the environment. This calls for radical thinking and political action, in the sense that we must go to the root causes.  Capitalism imposes the commodification of everything for new sources of profit. It is, therefore, responsible for poverty, the widening gap in inequality and the environmental damage to ecosystems.  Socialism is all about founding a new economy based on real needs and not the accumulation of capital and expanding growth to make increased profits. Socialism has always sought the emancipation of the human being. This implies the sharing of the wealth produced and the democratisation of power. This remains the project of the Socialist Party. We reject the deception of an economics that advocates reform of capitalism by legislation and regulation. Socialism wants to put the economic and productive systems at the service of human needs. Socialism challenges the dictatorship of the private and state ownership of the means of production. Socialism involves a revolutionary social transformation, which will replace exchange-value with use-value.

The Socialist Party advocates the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. We propose a steady-state economy where is no point in working longer than necessary to produce what we need. The time thus freed could be usefully allocated to activities now considered as unproductive which are nevertheless essential to good living by working less and working better. Our goal requires that the largest number of people be involved in political action. It is a question of gathering and acting together. We stand alongside the workers and those excluded by the system. The struggle of labour – workers, farmers, the landless and the unemployed – for social justice is inseparable from the struggle for socialism.  Economic planning requires the control of citizens, workers, and consumers. The problem is not industry, research or the technology in

themselves, but the lack of choice and control by citizens. Socialism cannot emerge from decisions dictated from above.  We want neither an enlightened intellectual avant-garde nor a vanguard political elite. This requires that the socialist parliamentary majorities combine their efforts with popular movements involved in all domains of life in society. A people's revolution is needed to conquer this capacity of control.  Decisions taken on one side on the planet have repercussions everywhere else.  This reclaiming of political and civic initiatives by every person, in order to determine where the general interest lies, everywhere and on every issue, is what we call a social revolution. It is a social revolution because it intends to change the forms of ownership, the institutional system and the hierarchy of legal, social and environmental standards which organise both society and the economy.  Only collective decision-making and common ownership of production can offer the perspective that is necessary for the balance and sustainability of our social and natural systems. It intends to empower every person, not in the interest of a particular class but for the good of all humans.

If capitalism remains the dominant social order, the best we can expect is unbearable climate conditions, an intensification of social crises and the spread of the most barbaric forms of class rule, as the imperialist powers fight among themselves for continued control of the world's diminishing resources. At worst, human life may not survive. Humanity today faces a stark choice: socialism or barbarism. 

Dig For Victory

During WWII Edinburgh embraced the wartime Dig for Victory campaign to combat food shortages. By the height of WWII, the city had given over almost 300 acres for cultivation. War had a big impact on the world’s food.

 Before the Second World War Britain imported approximately 55 million tonnes, or 3/4 of the country's food by ship each year. In England and Wales arable acreage was about 9 million; whereas 16 million acres were under grass and a further 5 ½ million was “rough grazing” (once reasonable pasture). One acre of permanent grass (for animal fodder) fed 1 or 2 people; one acre sown with wheat fed 20 people, and one acre sown with potatoes fed 40 people. Nationally, some 6 ½ million new acres were ploughed up between 1939 and 1944. Harvests of wheat, barley and potatoes increased by over 100%; milking cows increased by 300,000; other cattle by 400,000. This was at the expense of fewer sheep, pigs and poultry but enabled the country to completely reverse its reliance on foreign food. In terms of calories, the net output had been quadrupled by 1943-44. By the end of the war, food imports had been reduced from 22 million to 11 million tons and Britain was producing well over 60% of its food. This was despite losing nearly 100,000 skilled male farm workers, who went off to fight, and thanks to the 117,000 women who replaced them. From 815,000 allotments in 1939 the number rose to 1,400,000 by 1943. allotments were estimated to contribute some 1.3 million tonnes of food produce.

Experts from The Botanic Gardens were dispatched to issue advice to growers. 512 allotments sprung up across The Meadows, with a concentration of gardeners working on the east side of the park. Allotments also appearing in Balgreen Park, Bruntsfield Links and Joppa Quarry with parts of Craigentinny Golf Course also turned over to vegetable production. Allotment holders were encouraged to grow crops such as leeks and kale, with a drive for gardeners to plant potatoes in 1948 as wartime rationing continued to pinch households.

The number of allotments fell away in Scotland following the end of WWII from around 90,000 at the peak of the Dig for Victory campaign to 36,000 plots.

A key part of a socialist society would be a serious reduction in the working week and there would be the release of land from commerce. This would free up large quantities of time for participation in newly available allotments.

McGovern is Amazed (1937)

In the recent by-election at Springburn, Glasgow, at which the Labour Party candidate, Mrs. Hardie, was elected, Mr. McGovern, M.P., advised the members of the I.L.P. to refrain from voting. One of his reasons was that, although the Labour Party claims to be Socialist, the word "Socialism" was never mentioned once in Mrs. Hardie's election address (The Times, September 7th, 1937). Now, it would indeed by remarkable if a Socialist Party were to run candidates on a non-Socialist programme. Actually what has happened is not at all remarkable since it comes from the Labour Party, which is not Socialist. Where can Mrs. Hardie have learned this trick? Perhaps she learned it from her old acquaintance, Miss Jennie Lee. In 1928 Miss Lee was elected at a by-election at North Lanark. She was the I.L.P.’s nominee and they financed her. Her election address not only contained no reference to Socialism, direct or indirectly, but she did not even mention the I.L.P. or her membership of it. Mr. McGovern should see her about it.

Incidentally, he should also recall that it was the I.L.P. which reduced to a fine art the practice of pretending to be Socialist but running as candidates of the Labour Party on a non-Socialist programme. How else does he suppose that some 200 of its members got themselves into Parliament at the 1929 General Election? Mr. McGovern himself first got into Parliament as the candidate of the Labour Party, which he knew was not a Socialist Party.

It is true that Mr. McGovern and his associates in the Independent Labour Party now include at least the words “Socialism" and “Socialist” in their election addresses, but they have made little other change. Votes are still solicited on every kind of reform; which means that the candidates know quite well that they are dependent on the votes of non-Socialists.

It is reported that Glasgow members and branches of the I.L.P. are returning to the Labour Party because they disapprove of Mr. McGovern’s action in advising them not to vote for the Labour candidate.

We are all migrants.

"The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of the self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor German nor English; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to him is neither French nor English nor German; it is a few feet under the ground." - Marx

One of the weapons of the master class in its armoury is its ability to camouflage the reality of the exploiter/exploited class relation, disguising it with religion, race, gender, and nationalism. Nationalism is manufactured to provide the pretence that we are all “free.”  Nationalism was created to reinforce the state by providing it with the loyalty of a people of shared linguistic, ethnic, and cultural affinities. And if these shared affinities do not exist, the state will create them by centralising education in its own hands, imposing as “official” language and attempting to lessen any deep cultural differences from the people's within its borders. This can clearly be seen in Scottish history. The state pre-empts the autonomy of localities and peoples and in the name of “nation”.  The nationalism in Scotland is as artificial as anywhere else.

When the capitalists tell us we are “all in it together” they are duping us into defence of their material interests. The SNP plays to different audiences, in one role they are the populist socialist opposition and in the other, less public, they are the friend to big business.Scottish independence is just a diversion from the real struggle – the class war. The nationalists mislead us with romantic myths that ‘We’re different up here’; that Scotland as a consequence of distant historic struggles for power involving medieval robber barons like Bruce and Wallace supposedly imbues its inhabitants with something meaningful, something that transcends the reality of a working class that alone produces all wealth and is international, and a capitalist class that expropriates most of that wealth. Workers in Britain, Brazil or Bangladesh have their exploitation and real interests in common, and nothing in common with the capitalist interests and functionaries and land owners that exploit them. There is only one socialist response to nationalism – Stuff it. The real issue for the world’s workers is that they face an increasingly dire future under whichever capitalist regime rules us. The world capitalist crisis has seen living standards falling across the planet since the 2008 recession emerged. It is not surprising that there has been a rise of nationalist and populist movements who all claim that the “old parties” are to blame. They want us to believe that they can manage capitalism better, that they can magically escape the effect of the global economy. Our only hope lies in getting rid of the capitalist system that produces misery and such abominations as hunger, disease, and war.

Would an independent Scotland be much different for most people who would still be powerless economically and socially? Look around the world at all the many nation-states in existence, and see the same differences in power, influence, and wealth restricting self-determination for working class people, even if they are free “nationally”. The formation of new nation-states can no more put an end to imperialism than the formation of new businesses can put an end to capitalism. "Dominate or be dominated" is as much the logic of competition between nation-states as between corporations.  The logic of the nation-state system is similar to that of competition in the sphere of production. The world's productive forces are divided into competing businesses where each can survive at the cost of another. Nationalism is nowhere a recipe for the well-being of the masses.

A society where 'profits' are the main driving force and the gap between rich and poor keeps widening is unstable.  So the employing class has to come up with a strategy to push through their cuts and at the same time deal with our anger and discontent. Therefore it is no coincidence that in this situation we witness the re-emergence of nationalism: to divide-and-rule, politicians of most parties blame the 'immigrants' for the miserable situation, but at the same time they announce that they will squeeze 'their local workers' even harder (e.g. through more zero-hours contracts and making it even more difficult to go on strike) Nationalism plays a role where we work. Many of us were not born in the UK, we speak different languages. On the job some of us might feel closer to our 'English', 'Polish' or 'Indian' manager, than to the 'foreign' person who works next to them - also because we hope that by sticking to 'our' manager we will get an advantage over other workers. BUT companies are able to use divisions and stereotypes to make us compete against each other and ultimately make more profits for themselves. We need to keep our eyes on our real class enemies.

Working people turn towards the nation (state) mainly to 'protect our jobs'. But we have to question why there are 'jobs' and 'a limited number of jobs' in the first place. 'Jobs' are created by those with money and resources, only if the jobs create more money for them. They and their market decide what jobs we do - and most of these jobs only relate to money-making: advertising, financial services, securing the wealth of the rich. If we would all just work to produce what we need for a living (houses, nice clothes, good food, funny little gadgets), then we could just share out the work equally. If we didn't have to sell our time and energy to them for money, a lot of 'unemployment' would actually be a good thing. Why? Because it would mean fewer people are necessary to produce what we need: everyone could work less and we'd have more time to do other things that make us happy. But here and now we just look and compete for jobs, because we need money, and they create jobs only if they can make more money off us. Down with their jobs, down with their unemployment. Today in the capitalist system, the introduction of new technology and its higher productivity creates the unemployment, the increased competition, and the pay cuts. The bosses keep the threat of unemployment over our heads to keep us obedient and divided. It does not need any migrant workers for this to happen - it is the normal functioning of the system. Closing our borders would not help. When the steel industry in Scotland began to close down, Scots followed the work to Corby. We are all migrants.

Socialism is the self-liberation of working class people, by their own efforts, creating and using their own organisations. There can be no separation of political, social and economic struggles. Socialists do not disdain cultural diversity nor confuse it with nationalism or patriotism. That various peoples should wish to celebrate their own traditions is not merely a right but desirable. The world would be a drab place indeed if the rich mosaic of different cultures did not replace the homogenised world created by modern capitalism. 

They Are Rich Because We Are Poor

Protest is not enough. We need a vision.  Is now the time to retreat on our big ideas? Is it time to soften our demands? Now is a moment that calls for a radical imagination of what’s possible. Let’s turn protest power into political power and people power. The days of accepting the lesser-of-two-evil politics are over. We have to build a class-conscious movement if we want to win. And they know if we do that, they will lose – and that is exactly why those in charge work so hard to divide us. It is time to move the struggle from defence to offence. In the shadow of every current catastrophe, forces of global renewal and creating a non-violent planetary society are taking shape. We have a realistic chance to make this happen in the near future.  Human beings are able to manifest whatever they believe in, whatever they can envision. This applies to every area of life. Why not apply this power to establishing world socialism? 

Around the world today, there is a suffering that compels us to make a profound change in our own ways of thinking. 250 million children are currently living in war zones. 50 million children are refugees, searching for a new home. Humanity is faced with an apocalyptic situation. We stand on the brink of global catastrophe, or, on the other hand, the beginning of a new civilisation. The lives of billions of human beings will depend on your choice. We can offer our children, and our children’s children, a future worth living, if we take an active part in the transformation of the economic structure of the planet. Can we imagine new communities that might arise where people a grow up where there is no fear and no hostility among human beings, a world where people practice solidarity and care for one another?  Can we imagine a world, in which the concept of class enmity has been made obsolete? We already possess the knowledge to put it into practice.

A global network is arising with the goal of bringing these thoughts into reality – the World Socialist Movement. We feel that such a world could exist and that we could manifest it if we agree together to do so. We’re talking about planetary system-change - in every community and in every individual. Every rural commune and every urban neighbourhood, will transform themselves into a network of interconnected and interdependent but basically autonomous communities. A bottom-up democratic based society waiting to happen.  All that's missing is the will and determination to usher in a whole new way to live in peace without all of the demonic trappings of capitalism. The time's now.

 The remedy is so simple, and the method more simple still. The cause of poverty is the ownership of the means and instruments of wealth production by the capitalist class. The remedy, therefore, is to dispossess that class of its ownership. It maintains its ownership by virtue of its political control. Its economic domination would cease the moment that the working class captured the political machinery that sends the police and the soldiers against them. Curiously enough, the working class never seem to discover that it is they who gratuitously give the capitalists the power to enslave them every time they go to the ballot-box! It is obvious, then, that the method of recapturing political control is going back to the ballot-box and voting for socialists. 

Homes for Holidays but not for People

Research suggests that about half the homes in the EH1 postcode will be holidays lets by 2050.

There is now a growing trend in Edinburgh for people to buy up properties which they will never live in themselves but instead, use them for holiday lets.

Dundee - Scotland's Orchard City

Dundee is undergoing huge changes culturally and socially. To younger generations, berry or tattie picking may be an alien concept, but the practice was once a key part of seasonal life locally as well as across Scotland. The area has an existing connection to orchards — which originated in the Carse of Gowrie around 800 years ago as part of farms and granges owned by monasteries — and you have a rich heritage of food cultivation upon which to build.

 Slessor Gardens is where Dundee Urban Orchard (also known as DUO) is encouraging everyone to forage in their edible garden and orchard – for free. Anyone can come here and enjoy the herbs and fruit free of charge. The small-scale orchard is one of 25 across the city, all planted by DUO in a project which began three years ago. The idea behind the project is to raise awareness of “food sustainability” and “food justice”.

“Food poverty is a huge issue in Dundee,” explains Jonathan, as he tends an apple tree, sporting stunning pink and white blossom. “In an ideal world, there would be no food banks; there’d be more community gardens and orchards like this, so we’re doing what we can to make changes and bring awareness to these problems...we’re trying to support the social and emotional well-being in the city by offering a celebratory response to the local and global problem of food poverty. It’s an open invitation to everyone to come here and enjoy the space and when the fruit is ripe, to harvest and eat the produce.”

Three of DUO’s orchards supply fruit and vegetables to food banks, including the Giving Garden project at Menzieshill Parish Church, which grows lots of vegetables and has eight apple trees. Other sites DUO work with include Ninewells Community Garden, Maxwell Community Garden, Camperdown Wildlife Garden and the “Art-Science Orchard” linking the DCA and Dundee Science Centre.

“A large proportion of the food available in Dundee has travelled long distances and is purchased in packaged or processed form from supermarket shelves,” says DUO co-founder Sarah Gittins , “When we lose our connection to food, we lose a sense of what sustains us and this effects our care for one another and the planet.”

An Epidemic Waiting To Happen.

March 22 was clean water day, in which UNICEF brought to peoples attention that more than 3 billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation systems. Globally at least 1.8 billion use a drinking water source contaminated by faeces and half of the world's population will be living in water-stressed areas by 2025. The water problem is particularly serious in Africa's largest City Lagos, Nigeria, a City of 21 million. According to one community leader, "when we fetch water it foams and smells like petrol and detergent were poured into it." Obviously, the problem is compounded by one of the most disgusting aspects of life under Capitalism in the 20th and 21st centuries, the growth of Mega-cities. In cities such as Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Cape Town and Lagos, millions live in shanty towns, where there is no sanitation and clean drinking water. Somehow we can't imagine the capitalist class using the wealth they've worked so hard to steal, putting in sewers and water lines for the residents of a shanty town.

Be that as it may, nevertheless they wouldn't have to. In 2011, the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, announced a competition to invent a toilet that did not need a sewer connection, or electricity and cost less than 5 cents per user per day. The winner was an entry from Caltech that uses photovoltaic cells to power an electro-chemical reactor that treats human waste, producing clean water for flushing or irrigation and hydrogen that can be stored in fuel cells. The system is entirely self-contained; it has no need for an electrical grid, a sewer line or a treatment RiverBlue2016 2 facility. The only input the toilet requires, beyond sunlight and human waste, as simple table salt which is oxidized to make chlorine to disinfect the water. 

So once again, capitalism rises to the technical challenge, but will the toilets be used in shanty towns? It's doubtful because it will still cost the capitalists money to put them there; money they won't see a return on, no matter how cheap they are to use. So once again, capitalism fails the social challenge. It should be obvious to anyone that a shanty town is an epidemic waiting to happen and sooner or later it will. 

Steve and John.

Nationalism - Strong against the Weak, Weak against the Strong

Nationalism is a sign of fear. The bosses are confronted with a possibility that workers everywhere around the globe who have to fight under increasingly similar conditions and who are now moving around will recognise the global nature of the companies and industries so employers and the state use migration in order to play us off against each other; on the company level and beyond. It was no surprise that the normally anti-strike right-wing press applauded the “native” workers at the Lyndsey oil refinery in 2009 when they went out on strike against the employment of Portuguese. The tabloids gleefully featured front page pictures of strikers on picket lines clutching "British jobs for British workers" placards. Less was written by the newspapers about the weakness of the trade unions in the face of their bosses  who blamed the traditional militancy of the engineering construction workers in the UK which led to the necessity to use of overseas workers.

If workers use their various experiences of having lived and fought in different countries they can become stronger. Workers worldwide know enough now about how to get rid of the bosses and politicians, who profit from us. We possess the knowledge and the power to create something better. Nationalism has been transcended by the need for working class emancipation. Since workers have a common interest to overthrow capitalism and establish a free association based on common ownership and democratic control of the economy, national liberation is no longer a desired objective. Capitalism is global, international and has effectively destroyed national boundaries--as far as its interests are concerned. The ruling class has maintained the illusion of nation states in order to better control the flow of the most basic commodity: labour. capitalist and their politicians are constantly preoccupied with "safeguarding" their national borders because the uncontrolled movement of workers and other commodities can give some sectors of their class disproportionate advantage over others. They enlist the support of indigenous workers by convincing them that newly arrived foreign workers threaten their livelihood or otherwise undermine access to social services. They, the capitalists, seem not to mind it too much when foreign capitalists come to the U.S. to invest in their economy.

Workers everywhere are better served when they fight to break down borders, not when they help create new ones. Setting up an independent state in a capitalist world of state is not anti-imperialist. Such a state always falls under the influence of a bigger bloc of states such as Scotland with the EU. The rise of nationalism cannot be separated from the crisis of the enormous vacuum on the left, which leaves those who preach nationalism (or religious fundamentalism) with little socialist competition.

National unity is class collaborationist. Socialism can only ever be won by the working class. nationalist movements - no matter what their rhetoric - are no substitute. hence the idea of them moving us "closer to socialism" is misconceived.  The only "independence" offered by capitalism is the wonderful autonomy granted by the market (i.e. none at all) no matter what flag happens to fly over the places of exploitation. The idea of the division of humanity into nations is etched into people’s consciousness under capitalism. If one national state fails them, the easiest thing is to turn to the idea of creating a different national state. It seems so much more “practical” to rearrange the pieces on the board than to build an entirely new sort of society.  Nationalism makes sense so long as there is not a challenge to the system as a whole.

The ruling class, using nationalism, has side-tracked the aspirations of the working class.  National independence is by no means the liberation of workers.   National capitalists want a bigger slice of the profits from the exploitation of workers. Nationalist capitalists have little political and economic force and cannot take power without the mass support of the working class. That’s why it resorts to all sorts of demagogy to the effect that it will “liberate” the workers (whom it would force to pay the price for “independence”). The “Left-nationalists” contribute nothing but division and confusion as they ally themselves with the little bosses to reach a larger audience. One of the reasons the left is in such poor shape to deal with nationalist challenges is that it does not understand these things.  Pro-nationalists are driven by their desire to find a special explanation for the oppression of minorities. The class struggle is not enough; there must be a “national struggle” as well.  Nationalist theories merely isolate people in their struggle against exploitation.  Only socialism, in removing the material basis of nationalism and racism, the discrimination and exploitation of some workers in the competition for jobs, can achieve equality between different sections of the working class.World socialism cannot be achieved by the adding to nation-states, but by opposition to them all. 

The problems of Scottish workers will not be solved in the framework of an independent capitalist state. Socialists have to understand the only way to bring workers of different nationalities together is to insist on free association. Internationalism does not mean identification with existing states.  The fate of Scot's workers is irrevocably bound up with the fate of the rest of Britain's workers. Socialism is the order of the day. A socialist British Isles as part of a socialist world is the future. Members of the Socialist Party are not proud of their nationality. They are proud of the denial of their nationality. Socialists do not stand for the protection and promotion of their “own” national culture, but for the integration of all that is best in every culture into a new human culture. 

The working class is the only class capable of overthrowing the capitalist system. For this there needs to be a genuinely socialist party. Only a solid working-class base can accomplish the socialist revolution. The Socialist Party opposes all nationalism. With this opposition, we are not alone. For many people, they identify with their home country which they call patriotism. Indeed, in the debate around the referendum for Scottish independence the “Yes” campaign was repeatedly accused of being nationalist, whereas somehow unionists did not have to answer the same accusation of being British nationalists. Some people might reject mainstream or right-wing nationalism as oppressive but posit the “real nation” or local “community” against it. When members of the Socialist Party oppose nationalism we oppose the nationalist segmentation of humanity into different peoples. The Socialist Party aims to win all workers to fight the source of their exploitation.   

The world belongs to all and to none

The capitalist economy works according to certain economic laws which no government or legislative body can over-ride. So the argument about sovereignty is not really about what the constitution may or may not say. It's about the effective power that a capitalist state can exercise within the capitalist economy. Capitalism has always existed within a framework of competing states, none of which is strong enough to impose its will on all the others. States, as weapons in the hands of rival groups of capitalists, intervene to further the interests of the capitalists that control them. They do this by using state power to set up protected markets, raw materials sources, trade routes and investment outlets. In normal times their weapons are tariffs, taxes, quotas, export rebates and other economic measures. When they judge that their vital interest is at stake their weapons are . . . weapons. They go to war. The extent to which a capitalist state can distort the world market in favour of its capitalists depends both on its industrial strength and on the amount of armed force at its disposal. This is why all states are under pressure to acquire the most up-to-date and destructive armaments that they can afford. In the jungle world of capitalism, might is right. "Sovereignty"—the margin of independent decision-making that a state has—also depends on might. Over the years capitalism has become more and more international, more and more globalised. This has tended to reduce the margin of maneuver open to states, i.e. has reduced their "sovereignty". 


The sovereignty argument is really an argument within the capitalist class as to whether they should give up some of the might of their state to be able to benefit from the greater might of a larger grouping.  Those who voted Brexit believe that a capitalist Britain would be better off going it alone.  But Theresa May realises that Britain can't really go it alone, but has to be associated with some larger grouping. Now their argument is about which this should be: America or Asia or the Commonwealth rather than the EU. As socialists, we don't take sides in this inter-capitalist argument. Let the capitalist class and their parties and supporters settle the matter for themselves. A siege economy is no way out of the global capitalist crisis. In fact, there is no way out for workers other than socialism which, because capitalism is already a global system, has to be world-wide too. In the meantime, we continue to campaign for the establishment of a world society without nations or borders and where the resources of the Earth are used to produce the things we need to live and to enjoy life for us to take directly. Our objective is a world community based on common ownership and democratic control of the world's resources with production to satisfy people's needs, not profit.


In practice, national sovereignty has been deeply undermined – first of all, by the emergence of a global economy dominated by huge transnational corporations. International financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization and IMF have largely taken over economic policy making. Indebtedness leaves many states with merely the formal husk of independence. Some groups of states have “pooled” part of their sovereignty in supranational regional institutions. The prime example is the European Union.  The fragmentation of states is a natural corollary of the globalisation of capital. From the point of view of the transnational corporations, states no longer have important policy-making functions. It is enough if they enforce property rights and maintain basic infrastructure in areas important for business. Small states can do these jobs as well as large ones. In fact, they have definite advantages. They are more easily controlled, less likely to develop the will or capacity to challenge the prerogatives of global capital.


Global versus national capitalism has emerged as an important divide in world politics. This divide exists, first of all, within the capitalist class of individual countries. Thus, even in the US, the citadel of globalisation, some capitalists such as Trump supporters are oriented toward the home market and favour national capitalism. And in Russia some capitalists support globalisation. The pattern of political forces differs from country to country.


Being against capitalist globalisation is not the same as being against capitalism in general. We have ample past experience of a world of competing national capitalisms – quite enough to demonstrate that there is no good reason for preferring such a world to a world under the sway of global capital. The main problem with the movement against globalisation is that it can be mobilized so easily in the interests of national capital, whatever the intentions of its supporters.  Socialism is an alternative form of globalisation – a globalisation of human community that abolishes capital.

Have you ever mailed a letter from part of the world to another and wondered how from a pillar-box in the street to the letter-box of a house in another continent, it gets there?

Have you ever flown from one part of the world to another and wondered about all that air-space you pass through which requires air traffic control to permit a safe journey?

Or how WHO and FAO can mobilise all these NGOs to combat epidemics and famines.

Have you never ever requested a book from your library who then borrow it from another library to provide it to you?

World co-operation already exists in many areas of our life and we are awash with international organisations and professional bodies and business/trade associations that co-ordinate and keep one another informed of facts and developments. 

As often explained when we establish socialism, it is not a blank page beginning but building upon what already exists in a myriad of forms. We take what exists and transform them, sometimes this will be a very minimal change that is required, while in other cases it will need more fundamental adaptations.  Every army in the world has an engineering corps equipped with all sorts of heavy construction equipment and with trained personnel, capable of laying bridges, building roads and runways, constructing barracks and bases, every army has a transport corps to support supplies and logistics, every army has a medical corp and signals corps capable of creating communication across wildernesses - why should they be made redundant and not deployed for peaceful means.

People are becoming increasingly aware that national sovereignty in regards to global problems such as climate change is meaningless. They will charge their local and regional organisations that have grown into the expression of their wishes with the task to co-ordinate and co-operate with all others of like mind well in advance of the revolutionary moment of assuming political power. So the real beginning is the creation of the One Big Union, the One Socialist Party out of the 200 odd workers organisations in each country and from that to their world-wide restructuring...industrial workers of the world and the world socialist party. Workers across the world experience poverty and violence to some extent on a daily basis – it is the common bond that transcends national boundaries. This feature of our class-based society, an inevitable result of the social relation of the worker to capital. The principles underlying socialism, whilst not offering an immediate panacea, do address all the issues of the rights of all individuals, “by the conversion into the common property of society the means of production and distribution and their democratic control by the whole people.” Unlike the UN and numerous international agreements, multilateral accords and protocols which are repeatedly undermined by one or more powerful states consistently overruling decisions and agreements, the ethic of socialism is rooted in the people.

Are Orange Politicians Honest?

The Socialist Courier blog notes that the Orange Lodge Scotland twitter congratulates those Orangemen who were voted in as local councillors.

We wonder if they announced their membership at any of their public meetings or in their campaign leaflets.

We wonder whether they stood as independents or as candidates for a political party, and if the latter, does that party endorse the ideas and practices of the Orange Lodge.

The Robots Are Coming...

Nearly half of Scottish jobs could be carried out by machines in just over 10 years' time, a new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland warned. It said 46% of jobs - about 1.2 million - were at "high risk" of automation in the period up to 2030.

The report also explained that, by then, adults are "more likely to be working longer, and will often have multiple jobs with multiple employers and in multiple careers."

A Child or Youth Shot almost Daily.

A child or youth is shot in Ontario almost every day according to a study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluation Sciences and Toronto's Hospital for sick Children. The study found there was an average of 355 firearm injuries a year between 2008 and 2012. It also found that immigrant children and youth from Africa are three times as likely, and those from Central America, four times as likely to be a victim than their Canadian counterparts. 

Whether racially motivated or not, these shootings must end, but it sure as hell won't happen while a system as divisive as capitalism lasts. 

Steve and John.

Capitalism Can't Continue Without War.

On April 7th, the Associated Press said U.N. satellite images show at least18,000 structures have been destroyed in the Yei area of South Sudan. The area has become the main centre of fighting between the government and rebels since the "Peace Deal" collapsed in July.The U.N. has highlighted the area for its risk of genocide and an AP reporter saw charred bodies during a visit to Yei last year.

 Since capitalism can't continue without war, let's see to it that it doesn't continue period.

Steve and John.

Edinburgh May Day 2017

Assembled

Bringing up the rear guard action

It is the case and not the face which is important

More photos can be seen here >

A change of masters

“The whole world will be one brotherhood…That can only be obtained when the people of the world get the world and retain the world.” – John MacLean, 1918

One of the strongest holds the capitalists have over the minds of the workers is given by the workers' ready acceptance of the dogmas of nationalism and patriotism. 

Nationalism bequeaths to the working class only a change in the hand that wields the lash. Nationalism is merely the substitution of one style of coercive state for another. Socialism, by contrast, will be a state-free society in which human beings all over the world will co-operate for the communal good. The achievement of that society must be the democratic, conscious act of the world's working class and they will not need violence or coercion to introduce the first age of human freedom, unity and abundance.

When the left-nationalists start talking about the importance of preserving national independence it's a clear sign of a total lack of elementary socialist consciousness. They may call it maintaining local democracy but what's meant is maintaining local capitalism. Real meaningful change to peoples' lives can only take place when the root causes of the problems facing humanity are considered on a worldwide scale. Even in the most politically democratic countries on the planet the producers of all real wealth, the working class, are simply wage slaves whose lives are dominated by the money-shuffling activities of a minority class of capitalists which, by controlling their means of life, controls their lives and denies them freedom.

  Marx, after the most penetrating analysis of capitalism, affirmed that it was a system of social organisation in which a relatively small class exploited the great majority by its ownership and control of the means and instruments of production. The method by which these owners, or capitalists, carry out this exploitation is the wages and money system. Given then that capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the working class it is patently absurd to suggest that there can be any form of national government that can make it function in the interests of the class it exploits. Within capitalism there is obviously an inevitable conflict of interest, a class struggle, between the overwhelming majority who produce but do not own and a relatively small minority class who own but do not produce. Members of the working class do not voluntarily elect to join this class struggle; we are mostly born into it and it governs the way we live. To promote the notion that the area of our birth (‘our’ country) or a religious or political ideology transcends or neutralises our class status or gives us a common cause with a class that socially deprives and demeans us, that imposes either mere want or grave poverty on our lives and the lives of our families, is to be cruelly deceived by the political machinations of capitalism.

Nationalism is a political doctrine that preaches that people with a common history or language or religion form a separate "nation" from all other people and have the right to have their own political state to defend their common interest. Socialists have always rejected this doctrine, not just because it isn't true (people who have a common history or speak the same language do not have a common interest; they are divided into classes, and a worker who speaks a particular language has a common interest with workers speaking other languages but not with a capitalist who speaks the same one) but also because of its practical consequences. Without the ideology of nationalism, capitalist states would be unstable since, being based on minority class rule, they need a minimum allegiance from those they rule over. Nationalism serves to achieve this by teaching the ruled to be loyal to "their" so-called "nation-state". In states where a sizeable minority of the population do not fit into the definition of that state's "nation"—because, for instance, they speak a different language, especially if this is the language of another state—then there is at least a potential problem, to which the final solution is so-called ethnic cleansing. 

Socialism is the complete antithesis of capitalism. In a socialist world private and/or state ownership of society’s means of life will give way to social ownership and production of goods and services solely for use. So goods and services will no longer be produced as commodities for sale and profit. Accordingly there will be no role in socialist society for a means of exchange; hence, the entire, utterly wasteful commercial sinews of capitalism will be obsolete. The class-free, wage-free, money-free society envisaged in the socialist adage: “From each according to their ability; to each according to their needs” will become a reality. A world free from the corruptive influences of money and power where government of people will give way to a simple administration of things.

Scottish workers who are foolish enough to help Scottish capitalists to win independence from Great Britain should learn that the capitalist system is the same wherever it exists, and whatever the nationality of the rulers who use the State to keep the workers' hands off their property. We, in the Socialist Party have no sympathy whatever with the demand for independence made by native capitalist groups. We would no more assist them than assist the British Government against them. A plague on both their houses! Our only interest is to try to get our fellow-workers leave this quarrel about the right to exploit to the people who gain from exploitation. Many so-called socialists think, or at any rate act, differently. Some of them are still very much the victims of the mental disorder called patriotism.  Some left-nationalists are playing a double game which they call "tactics." They argue that as the people among whom it is desired to propagate socialism are still entirely wrapped up in nationalist illusions, then the way to clear their minds is to tack their patriotism on to the socialist case. It is hard to imagine anything less calculated to further socialism. When the left are so adaptive and opportunist their propaganda becomes a farce and they degenerate usually into the more or less open tools of local business interests.

The sooner they give up pandering to working-class political ignorance and devote themselves to teaching socialism, the sooner will the nationality problem be solved. The capitalists of the “oppressed” nations will line up together for protection against the growing unity of the working class, and the way will be cleared for the real fight — the fight for working-class emancipation. Our vision is of a world without borders where resources are shared communally. A world where a co-operative effort of a free association of producers aims at meeting human need in the widest sense. A world where relationships are based on equality and mutual respect, overthrowing all relationships where a few dominate others. As we struggle for such a society which will put human need first, we need to build up links with others doing the same thing worldwide. Fundamental problems like war and the destruction of the planet by climate change need to be tackled globally. Fostering distinctive cultures is positive but beware of governments and bosses using nationalism to divide us and promote a false “national interest”. In Scotland, as in all countries, there is no common interest between the employers and the working class.

Edinburgh May Day

SHARE THE WORLD
SPARE THE PLANET

The 2017 march and rally will be on Saturday, May 6 –  Assemble 11.30am Johnston Terrace, marching to a rally at the Holyrood parliament 

Edinburgh's May Day may be six days later than many other May Days but better late than never.

There cannot be a true socialist movement without the presence of sound political principles, completely missing today on the Left.

The control over the population the ruling class has is first of all mental, built on an Orwellian-style of hijacked language which has corrupted the meaning of socialism or communism or anarchism.

On May Day we have to reflect on mental chains around our minds that enslave us and makes us accept the capitalist system's brutality, pillaging and theft.

The ruling class is incapable of dealing with our unalienable rights to live in social peace and harmony via self-governance without classes and we should celebrate together with fellow-workers all over the world.

May Day is the day of awaking against small or big, local or global ruling elites, not matter where the class war battle front-lines are located, in your neighbourhood, at school or college, at work, the office or the store.

Let May Day be a day of conscientious objection, resistance, and rejection of a mental and physical wage-slavery and acquiescence to the exploitation we endure under capitalism.

Let May Day be a day of rejection of a political deceit of the fake opposition.

Let May Day be a day of declaration of our most sacred values of family, community, and hard work; unalienable rights to life and subsistence of all humanity as well as our unwavering commitment to political action against systemic institutions of the Establishment.

Let May Day be a day of unity of all humanity and rejection of hatred and all divisions that ruling elites incessantly continue to instil within human society in order to enslave and destroy it.

Let May Day be a day of warning to all those who sold their souls to the master class for 30 pieces of silver and some creature comforts that the day of reckoning is approaching.

Let May Day be a day of the beginning of an honest debate about the completely new system of societal organisation devoid of class or caste or coercion and conspiracy of the ruling class against the people.

Let May Day be OUR day

Happy May Day from ourselves in the

The Scottish Billionaires

The 10 richest individuals or families in Scotland have a combined wealth of £14.71bn, according to a new study.

The 2017 Sunday Times Rich List reveals that their collective fortunes have increased by 9% in the past year.

The Grant-Gordon whisky family is the richest in Scotland, with a fortune of £2.37bn, up £210m since last year.

Second on the Scottish list is former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed and family, who own an estate in Scotland and whose fortune has held steady at £1.7bn.

Mahdi al-Tajir, who owns Highland Spring, sits in third place on the list with an overall fortune of £1.67bn.

Fourth on the Scottish list is Trond Mohn, the founder of a Norwegian pump firm, and his sister Marit Mohn Westlake, who are worth £1.62bn.

Others in the Scottish top 10 include oil industry leader Sir Ian Wood and family with wealth of £1.6bn, and the Thomson family, owners of publisher DC Thomson, who are worth £1.285bn.

John Shaw and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw have now entered the realm of the billionaires as a result of their Bangalore-based biopharmaceutical firm Biocon. They boast £1.15bn to their names, earning a wealth increase of £530m in the last 12 months alone, and rank joint seventh position in Scotland alongside retail chief Philip Day, who owns Langholm-based Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

The Clark family, of the Arnold Clark car dealership, and Jim McColl, of Clyde Blowers, take ninth and 10th spot, with fortunes of £1.1bn and £1.07bn respectively.