Grassroot opinions

Elizabeth lives in a tenement block in Easterhouse, part of Glasgow East, held by the SNP, having been taken from Labour in 2015. She is not voting in the election on Thursday. “What’s the point?” she said. “Nothing will change.

Elizabeth said she was not the only one living hand to mouth in the area, or the sole person not voting because they did not see evidence of any political work from one day to the next.

Easterhouse is among the poorest wards, scoring a rating of one on the Scottish index of multiple deprivation for 2016 for low income, unemployment, and poor education and health outcomes. Elizabeth said: “Easterhouse is a dump. There’s nothing for the wee ones here.”

This election is not going to change much. Easterhouse is Easterhouse.

 John, Elizabeth's partner, confirming he would not be voting either, said: 
“The election is a load of shite. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, they fuck the country up anyway.”

The Socialist Party suggests to Elizabeth and John that they should exercise the power their ancestors fought and died for - the power of the vote- but to show their contempt for the political parties standing by spoiling that vote. 

Write "World Socialism" across the ballot

Treat The Cause Not The Effect.

How can anyone keep the Toronto Transit Commission out of the news - fat chance!

 On May 8, the very first employee tested under their new drug and alcohol testing policy passed with a blood alcohol level of more than .04 per cent, which the agency considers impaired. For years the agency had been locked in battle with Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents more than 10,000 TTC workers and which insisted random substance testing violated the workers' rights. However, in April the Ontario Superior Court upheld the policy.

It's easy enough to lean towards the court's decision on the premise that people wouldn't appreciate being driven anywhere by someone of dubious capability, but it would be much better if we lived in a society where people wouldn't feel a need a form substance abuse. 

Steve and John.

Socialists Say, Revolution is the Only Way

The capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: socialism or barbarism The only power that can save humanity from the peril of barbarism is the working class. It must free itself from all dependence on the possessing classes. It must cease all collaboration with the exploiters and embark on the road of class struggle, the path of socialist victory. The resources of the world must pass into the possession of working humanity. All other problems, the problems of nationality and of race and color will be solved once society is freed from exploitation and class divisions. Socialism will bring real democracy. The revolution is coming that will place the working women and men in full command over its vast resources, that will link the world and lay down the foundations of the new socialist order of peace and freedom. For us, socialism equals People Power with commune councils organising neighbourhoods and communities and workers’ democratically running production through their own organisations, workers’ committees, elected at the work-place.

The division of the world into different nation-states imposes a definite form on the revolutionary process. The workers must and can take power in the territories defined by different existing states. But the construction of socialism can be completed only on a world scale. The victory of the socialist revolution requires international organisation. The first requirement for the workers in all countries of the world is to break cleanly from the capitalist class and their political parties, and any and all concepts of coalitions with their parties.  Capitalism is slashing the gains that have already been won, imposing cuts on social legislation and straight-jacketing the unions with labour legislation. Technological progress is now reaping vast profits for the industrial and financial oligarchy and condemning thousands to permanent unemployment. The scramble for profit has wasted and despoiled our rich resources of soil, water, forest, and minerals. This lack of social planning results in a waste of our human as well as our natural resources. Our human resources are wasted through social and economic conditions.  Production can and should be so operated as to enable our people to use fully their talents and skills. Such an economy will yield the maximum opportunities for individual development and the maximum of goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs. Unprecedented scientific and technological advances have brought us to another technological and industrial revolution. Opportunities for enriching the standard of life are greater than ever. Unless there is intelligent social planning, the evils of the past will be multiplied in the future and new technology changes will produce greater concentrations of inequalities of wealth and power and will cause widespread distress and discontent through unemployment and the displacement of populations.

Capitalism promises people not an amelioration of conditions but austerity and harsh oppression. Only through an irreconcilable struggle against capitalism, towards its elimination and the establishment of socialism, will the people of the world find the full freedom, equality, and democracy for which they aspire. Economic growth and capital expansion motivated by the drive for private gain and special privilege and accompanied by widespread suffering and injustice is not desirable social progress. 

The Socialist Party reaffirms its belief that our society must build a new relationship among men and women--a relationship based on mutual respect and on equality of opportunity. In such a society everyone will have a sense of worth and belonging and will be enabled to develop his or her capacities to the full. In the cooperative commonwealth, people will be working together in everyone's interest. The hungry, oppressed and underprivileged of the world must know democracy not as a smug slogan but as a way of life which sees the world as one whole. 

The Socialist Party will not rest content until every person in all lands is able to enjoy equality and freedom, a sense of human dignity, and an opportunity to live a rich and meaningful life as a citizen of a free and peaceful world. We do not stand for the reform of any institution under capitalism. Our activities have always been directed towards the complete overthrow of capitalism, and to that end, we have concentrated our attention on the education of our fellow-workers who are engaged in wealth production and who are exploited in the process. Only socialists who present the true facts of the class struggle, and who seek to advance that class struggle, ought to be allowed to call itself revolutionary. 

Don't Give Capitalism Your Vote

"It's a nice idea but it will never happen" is one of the most common responses to the idea of building a socialist society. The assumption is that socialism will rely upon everybody sacrificing their own interests for those of others, that workers need to be saints and angels for it to work. In fact, socialism doesn’t require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. It is enlightened self-interest that will work for the majority. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages (acquisitiveness, competition.) Socialism is not the result of blind faith, followers, or, by the same token, vanguards, and leaders. 

Basically, there is only three ways of winning control of the State: (a) armed insurrection; (b) more or less peaceful mass demonstrations and strikes; (c) using the electoral system.

The Socialist Party has adopted (c), but without ruling out (b) or even (a) should conditions change (or in other parts of the world where conditions were different).

But this is not simply putting an “X” on a ballot paper and letting the Socialist Party and its MPs establish socialism for workers. The assumption is that there will be a “conscious” and active socialist majority outside Parliament, democratically organised both in a mass socialist political party and, at work-places, in trade union type organisations ready to keep production going during and immediately after the winning of political control.  The most important precondition to taking political control out of the hands of the owning class is that the majority are no longer prepared to be ruled and exploited by a minority and they must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule and they must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control. The vote is merely the legitimate stamp which will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the States and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy. It is the Achilles heel of capitalism and makes a non-violent bloodless revolution possible.

But in this election, there is no candidates in Scotland. So what to do? The choice is between abstention and spoiling the ballot paper. Not voting at all is a valid option, but casting a spoiled ballot paper is better. One or two spoilt votes can be ignored, tens of thousands or even millions could not be – especially if backed by a vocal movement explaining what is happening. A concerted campaign of spoiling the ballot paper by writing “socialism” across it would signify a write-in vote. 

Education Is Supposed To Inspire.

The Vancouver Sun's, "Youth and depression: Building supports in schools" story tells us students who returned to their classrooms last autumn gained access to curriculum that encouraged "mental-wellness skills such as regulating emotions, managing stress and asking for help."

The program, run primarily by teachers, welcomes volunteers to provide positive adult interaction. We learn about one volunteer helping distressed children, Lindsey – herself a sufferer ofnear-debilitatingg anxiety and depression while a youth in school. Lindsey says when she was in grade 6 ". . . I didn't know who I was and feeling like I would rather walk into traffic than go to school."

The program is a sad indictment of Canadian schools generally, places of education supposedly to inspire learning – learning that is natural to the human condition.

What is it about schools that would want to keep children like Lindsey away? Well, capitalism doesn't exactly lend itself to a cheery study for anyone, unless you happen to be the beneficiary of vast sums making you a mogul of capital.

Schools under capitalism have one agenda to meet: making wage slaves for the system that blinkers kids for later abuse as adults in factories, resource industries, and proliferating low paying, no benefit or pension service industries.

In a sane society schools would be places people would want to be – places where learners develop and explore their interests, unhindered by the dictates of tests

measuring one future worker against another. Schools in such a sane society, as opposed to the insane one we have now that provides mental health services to wider and wider segments of the general population to keep the jolly old system of capitalism afloat, would be places of leisure and social joy – not the workshops of misery they are today.

For now, though, we'll all have to resign ourselves to observing our children and neighbours' children receiving what is tantamount to psychotherapy in schools, delivered by those hardly in positions to deliver it: teachers.

Steve and John 

The socialist hope for humanity

The Socialist Party is irreconcilably opposed to capitalism and works for the establishment of world socialism. The workers' movement needs a party of its own to capture the political power of the State. Aspirations means nothing without a political party to fight for them. Big Business has its political parties representing its interests. Workers must have its own too. People want a change from the misery and uncertainty of the system of capitalist exploitation and profit, and all the capitalist parties can offer is the preservation of the old, discredited and bankrupt system. Socialists do not hide the fact that as enemies of capitalism, we aim to replace capitalism, not only because it is possible to do so but because it is absolutely necessary that we do so. We are convinced that if capitalism is allowed to continue, we will be plunged into barbarism. We hold that capitalism has outlived its usefulness and that if humanity is to advance it must move on to socialism which means peace, security, prosperity, freedom and equality - all the things that the working people have always wanted and longed for. Decades ago, socialism could be looked upon as a noble ideal, but it is an urgent necessity. Peace is fleeting. War is an ever-present threat or a monstrous reality. Our environment is being raped and pillaged. Capitalism drives society to a new barbarism.

Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production and their democratic organization and management by all the people in a society free of class division and class rule. Socialism is the democratic organization of production for use, of production for abundance, of plenty for all, without the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the unity of the whole world into federations of free and equal peoples, disposing in common of the natural resources and wealth of our earth. Capitalism has already established the great industrial capacity of the machinery of production and distribution. It is only necessary for the working class, in the name and interests of society as a whole, to take these enterprises out of the hands of the capitalists and place them into the common ownership of the people as a whole. Socialism means abundance for all. Where there is abundance for all, the nightmare of insecurity vanishes. There are jobs for all, and they are no longer dependent on whether or not the employer can take a fat profit. There is not only a high standard of living, but every industrial advance is followed by a rising standard of living and a declining working-day. Where there is abundance for all, and where no one has the economic power to exploit and oppress others, the basis of class conflict vanishes. The basis of a ruling state, of a government of violence and repression, with its prisons and police and army, also disappears. Police and thieves, prisons and violence are inevitable where there is economic inequality, or abundance for the few and scarcity for the many. They disappear when there is plenty for all, therefore economic equality, therefore social equality. Where there is abundance for all, and where all have equal access to the fruits of the soil and the wealth of industry, the mad conflicts and wars between nations and peoples vanish. With them vanishes the irrepressible urge that exists under capitalism for one nation to subject others, to rob it of its rights, to exploit and oppress it, to provoke and maintain the hideous national and racial antagonisms that cling to capitalism.

Abundance for all means freedom. Where mankind is free of economic exploitation, of economic inequality, of economic insecurity, it is free to contribute to the unfolding of a new culture and a new humanity leaving capitalistic war only as an ugly, sordid and horrible memory. To the achieve this is a burning necessity, and the Socialist Party addresses itself to our fellow members of the working class. This struggle cannot be conducted consistently nor, in the long run, successfully, unless it becomes a conscious fight against the whole rotten edifice of capitalism and for laying the foundation of socialism. We in the Socialist Party are organised to make the working class conscious of its historical mission, of the great part it must play in leading and reorganising society itself. We are part and parcel of the working class. Marx believed that the working class would lead in the transformation of society because it was at once the most dehumanized and alienated class, and potentially the most powerful, since the functioning of society depended upon it.

The defeat of the capitalist class, the rule of the working class, the inauguration of socialism - that is the aim of the Socialist Party. That is the task of the working class. Under the wage system, you and your children, and your children’s children are condemned to slavery and there is no possible hope unless overthrowing the capitalists by voting for the Socialist Party. What you want to do is quit every capitalist party of every name whatsoever. What you want to do is to organise your class and assert your class interests as capitalists do the interests of the class that is robbing you. Arouse, ye slaves! What is wanted is not a reform of the capitalist system, but its entire abolition. Declare war, not on the individual capitalist, but on the capitalist system, and if it should be your fate, your misfortune to suffer in years to come, that suffering will not be the result of your own voluntary act of submission and subservience. Only the working class itself can achieve its own emancipation. Socialism will give humanity a new world. 

The Socialist Party will be contesting three seats in the up-coming General Election:

Islington North (Bill Martin), Battersea (Danny Lambert), and Swansea West (Brian Johnson).

The revolutionary vote

Many political organisations profess to assist the working class and they have drawn up scores of programmes for reforms which they guarantee would, if the workers would only trust them and vote for them; solve the ills which afflict working people. The Socialist Party has presented no wish list of palliatives and ameliorations and it is opposed to all parties who ask the workers to support a reformist policy. Reform of capitalism would still leave workers in their wage-slave condition. The ever-changing lists of reforms should be an example to the workers of the futility of wasting valuable time and energy attempting to reform a system which can not be reformed in the interests of the working class. Social reform is no solution to the ills suffered by the workers the Socialist Party points out that all the evils could be traced to the one cause and to this one cause only – private property, the cause of poverty, slums, disease, crime, war and all the other curses of the human race. Having stated the cause of all our troubles we offer the remedy - socialism. Abolish private property with production for profit and establish a new system of society based on common ownership of production for use. The Socialist Party had been advocating nothing else since 1904 and since socialism is our object, all our activities are directed towards getting it established as soon as possible. Therefore, we are opposed to all other political parties.

Our analysis is not based upon some narrow sectarianism — it's based on principle. We do not, nor have we ever, supported capitalist parties, especially those that dress up in radical or progressive garb in order to hoodwink the workers. We do not doubt that well-meaning individuals get caught up in such chicanery for no other reason than a desire to see a better world. But despite their good intentions, socialists cannot unite with those who want to reform and administer capitalism. Do we unite with those who claim socialism can be established by a benevolent paternalistic leadership without a class-conscious working class? Do we unite with those who see socialism as a system based on state control and state ownership of industry? Do we unite with those who refuse to recognise the possibility of a peaceful parliamentary road to socialism? If there is no common ground upon which agreement can be reached then there can be no unity. Unity has no meaning unless based on the common realisation that its sole object is to introduce socialism. It is not the wish of the Socialist Party to be separate for the sake of being so. If another socialist organisation arose, then we would make immediate overtures for a merger. We would offer welcoming open arms of comradely greetings. But we cannot be a reform party attempting to mop up immediate problems with sops, and remain revolutionary at the same time. We cannot be a half-way house to accommodate the more timid members of our class spend their time making concessions. We oppose all the so-called working-class parties which compromise with capitalism and do not uphold the socialist case. The socialist case is so fundamentally different, involving as it does the total transformation of society. Some members of other organisations have the best of intentions, but good intentions do not change the nature of those organisations. Those activists have claimed impressive “successes” and “victories” in every field except a vital one. History has shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that they have not remotely convinced the workers of the need for socialism. From their activities carried on in the name of socialism, the one thing conspicuous by its absence has been any mention of the socialist case. The efforts of these “socialist" activists have been geared to an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism.

Reforms, no matter how "radical", can never make capitalism run in the interests of the workers. Nor should supporting reforms be some kind of tactic pursued by socialists to gain support from workers, for workers who joined a socialist party because they admired its reformist tactics would turn it into a reformist organisation pure and simple. To attract support on the basis of reformist policies but really aim at revolution would be quite dishonest to get workers’ support on the basis of saying one thing while really wanting something quite different. History showed us the fate of the social democratic parties, which despite a formal commitment to socialism as an "ultimate goal", admitted the non-socialist to their ranks and sought non-socialist support for a reform programme of capitalism rather than a socialist programme. In order to maintain their non-socialist support, they were themselves forced to drop all talk of socialism and become even more openly reformist. Today the social democratic parties are firmly committed to capitalism in theory and in practice. We say that this was the inevitable result of the admission of non-socialists and advocating reforms of capitalism. That is why we have always advocated socialism and never called for the reform of capitalism. We are not saying that all reforms are anti-working class, but as a socialist party advocating reforms, it would be its first step towards its transformation into a reformist party. Regardless of why or how the reforms are advocated, the result is the same: confusion in the minds of the working class instead of growth of socialist consciousness.

We see little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives, and some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as "successful". There are examples of this in such fields as education, housing, child employment, work conditions and social security. Socialists have to acknowledge that the "welfare" state, the NHS and so on, made living standards for some sections of the working class better than they had been under rampant capitalism and its early ideology of laissez-faire, although these ends should never be confused with socialism.However, in this regard, we also recognise that such "successes" have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and, while it has taken the edge of the problem, it has rarely managed to remove the problem completely. Socialists do not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers' lives lest they dampen their revolutionary ardour; nor, because it thinks that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms; but because our continued existence as propertyless wage slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms. Our objection to reformism is that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat, and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle. What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be tamed and made palatable with the right reforms.

Anarchists tell us that voting is a waste of time, that Parliament is not the real seat of power but a "talking-shop" and that contesting elections perpetuate what anarchists see as harmful illusions about the law, the state, and parliamentary democracy and many see the Socialist Party as little different from all other parties. There is no reason to suppose that the electoral process necessarily corrupts as anarchists assert. On the other hand, we contend, a reform programme does corrupt.  It is power obtained on the basis of followers voting for leaders to implement reforms that “corrupts”. Fellow-workers should not turn their back on the electoral system as such. Once the world’s working people demand socialism, the electoral system can be utilised to effect the revolutionary act of abolishing capitalism by signalling that a majority fully understand and want to effect that change. When enough of us join together determined to end inequality and deprivation we can transform elections into a means of doing away with a society of minority rule in favour of real democracy and equality.

We appeal is to those who are committed to the concept of a self-organised majority revolution without leaders to abandon their opposition to the working class forming a political party to contest elections and eventually win control of political power, not to form a government but to immediately abolish capitalism and usher in the class-free, state-free, money-free, wage-free society that real socialism will be. The socialist message in this election is that our fellow-workers should think long and hard before casting their vote. In this election, there will be no Edinburgh or Glasgow branch candidates. We are recommending to those who, nevertheless, agree with our ideas to register this by writing “world socialism” across their ballot- paper

The future is in your hands. 

A Write-in Vote for Socialism

 William Morris called upon the working class to acquire the "intelligence enough to conceive, courage enough to will, power enough to compel." 

The Socialist Party does not present policies for capitalism's salvation or offer a better more humane form of capitalism. It isn't just the this or that version we oppose, but capitalism itself. It isn't just who profits and by how much that we oppose, but it is the entire concept of profit making, which is always generated from the appropriation of surplus labour extracted from the working class by wage slavery.  

 It has to be conceded that only a tiny fraction of people understand the need for the alternative - socialism, a society with no private property, no classes, and no state. The real opposition to capitalism is still struggling to be born.

The Socialist Party seeks a revolution involving much more than a change of political control. We want a social revolution, a fundamental change in the basis of society. For Marx, the key task of the working class was to win "the battle of democracy". This was to capture control of the political machinery of society for the majority so that production could be socialised. Then the coercive powers of the state could be dismantled as a consequence of the abolition of class society. Marx said that you cannot carry on socialism with capitalist governmental machinery; that you must transform the government of one class by another into the administration of social affairs; that between the capitalist society and socialist society lies a period of transformation during which one after another the political forms of to-day will disappear, but the worst features must be lopped off immediately the working class obtains supremacy in the state. 

 The vote is revolutionary when on the basis of class it organises labour against capital. Parliamentary action is revolutionary when on the floor of parliament it raises the call of the discontented; and when it reveals the capitalist system's impotence and powerlessness to satisfy the workers wants. The job of the Socialist Party is to use parliament in order to complete the workers' education and organisation, and to bring to a conclusion the revolution. We do not regard political democracy in itself as sufficient to emancipate humanity. But we do recognise that it provides by far the best conditions for the development of the socialist movement. 

 The Socialist Party recognise parliament as an institution geared to the needs of capitalism, and therefore inappropriate as the means for a fundamental transformation of society, but we acknowledge that its electoral practices coincides, to some extent, with the democratic majoritarian principles steering that transformation, and to that extent provides a likelihood of a peaceful transition.

  Parliament, is to be valued not for the petty reforms obtainable through it, but because through the control of the machinery of government the socialist majority will be in a position to establish socialism.

 Our fellow workers, however, persist in choosing between different versions of the same discredited palliatives for capitalism’s problems. This is masochism. Our position is that politicians, whatever their intentions, actually retard the development of the organisation of the working class. By associating with capitalist representatives in both political and economic affairs they induce the idea (which capitalism does everything possible to foster) that the hostility does not exist. But until the reality of class war is clearly understood there can be scant improvement in the workers' condition. 

 If there were a working class committed to socialism, the method of achieving political power would be to fight general elections on a revolutionary platform, without any reforms to attract support from non-socialists. In fact, the first stage in a socialist revolution is for the vast majority of the working class to use their votes as class weapons. This would represent the transfer of political power to the working class. 

 We adopt this position not because we are mesmerised by legality and not because we overlook the cynical and two-faced double-dealing which the capitalists will no doubt resort to. We say, however, that a majority of socialist delegates voted into parliament would use political power to coordinate the measures needed to overthrow the capitalist system. Any minority which was inclined to waver would have second thoughts about taking on such a socialist majority which was in a position to wield the state power.

To those who still say that, while they ultimately want socialism, it is a long way off and we must have reforms in the meantime, we would reply that socialism need not be far in the distance and there need not be a “meantime”. 

 If all the dedication that has been channelled into reform activity over the past 200 years had been directed towards achieving socialism, then socialism would have been established long ago and the problems the reformists are still grappling with (war, inequality, unemployment, poverty in health, housing, education etc.) would all be history.

 It is only when people leave reformism behind altogether that socialism will begin to appear to them, not as a vague distant prospect, something for others to achieve, but as a clear, immediate alternative which they themselves can - and must - help to bring about.

 The Socialist Party’s task is to make a socialist society an immediacy for the working class, not an ultimate far-off ideal. Something of importance and value to people’s lives now, rather than a singular "end."

 Since there will be no local Socialist Party candidates standing for election, what those who are in agreement with ourselves should do is demonstrate their commitment to the electoral process by participating in it. Rather than vote for a capitalist party, fellow-workers should spoil their ballot paper by using it as a “write-in” vote for “World Socialism”

Get Rid Of The Whole Damn Kit And Caboodle.

In April Canada's unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since the financial crisis of 2008, according to Stats-Canada, which published its latest figures in May 5, but don't jump for joy folks: they also said wage growth ''expanded'' by 0.7%, the lowest in 20 years. Unemployment fell to 6.5%, its lowest level since October 2008, as fewer youth searched for work.

Michael Dolega, a senior economist with the TD bank, said, ''The figures were evidence that the job machine has cooled of late'', which is pure genius. His RBC counterpart, Nathan Janzen, said, ''The fly in the ointment continues to be weak wage growth''.

So there it is guys, any improvement is only minimal, so why not have a whacking great big improvement and get rid of the whole damn kit and caboodle?

Steve and John

We have the power to control our own destinies

Today, many thousands of workers are on the streets of Glasgow to demand Scottish independence. Those who think that an independent Scotland would make things any better, there is sorry news. 

The conflict between the national and international factions of the capitalist class would remain and it is crystal clear that the rich who run the current devolved Scotland would be the same as the rich who would run independent "free" Scotland. The capitalist class, either local or global, would still run the country with the connivance of an independent parliament. The SNP represent that section of the Scottish elite which feels it could do better in negotiating with international financiers as a separate entity than as a part the United Kingdom. The major companies would have little problem with the political power being transferred from UK to Scottish control, particularly since the SNP has indicated it is prepared to cut corporation tax. Globalisation has increasingly made redundant the question of "national sovereignty". The growth of multinational corporations, some with a turnover exceeding the GDP of most states, has dramatically transformed the role of government as the locus of economic decision-making. The most important decisions are now made, not by politicians, but in the boardrooms in the City of London, Wall St or Shangai. Even so, many locally-based businesses are indirectly tied into this economy as sub-contractors and the ever-deepening nexus of international linkages means they cannot escape economic crises emanating from elsewhere which impact upon the local economy. The limited leeway of governments to ameliorate such localised effects has been correspondingly reduced.

And, of course, the Scottish “business community” like transport operator, Brian Souter, who helps fund the SNP, do so not because they want to better Glasgow’s dismal life expectancy but because he believes that Scotland’s super-rich will benefit. Freedom is not intended for the people of Scotland, but for Big Business. The only independence is for corporations to maximise returns.

The Socialist Party opposes both the separatist Scottish nationalism and British unionist nationalism and supports only working-class unity for the establishment of world socialism. Members of the Socialist Party are against nationalism in all its forms, defying the rituals singing of "Flower of Scotland" and the flag-waving of the Saltire or any other expression of loyalty to the nation-state, that help enforce the idea of nation in our minds. We are in fact proud to be anti-patriotic. There is no “national interest” for workers. Self-determination just equates with self-determination for a ruling class. It must be opposed in favour of self-determination for people and their self-emancipation from wage-slavery. Nationalism and patriotism must be opposed with socialism, a “society organised as a conscious and planned association” and "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common," as Marx describes it to be.

Independence would be a purely political and a mere constitutional change which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged. There would still be a privileged class owning and controlling the means of production with the rest having to work for them for a living. Just as now. An independent sovereign Scottish government would still have to operate within the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level of profits as they could in other countries. In other words, it would still be subject to the same economic pressures as the existing London-based government to promote profits and restrict wages and benefits. Should independence eventually arrive, workers will discover that they cannot legislate away the problems of capitalism.

Our fellow-workers on this demonstration today for Scottish independence are wasting their time when they struggle to make some aspect of capitalism better, to make capitalism more acceptable. Capitalism is not a system that can be humanised or reformed into something better. It is a profit system subject to economic laws which can only work in one way: as a system of profit-making and accumulation of capital in the interest of a tiny minority of profit-takers. You can have the most democratic constitution imaginable but this won’t make any difference to the fact that profits have to come before meeting people's needs under capitalism. If our rulers want to reform the machinery of capitalist government, that’s up to them. But spare us the pretence that nationalism is some great extension of democracy. It is not imperfections in the political decision-making process that’s the problem but the exchange economy and its economic laws. And the answer is not sovereignty but socialism.

The problems of capitalism can only be solved within the framework of a socialist world. Socialism will be a co-operative world wide system. National frontiers and governments and armed forces will disappear. Groups of people may well preserve their languages and customs but this will have nothing to do with claiming territorial rights or military dominances over pieces of the world surface. To move forward, the dispossessed majority across the world must now look beyond the artificial barriers of nation-states and regional blocs, to perceive a common identity and purpose. There is but one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs. There is far more that unites us than can ever divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines. Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious cooperation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause—to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation, a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the craving to accumulate capital and used for the good of humanity.

The Scottish separatists see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and as outmoded as the clan system it replaced.  It is the Socialist Party who possess real vision, who look forward to a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society's resources. The Socialist Party recognises the essential unity of the human family and the urgent need to celebrate it by building society on that basis. In a socialist society the traditional knowledge and expertise held by small communities will be respected, especially where this relates to local ecology and sustainable systems of land use, and hence priority given to local decision-making over whatever has to be delegated to wider regional or global democratic control.

Our fellow-workers can waste their time supporting parties that openly stand for capitalism; they can delude themselves into believing that there is a half-way house between capitalism and socialism; they can even bury their heads in the sand and say they are not interested in politics. Or they can study the case for world socialism. They have the choice of enduring the miseries of capitalism within the confines of national frontiers or enjoying emancipation in a socialist world. 

Use your Vote the Revolutionary Way

The Socialist Party regards socialism not as a purely political theory, nor as an economic doctrine, but as one which embraces every phase of social life. We argue that the political arm of capitalism rules the economic body of the system. What gives title and deed to ownership of the factory? It is the state, the central organ of power (which explains the chief reason why the capitalist class concern themselves so much about political action.) The highest expression of the class struggle is the political phase. On the economic field, the working class is impotent. What do they possess, aside from their brawn and brains? They are propertyless. All that the workers can do on the economic field is to attempt to slow down the worsening of their condition. Thus, the political organisation of the workers for socialist purposes is the primary priority. The Socialist Party, in aiming for the control of the State, is a political party but we have an economic purpose which is the conversion of the means of living into the common property of society. We have on more than one occasion pronounced ourselves in agreement with the need for an economic organisation acting in conjunction and in association with a political party.

The easiest and surest way for such a socialist majority to gain control of political power in order to establish socialism is to use the existing electoral machinery to send a majority of mandated socialist delegates to the various parliaments of the world. No doubt, at the same time, the working class will also have organised itself, at their various places of work and in their communities, in order to keep production going, but nothing can be done here until the machinery of coercion which is the state has been taken out of the hands of the capitalist class by political action.  The political machine is the real centre of social control – not made so by capitalist rulers but developed and evolved over centuries and through struggles. It is on the political field that the widest and most comprehensive propaganda can be deliberately maintained. It is here that the workers can be deliberately and independently organised on the basis of socialist thought and action. In other words, socialist organisation can proceed untrammelled by ideas other than those connected with its revolutionary objective.

The Socialist Party case is that, regardless of flaws, the institution of parliament is not at fault. It is just that people’s ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite. Control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be neutralised, so that socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption. Parliament and local councils, to the extent that their functions are administrative and not governmental, can and will be used to co-ordinate the urgent immediate measures to transform society when socialism is established. Far better, is it not, if only to minimise the risk of violence, to also organise to win a majority in parliament too, not to form a government, but to end capitalism and dismantle the state. Political democracy is not just, a trick whereby the capitalist class gets the working class to endorse their rule; it is a potential instrument that the working class can turn into a weapon to use in ending capitalism and class rule. It is not merely a formal majority at the polls will give the workers power to achieve socialism. By constitutional methods the workers can win their freedom; they have no need to go outside the Constitution until they finally destroy it.  It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, which is decisive.  It is an illusion to think that the workers in the factories can institute socialism while the political machinery remains in the hands of the capitalist class. The revolutionary political struggle for power is not to be confused with parliamentary efforts to reform the effects of capitalism. The very essence of scientific, revolutionary socialism is that the political struggle for power is the highest expression of the class struggle. In the factories, co-ops, unions, we are fragmented, sectionalised and tied to our own interests, but on the political field, we can make our numbers tell in a way win which they cannot use the State to strangle.

On the 8^th of this month even though there is no local Socialist Party candidate to vote for, use the ballot paper to signal your rejection of capitalism and write on it “world socialism.”

Life Under Capitalism

An analysis of U.S. government data, recently reported in the New York Times, shows that the wage gap between coal executives and the average coal worker has increased considerably.

There was a 60% raise in pay for the former, but an 11% raise for the latter from 2004 to 2016. There were 2.5% unionized coal mining jobs in 2016 compared with 40% two decades ago. The hourly wage for coal miners in Pennsylvania is $17, which is temporary and without benefits.

Seems pretty gloomy, doesn't it? But that's life under capitalism, chum, prosperity yesterday, poverty today. 

So there it is folks, things ain't getting better, are they?

 Steve and John.