Why we must have socialism

With confidence in the correctness of our political position, enthusiasm for the socialist cause we champion, and strong in conviction that comes from understanding and knowledge, we send fraternal greetings to our comrades the world over and restate anew our unwavering determination to prosecute relentless class war against all the forces of capitalism in whatever guise they come; and pledge ourselves to struggle against working-class oppression and against exploitation exposing mystifications and obscurantism that deludes the working-class and creates impotency. That any organisation to deserve the support of the working-class must strenuously work on behalf of that class, and that class alone. The Socialist Party will keep in the forefront the red flag under which the workers of all nations must muster themselves if they would win to their freedom; to keep that flag unfurled and boldly held aloft and to never lower it; to march by the undeviating road that leads direct to our goal, turning neither to the right nor to the left to curry favour with ignorance or to secure advantage at the cost of principle — to do all that men and women may to educate and organise the working-class.

 Capitalism has accumulated more resources than human history has ever witnessed, yet appears powerless to overcome poverty and starvation? What are the mechanisms by which affluence for a minority seems to breed hardship and indignity for the many? Why does wealth seem to go hand in hand with squalor? Is there is something in the nature of capitalism which generates deprivation and inequality? Capitalism has developed human powers and capacities beyond all previous measure. Yet it had not used those capacities to set men and women free of fruitless toil. On the contrary, it had forced them to labour harder than ever. We sweat every bit as hard as our ancestors. This, Karl Marx considered, was not because of natural scarcity. It was because of the peculiarly contradictory way in which the capitalist system generated its fabulous wealth. Equality for some meant inequality for others, and freedom for some brought oppression and unhappiness for many. The system's voracious pursuit of power and profit had turned foreign nations into enslaved colonies, and human beings into the playthings of economic forces beyond their control. It had blighted the planet with pollution and mass starvation and scarred it with atrocious wars.
Were not Marx's ideas responsible for despotism, mass murder, labour camps and the loss of freedom for millions? The truth is that Marx was no more responsible for the monstrous oppression of the "communist" world than Jesus was responsible for the Inquisition. Marx would have scorned the idea that socialism could take root in impoverished, backward societies like Russia and China. If it did, then the result would simply be what he called "generalised scarcity," by which he means that everyone would now be deprived, not just the poor. It would mean a re-cycling of "the old filthy business"—or, in less tasteful translation, "the same old shit." Marxism is a theory of how developed capitalist nations might use their immense resources to achieve prosperity for their people. It is not a programme by which countries totally bereft of material resources, a democratic civic culture and heritage, or a skilled, educated work force might catapult themselves into the modern age. Marx was not foolish enough to imagine that socialism could be built in such countries without more-advanced nations flying to their aid. And that meant that the common people of those advanced nations had to wrest the means of production from their rulers and place them at the service of the wretched of the earth. Marx's goal is leisure, not labour.
Marx was not some utopian. He believed that the world could be made a considerably better place. In this, he was a realist, not an idealist. Those with their heads in the sand are those who deny that there can be any radical change. The whole of human history disproves this viewpoint. A man who witnessed the horrors of England in the midst of the industrial revolution was unlikely to be starry-eyed about his fellows. He understood that there are more than enough resources on the planet to resolve most of our material problems. Socialism does not depend on some miraculous change in human nature.
The way we go about our business, the way we are organised in our daily life is reflected in the way we think about things and the sort of world we created. The institutions we build, the philosophies we adhere to, the prevailing ideas of the time, the culture of society, are all determined to some extent or another by the economic structure of society. This did not mean that they were totally determined but were quite clearly a spin-off from the economic base of society. The political system, the legal system, the family, the press, the education system were all rooted, in the final analysis, to the class nature of society, which in turn was a reflection of the economic base. Marx maintained that the economic base or infrastructure generated or had built upon it a superstructure that kept it functioning. The education system, as part of the superstructure, therefore, is a reflection of the economic base and served to reproduce it. This did not mean that education and teaching is a sinister plot by the ruling class to ensure that it kept its privileges and its domination over the rest of the population. There are no conspirators hatching devious schemes. It simply means that the institutions of society, like education, are reflections of the world created by human activity and that ideas arise from and reflect the material conditions and circumstances in which they are generated. Some of those who defended feudalism against capitalist values in the late Middle Ages preached that capitalism would never work because it was contrary to human nature. Some capitalists now say the same about socialism. No doubt there is a tribe somewhere in the Amazon Basin that believes no social order can survive in which a man is allowed to marry his deceased brother's wife. We all tend to absolutise our own conditions.
Marx explained that "each new class which puts itself in the place of the one ruling before it, is compelled, simply in order to achieve its aims, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society i.e. ..to give its ideas the form of universality and to represent them as the only rational and universally valid ones". Ideas become presented as if they are universal, neutral, common sense. However, more subtly, we find concepts such as freedom, democracy, liberty or phrases such as "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay" being bandied around by opinion makers as if they were not contentious. They are, in Marxist terms, ideological constructs, in so far as they are ideas serving as weapons for social interests. They are put forward for people to accept in order to prop up the system. Ideas are not neutral. They are determined by the existing relations of production, by the economic structure of society. Ideas change according to the interests of the dominant class in society. Gramsci coined the phrase "ideological hegemony" to describe the influence the ruling class has over what counts as knowledge. For Marxists, this hegemony is exercised through institutions such as education, or the media. Again the important thing to note about this is that it is not to be regarded as part of a conspiracy by the ruling class. It is a natural effect of the way in which what we count as knowledge is socially constructed. The ideology of democracy and liberty, beliefs about freedom of the individual and competition are generated historically by the mode of production through the agency of the dominant class. They are not neutral ideas serving the common good but ruling class ideas accepted by everyone as if they were for the common good.
Marx was against people setting themselves up as superior to ‘ordinary’ workers as if they and only they had the ability, foresight, and knowledge to discern what socialist society would be like. This elitism had no place in the socialist movement for Marx. Marx was keen to emphasise the creativity and spontaneity of the drive towards socialism, and to chart and assess the practical experiments of workers in this endeavour. Thus, for example, he enthusiastically followed the course of and wrote about the Paris Commune of 1871, where workers’ power was manifested in novel and exciting ways. The tragedy of labour is that we labour to create a vast, global social structure powered by capital (which depends upon us for its existence) that oppresses us, and limits and constrains human and social possibilities. We work to build our own cages. The struggle for communism is both the struggle against the constraints and limitations of capitalist social life and for a new form of human society. Alienation, boredom, the length of the working day, and so on can be key issues. Explaining the mode of exploitation in the capitalist labour process would be essential – how it is that value and surplus value is produced. The exploration of the perverted form of human life in capitalist society, and the ways that human life is being capitalised (the human as a form of capital – human capital). Any ‘anti-capitalist’ revolution worthy of the name would have to break with the totalising and all-consuming ‘logic’ of capital from day one of any revolutionary transformation. The ‘education of the future’ is part of the struggle for a new society
Marx believed in the uniqueness of the individual. The idea permeates his writings from end to end. He had a passion for the sensual. His so-called materialism is at root about the human body. Again and again, he speaks of the just society as one in which men and women will be able to realize their distinctive powers and capacities in their own distinctive ways. His goal is pleasurable self-fulfillment. To achieve true self-fulfillment, human beings must find it in and through one another. It is not just a question of each doing his or her own thing in grand isolation from others. That would not even be possible. The other must become the ground of one's own self-realization, at the same time as he or she provides the condition for one's own. At the interpersonal level, this is known as love. At the political level, it is known as socialism, a set of institutions which will allow this reciprocity to happen to the greatest possible extent, a socialist commonwealth, in which each person's participation in the project augments the welfare of all the others and vice versa. This is not a question of some saintly self-sacrifice. The process is built into the structure of the institutions.

ORGAN-ISED CHAOS (A Fantasy-Part 2) - weekly poem

ORGAN-ISED CHAOS (A Fantasy-Part 2)

A non-pc response to the Government's proposals

to allow people to self-determine their gender.

I'm Richard also known as 'Jade',

A 'Dirty Dick' am I;

The Government should have me 'spayed',

Cos as a 'woman' I'm 'self-maid',

And joined the WI.

I've sneaked inside their ladies loo,

And it's a trifle weird;

My 'gender change' seems quite taboo,

They see me and the air turns blue--

They've set light to my beard!

I'm puzzled by their swearing fits,

Or why each loo door shuts;

They view my drag-show booby bits,

And Cheongsam dress with slinky slits,

Then kick me in the nuts!

It's great since women's rights began,

That we have come this far;

Although I'm sad, as born a man, (1)

I would have liked to be a Gran,

But couldn't burn my bra.

Germaine Greer, therefore, should withdraw,

And not sound like a prick;

Because she is a sexist bore,

For saying women are much more,

Than just a cut-off dick. (2)

And if such 'ops' make most men wince,

Because such surgery hurts;

The Government's scheme could convince,

Usain Bolt to run women's sprints, (3)

And Scotsman to wear skirts!  

(1) Paris Green (born Peter Laing)  a pre-op transgender murderer, was

transferred to a man's prison after having sex with the female inmates.

(2) Germaine Greer said: “Just because you lop off your dick

and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a f***ing woman”.

(3) Martial arts fighter, Fallon Fox, a former man, gave her

female opponent such a beating that Fox lost her licence.

© Richard Layton

How it might happen

Socialism is the recognition of the suppression and oppression of the working class under the present form of society, based as it is upon their exploitation and subjection. Working-class emancipation can only be achieved by a collective effort, organised and aimed at the conquest of the political power.

 Many believe that our capitalist society is the only world possible. The truth, though is tragically plain. Capitalism involves the perennial affliction poverty. It doesn’t matter that an individual or family needs a decent food or a comfortable house if they do not have enough of the rationing vouchers that capitalism calls money, then tough. Capitalism has one driving force, and that is to make profit, not to supply resources to prevent pressing social need
Capitalism is run in the interests of those who own the means of making wealth. The working class, who own nothing in the way of creating wealth, have no choice but to work for the capitalist class for wages or salaries, and through their labour create every last penny of profit for the privileged class. A caring, people-based society would readily see the solution: apply the skills and resources to the problem. That will not happen in our capitalist society, for the missing ingredient of profit cannot be made in sufficient quantities.  It makes no difference that society wishes to do something about it, for the capitalist rule is No Profit, No Solution.

Capitalism runs governments, not the other way round. Reforms are a redistribution of poverty, not wealth. And reforms are reversible. Remember the Welfare State? Real socialists do know the solution and it’s the only one that tackles the real problem, not merely the symptoms. Capitalism needs to go.

The fundamental position of the SPGB is that "Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul] . “- (Engels 1895) .

There is no easier road to socialism than the education of the workers in socialism and their organisation to establish it by democratic methods. Shortcuts have proved to be cul de sacs. The Party’s case is that socialism will be established by the conscious democratic political action of a majority of workers using the electoral machinery, which in this country means parliament. Only a democratically elected socialist majority can introduce socialism after the capture of the machinery of government. Should an anti-socialist, undemocratic minority attempt to sabotage or disrupt social organisation and administration, a socialist society necessarily take such action as was requisite to ensure social harmony. the democratic state has been forced, against its will, to bring into being methods, institutions, and procedures which have left open the road to power for the workers to travel upon when they know what to do and how to do it. In this country the central institution through which power is exercised is Parliament. To merely send working class nominees there to control it is not sufficient. The purpose must be to accomplish a revolutionary reorganisation of society, a revolution, in its basis, which will put everybody on an equal footing as participants in the production, distribution, and consumption of social requirements as well as in control of society itself. So that all may participate equally, democracy is an essential condition. Free discussion, full and free access to information, means to implement the wishes of the majority which have been arrived at after free decision, and means to alter decisions if the wishes of the majority change. In most of the less developed countries political democracy does not yet exist. The governments there, whether representing the old landowning or the emerging capitalist class, stifle criticism and threaten the organisation of opposition parties and even of trade unions as plots to overthrow them. In such circumstances socialist activity is very difficult and the workers (being only a minority of the population), besides trying to organise into a socialist party ought also to struggle to get the freedom to organise into trade unions and win elementary political rights. As in the advanced capitalist countries, however, this should still involve opposition to all other parties in order that the socialist issue shall be kept free from confusion.

 Ordinarily industrial action, that is, action by trade unionists on the industrial field is circumscribed firstly by capitalist control of state power, secondly by the fact that the capitalists with their wealth and their ability to rely on the backing of the state power can always defeat a strike if they choose to fight to a finish, thirdly by the lack of socialist consciousness in the great majority of the workers and their consequent preoccupation with sectional issues and inability to take a class view. The minority of the working class who are in trade unions and the workers outside alike vote predominantly for capitalist parties in elections and look to these parties to try to solve working class problems within the framework of capitalism. The strike normally operates through financial pressure on employers by interrupting production and the flow of profits and is correspondingly ineffective in times of bad trade and heavy unemployment when indeed the employers may themselves choose to halt production by lockouts.

Various organisations claiming to be socialist but working only to secure a modification of the policy of a government within capitalism, or to secure the election of a Labour Government to introduce measures of state capitalism, advocate so-called "political strikes" to force a government to change its policy or to resign. One of the obvious weaknesses of such movements is that as they are directed against one government, which large numbers of workers support at elections, and in favour of an alternative government, large numbers of trade union and other workers who will support an industrial strike will not support a "political" one.

 "Political" strikes are not new. In the nearly two centuries of continuous trade union organisation in this country they have been advocated and tried on a large number of occasions, in particular to prevent a tightening up of trade union law. Not one of them has ever succeeded in preventing the government from passing trade union legislation which it was bent on introducing. Recognising the facts of the situation trade unions have been far more effective in finding ways round hampering laws, especially as there have always been some employers who have chosen to connive at breaches of the law and have used their influence to make laws inoperative.  In the years 1970-1973 there have been a dozen or more "political" strikes directed mainly to prevent the passage of the Industrial Relations Act or the payment of fines under the Act, or against the Government's wages policy Act and rising food prices. At the cost of about £30 million in wages, they achieved absolutely nothing.  Serious "political" strikes to overthrow a government come up against the whole state power and many of those who advocate them do so as part of a policy designed to get the workers to engage in the suicidal tactic of armed conflict with the police and armed forces.

We represent the political interests of the working class as a whole. We are opposed to capitalism as a whole, high profits or low profits, high wages or low wages. Unfortunately, there is the belief of many individual workers that the most positive step they can take in life is to struggle constantly for higher wages. This is no end in itself, and while workers persist solely in such a struggle and ignore socialist ideas they help to perpetuate capitalism.

The Socialist Party's distinctive view of the conditions that must exist and the step that must be taken before the establishment of socialism can be inaugurated is that there must be a predominantly socialist working class and that it must “organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local", in order that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation. This is based on the Marxist conception of history that every class struggle necessarily becomes a political struggle, in which the subordinate class seeks to wrest the dominant state power from the hands of the old ruling class.

 For so long as capitalist political parties and their agents control the law-making bodies, the armed forces, courts and police, the administrative and tax-gathering departments, local councils, etc, all organisations and actions, whether industrial or political, are strictly limited in their scope because whenever the government decides that a vital capitalist interest is seriously threatened it will use all of its powers to protect capitalist property and privilege. The government's ability to take such action depends on the willingness of the workers in government administration, the armed forces and police, etc to carry out orders. When the socialist movement becomes much stronger among the working class generally it will increasingly influence the outlook and sympathies of workers in the administration, armed forces, etc and the government's freedom of action will be correspondingly lessened.

After the process of establishing socialism has been completed the idea that capitalism might be re-established is remote from reality, nevertheless, opponents of the Party ask us to consider how socialist society would deal with an attempt to achieve this by force. A minority who may wish to return to capitalism will be free to propagate their views and to organise democratically to win over the majority, but they will operate at the tremendous disadvantage that they will already have lost "the battle of ideas". There remains the hypothesis of a small minority who might attempt to sabotage or disrupt social organisation and administration.

The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent without these forces having necessarily to be used. The state machinery, including the armed forces, will have passed out of the control of the capitalists and come under social control; Socialists will constitute the majority in all occupations in which the working class predominate -- in production, transport, communications, police and armed
forces. The supporters of capitalism will have been reduced to a minority and the mass of society will be made up of people who either want or accept the new system. The overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of reorganisation (in other words that while the workers will participate in the movement and probably individual capitalists, the capitalists as a whole will realise that the game is up, as they have lost the power of effective resistance.

Profits before homes (1994)

From the March 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you were to hear of a country where one in 25 of the inhabitants were affected by homelessness — two million people — what country would spring to your mind?

You might imagine a Third World country, or a war-torn one. It is neither. The country in fact is . . . England

The figures above are an unofficial estimate by the housing charity Shelter (Homelessness in England — The Facts, information release, October 1993). The official figures are hardly more cheery. In 1991/2 a total of 196,039 households were officially accepted as being homeless in England and Scotland together. This understates the case, however.

There are no comprehensive figures for single homelessness nationally. Shelter estimate there may be around 50,000 single people homeless in Britain. Official figures exclude the majority of the single homeless, and only include households deemed in "priority need", for instance, those with children.

It can be easy to conclude that either there is a dreadful lack of houses, or many feckless people exist. Certainly, many believe so, especially those who think that our capitalist society is the only world possible.

The truth, though, is blindingly and tragically plain. It involves the perennial co-traveller of the working class — poverty. It doesn’t matter that an individual or family needs a decent, warm and comfortable house, if they do not have enough of the rationing vouchers that capitalism calls money, then tough. Capitalism has one driving force, and that is to make profit, not to supply resources to prevent pressing social need.

Poverty
Capitalism is run in the interests of those who own the means of making wealth. The working class, who own nothing in the way of creating wealth, have no choice but to work for the capitalist class for wages or salaries, and through their labour create every last penny of profit for the privileged class.

Yet many members of the working class have been able to buy a home. At a time when nearly three million people are unemployed, they are indeed fortunate to have a job and an income to secure a mortgage. Or are they?

Many believe they own their home, little realizing that in reality the bank or building society does. "Owning" is a misnomer, in that "ownership" can so easily be removed. In 1992, in England alone, 68,540 houses were repossessed. In the first half of 1993 courts in England and Wales awarded a further 53,436 re-possession orders.
In addition, a large number of people live on the knife-edge of being repossessed, with the resultant toll of stress and misery. A Roof magazine survey claims that 800,000 home owners are in mortgage arrears, with over a third of a million in arrears of six months or more.

Unfit
Renting a house, or flat, might seem a safer and more affordable way of getting a decent home to live in. But the facts of life here are not very enjoyable either. The 1991 Housing Conditions Survey for England and Wales (covering private, rented, local authority and housing association houses) revealed that 1.5 million occupied houses were unfit to live in (Independent, 10 September). It also found that one-in-20 of owner-occupied houses were of an unfit standard.

Misery knows no borders either. The 1993 Scottish House Condition Survey found that one-in-20 of occupied houses were unfit to live in. Also, nearly a third of Scotland’s occupied houses were found to suffer dampness, condensation and mould. These figures were reinforced by the 1993 Glasgow Housing Survey. It found one-in-5 of private rented housing was unfit, "Below Tolerable Standard" to use the official term.

Millions are affected by homelessness, the threat of homelessness, and living in "Below Tolerable Standard" housing. Multiply these figures across the whole of the developed world, and the amount of human misery connected to housing problems due to working-class lack of means is phenomenal. Capitalists don't have housing problems, other than getting more, or bigger, mansions for themselves.

None of this is new, of course. When capitalism is in recession — which is a permanently-recurring feature of the profit system — levels of poverty rise. But poverty, and its symptoms like homelessness, don’t go away when capitalism is booming. It — they — only stand slightly in the shadows.

Many construction workers are currently unemployed; there are large stockpiles of bricks and building materials, while the figures above tell of the number of people who need a decent home to live in.

A caring, people-based society would readily see the solution: apply the skills and resources to the problem. That will not happen in our capitalist society, for the missing ingredient of profit cannot be made in sufficient quantities. And it makes no difference that society becomes more aware of homelessness, and wishes to do something about it, for the capitalist rule is: No Profit, No Solution.

Pretending
Capitalist politicians — be they Conservative, Labour or Liberal — periodically latch on to the plight of the homeless and pretend that something is being done, or that they know what the solution is.

My own constituency MP spent a night in December camping out on the street in Edinburgh in his sleeping bag, with like-minded people, to draw attention to homelessness. Amazingly, our capitalist opponents are always saying that we are the wooly-minded idealists.

Capitalism runs governments, not the other way round. Reforms are a redistribution of poverty, not wealth. And reforms are reversible. Remember the Welfare State? Real Socialists do know the solution and it’s the only one that tackles the real problem, not merely the symptoms. Capitalism needs to go.

Homelessness, and just about every other social ill, will never be solved in a capitalist world. That is not mere pessimism on our part, it is a fact you can confirm by reading your paper every day, then looking to see how the world around you really is.

Meanwhile, workers everywhere can only keep their fingers crossed that illness, unemployment, and poverty don’t pull them into the misery of homelessness. Or they could be thinking how Socialism could be a move to something better than the mess capitalism is.

Sandy Wilson

Ex-Edinburgh Br.

Together for Revolution

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party, basing its principles on the fact that workers the world over have a common interest, is opposed to all racialism and to all nationalism. We are opposed to all legislation to prevent the free movement of workers, whether in search of jobs or fleeing from oppression. Many blame working class problems on the presence of migrant workers. In fact, there was a shortage of housing, hospitals and so on before the immigrants came; these social problems have their roots in capitalist society and exist all over the world, whether a country loses people as emigrants or accepts them as immigrants. Xenophobia is an insidious trap for the working class; the problems of capitalism are international and can be solved only by all workers, whatever their origins, co-operating to abolish capitalism and to replace it with socialism. Let those on the Left who talk of immigration controls never dare speak of the brotherhood of man again! In the mid-nineteenth century, it was taken for granted by those who thought themselves progressive that the ending of slavery and serfdom would be followed by the eventual removal of all restrictions on movement. Instead, the comparative ease of movement that then existed and which permitted Marx and Johan Most, the anarchist, for example to leave the continent and settle in England, has been followed by our own era in which registrations, passports and other obstacles to migration have reached a new perfection, more pernicious because the machinery of coercion is got much more efficient. Nothing is more certain to slow up the spread of socialist thought than to sow dissension between the workers by emphasising national differences that are purely capitalist in character. Those who argue that Socialism is a long way off make it farther off by muddling the workers’ heads.  For some on the Left, the old slogans of internationalism have long been discarded in favour of the cult of nationalism. Too many on the Left share a firmly held opinion of the uninformed majority in the working class that the foreigner is responsible for our economic troubles.

 As long as the exploited donkey class continues to be misled by the bunch of carrots with one carrot being this anti- migrant complex dangling before its nose, so long will the capitalist class ride comfortably on its back. When the donkey realises that it is never allowed to get near enough to the carrots to test their desirability, the time will be appreciably nearer when the rider is hacked off. Until then the ruling class will do all in its power to foster the idea that people act according to the dictates of some mysterious characteristic inherent in their nationality and not, as is the real fact, according to their class function. The function of the capitalist regardless of nationality is to use the worker for his own ends. The task of the worker is to understand this and achieve his or her freedom, which necessarily carries with it the freedom of all mankind.

Ever since the evolution of the first humans, members of our species have wandered into virtually every comer of the globe. The first way of life — hunting - gathering — involved moving around to find new sources of meat, vegetables, and fruits. This inevitably meant encountering other bands and reproducing with them. Even after the rise of agriculture and the growth of more settled lifestyles, people continued to travel (forcibly or otherwise) to various parts of the earth, and to mix with people of a variety of origins. The slave traders of the ancient world and of more recent times caused enormous population upheavals, just as did wars and crusades. The expansion of capitalism into a world-wide system has likewise caused people to interact and reproduce on a global basis. The upshot of all this is that everyone has a mixed background, with genes from various parts of the world.  All human beings are hybrids. Humanity is a single species, divided by the artificial barriers of class and nation.

 Socialism involves revolutionary changes in every aspect of the working-class way of life. The wages system must be supplanted by a democratic administration of production and distribution, based on individual needs and equality. This means the building of a working-class organisation now, where every worker understands and accepts the democratic principles of administration; and is ready to take his place in the scheme of things, both on the productive and administrative side. Until the workers do this, society cannot move forward.

The Socialist Party extends the hand of fellowship to the working class of all lands, for only through international action by a socialist working class will socialism be achieved. 

Time is Running Out

Haven't we all had enough of this capitalist system? Aren't we all sick to the teeth with the meaningless toil, the boredom and being bullied by our bosses. The employing class literally hold working people in bondage. We see where capitalism leads: to a permanent never-ceasing struggle for survival. Workers have increased productivity ten-fold with few increases in wages. Many are also working longer hours under worsening job conditions. When we are forced to compete in a rat-race against each other this breeds a mindset of dehumanisation so is it a surprise that we begin to behave like rats to one another. Capitalism doesn’t care if harm is done as long as profit is achieved. It is fundamentally an amoral system.  Most crimes are simply extensions of capitalism, the forces of competition involved in satisfying the market. Global warming, pollution, and devastating wars are the results.  The need to create profit commodifies people and businesses understand that and it why they have large departments described as “human resources”.

It’s important to discuss socialism, the alternative to capitalism. Socialism is just a few basic ideas to help us escape capitalism. Socialism is not the redistribution of resources and the wealth but the fundamental transformation of the process of production itself. We don’t want to manage a ‘better’ capitalism. We want to collectively plan production and distribution for all. For a better world, the working class requires to take over society, otherwise, it is merely treating the symptoms and not the disease itself.   Socialists understand that an injury to one is an injury to all, and under capitalism, it means protecting the environment and humanity alike. The only democracy possible is an economic democracy.  Socialism means the abolition of the existing order.

The world’s farming and food systems are not currently fit for purpose. Around 800 million people go to bed hungry each night and even more – about one in three of the planet’s six billion population – suffer some form of malnutrition, lacking crucial nutrients in their diets. These numbers will only get worse. The world’s population is forecast to exceed nine billion people by 2050, even as climate change shrinks production capacity each year.

The Socialist Party because we reject all leadership restricts our membership to socialists alone that we can afford to be uncompromisingly democratic. Some of those who in the past have sneered at our “impossibilism” is perhaps now starting to realise that what we have succeeded in building up is the nucleus of the type of mass party which the working class can use to liberate itself. We certainly do not have any of the glamour which makes other organisations so attractive to their romantic revolutionary elements, but to those interested in the serious work of achieving socialism, we do represent a party where they will be welcomed as comrades and equals. The aim of the Socialist Party is to unite the working class against the capitalist class. Alone, workers have no power, but together, we have all the power in the world. That means that we must expose the myths of religion, ethnicity, race, or gender. Isolated one-issue campaigns might bring in some new members for a while yet inviting workers to join on that basis is dishonest. It is no substitute and can’t adequately address the broader political problems of capitalist exploitation. The purpose of political organization is to amplify and concentrate the resources of the members so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This doesn’t mean that other struggles and activities are unimportant but a tool is most effective when it is tailored to a particular use and the Socialist Party is designed for political action to change society, not to advocate reforms or to defend what limited liberties we may now possess.

 As wage and salary earners, the vast majority of us have endless economic problems to worry about -- wages and prices, rents and mortgages, sickness, unemployment, old age. Even more worrisome can seem the large and perhaps overwhelming problems facing us as human beings: war, poverty and the destruction of our own planet by those who seek to persuade us they can do our thinking for us. There are numerous other problems, like racism or sexism, which distort human judgement and reinforce a system that thrives on human misery. Many people look to leaders to solve these intractable problems, sometimes through union action, more often by demanding social, political and economic reforms.

Come election time, all the parties suddenly grow excited, urgently recommending laws they will introduce if they gain control of the government. But they don't regard it as their business to deal with the basis of any of those problems, where the cause actually lies. Neither Right nor Left has any intention of tackling and dealing with the core of our troubles: the system of employment, known traditionally as wage labour, and the associated use of capital to produce all of the wealth we depend on. This system, we maintain, generates massive artificial scarcities in a society with the technological means to afford us abundance.

The Socialist Party holds that the social system needs to be changed fundamentally and we advocate the abolition of social classes through production based solely on meeting people's needs, democratically administered. This goes much deeper than a mere change in government, but it also assumes the widespread understanding of what needs to be done. We understand capitalism has gone as far as it can go; the time has come to put it behind us and start with a system of society that really works for everyone.

If you agree generally with arousing the rest of the world's workers to an understanding of how easily within our grasp it is to achieve a world of abundance and peace -- and a world we can pass on intact to the coming generations, join us.

Those of us in the Socialist Party seek a world without poverty, war, sexism, racism, nationalism, and other forms of hatred; without environmental devastation.

Socialism is for anybody who thinks the world would be a better place if we had no bosses and politicians telling everyone else what to do. Democracy means more than an election every few years. Freedom means real freedom, and respect, for everybody; People cooperating to satisfy human needs. Socialism is for anybody who wants real solutions, not repeated failures. The Left and Right haven't solved anything that counts - and they can't. Real solutions may take a while, but that's better than never. Real solutions require rational thought, not hype. Real solutions require people to work for them

We reject the idea that socialism has been tried in countries sometimes referred to as socialist. Look below at our definition of socialism and ask yourself if this in any way describes the state capitalist, police states of modern China and Cuba or the old regimes in Russia and eastern Europe, or the past and present "social-democratic" governments in many countries.

We reject the idea of socialism in one country. National socialism equals non-socialism. The capitalist system is global and so must the system which will replace it.

We reject the idea that people can be led into socialism. Socialism will not be established by good leaders or battling armies, but by thinking men, women and children. There can be no socialism without socialists.

A Grouse about Grouse Moors

Grouse moors for the privileged rich are to blame for persecuting endangered birds of prey in the Scottish Highlands and Uplands, according to, Ian Thomson, the head of investigations at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland. He said data from 77 birds of prey that had been satellite-tagged showed a direct correlation between dead and disappeared birds and grouse moors. It showed hotspots in the Angus glens near Dundee, the Highlands in Perthshire, the Monadhliath mountains and Speyside south of Inverness, around the Black Isle north of Inverness, and in the Southern Uplands. Thomson said: “It is clear from this map that, like golden eagles, the distribution of illegally killed or suspiciously disappeared satellite-tagged red kites and hen harriers is far from random, and shows clear clusters in some upland areas. “As with the hotspots for eagles, these clusters are almost entirely coincident with land dominated by driven grouse shooting management.”

In May an expert report from Scottish Natural Heritage on golden eagles said there was a direct correlation between grouse moors and the deaths and disappearances of tagged eagles, and the areas where eagles were failing to breed or prosper. SNH found a third of 131 young eagles tagged over a 12-year period had disappeared in suspicious circumstances or been killed, chiefly in the Highlands.

Roseanna Cunningham, Scotland’s environment secretary, explained,  “The findings of this research are deeply concerning and will give rise to legitimate concerns that high numbers of golden eagles, and other birds of prey, continue to be killed in Scotland each year."

French Revolution

Book Reviews from the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

History of the French Revolution by Jules Michelet (edited by Gordon Wright) University of Chicago Press. 32s

The Crowd in the French Revolution by George F. Rudé OUP Paperback 8s. 6d.

At some stage in the year 1789—the precise moment is debatable—there occurred in France a great social and political upheaval. This French Revolution gave rise, in embryonic form, to important concepts such as the class struggle, revolutionary dictatorship and, in the later stages, “elitist egalitarianism" in the form of Babeuf’s Conspiracy of the Equals.

Those, however, who see the revolution as a popular, egalitarian movement have failed to understand its true character. The French Revolution was a successful attempt by the bourgeoisie to destroy the feudalism which shackled their economic enterprise with old-fashioned regulations and which denied them the political rights they felt were their due. Throughout the, revolution’s course it was the bourgeoisie which controlled the various legislatures and executives, and its results were trade and commerce emancipated from feudalism, a law banning any trade unions (le loi Le Chapelier) and a system of indirect election benefitting the well-to-do. This was, of course, before Napoleon imposed upon the revolution the dynastic ambitions of the Buonaparte family.

There are, indeed, those who have protested that the first National Assembly, far from being a body composed of strictly bourgeois elements, was in fact packed with lawyers and other members of the liberal professions. But lawyers have always represented the interests of trade, commerce and industry—activities which are essential to their prosperity. The doctors, journalists and other professional people who sat as legislators were all notably in sympathy with liberal economic doctrines, and they were always shown to be afraid of popular uprisings such as that in Paris in July 1789. Thus the professions had effectively allied themselves with merchants, industrialists, bankers and agriculturalists, and could be relied upon to serve their interest.

These two books represent, in widely differing form, attempts to understand the role of the common people in the revolution. Michelet’s History first appeared in seventeen volumes in the 1840’s (of which this edition is a continuous selection). As such it is a good example of, and a grand monument to its age. Michelet is as much French Romaniticism’s representative historian as Victor Hugo is its representative literary figure. With a vigorous style, full of life, Michelet gives us his impassioned, apocalyptic and panoramic view of the revolution as the climax of the spiritual battle between the Catholic Order and the “principle of Justice”.

Unfortunately, in his eagerness to present the revolution as the victory of a united force—“the people”—Michelet overlooks important points of detail and produces certain inaccuracies. So insistent is he, for instance, in asserting that the revolution was a spontaneous outbreak of “Justice” and “the People” against a misery and oppression which he paints very eloquently, that he overlooks important differences in the interests of the bourgeoisie and “the people”, the main one being the contradictory demands of free trade and controlled bread prices.

Michelet’s book, however, has certain valuable aspects. It contains a brilliantly eloquent denunciation of Christian theology and extremely shrewd assessments of the true character of the so-called Absolute Monarchy and the mediaeval church in France.

Totally different in character and outlook is George Rudé The Crowd in the French Revolution. Originally published in 1959 and now available in paperback, it was described by one historian as “a significant book which opened up some entirely new sources and showed how statistical precision can be brought to the study of riots”. It is indeed a close study of the behaviour and composition of the Parisian crowd. Rudé, writing from the Marxist viewpoint, is concerned with breaking away from the tradition which until recent times treated the crowd, as he says, “as a disembodied abstraction and the personification of good or evil”, and with examining the crowd in a more scientific spirit. (The book is amply supplied with tables showing the composition, geographically and class-wise, of the crowd and the prices of various commodities at different stages of the revolution).

The crowd, or sans-culottes—called thus because they could not afford breeches—was a heterogeneous body, composed not only of the working class but of small shopkeepers and independent craftsmen as well. Rudé paints a picture of a working class still in transition between feudal and capitalist societies, and not truly distinct from other sans-cullote elements.

However, although the wage-earners in Paris had as yet developed little class solidarity, they did have a vague idea of their cohesion as a class. The breakup of the guild system had accentuated the gulf between masters and journeymen, and there had been a strike as early as 1724. Disputes over wages and conditions continued up till 1789. However, the large demands which food made upon a man’s wages produced a situation where the crowd was concerned more with keeping down prices than with raising wages.

Rudé points out that a variety of motives existed for the crowd’s revolutionary actions, among them dismay at high prices and uncertain food supplies, a belief at first in the king as its champion against the aristocracy and the church, and then in a republic. The crowd was not a totally inarticulate mob merely seeking immediate economic gains. Although economic factors may have influenced them, strongly and often, these went hand in hand with beliefs, however unsophisticated, in political principles.

In this context, Rudé well notes that the bourgeoisie, even at that early stage, were determined to prevent the wage earners gaining any influence, and that, although “whenever it (the crowd) advanced . . .  the aims of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, it has been represented as the embodiment of all popular and Republican virtues”, the bourgeoisie were unwilling to share power with this “virtuous” body. Property qualifications were required from would-be representatives. Rudé also points out “the ferocity with which the bourgeois . . .  of the National Guard dispersed the Champs de Mars demonstration” (a protest at Louis XVI’s flight from France).

Rudé’s book is an informative and extremely readable study of the popular aspect of the French Revolution.

Amit Pandya

Sinclair's Musings

This month we take a bit of a foray into the world of fiction commenting on wage-slavery in the "land of the free" from over a hundred years ago.

It's a handy parable how capitalism swindles profits from wage slaves while wages go up, and we wonder if anything much has changed in a hundred and eleven years since it was written. We hardly think so! Seems nothing is new under the sun when it comes to capitalists duping workers to produce faster while they lose – slaves running to stand still.

"All day long this man would toil thus, his whole being centred upon the purpose of making twenty-three instead of twenty-two and a half cents an hour; and then his product would be reckoned up by the census taker, and jubilant captains of industry would boast of it in their banquet halls, telling how our workers are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy." The Jungle, 1906. Upton Sinclair.

For socialism,
 Steve, Mehmet and John

Human Race Is Endangered Too.

Scientists at Stanford University, recently issued a report, claiming that significant animal population decline and possible mass extinction of species, all over the world, may be imminent, and that both have been underestimated by other scientists.

The study, published on July 10, by the National Academy of Scientists, said the reduction of species have been, and are still, being caused by destruction of the habitat, carbon pollution and climate change.

Most people are aware this was occurring, but weren't aware it was so rapid. One thing the scientists didn't say, was that we, the human race, is an endangered species too. John and Steve.

Basically Things Don't Change

A report on North Korean workers in Russia, issued by the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights, and organization in Seoul, said the Workers Party of Korea seizes 80 per cent of the wages earned by them. More money is taken to cover living expenses, mandatory contributions to a so called loyalty fund, and other donations.

In other words they work for close to nothing, which is like it was in the major industrialized countries just after the industrial revolution.

So things, basically, don't change much under capitalism, which is one of many reasons it should be abolished. 

John and Steve.