The No Solution Remedy

Gods buddy, Justin Welby, a.k.a. the Archbishop of Canterbury was reported in the London Sun, September 6, as pretty p.o.d about the wage inequality in U.K. Mostly the dear old Bish mouthed off really fierce at the heads of the Financial Times Stock Exchange paying themselves more than 150 times their average employees wage.

Bishy, previously an oil exec. said,''Between 2010 and 2015, when many workers were seeing their pay fall in real terms, the median pay for directors in FTSE 100 companies rose 47 per cent. The seemingly runaway nature of high pay among the richest and most powerful bears little relation to the experience of the majority of people".

Boy! does this guy catch on fast. And just how does Mr. Bishy suggest we fix the problem? To sum up his long and garbled discourse briefly its simply tax the crap out of the rich dudes. Therefore the government which, let's face it, is the executive committee of the capitalist class would have more loot in its pathetic attempt to administrate a chaotic system, like B.F.D. Exploitation, war, poverty, unemployment and all the other niceties of capitalism would continue no matter how much the parasites are taxed. Nor would their political stooges do what he wants, if anyone did anything in this matter Mr. Welby should be doing stand up comedy. The old Bish would be better advised advocating a world where wages wouldn't exist.

Steve, Mehmet, John & all contributing members of the SPC.

Film Review Watch The Trailer

From World Socialist Party New Zealand, Moggie Grayson gives us his review of the movie, The Young Karl Marx -

Hello Comrades,

At this year's Film Festival in Wellington I went along to see "The Young Karl Marx". If you haven't seen it yet, I can thoroughly recommend it. It deals with Marx and Engels from their first meeting through to when they published The Communist Manifesto. It was mostly filmed in Europe and the dialogue is mostly in French and German. A few people commented that they had difficulty reading the sub-titles at the bottom of the screen, so I wouldn't recommend trying to watch it on a small T.V. screen, unless you can get a DVD that has been dubbed into English. If you get the chance to go and see it at a cinema I'm sure you will find it absorbing. I was hoping to find a review of it in The Standard, but maybe it hasn't made the Film Festivals in your neck-of-the-woods yet. You can find reviews of it on the internet.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz-1BLjQlHo

Yours for Socialism,

MOGGIE

WSP NZ - Save the planet - its the only one with chocolate!

Wha's Like Us????

Victim Support Scotland said 5708 charges were made relating to hate crime in Scotland in 2016-17.

Among them were 3349 racial, 673 religious, 1075 LGB, 40 transgender and 188 disability hate crimes.

Victim Support Scotland are also calling for the recognition of hate crimes against the homeless, elderly, asylum seekers and refugees, gypsies and travellers.

The charity who aid victims believe many more go unreported. Now they are calling for action to help those people suffering bigoted abuse in silence

Now they are calling for action to help those people suffering bigoted abuse in silence.

Who Owns Scotland?

A study into who owns Scotland's land and the impact that has on the people who live there is to be carried out by the new Scottish Land Commission(SLC).

It has been estimated that fewer than 500 people own half of all privately-owned land in Scotland.

That is one of the highest concentrations of land ownership in Europe.

SLC chief executive Hamish Trench said: "Scotland does have an unusually concentrated land ownership pattern."

There is no definitive list of who owns what in Scotland and that inevitably leads to questions about transparency. Malcolm Combe, a specialist in land law at the University of Aberdeen, said: "At the moment Scotland has a wholly unregulated land market, which means to say it doesn't really matter where you're from or where your company is based.

"Some people say that is absolutely fine and that allows for inward investment and this kind of thing. But there are some issues in terms of transparency and accountability."

Analysis by land reform campaigner and now Green MSP Andy Wightman has estimated that half of the privately-owned land is in the hands of 432 people.

Community Land Scotland policy director Peter Peacock said: "Scotland has got very, very unusual land ownership patterns with very few people owning vast amounts of land. That has big societal implications. It concentrates power in a few people's hands and it concentrates wealth."

Not well in Scotland

The 2016 Scottish Health Survey shows that 35 per cent of those living in the most deprived areas smoke cigarettes. This is three times higher than those living in the least deprived areas (11 per cent).

Researchers also found differences in levels of physical activity in relation to deprivation. People in the most deprived areas of Scotland are less likely to be physically active than those in the least deprived areas. Just over half (54%) of people in the poorest areas meet the Scottish Government’s guidelines for physical activity, compared with three-quarters (74%) of those in the least deprived areas.

findings demonstrate that people in the most deprived areas are twice as likely to have two or more risk factors than those living in the least deprived areas.

Joanne McLean, Research Director of the Scottish Health Survey at ScotCen Social Research said: “The persisting health inequalities in the Scottish population is a matter for national concern. Improving the health outcomes of more deprived people in Scotland is one of the most important challenges for public health professionals and policymakers to address in the coming years. Given that people in more deprived areas are more likely to have multiple health risk factors, now may be the time for a more joined-up approach to public health interventions than we have previously seen.” “The relatively poor diet of Scottish children compared to adults is also a worry. Our research highlights the need for public health professionals, policy makers and families with children to do more to improve poor eating habits amongst children”

Work for Socialism — All else is vain.

The Socialist Party exists to substitute knowledge for ignorance and organisation for chaos. So long as the wages and profits system lasts no section of the workers can afford to abandon trade unionism, but it is equally true that the trade union movement holds out no possibility of solving the problem of working-class servitude. Many of our political and industrial opponents claim that the “day-to-day struggle,” i.e., the succession of work-to-rules and strikes, even occupations leads of itself to the workers’ emancipation. So long as the workers in the main regard their affairs from the so-called “immediate” standpoint, defeats are inevitable. The “immediate” interests of the workers are invariably sectional interests. The political party of the workers can only express the general interests; the interests the workers have in common, irrespective of local or industrial variations;, in other words, the interests of their class as a whole. As such it stands for solidarity between the different sections and the rendering of mutual support wherever possible in the defensive warfare waged by means of strikes. Its special function,, however, is to point out the limited value of this warfare, and to emphasize the fact that the fight carried on along these lines only is a losing one. So long as the workers are content to struggle for a subsistence wage only, that is the most they will obtain, with their security growing ever less. The Socialist Party summons them to struggle for possession of the means of life. Instead of voting sectionally every now and again for a cessation of work, we counsel the workers to vote as a class for the abolition of the system whereby they are compelled to work for the profit of a few, the present owners of the means of life. We call upon our fellow-workers to organise to obtain control of the political machinery, which has served their masters so effectively. Socialist education is the only solution of working-class difficulties. When the workers realise that, in spite of all the differences in their respective conditions, they are one as slaves, then only will they feel the need and possibility of emancipation, and act accordingly.

Although owing to such bad conditions which exist among the workers, one is much tempted to devote undue attention to reforms, it cannot be too often or too strenuously asserted that all and every reform possible in capitalist society would do next to nothing in the end as the capitalist class has always shown that it knows full well how to force back with one hand what it is compelled to pay out with the other. It is surely significant that after all the years occupied in obtaining reforms, that it should be even now a debatable point as to whether the workers as a class are any better off to-day than they were at the beginning. Even in the case of such apparently obviously desirable reforms as state maintenance - or, as it is watered down to, state feeding of the children and the relief of the unemployed, it is fairly clear that the capitalist class will take care to benefit more itself than the workers by the greater exploitation of the young, by reason of their more fit condition making them better producing mediums, and from having their reserve army kept by the state for them. And it must not be lost sight of that a reserve army of unemployed is a necessary condition of capitalist society.

Brutal as it may seem to say so, it is clear to us that the only purpose of reforms is to put off the day when the workers will come by their own. The workers will always be badly fed, housed and clothed so long as they are robbed, and robbed they will be so long as capitalism lasts.What interest we had in reforms has vanished. We have been disillusioned by watching its effects and results. The failure to get any substantial gain from these sources is not accounted for by the good or bad actions of individuals but by the conditions of the problem itself.  The Labour Party is in our opinion but a bulwark against the real movement — the only one of any use to the proletariat — i.e., the socialist movement.

The Socialist Party disdains to conceal our principles. We proclaim the class war. We hold that the lot of the workers cannot to any appreciable extent be improved except by a complete overthrow of this present capitalist system of Society. The time for Social tinkering has gone past. The Socialist Party knows that reforms or measures palliative of capitalism can only be obtained while the master class rules in so far as capitalist interests are thereby served; and since capitalist interests are directly opposed to those of workers in all essential points of wealth and leisure, it is obvious that the measures passed by capitalist representatives will have for object the maintenance or extension of their system or the intensification of the robbery of the workers upon which they depend. It is then a fraud for a candidate to pretend to be able to obtain measures in the workers’ interests from the capitalist class in power. The workers can get nothing of their own until they are able to take it. No person is a socialist who throws out such fraudulent sops or promises as bait to prospective voters, for besides that it must lead workers to disappointment and apathy and aid their enemies, it is obvious that as far as sops or promises are concerned the master class can, and does when it needs to, always out-sop the would-be member. Hence it is of supreme importance that the workers rely upon themselves and concentrate all their energies on the capture of political power for socialism, for all else is illusion.

There is a law of capitalist production which ordains that human labour-power shall be in constant competition with machinery, and shall as constantly be displaced and defeated by its formidable rival. And there is a law that, notwithstanding that the result is bitter as blood to the great working class of the world, yet must working-class intelligence and working-class strength go on improving and developing this machinery of production, to their own undoing, as long as the capitalist system of profit production shall prevail. There is a further law—a law of wages—under governance of which wages are determined by the cost of subsistence under certain prevailing conditions. There are many other stated laws controlling the economic movements of man, and much more, doubtless enough, awaiting human recognition and enunciation. The knowledge of these laws is of vital importance to the workers. Such knowledge alone can explain to them how, and in what circumstances, the wealth of the world is produced— and who can it more closely concern than those who produce it all and who enjoy so little of it? Such knowledge is the only sure foundation of Socialist faith—our pillar of fire by night, our pillar of cloud by day—the one unerring index where all else is confusion. The reformer is a reformer only because he is ignorant of the existence of the laws governing social growth, or because he fails to realise their universal applicancy, and the unbending potency with which they reduce all human wishes, as far as they are in opposition to them, to merest empty vanity.

In their ordinary everyday life the workers sell their labour power to the capitalist class who own the means and instruments of production. The wages they receive in return are very often not enough to live on. What the workers produce over their wages enables the capitalist class to live in luxury and idleness and increase their investments, and is the primary purpose of capitalist production. To increase their profits the capitalist class use every device; they install labour-saving machinery, appeal to social feelings and national prejudices to get as much work as possible from the workers at as low a wage as possible. To improve their standard of living, even maintain it, the workers must struggle continually. Between the working class and the capitalist class, there is a fundamental conflict of interest. To sell their goods the different sections of the capitalist class come into conflict over markets. They also come into conflict over sources of raw materials and strategic points controlling trade routes. The experience of the recent natural calamities around the world has shown that people have not lost their energy or their impulse to cooperate under adversity. These forces can be harnessed to everyday jobs by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production—the source of the conflict of interest in modern industrial society—and establishing the common property of the means of living. Then there would be a community of interest: the many would not work in the interest of the few; everyone would be working for the benefit of all—as during the floods—for the benefit of humanity. A society based on a community of interests instead of on an antagonism will be conducive to co-operative behaviour and not, as at present, place obstacles in its way. Only with the establishment of such a system will wars and crime lose their purpose and hence their existence.

Socialist Standard No. 1358 October 2017

• Editorial: What Socialism is Really About
• Pathfinders: Subscription-based Capitalism
• Letter: Is Marx’s Analysis of Capitalism Relevant Today?
• Russia 1917: As We Saw It
• Reflections on Elections
• Material World: The Road From Burma
• Was Russia Ever Socialist . . ?
• What Would a Real Socialist Revolution Look Like?
• Ideology and Revolution pt.1
• Why Are We Waiting?
• Cooking the Books: Answer on a Postcard (to Lord Finkelstein)
• Proper Gander: The Jihadis’ Tale
• Pamphlet Review: 'The State and the Socialist Revolution'
• Book Review: 'Prophets Unarmed - Chinese Trotskyists in Revolution, War, Jail and the Return from Limbo'
• Exhibition Review: Portraying a Nation - Germany 1919–1933
• 50 Years Ago: Half a Million Unemployed
• Action Replay: What 'Workers' Revolution'?
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Reformism - Homeopathic 'Socialism' - watered down 'socialism'

There exists an idea that small doses of 'socialist' measures can have a curative effect on the problems caused by capitalism and eventually lead to a socialist society.

It requires 'socialists' advocating revolution yet relying on amelioration and palliatives as the method of achieving it without any serious change to the ruling elite. These do not produce small effects but, in fact, produce no effect. Let us be very clear, socialism means revolution and that means a radical change in daily life. We cannot change society and at the same time not change society. Too many who style themselves 'socialists' assure us that every little adjustment to how society runs is socialism. They describe such compromises and concessions as socialist actions but if everything that political reformism does is called socialistic, socialism becomes to mean nothing. In all those "immediate demands" of the Trotskyists, their  'revolutionary' platform seldom contains any demand that a pro-capitalist party might not accept and promote in the overall interest of capitalism, 'in the name of socialism'. These camp-followers of the Left have much to say about socialism but nothing to tell about it. They use radical sounding terminology and language for revolutionary actions but the use of 'revolutionary' words and phrases does not demonstrate a revolutionary position.  In truth, the progressive ideals of the working class have usually been adopted by their exploiters and then directed against our fellow-workers while the left-wingers sing the same song as the apologists of capitalism that genuine socialism is incompatible with human 'nature'. The openness of the socialist movement to welcome all who profess to be its friend and ally has done the utmost damage and continues to prove a hindrance to the socialist movement.

 The Socialist Party must be judged by its decisions, its acts and the reasoning that have used to reach its conclusions. The Socialist Party will be judged by what it is doing and not by what it is promising to do. If the gradualist 'socialist' and the reforming capitalist expend the same energy doing the same things, they inevitably merge and become one. Only by differentiating ourselves by our activity can we distinguish ourselves as distinctive. The Socialist Party describes itself as the political expression of the working class. Only through a socialist political party can the unity of our class be brought about, rather than by the division of sectional trade unionism, its exclusiveness, and its nationalism.

The socialist movement is unable to prescribe one set of action since this must necessarily be different in different lands, varying with time and place and dependent on prevailing and diverse circumstances our fellow-workers find themselves in. But it is clearly our priority to encourage the working class everywhere in its opposition to the employing possessing class. The Socialist Party stands for the principle of world solidarity, placing the interests of humanity, as a whole, before and above the nation. When we speak of solidarity we mean that the no one person can emancipate him or herself without emancipating all people. Our liberty is the liberty of everyone. We are not truly free unless all men and women are our equals. It is as the First International expressed it - the emancipation of the workers is not a local or national problem but concerns workers of all lands.

Socialist politics are not politics in the ordinary sense of the word. Success lies in struggle and not in moralistic appeals to the better nature of our oppressors. The Socialist Party advocates class war against the master class.

Our aim is not merely for ourselves but for our children and grandchildren. our goal is not simply for this country but for all the world. We stand determinedly against the entire capitalist class and against the whole power of the State. The final struggle will be a political one to capture the State from the grasp of the capitalists and with that political power having been acquired, private and state-owned property can be transformed into common property and economic democracy established - socialism.
The Socialist Party tries to argue that its radical solutions are not to be postponed for a far-off future and that it will not tolerate unnecessary delay. We are unwilling to accept socialism by installment plan. The Socialist Party is not a reformist party but a revolutionary party that recognises social emancipation can only be achieved through waging class war. The socialist movement can have no part in in the grim game of reformist politics. Nothing of importance or substance can be accomplished by such opportunistic ploys,  for the vast machine of State runs as exactly as before and those who maintain the machine remain in power. Nothing that upsets business efficiency is permitted.

The social revolution seeks as its goal the end of the capitalist regime and the end of classes. Socialists aim to build a new world out of the old and it can only be achieved by the revolutionary resolve of men and women. You cannot make socialism without socialists. We are not seeking catastrophes for what use are they to us. The cooperative ideal may well be innate to humanity and lie latent within us all but it will only be through experience and education that it will manifest itself in actual practice at  a societal level.

The whole point of socialism is to produce with the least amount of resources, the greatest amount of products to guarantee the well-being of all by means of free associations, infinitely varied to meet the needs of communities. We live at a time when technology has created the potential for abundance but we exist in an era of austerity.

The world rightfully belongs to us all. It is now time we claimed it. It is also time to take back the real meaning of socialism so that it once more means what it once did before the distortions - a cooperative commonwealth.

The political task of the Socialist Party is not an easy one but it is do-able. In these days of despair and desolation, our priority must be to make a socialist society as thinkable and to constantly discuss and debate its possibility. The Socialist Party is not reluctant to talk about real socialism.

Recent Reading

The Lost City of Z" by David Grann Doubleday, 2009, recounts the authors attempt to find exactly what happened to explorer Percy Fancett, who disappeared while trying to find ancient cities in the Amazon jungles. Though Grann was unsuccessful, he did succeed in finding the cities. Grann quotes a spokesperson for the Brazilian Transport Ministry that "loggers on road B R 163, employ the highest concentration of slave labour in the world." 

Grann notes that Indians are frequently driven off their land, enslaved, or murdered. So despite the tremendous advances, we've made in our technology nothing fundamentally changes in life itself, but under capitalism how can it?

What I can also recommend by Mr. Grann is his most recent work, "Killers of the Flower Moon," ( Doubleday.) Grann describes the shock U.S. capitalists received when, having forced the Osage Indians onto some barren land in Oklahoma, they become overnight millionaires when oil was discovered there. Like, "How are we gonna steal it from them now we've made them the legal owners?"

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet, John, and all contributing members of the SPC.

Life In Capitalism Is Always Dangerous

The white supremacist riots in Virginia on August 11-12, which is what they were, even if they said it was a rally, show that prejudice is alive and ill under capitalism. 

Some of the white nationalists cited Trump's victory as validation for their beliefs and his critics pointed to his racially tinged rhetoric as increasing America's racial tension. 

Furthermore, he wasn't in a hurry to make a public comment about it; though the most amazing comment was from Jesse Jackson, "We are in a very dangerous place right now."

Life under capitalism is always dangerous. Hey Jess, wake up and smell the stink. 

John Ayers.

“RAF – NO ORDINARY JOB”

One of the many TV adverts for the Royal Air Force shows 19 year

old Ellie having a grand social life, occasionally working but never

killing or wounding people nor being killed or wounded in action.

Our Ellie's jogging down the road,

(Which is the first thing that you do!)

When one has joined the Air Force boys,

To play with their expensive toys,

Flown by all the same chaps in blue.

Our Ellie's sitting on a train,

Returning to her home on leave,

She's quite fatigued from all the fun,

And life has only just begun,

The ad would have us fools believe!

Our Ellie's back upon the base,

With no sign of a single plane,

Then blow me down she's on the road,

Not marching with a heavy load,

But jogging with the guys again!

Then Ellie frolics in the sea,

With the said drop-dead gorgeous chaps,

Then duty calls from State and Queen,

She looks at her fluorescent screen,

And studies all her radar maps.

And then she fiddles with a plane,

And twiddles lots of nuts with glee,

But in the next shot, give me strength,

She's swimming more than just a length,

In the warm blue Aegean sea!

Boobs pointedly point out the way,

As Ellie shows off each bronzed loin,

As this daft sexist TV ad,

Exists to urge each randy lad,

And divvy-civvy girl to join!

© Richard Layton

The Point Where Nutty Things Follow.

Between the time of writing this (August 7), and the time you read it, this information may be old news,may because any day Donald Trump may do something bizarre. The questions many are asking now are, "Did Russian businessmen and/or gangsters, (and sometimes the difference is blurred), connive to get trump elected, and if so was he aware of it?

We of the SPC say that for the working class of the U.S., and elsewhere, it doesn't matter, because whoever gets elected, and however they get elected, the fundamentals of capitalism remain intact, which cause their problems. Can anyone imagine Hillary advocating Capitalism's abolition? 

Of course the situation regarding Trump is crazy, Meshigana or Bonkers, call it what you will, but what else can we expect when the very basics of capitalism are crazy? The vast majority of the world's people create its wealth and docilely and legally hand it over to a small minority. From this point all many of nutty things flow. 

John Ayers.

Insanity Gone Ballistic.

We've all heard of North Korea's threats to send a nuclear missile to America and Trump's "Locked and Loaded," reply. 

Many may ask, "But why would capitalists anywhere risk a nuclear war with its American competitors? That would be insanity gone ballistic." 

To answer a question with one – since when have sanity and capitalism gone hand in hand?

 John Ayers.

Unemployment. It "Is" It is. It "Is"

On August 4, Stats Canada revealed the unemployment rate in Canada had fallen in July from 65% to 6.3, which was its lowest since the financial crisis of 2008.

The next day the press was jubilant; the Toronto Star said "It was one of the lowest rates we've seen in the last 2 decades." Ontario Economic Development Minister, Brad Dueuid, was no less ecstatic, "The numbers show Ontario's economy continues to grow at an impressive rate."

What these celebrants fail to realise is that there still "is" unemployment, which "is" a symptom of capitalism and will always exist, no matter how it fluctuates, within capitalism. 

John Ayers.

Another Crazy Situation.

 Haitians are fleeing to Canada from the U.S. in fear of being deported to Haiti, now the Trump administration is considering ending the temporary protected status program.

At a news conference on August 3, Quebec Immigration Minister, Kathleen Weil said there were roughly 50 requests for asylum a day, between July 1 and July 19 and now it is about 150 a day. She said Quebec had already received 6,500 asylum seekers by the end of June and is on track to have 12,000 by the end of the year.

Of course it will be difficult for federal and provincial governments to find them jobs and houses. Montreal's Olympic Stadium has been set up to accommodate as many as 600 until mid-September.

Another of the many crazy situations which capitalism by its very nature throws up. 

John Ayers.

Capitalism has failed

We in the Socialist Party have always argued that many workers would arrive at conclusions similar to those of ourselves on their own, without encountering the Socialist Party's speakers or publications.

 We have thought that the basic causes of problems would be recognised and attacked, not just the symptoms. We held others would identify the pursuit of profit as responsible for the ills of society, for gross inequalities, for the bloodshed of war, for the waste of production, for people's need to obey and conform.

 The alternative a system without prices or money, based on co-operation not competition, with work done by volunteers, after all, there would still be plenty of motivation to work in a society where people would be cooperating to produce the best possible, free of stress and worries. Without useless jobs and pointless wars and so on. it would be possible to produce an abundance of goods, for people to take as they wish.

 The Socialist Party is often accused of being unrealistic in our demand for an end to the profit system as the only way of ending mass poverty. We are told that we must live in the “real world”, where we must proceed one step at a time, and support various legislative and regulatory campaigns.

 But we are beginning to see others who think it is time to challenge the root cause of world poverty, to end the “real world” in which human beings needlessly die and the planet is systematically ravaged in the name of profit. They and we have got this idea to have all the food, clothing, housing, transport and entertainment, and the factory have all the plant and raw materials they need at a cost of nothing, no money, satisfying our needs directly without the need for finance or financiers. Too simple? But the truth is always simple. Understanding it is the hard bit but as we see, many others outside the World Socialist Movement are learning.

When will our fellow-workers awake to a consciousness of their surroundings and take over the political machine in their own interests to sweep away the whole tainted system of capitalism? It is the mission of the propertyless class—our class - instead of seeking to participate in the division of the spoils—to see to it that there shall be no spoils. To do this they must put an end to the exploitation of the producers by the non-producers, i.e., the capitalists.

The class-war is the basis of the socialist movement. Does that mean that socialists created the class-war? On the contrary, we merely perceived an already existing fact (to which our fellow-slaves are either wholly or partially blind), and we further realise that this war can terminate in only one way, i.e., the emancipation of the workers through the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of the common ownership of the means of life. 

 This social ownership is the central, basic factor in the matter, not some fantastic dream of a perfect social state which merely reflects the imperfections of that which exists at present. So long as class-ownership continues and production is carried on for profit, so long will the workers endure the effects of the ensuing chaos in society. Instead, the coordinated conduct of production and distribution in accordance with the needs of the community locally and globally will give mankind for the first time the conscious control of their means of living. Henceforward waste will be eliminated for the benefit of all. The resources of the world are barely scratched.

 Whole continents cry out for development, but capitalism cannot respond. The world-wide co-operation of the working class alone can make peaceful progress possible. 

 Only when the satisfaction of our needs and wants are secured will the opportunity arise for the universal cultivation of distinctively human qualities, and where social harmony will be achieved. Personal liberty and initiative are not only not alien to socialism but are an integral part of it. 

Socialism is coming to a place near you

The world is facing profound political and economic crises. Disasters do not usually come out of the blue even if they are described as “acts of God”.  They arise from a capitalist system which seeks profit maximisation at all cost and at the expense of all else because this is what the system requires. The real root causes behind this series of extreme weather events is capitalism as we have witnessed time and time again. Always the end result of this market system of economics is the suffering of communities around the world.  CEOs and the shareholders make the ultimate decisions about how the world will run.  The bottom line always comes down to our current system of capital accumulation and the need for never-ending expansion and growth. Capitalism's effects are insidious and are like cancer. Capitalism is sickening the planet. Our entire economic system is THE problem. Once we identify a disease, we set about determining the cure. We must set about creating a better society for everyone. A necessary step is the building of unified mass struggles at a global level that can truly oppose and respond to the devastation wrought by the capitalist system throughout the world. Our challenge in the Socialist Party is to articulate the various resistances in a single process to replace capitalism. Around the world, we face the same menace and so we should struggle together.  The working class can only emancipate themselves when educated and organised.

The sole aim and object of the Socialist Party is the establishment of socialism, a social revolution and the complete transformation of society. The emancipation of the working class can only mean extinction for the capitalist class who must be deprived of ownership of the means of wealth production. This is the conscious goal of the Socialist Party, because only by that means can the power of the ruling class be broken. The Socialist Party's objective is to strip the capitalist class of the power they wield to-day— to take from that class that which gives them the power to exploit and makes of them a separate and ruling class. Stripped of political power and ownership in the means of wealth production, capitalists and capitalism cease to be, and the working class, having rendered them powerless by capturing the machinery of government, are at once free to organise production and distribution on the basis of common ownership and democratic control.  We deny to the capitalist the right of exploitation, the right to govern, the right to live in idleness and luxury: We deny to capitalists the right of existence. The capitalist class is parasitic, are useless, pernicious, corrupt, brutal and hypocritical. We are convinced that their affluence is the result of robbery, and that the poverty of our own class is due to this robbery. The Socialist Party is, therefore, committed to the task of ending capitalism. The Socialist Party is the implacable enemy of the employing, owning class.  There is no affinity of interests, no compromise, nothing in common that can unite us with that class. We are pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with our comrades and fellow-workers to wage the class war for the utter extinction of capitalism.  The class war is the only war that matters. The Socialist Party, therefore, takes no side in capitalist quarrels but works consistently for the overthrow of capitalism. We do not accept the righteousness of any of the belligerents because the capitalist class of each nation lives by the robbery of his class. Our object is to end the chaos and ruin that afflicts society.

The Socialist Party will neither be deceived nor intimidated. The Socialist Party is intent on exposing every capitalist bait that may tempt the workers, to lay bare the hollowness and the futility of all their reforms, and to reveal the baseness and greed that stimulates all their actions. We shall endeavour to strip away the disguise of so-called workers' friends and “allies” and exposed them as the frauds that they are. 

The capitalist class cannot safeguard the population against hunger and starvation, although the wealth actually produced by the workers would suffice for a population very much larger. Capitalism fails to protect the workers in peace-time from poverty. It has even failed to keep the peace. Its failure is complete a failure for all men and women to see. Yet still the ruling class hope that the working class will continue to leave them in possession of all the means of wealth production ; that abundance may still be theirs ; that the right to exploit shall still belong to them, even though their rule is responsible for a continuous glut of wealth side by side with universal poverty.

To support such a system is a crime against humanity and against your fellow-workers. We have Planet Earth to take back from the thieves who have stolen it from us. In a world socialist society of production for need, all goods and services would be available to all people on the simple basis of free access.  Our choice is not between the dictatorship of the market and the dictatorship of some state-bureaucracy. A free, socialist society without either the market or the state is possible. 

What the Socialist Party is

 The Socialist Party seizes every opportunity for making the working class conscious of socialism as the only ultimate answer to the machinations of global capitalism.  It is our task to drive home the lesson that socialism is the only way to cure the evil effects of capitalism. The Socialist Party stands solidly upon the belief that socialism can only be attained by a working-class invincibly strong through socialist knowledge; all our activities are directed towards the spreading of this knowledge.  Our movement seeks to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.  "What has the Socialist Party done during all its years of its existence?” is the accusation Socialist Party members lecturers frequently meet from Johnny-Come-Latelys and Will O' the Wisps on the Left. The answer is quite a simple one.“The Socialist Party has remained in existence!” 

 Nevertheless, we cannot really blame them their ignorance in decrying the Socialist Party. We, in the Socialist Party, have not joined in any of the many varied popular reform movements which have sprung up. Nor have we compromised our principles in campaigns for a position of power to impose our opinions upon others.

The Socialist Party is simply an organisation for the class-conscious workers agreed as one body for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the consequent emancipation of our fellow-workers from wage-slavery, while knowing and understanding that until our fellow members of the working class desire their own emancipation, the Socialist Party can serve no other purpose than to keep propagating socialism until the consummation of that desire. Thus we work pointing out the appropriate path while the workers chase up and down the side-track of reformism or cul-de-sacs of insurrectionary militancy. For sure, workers will try every road before it finds the right one, and therefore we are convinced eventually they will discover and learn about our case for socialism.

Many revolutionary groups are convinced that any overthrow of capitalism will involve some sort of insurrectionary civil war. This is usually based on the premise that the ruling class will violently oppose any attempts to usurp it and therefore must be defeated militarily. The Socialist Party has a different point of view, based on reason and practicality. Quite frankly, the sheer amount of deadly force in the possession of the entire ruling class, and the willingness to use it will never be matched by any revolutionary movement.  This is evident where than an easily identifiable enemy to engage in battle.  Furthermore those revolutions, no matter how well-intentioned, quickly descend into totalitarianism, themselves. We hold that a successful socialist revolution cannot take place until the majority of the world's population desires it. Only then will the ruling class be at a true disadvantage and the time to act arrive. Socialism will be accomplished by a worldwide referendum - but only when the time is right. 

It's Going ...going...gone

A study has revealed UK oil and gas reserves may only last another decade, with close to just 10 per cent of recoverable oil and gas left. If the predictions are correct, the UK will soon have to import all the oil and gas it needs.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh examined the UK’s likely potential for fracking and carried out a fresh analysis of the country’s oil and gas production. Their findings take into account the long-term downward trends of oil and gas field size and lifespan, alongside the break-even costs for fracking.

They found that the UK only has minimal potential for fracking. They explained that many possible sites are in densely populated areas, have “low quality source rocks” and “complex geological histories.” Scientists say: “Fracking is likely to be too restricted to become an effective industry, which would require thousands of wells.” Analysis of the Earth’s mineral reserves shows that discoveries of oil and gas have consistently lagged behind output since the late 1990s.

It predicts that most of Scotland’s oil and gas shales will be difficult to reach and will “barely correspond to even the poorest US-producing regions”. “All in all, Scottish shales may well have a success factor of zero,” says the study, published in the Edinburgh Geologist by the Edinburgh Geological Society.

Researchers are calling for a move towards greater use of renewable energy sources, including offshore wind and advanced solar energy.