Lothian Socialist Discussion (23/10)

Lothian Socialist Discussion

Wednesday, 25 October 

7:30pm - 9:00pm

Venue: The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, 

17 West Montgomery Place,

 Edinburgh EH7 5HA

The Lothian Socialist Discussion group's name can be shortened to the LSD and you never know, if you attend it might expand as much as the mind might.

Class consciousness has never more needed than now.  Today, mankind's future is under a shadow without precedent. The working people of the world have it in their hands to end poverty, fear, hatred, and war. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers'. Submission is taught, not conceived. To the Edinburgh members of the Socialist Party, class-consciousness is the breaking-down of all barriers to understanding. Without it, militancy means nothing. The conflict between the classes is more than a struggle for each to gain from the other: it is the division which reaches across all others. The class-conscious workers know where they stand in society. Their interests are opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class; their cause can only be the cause of revolution for the abolition of classes. Without that understanding, militancy can mean little. It is not mere preamble that the Socialist Party's principles open by stating the class division in capitalism: it is the all-important basis from which the rest must follow.

Socialist Party members have has seen movements rise and fall, they have heard party slogans fade away, and they have known all manner of panaceas acclaimed and then forgotten.  Incredibly, the gradualists and reformists tell the Socialist Party that we are impractical: impractical when through their denial of the socialist case they have fallen and with them the hopes of millions!

The Socialist Party’s proposition is the only practical one. Class-conscious people need no leaders. The single, simple fact which all working people have to learn is that capitalism causes capitalism's problems so that the remedy – the only remedy – is to abolish capitalism. In that knowledge, they must take hold of the powers of government – for one purpose only: that the rule of class by class shall end. Socialism is not a benevolently-administered capitalism: it is a different social system.

Many disillusioned and now filled with skepticism and cynicism question that their fellow-workers can accomplish that. But who doubts needs only look round him. The wonders and the splendours of modern civilization all are made by the working class. The knowledge, the skill, the vision are theirs. 

Reform is no answer, even though at times – rare times – it benefits working people. The reformer has not even set out to change the world but has agreed that capitalism shall continue, and is merely trying to alleviate its worst effects with palliatives. Was life made more satisfying by the Welfare State, a transitory concession to workers now being dismantled.

Members of the Socialist Party have been intractable in their opposition to reformists. Working class action must be revolutionary. That is the real message we deliver to people. The need for socialism grows more urgent each passing day. It awaits the conscious will of the workers of the world, and nothing more When they desire it, it will be so.  Exploitation and conflict must be ended; the catastrophe of worker killing worker must be prevented.

The struggle for socialism is a long and arduous one, needing the help of every class-conscious man and woman. We urge the need to work for socialism within a structured democratic organisation like Socialist Party. To widen the spread socialist understanding is the great task of our time: every fresh adherent to the Socialist Party is another step towards the emancipation of mankind.

Police State

In the case of Eleanor Jones, twin-sister of Owen Jones, the well-known left-wing journalist, she was stopped from boarding her flight to Berlin where she lives, held by the police, quizzed her about her politics and her familyincluding her brother and questioned about the Hamburg G20 protests, had her belongings confiscated and her phone and computer data taken, which resulted in her missing her flight. No charges were pressed. Because of all of this she had to pay for another flight and now Police Scotland just shrug their shoulders and say tough, we're not paying. 

Eleanor Jones had been in Edinburgh for the funeral of her grandfather.

Police Scotland was legally able to detain and question her in this way under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Individuals who are questioned have no right to silence and it is an offence to wilfully fail to comply with a request made by an officer under this legislation.

Class

Class is still very much the basis of present-day society. In this society, people are divided into those who own the workplaces in the form of capital, the employers or capitalist class, and those who do the work but do not own what they produce, the working class.

As a system of society which predominates throughout the world, capitalism is based on the extraction of surplus value through the wages system. Even if there has been some separation of ownership and control in capitalist enterprises, this does not affect the inherent class antagonism between those who own and those who produce. Ultimately, those who benefit are still those who don't need to work because they enjoy an unearned income derived from the exploitation of those who do.

There are three things that you must know before you can become class-conscious. First, you must know what constitutes a class; secondly, you must know to which class you belong, and thirdly, you must know what are your class interests. Having acquired that amount of knowledge you can claim to be a fully fledged class-conscious member of society A Socialist Party member is simply the worker who has become class-conscious, and who organises with his or her fellow-workers who are like-minded. Elements of class-consciousness are present in the minds of large numbers of workers who although still unclear. There are vague sentiments of solidarity with the “poor" against the "rich," and feelings of injustice. Labour "leaders" try to capture and direct this discontent to their own ends. The function of the class-conscious Socialist Party member is to fertilise the discontent of fellow workers with knowledge, which alone has the power to make the capitalist class tremble.

Workers still tend to differentiate themselves by occupation, by slight differences in dress, or accent or education, unable to recognise themselves sharing that the working-class identity because they have not thoroughly grasped the common economic bondage of all who have to sell their energies for bread, that unemployed labourer, the blue-collared skilled  worker or white-collared office worker are alike under the necessity to beg for a job from a master.  People talk about lower classes, upper classes and middle classes. They even talk about upper middle and lower middle classes and of the working classes. These social divisions are income groups, not classes. A person’s class is not determined by the amount of money that he can get hold of, but by the manner in which he gets it. There is no limit to the number of groups that can be included in these income classifications. Every income variation of a few coppers could qualify for a new group, which, of course, accounts for such foolish phrases as. “ the working classes,” as though there are a number of them.

 The employer is anxious to impress upon his staff that they have a common interest in the success of the business and the running of the nation. This “community of interests" lasts only so long as the workers are content to accept the economic status of wage-slaves, and to maintain the master class in their privileged position as owners of the means of living. It's the natural conviction of a dominant ruling class that existing conditions are the best in contrast with the discontent of a subject class. Workers are forced to question the benevolence of the existing order, and the need for its continuance, by the pressure of unrelieved want and anxiety which the defenders of capitalism can neither remedy nor explain.

Capitalists are wealthy and workers are poor, but wealth, or lack of it, does not make capitalist and worker. It is the source of their wealth or the cause of their poverty that places men in one or other of these social classes. A worker has nothing else but his or her ability to work and they sell that in order to get the necessities of life. They constitute a class—the working class.

The workers are not yet organised on the basis of their class; they have a very imperfect knowledge of their position, and their political activity is restricted to supporting different groups of leaders. The steady deterioration of their conditions of life is ample evidence of the futility of this policy, and clear proof of the need for socialist knowledge, organisation and action. The Socialist Party exists for the purpose of replacing that weakness with strength; it seeks to substitute knowledge for ignorance, organisation for chaos, a steady class advance for a sectional rout.

The profit-grinding system is maintained by competition, or veiled war, not only between the conflicting classes, but also within the classes themselves: there is always war among the workers for bare subsistence, and among their masters, the employers and middle-men, for the share of the profit wrung out of the workers; lastly, there is competition always, and sometimes open war, among the nations of the civilised world for their share of the world-market. For now, indeed, all the rivalries of nations have been reduced to this one - a degraded struggle for their share of the spoils of barbarous countries to be used at home for the purpose of increasing the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor.

So long as the wages and profits system lasts no section of the workers can afford to abandon the strike, but it is equally true that the strike holds out no possibility of solving the problem of working-class servitude. 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.

The Socialist Party seeks a change in the basis of Society - a change which would end the distinctions of classes and nationalities. In every capitalist country, there are organisations that call themselves Socialist and claim to stand for the interests of the working class, while their activity consists in misrepresenting Socialist teachings, distorting Marxism, and generally seeking to keep the workers’ attention focussed on any or everything but their real interest, the attainment of Socialism. The Labour Party in England is an example. The Socialist Party declares that the emancipation of the working class 'must be the work of the working class itself.'

Freed from the restrictions of profit-making, modern productive techniques could provide the abundance that would allow a socialist world community to introduce free access, according to need so that no man, woman or child anywhere on the planet need to go without adequate food, clothing, shelter, healthcare or education. What does it take to produce all of the things we need in order to live? Human labour applied to nature given raw materials. Money enters the equation only because the means to life are owned by a privileged minority - the capitalist class. Think of a different world. One in which the means of production, indeed all of the world's resources are owned in common, and democratically controlled, by all of its people. Where, therefore, goods and services are produced solely to be used and not for sale and profit: money no longer has any role to play. Where for example food is grown and processed simply because we need to eat, and everyone has free access according to need - so no one goes hungry! In this different world just imagine how human affairs will be organised and the possibilities for everyday life.

The Socialist Party is not suggesting that we should do away with money and revert to barter? Both money and barter are forms of exchange. Exchange is only possible when there is private property. In a society in which all wealth is owned in common, there will be no property to exchange and there will, therefore, be no need for money or barter. When you get dressed in the morning you do not sell your clothes to yourself, nor do you barter them for some other possession, for you cannot exchange that which is already yours. In socialist society, there will be free access to all social wealth because men and women will commonly own the means of production and distribution.  As long as there is enough wealth to provide for everyone (and the potentiality already exists), people in socialist society will take freely to satisfy their self-determined needs. There will be no need to take more than you want because tomorrow you will be able to go back and take more. Socialism will not come into being without conscious socialists and such people will appreciate the importance of reasonable co-operation. If for example, there is a shortage of a particular resource in socialism, they will have to co-operatively and democratically ration that which is available. The so-called greedy person is an invention of capitalist anthropology: a worker is said to be greedy if he or she wants more than his or her wage packet can buy.

The world is abundant in resources, yet poverty is the lot of the majority. The buying and selling system, based on production for profit, is economically inefficient from the point of view of those who produce the wealth. Socialism means free access to all wealth and production solely for need. This will mean that in a socialist society bread will be produced simply so that people may eat it, and not for sale on the market with a view to profit. In a society which can land men on the moon and fire missiles across the face of the earth to within inches of a target, the technology certainly exists to do away with much of the unpleasant labour of society. Instead of research into more and more sophisticated killing machines socialism will devote resources to improving productive efficiency from the point of view of both the wealth producer and the wealth consumer. Work in socialism will be based on voluntary co-operation and not the coercion of the wages system. The division between work (enforced drudgery) and leisure (when your time is your own) will be ended by socialism.

To expect "fairness" from an inherently unequal economic system is a form of utopianism which has diverted the working class movement for far too long. Under capitalism, wealth ownership is concentrated into the hands of a small minority of the world's population. These are the people who have plenty of money. Most people can only obtain money by selling their mental and physical energies to an employer for a price called a wage or salary. You will never get rich by working for money. The only way for the working class to get rich is by getting rid of the money system.

Desperate for change

People’s thinking is controlled today is by confusing them and creating muddled and disordered double-speak, illogical reporting filled with “fake news” in a merry-go-round of conflicting reports.  So is it surprising that the world appears astoundingly incoherent, totally absurd, and completely irrational for reasons we can’t seem to comprehend? The mainstream media do this daily, reducing the average person seeking to stay informed to bewilderment over world events. One is left one baffled, devoid of any sense of truth.

 Bill Clinton’s misinformation led to the air onslaught against Serbia in 1999. In 2003, Bush blatantly deceived in order to wage a barbaric war against Iraq. Later Obama and Hilarity Clinton misled the world and launched air strikes against Gaddafi's Libya.  And political parties exist to delude.

The Labour Party and the Tory Party fight for political office and in order to get votes both make promises of better times to come, though both sides know full well that whichever government is elected, the future holds in store nothing but a continuation, if not a worsening, of present hardships. What the working class of Britain and of the whole world need is the abolition of capitalism and the creation of socialism. They need it but do not yet understand their need. We are therefore faced with the tragedy that millions of workers listen to and accept the willful lies of their political leaders. For those workers who in the past have voted for the Labour Party in the mistaken belief that it was in some way moving towards a new form of society, it is tragic indeed, for the leaders of the Labour Party have now ceased to have faith in anything except the cynical belief that they do the day-to-day job of running capitalism no worse than the Conservatives. In the past, the Labour leaders believed in state capitalism (or nationalisation,) but now this has proved to be so unpopular with the workers that the leaders are soliciting votes by letting it be known that there are to be no new nationalisation schemes in the future. Among bread-and-butter questions, they laid great emphasis on being able to raise wages and reduce the cost of living, but the steady rise of prices and the lagging behind of wages during the past few years has reduced them to the Tories are juggling with the facts to deceive the electors. There is little to choose between Labour Government and Tory Government, but unlike them, we have a message of hope and action to give to the working class. In their own interests, the working class should choose neither Labour nor Tory. Labourism has failed as Toryism failed. The urgent need of the working class is to establish socialism. A Corbyn Labour Government will not escape the economic crises and war preparations thrust on it by capitalism and in spite of all its efforts to make life less burdensome it will not make capitalism palatable. So end all attempts to operate capitalism “in a different way." It will be predoomed to failure.

There is an aspect of vastly greater importance for the working class than the internal bickerings of the Labour Party. This is the question of what it is that has failed. It is Labourism that has failed, not socialism. The Labour Party never at any time in its history aimed at or tried to introduce socialism. Labourism aimed to carry on Great Britain as a capitalist unit in a capitalist world; seeking only to modify its social evils at home and its predatory nature in the international sphere. Of course, it had to fail. Socialism is an international conception which will involve the end of capitalist production and distribution for profit, the end of the wage-system and price system and of the international conflict over markets and raw materials. Socialism is not concerned with turning private capitalism into state capitalism. Socialism requires the conversion of the means of production and distribution from private ownership to common ownership and democratic control by the whole of society, with resulting abolition of property incomes and the carrying on of production solely for use. Socialism has not failed because it has never been tried here or in any other country.

Capitalist production is concerned with the realisation of a profit, not the satisfaction of human needs. No profit — no production, is the criterion, though millions of people are ill clad, ill housed and hungry. This is something we have said many times. There would then be harmony of interests and full cooperation between people everywhere, for the sole criterion of production would be the satisfaction of human needs. Society would apply this acid test when considering productive resources, whether these were fields, factories, or gas and oil plants.

The Socialist Party does not condemn the workers' attempts to defend their standard of living. On the contrary, we unreservedly support the use of trades and industrial action to defend or improve standards of living (without, however, supporting tr advocating strikes on all occasions, irrespective of whether the time and circumstances are well chosen).

What we wholly condemn is “reformism," that is, the Labour Party policy of building up a political party on a programme of reforms, and gaining seats in Parliament on such a programme. We say that the only party which can be of service to the socialist movement is a party built upon the principles of socialism and nothing else, a party composed only of socialists.

Our Planet's Pollution

Pollution kills more people each year than wars, disasters and hunger, also causing huge economic damage, a study says. 

Almost half the total deaths occur in just two countries.

One in every six of the 9 million premature deaths worldwide in 2015 could be attributed to diseases caused by toxins in air or water, the study says. It says air pollution was the main cause of deaths, responsible for 6.5 million of the fatalities, followed by water pollution, which killed 1.8 million.

The estimate of 9 million premature deaths, considered conservative by the authors, is one and a half times higher than the number of people killed by smoking, and three times the death toll from AIDS, turberculosis and malaria combined. It is also 15 times the number of people killed in war or other forms of violence.

Ninety-two percent of pollution-related deaths occurred in low- or middle-income developing countries, with India topping the list at 2.5 million, followed by China at 1.8 million.

The Lancet editors Pamela Das and Richard Horton said the report came at a "worrisome time, when the US government's Environmental Protection Agency, headed by Scott Pruitt, is undermining established environmental regulations." Pruitt announced this month that the US, a major producer of air pollution and greenhouse gases, would be pulling out of former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan. The plan, which aimed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production, was expected by the EPA to also reduce smog and soot in the air by 25 percent and thus avoid thousands of premature deaths through asthma and other lung conditions.

Scotland's money laundering SLPs

UK companies using an obscure Scottish business structure are at the centre of a multibillion-dollar operation to funnel cash out of Azerbaijan, an investigation by the Guardian has found. Some of the billions moved through the letter-box companies were used to pay for legitimate lobbying work for Azerbaijan, luxury goods and the medical expenses of the Azerbaijani political elite. The Scottish companies have also been linked to a corruption scandal involving the alleged bribery of a member of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe.

Scottish limited partnerships (SLPs), structures originally established in the early 1900s for farm holdings, acted as shell companies to channel $2.9bn (£2.2bn) from Azerbaijan into the UK where it was used to buy luxury goods and peddle political influence throughout Europe. The money was moved through the Glasgow-based companies Hilux Services LP and Polux Management LP via an Estonian branch of Danske Bank between 2012 and 2014. The companies benefited from loose national disclosure laws that allowed firms to hide the identity of their owners while enjoying the benefits of being a UK-registered company. The two companies at the heart of the Azerbaijani money-laundering scheme, Hilux and Polux, were registered to a Mail Boxes Etc shop in Glasgow. The only trace of who may have controlled the laundering vehicles leads to the British Virgin Islands – another secrecy jurisdiction, where the registered partners are Solberg Business Limited and Akron Resources Corp.

The companies are among thousands of Scottish limited partnerships set up in the past decade. 

“One of the real attractions for serious money, however it has been obtained, is finding a jurisdiction where the rule of law is predictable,” said L Burke Files, an international financial investigator. When it comes to jurisdiction, would you prefer to use a company in Scotland, under Scottish law, or some place like Burkina Faso or Algeria where the judges go to the highest bidder? The SLP structure and how it was crafted into law also provides for an element of privacy,” said Files.

The number of SLPs increased rapidly following a tightening of the law elsewhere in the UK in 2006. The restriction prohibited private and limited companies from setting themselves up without a named individual as a director. However the change did not extend to SLPs and as a result it is still possible to register a company only disclosing corporate partners in an offshore jurisdiction. The surge in the number of SLPs resulted in four times as many companies being created since 2006 as were established in the previous century. The majority of the companies formed in the past decade are registered to a handful of locations, with thousands of SLPs at the same mailbox addresses. Of the new companies set up between 2006 and 2017, 70% are registered to just 10 addresses in Scotland, a report by Transparency International and Bellingcat found. More than 800 SLPs are registered to the mailbox address in central Glasgow that Hilux Services and Polux Management listed as their business address. The structures have also played a role in other UK-linked money-laundering schemes.

Following new anti-money-laundering legislation all SLPs were required to register people with significant control by 7 August. However, a review of the disclosures filed after the deadline shows the vast majority of partnerships have not yet disclosed who controls the company, while more than half the partnerships who have filed statements stated that they did not know who controlled the company or were taking steps to find out.

“The initial responses really back up our suspicions about how many of these entities set up recently are being used,” said Hames. “Of those who have declared their beneficial ownership, an analysis by Bellingcat showed that there are as many based in the UK as there are in Russia and Ukraine. Even the most recent information to come to light confirms the appetite for using this corporate vehicle in some high risk jurisdictions,” he added.

Anti-money-laundering legislation was rushed through parliament in June to bring disclosure of the ownership of SLPs into line with EU law. However, there are still concerns the companies could be used as money-laundering vehicles.

“At the moment the combination of corporate partners, minimum filing requirements, and separate legal personality make the Scottish limited partnership particularly attractive to those looking to use it as one of the layers in a money-laundering scheme,” said Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/the-scottish-firms-that-let-money-flow-from-azerbaijan-to-the-uk

No more smacking children

Smacking children is to be banned in Scotland, the Scottish government has confirmed.

The move would make the country the first part of the UK to outlaw the physical punishment of children. At present, parents in Scotland can claim a defence of "justifiable assault" when punishing their child - although the use of an "implement" in any punishment is banned, as is shaking or striking a child on the head. Mr Finnie, a former policeman, tabled a members' bill at Holyrood calling for the "justifiable assault" defence to be scrapped and for children to be given "equal protection from assault".

The physical punishment of children is already illegal in 52 countries.

Banning smacking has been backed by the UN, academics and charities, while the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and Scottish Borders Council have supported Mr Finnie's bill.

Childrens' charity NSPCC Scotland said the move was a "welcome step on the road towards fairness and equality for children", saying a change in the law would be "a common sense move".

Star Gazing

 In Victoria Derbyshire's program on channel two October 17^th her guests were Professor Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince.  Professor Brian Cox was discussing how two black holes merge together and create gravitational waves which can be registered here on Earth and seems to answer the question of how gold is created as the method of producing gold was a bit of a mystery until the idea of two stars banging together made them realise this could just be how gold was created.

Groups of young students asking questions ensued and one was "How are the poor people going to earn a living when those robots do more and more of the work?"

Professor Cox said it was a good question and at a recent conference they thought the answer to be the generation of new machines and new industries faster than industries failing.

Robin Ince was more aware what was being ignored (the elephant in the room) He jumped in with the need to think more about people and human relationships than profit. "These things will have to be considered"

Professor Cox must think more about how capitalism works back here on earth.  Workers are paid a wage based on what it takes to produce his skills and maintain his replacements. New industries have been appearing (Television, Satellites, Computers etc.) Production has doubled since the end of the war. Poverty is widespread. On the same program Homelessness (only being one of the problems) was being highlighted. The question asked was " how are the poor people going to earn a living when those robots  do more of the work"

The answer is the working class must get rid of the profit system by replacing capitalism with a system of common ownership of the means of production. We call it socialism. A moneyless society, where people own planet earth in common.

Stargazing and moving to new planets are not the most important things to be attended too.

egoutture

Fight for Socialism

Make up your mind to which class you belong. If you are of the working class, then get off your knees, stand up and be a real man or woman and fight to achieve a society that can offer you a life worth living. You have been a tame and docile wage worker long enough, voting for political quacks who have led you up every garden path they can find. On the political field, you will find many parties which aim to make all sorts of alterations to the present social system, but which will show their venom when anyone suggests abolishing it. Yet that is where your interests lie, not in struggling to crawl out of your class into the capitalist class, which is well nigh impossible, but in striving to end a class system of society altogether.

Capitalism, the present social order, brings into being a working class, the members of which must sell their mental and physical energies to the class owning the land, factories and other means of wealth production. Their dependence upon the price (or wages) they receive for these energies (or labour power) places them in a position of continuous bondage to the capitalist class. This is the social system that made slaves of both men and women to-day. Only when the establishment of socialism rids the world of classes and the wages system will the economic and social emancipation of all become a reality. The conquest of governmental power is useless and pernicious unless there is behind it and controlling it a socialist working class, consciously organised for the one worthwhile aim, that of establishing socialism.

How can production be so increased that a world of plenty is created? The barrier is the capitalist system and it is also obvious that the war-machine created by all the countries of the world is one of the major drains on resources. Millions of men are in the armed forces of the world, millions more are producing armaments. Only socialism, which would make war superfluous, can stop this terrific waste of manpower and materials. How much of the work which we do to-day is essential in order to produce the things we need? How much of it which although necessary under capitalism would be unnecessary under Socialism? The vast army of civil servants needed by the State, the huge number of office-staff engaged in keeping records of the financial transactions of capitalism plus a hundred and one other different occupations which although necessary under capitalism would not be required if goods were produced for use instead of for profit. Modern methods of production, plus the gigantic increase of manpower available for production, could turn out goods in such quantity so as to provide plenty for all. Unfortunately, at the present time, only the socialists see the endless possibilities of potential abundances. If only all the wonders of new technologies could be put into operation for the service of mankind and not for the purpose of profit making for the owners of industry, what bountiful changes could be made in the world? Not only could all people have more of the wealth that they produce but the hours spent in its production could be so much shortened. Not only could the tasks be so much easier but the conditions under which they are performed could be made enjoyable. There need be no “dirty work," much less occupational illnesses, and so much more time for leisure to enjoy the arts, amusements, and entertainments.

Many will ponder why, when there is such technology as robotics and automation available, that people in huge areas of the world still use primitive tools and transport; why, when wealth can be produced so plentifully, that so many people are in need of the absolute necessities of life; why, when there is so much labour-saving machinery, that multitudes of people are overworked. There are a number of reasons why new inventions do not get taken up and utilised immediately they are made. One reason, probably the most effective, is that a new inventionS will cut across the interests of existing capitalist companies. We can remember the opposition that the turnpike and stagecoach companies put up against the early railways. The whale-oil companies fought against the use of gas for lighting, and later the gas companies fought against the use of electric light. The telegraph companies put up bitter opposition to the telephone. All these instances are of opposition that may have delayed the application of new inventions but failed to prevent it. There must be many, many cases where the opposition was successful and we have never heard of the invention at all. Other aspects that retard development is the difficulty of finding a profitable market for goods that are in plentiful supply. Fear of overproduction with the consequent shattering of price levels. Also with wages at low levels, it is often cheaper to use a number of manual workers to do a task than to install expensive machinery that will displace them. All this adds up to the fact that the existing system of production is now a fetter on social progress.

If the full force of the benefits of new technology is to accrue to mankind, then the capitalist mode of production must be abolished. The production of goods for a market in order to make a profit must end. It is clogging the wheels of social progress, it is causing suffering and misery, poverty and unhappiness, ill-health and insecurity, all of which can end when the workers take the means of production from the existing owners and use them for the common good.

Inverness and Universal Credit

Inverness is more than a year ahead in trialling the system. People who were never in debt before have been catapulted into crisis. People expressed bemusement at their situation, stressing that they had never previously been in rent arrears or in debt, and voicing confusion over how their situation had rapidly sped towards crisis. Alasdair Christie, manager of Inverness Citizens Advice, said his colleagues were under pressure, working beyond contracted hours, to help sort out universal credit problems.  "People come in crying, in despair, with no hope of how to remedy the situation. The biggest issue is the length of time that people wait to get their first payment, which is causing huge pressure on families, pushing people to food banks, having a detrimental effect on people’s mental health,” he said. “We’ve seen problems escalate at each point of the rollout – the unfairness, the complexities, the delays. In terms of a benefit system, it is worse than your worst nightmares.”

"It is a disaster,” the area’s SNP MP, Drew Hendry, said. More than 60% of his caseload is connected to universal credit. 

Partly the problems are caused by an in-built six-week delay to all new payments, which pushes many families instantly into arrears. Partly they are the result of anomalies within the system. “We see short payments, missed payments, lost paperwork, incredibly poor communication between the DWP and the jobcentre, whose staff are not allowed in many cases to speak to the person within the DWP to find a solution,” he said. “It is a chaotic system, beyond inefficient. Every day we see a different situation where someone is being put under unacceptable pressure. " Hendry is angry at the government’s refusal to listen to the mounting list problems he has reported. “We have given evidence for three years about the problems we’re seeing, and they have not reacted. The system is meant to support people who are vulnerable, but the ones who are being devastated by it are the ones who can least cope.“Simplifying the benefit system is the right thing to do. But it’s worthless if the new system is so complex and heartless that it doesn’t achieve any of the objectives.”

For many of Inverness’s universal credit guinea pigs, the past year has been exceptionally stressful. The many glitches of a malfunctioning scheme have already caused widespread misery in this city, which has been trialling various forms of universal credit since 2013. 

Highland council has 1,521 tenants receiving universal credit, 80% of whom are in arrears, amounting to around £1m; the council has said it is worried that the growing debt will reduce the services it is able to provide. With the system being rolled out in 54 more jobcentres nationally this month, concern is mounting in areas next in line.

Mhairi Thomson, a 35-year-old care worker who faced eviction from her home of 16 years, are typical. She claimed universal credit last September just before she got married; her fiance was moving into the house she shared with her 15-year-old daughter – forcing a reassessment of her benefit eligibility and shifting her on to the new system. For reasons that remain unclear, the benefit was not paid for five months, leaving her unable to pay her rent, struggling to buy food for her family and often without £2.50 dinner money to give her daughter, who was studying for her exams. Crucially, with no money to pay her phone bill she lost access to her landline and her internet connection, which left her unable to query the absence of payments because the benefit is designed to claimed online. Without her landline, she had to use her mobile to call the helpline at considerable cost, because delays on the line ate up all the free minutes on her pay-as-you-go mobile package, pushing her on to a 30p-a-minute rate. The speed with which problems spiral into household catastrophes is one of the most striking features of the new benefit system. “After a while I couldn’t afford to make the calls; it was costing an absolute fortune,” Thomson said. She spent many hours standing in the doorway of Asda, using the supermarket’s free wifi, following the online complaints procedure to try to get the payments restarted. She raised 26 queries in her online journal – which sits at the heart of the new system, and is designed to simplify communication between claimant and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); none were answered. The journal told her the money had been paid but her bank account showed it had not. When the housing association rang to tell her she was nearly £1,000 in arrears and faced eviction, she felt close to nervous breakdown.  Thomson’s experiences are neither unique nor particularly extreme.

Thomson has always worked, and has never previously been in debt, but without benefits coming in (to supplement the low wages associated with the essential work done by care workers), she was unable to buy petrol and car insurance, and on the point of losing the car, which would have meant losing her job. Soon after Christmas (which the family could not afford to celebrate) she was referred to a food bank, but was too embarrassed to go.

Advertisement

“We went days without eating properly; we’d just have a bit of toast. My daughter was going to school with no breakfast, and no lunch. It makes me feel so bad to think about it,” she said. When Thomson told someone from the council about her difficulties, it sent a woman from the welfare department to talk about better budgeting – which she found a peculiar response. “There was nothing left to budget.” The family only got by because Thomson’s sister and mother-in-law helped out with food, and her neighbour let her use the landline to try to contact the DWP. Finally, her husband, an former soldier who served in Iraq, was advised by a veteran’s charity to go to Hendry’s office, where staff helped Thomson to stave off eviction. Some back payments have been made, and an army charity contributed to paying off some of her arrears, but she remains in debt and shattered by the experience.

Leslie Ross, 51, said he had not received any payments since 16 August and that he was surviving on food bank vouchers. He opened his fridge, to show milk, but no food; in his store cupboard he had four donated tins of soup, two tins of custard and some rice pudding. There were a couple of frozen bread rolls in the freezer.

“It has been unreal. Have you ever tried to go to sleep at night when you’re hungry? I don’t eat most days until six,” he said. He too has found his situation complicated by losing his internet connection (owing to non-payment of bills) just at the time he needed it most to query why money was not being paid.

Because the six-week delay for his first payment last year pushed him into rent arrears of around £900, he is paying back £63.56 a month out of minimum benefits allowances, which for the past two months have not been paid. Ross had always worked – a lifeguard, a job at Tesco, a car mechanic, a swimming teacher – until a breakdown in September last year. He has found the experience of trying to claim the new benefit overwhelming, not least because payment accuracy has been erratic. He has a long list of belongings he has sold to keep going – his bike, his fishing equipment, his camera. “I’m on antidepressants because of this. You do start to give up on yourself a bit. Things take a spiral downwards.”

Richard Stokes, 48, a former care worker, is not working because of a breakdown he says was caused in part by the problems he had with claiming universal credit to supplement his income last year. Stokes said a systems error made the universal credit computer believe he was getting double his actual monthly earnings of £500, because two payments came in during one universal credit calendar month, triggering the suspension of his benefits. On another occasion, the universal credit records said he had been paid £382, a sum that never appeared in his bank account. The disparity has never been explained, he said. He too found himself hugely in arrears for the first time; his mother had to step in to pay some of it off, but some of the debt remains.

For some Inverness claimants the problems have been with poor wifi signals in the more remote parts of the pilot area. In places where the signal is weak, claimants can find themselves halfway through filling in a form before losing their data because of a dropped connection.

Ailsa Young, a cook, was dismayed that so much had to be done on smartphones or a laptop – since she has neither. “I wasn’t computer literate and I don’t want a smartphone. I struggled with it,” she said. She was frustrated at the long waits when she telephoned, and angry at the cost. “When people are struggling financially, surely they should be entitled to a free call to find out why the money hasn’t come through.” She too got into rent arrears – for the first time – because of the six-week delay for payments, and visited a food bank – for the first time – when she was in that period with no money. “I’d never been in a situation where I had nothing to eat,” she said. Back in work now, she has paid off the arrears; she describes the experience as “very depressing”.

Jennifer Soley from the local Albyn Housing Society said many other tenants were in similar situations, a large proportion of whom were in work. About 65% of universal-credit-claiming tenants are in arrears, with average debts of just over £700, compared with just 20% of the rest of their residents. “The thing that disturbs me most is that this isn’t one or two people who are complaining. This is hundreds and hundreds of people.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/17/we-went-days-without-eating-properly-universal-credit-misery-inverness

Thinking Revolution

The only way to take on social problems and climate change is to build a mass socialist movement of people. The world’s governments are captured by the interests of multi-national corporations, so we need movements of people who can challenge the dominant economic system and push for change. We must come together across communities, countries, and continents. We can take the initiative and build a global movement of people. We need to mobilise to overcome capitalist power and truly start to change the economic system that is destroying our lives and our planet. Some conceive of socialism as nothing more than government legislation or state-ownership of the economy but those don't guarantee that society's resources will be used to the benefit of the people of the world. State capitalism plays a massive role in defending the status quo and is meaningless because people who produce all the wealth don't have any control over the fruits of their labour.

For socialism to be worthy of a movement to fight for it, it must offer something more than holding up the Scandinavian countries as a model. It has to be based on the proposition of mass democratic participation of working people in managing the day-to-day affairs of the economy and society. As Marx and Engels put, socialism must be "the self-emancipation of the working class" -- the mass participation of the majority of society in organizing to take economic and political power away from the ruling class and to construct a revolutionary post-capitalist society that extends into every corner of social life. This power of the working class to run society in its own interests must be at the heart of the world socialist movement.

 Anti-capitalism needs a political party. The only form of organisation which can take political power is a political party because only a party based on individual conscious voluntary membership, where every member knows the aim and understands it, can operate in a united fashion for it. The actual work of parliamentary activity will build a socialist membership in the localities which will dispel confusion by debating the mistaken views of reformers. Socialists must use electoral politics, despite the fully expected powerful counterattacks from the bourgeois parties. The political power of capital must be broken.  If not, the capitalist class will find ways to undermine the rising socialist movement. Capitalism must be confronted and abolished completely, or it will come back more destructive and chaotic than ever.

The Socialist Party has no connection with any other left-wing group, including the Labour Party or the various Communist, Trotskyist and Maoist parties of any description. We are an organisation completely independent, and in favour, as always, of a fundamental social change from capitalism to socialism by which we mean a worldwide system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution, obtained by a politically enlightened majority using the franchise where it exists to be used. The working class must get socialist knowledge, they must resist apathy and challenge the status quo. We must make achieving socialism as our priority. The Socialist Party is optimistic about the future, and we are optimistic that the working class will achieve this urgent and necessary social change. The socialist movement cannot merely re-iterate a series of abstractions parrot-fashion and wait for the workers to eventually accept them. It is imperative that there exists a socialist political party to capture political power.

Capitalism has made it possible to meet all of the world's needs, but control over capitalism's output remains in the hands of a tiny minority for their own profit and gain. By placing the means of production under the common ownership and democratic control of the workers who make the wheels turn, socialism offers a way to use society's resources to meet human need. By placing the community and the workers at the centre of industrial democracy society's decisions can be raised to the highest level.

Why are the poor poor?

The Guardian carries an interesting piece of information 

.A Eurobarometer report in 2010 examined attitudes to poverty in the European Union. The most popular explanation among Europeans (47%) for why people live in poverty was injustice in society.

But the other half of respondents opted for some other cause:

16% said people live in poverty because of laziness and lack of willpower, 16% saw poverty as an inevitable part of progress,

13% said people live in poverty because they have been unlucky. 

The article quotes George Bernard Shaw who saw the cure for poverty is an adequate income. “The crying need of the nation,” he wrote, “is not for better morals, cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen sisters and erring brothers, nor the grace, love and fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough money. And the evil to be attacked is not sin, suffering, greed, priestcraft, kingcraft, demagogy, monopoly, ignorance, drink, war, pestilence, nor any other of the scapegoats which reformers sacrifice, but simply poverty.” The solution he proposed was what he called a “universal pension for life”, or what we now call a universal basic income.

The Socialist Party disagrees. The correct answer to the question, "Why are the poor poor?" is that they are poor because the means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by the capitalist class instead of by the whole community, and consequently so is the wealth produced by the workers. The Socialist Party says that the cause of poverty and of all the evils which arise from it lies in the fact that all the means whereby you live are owned and controlled by a section of society. These people not only own the factories, offices, shops, etc. but, by virtue of this fact, own your very lives. You are slaves.  You are allowed, not to live, but merely to exist as profit-making machines. You are poor because you are robbed. You are robbed because you are slaves—hired slaves or wage slaves. You are slaves because you own nothing but your power to labour, and must, therefore, hire your labour-power to those who own the means of livelihood. These are the masters. Owning your means of life, they can lay down the terms upon which they will hire you. Their terms are, that in return for the hire of your labour-power they will give a sufficient sum to enable you to support life and reproduce your kind. This sum is called wages, and the system based upon wage labour is called capitalism.

There is no need for anyone to be poor. There is no need for anyone to be robbed. There is no need for slavery in any form.  The remedy is to dispossess that class of its ownership. The workers must revolt and it must be a conscious, intelligent revolt aimed, not at some little easing of their servitude. They must, by means of their votes, capture Parliament and proceed to reconstruct society. Instead of the product of the nation’s toil being divided among the handful of immensely rich who own the means of wealth-making, each member of the community would receive according to his or her need. The colossal waste of capitalist society; its competition; its advertising; its over-production; its under-employment; its war industry; its production of shoddy goods, and so forth, would be eliminated.

Freezing to death

More people die in the cold winter months than in the other seasons.

In Scotland, new figures show an increase in the number of winter deaths of 421 on the previous year. There were 20,930 deaths registered in the period December 2016 to March 2017, the latest figures showed, up from 20,509 the previous year.

The “seasonal difference” for winter 2016/17 was 2,720. Seasonal difference is calculated by comparing the number of deaths in the four winter months with the average for the two adjacent four-month periods, the 2016/17 seasonal difference of 2,720 was slightly lower than the corresponding figure of 2,850 for winter 2015/16.   Overall, the seasonal increase of 2,720 in winter 2016/17 was smaller than in most of the 65 previous winters, but it was still above the level seen in five of the previous ten winters.

Very few deaths were caused by hypothermia. The underlying causes of most of the ‘additional’ deaths are circulatory system diseases (such as coronary heart disease), respiratory system diseases (such as pneumonia), dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other degenerative nervous system diseases. In only a small proportion of deaths is influenza recorded as the underlying cause.

Profit rules over safety

HSE press release below, fails to mention that both companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of construction giant Laing o'Rourke - a multi-national that has admitted its guilt in blacklisting union safety reps.

 Two companies fined following death of worker at Worksop site
 A manufacturer of large concrete panels and a plant hire company were sentenced following the death of a worker at a factory in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

 Nottingham Crown Court heard that on 8 July 2014 Richard Reddish, who was employed by Explore Manufacturing Ltd at its site on Explore Way, was working in the finishing area. He was working in a mobile elevating working platform (MEWP) removing the lifting attachments from the top of a concrete panel, which weighed about 11 tonnes and was stored on a transport pallet.

 The accident took place when the panel started to topple, while he was standing in the raised MEWP basket. This first panel struck the MEWP throwing him from the basket. It also caused a number of other concrete panels to topple, one of which fell onto him.

 The transport pallets were supplied by Select Plant Hire Company Ltd who shared responsibility for their maintenance with Explore Manufacturing Ltd. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirmed that the frame used to secure the panel was not properly connected to the pallet, as a locking pin had not been correctly reinserted after the frame had previously been replaced, and there was no system of pre-use checks. The pallets were in a poor condition, with defects including missing support bearers and stabilising legs. Other failures included the storage of large freestanding concrete panels in the finishing area, which should have been secured in storage racks, and a lack of sufficient planning. The investigation also identified concerns with the wider systems for the storage of concrete panels at the site.

 Explore Manufacturing Limited, of Bridge Place, Anchor Boulevard, Admirals Park Crossways, Dartford, Kent DA2 6SN, pleaded guilty to the charge of breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety At Work Etc Act 1974 in that they failed to ensure so far as reasonably practicable the health, safety and welfare of its employees during the transportation and storage of the pre-cast concrete panels.

 Select Plant Hire Company Limited, of the same address, pleaded guilty to the charge of breaching Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974 in that the company failed to properly maintain the transport pallets in operation at the Explore facility and thereby exposed the Explore employees to risks to their health and safety.

 Explore Manufacturing Limited was fined £2million and ordered to pay costs of £13,922 while Select Plant Hire Company Ltd were fined £1.8million and ordered to pay costs of £13,922.
Speaking after the hearing Stuart Pilkington, HSE Inspector, said “This tragic incident led to the avoidable death of a young man, whose death could easily have been prevented if the companies had acted following previous warnings to identify and manage the risks involved, maintain the equipment, and put a safe system of work in place.”