Socialism is the Alternative to Capitalism

The aim of the Socialist Party is the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class and its replacement with socialism. Every political party defends the interest of one class or another in society. The Socialist Party defends the interests of the working class, and works to prepare its victory over the capitalists. Our Party’s role is to educate, organise and agitate the working class. The primary task of the Socialist Party is the political education of the working class. Through our campaigns, we explain the true nature of the system that oppresses workers and the need for socialist revolution. Our Party bases itself firmly on the theory of Marxism and the worldview of historical materialism. Marxism shows how the working class is exploited by the capitalist class; why capitalism must be overthrown and replaced by socialism. Our Party struggles firmly against all distortions of Marxism. The Socialist Party is the only one to represent the interest of the working class. It is the party that defends the cause of all the working people.

A handful of capitalists make vast profits on the labour of the working people. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farms, fisheries, and mines are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites live off the backs of the workers and could not care less about their situation. Every bit of the capitalists' vast wealth was stolen from the working people. The capitalists get rich from the fruit of our labour. At the end of the week/month, a worker collects their pay. The capitalists and their apologetic flunkeys claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, workers get paid for only a small part of what they produce. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the hands of the capitalists and their flunkeys. The bosses get rich, not because they have "taken risks" or "worked harder," as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and get fewer workers to do more work, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. If the bosses think they can make more profit somewhere else, they just close their factories and throw the workers out on the street.

Capitalism is a system of economic anarchy and crisis, plagued by periodic economic recessions, which are becoming more serious and complex. It is the very nature of each business to try to maximise its profits by pushing production and cutting expenses, especially the pay of workers. Prices tend to go up and wages down. The result is that companies find they cannot sell all they have produced, and they lay off workers. This only worsens the situation and the economy sinks even further. Economic crises are aggravated by speculation, hoarding and other schemes of the bankers, financiers, and industrialists. Each tries to profit in the short run, but their individual greed eventually throws the whole system into turmoil, leading the working class and people to suffer. This anarchic system wastes a great deal of social wealth. Money is diverted from the expansion of production and social services into speculative frenzies. Useful products and crops are routinely destroyed to keep prices and profits high. Massive industrial plants sit idle as the investors and CEOs decide they can make money in other ventures. Capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust, wasteful, irrational and increasingly unproductive. In the face of economic crisis, capitalism has always tried to put the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of working people. It uses wage freezes, social contracts, cuts in benefits, increases in taxation, cuts in expenditure on health and education, and handouts to businesses. For working people the future is less and less certain. Wages fall or remain stagnant while hours increase and working conditions deteriorate.

People live in misery so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can live in luxury. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. There is only room for a few capitalists - at any time the great majority must work and be robbed. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it! This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction, and social decay. The drive for profits holds thousands hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air that we breathe and water that we drink; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and social devastation. The problems of capitalism - exploitation, the anarchy of production, economic crises and the whole system of injustice - arise from the self-interest of the tiny group of monopoly capitalists. Capitalism, nevertheless, has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today the whole system of production is socially interdependent, but it is controlled by private hands. In place of private control of social production, there must be common ownership if society's problems are to be addressed. Socialism will be won through the overthrow of capitalism - the seizure of political power by the working class. Having overthrown the capitalist class, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of common peoples' lives. Because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a resounding liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. Today we often hear of government control of the railways or post office as "creeping socialism". But the state serves the interests of the ruling class.

The economy will be planned to serve human needs rather than simply profit and luxury consumption by the rich. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion in useful production and the wealth of society will become useful. The means of production - the factories, forests, farms, offices, transportation systems, media, communications, retail chains will be taken into common ownership. Private ownership will end. The personal possessions property of people will be left alone. Rational planning will replace anarchy. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people and steadily advance. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and experiments. There could be a combination of coordination. A socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of social ownership, production for the people's needs, and the elimination of exploitation. Factories and other productive facilities will be modernised to eliminate backbreaking labour and ecological damage. Productivity gains will be used to shorten the working day and improve living standards, rather than create unemployment. Construction of housing, schools, medical, cultural and sporting facilities for working people will be a priority. With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. No longer will investors and landlords live off the labour of others. Every person will get the opportunity to contribute to society as much as they are able. Transforming the main productive enterprises from private to common ownership will allow workers to manage democratically their own workplaces through workers' councils and elected administrators, in place of the myriad of supervisors and consultants today. In this way, workers will be able to make their workplaces safe and efficient places that can serve their own interests as well as society's.

To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, the working class must have a clear strategic plan and must determine who are the main enemies. Standing in the way of social progress and socialism is the capitalist class. In making the socialist revolution, the capitalist class is our main enemy. Our foe is the ruling class who hold state power and is responsible for the hardships facing our people. Against this minority stands the vast majority of the rest of the population. The conditions of life for 95% of the people cannot fundamentally improve without the overthrow of the ruling class of capitalists. The working class is daily thrown into conflict with the capitalist class. The capitalists are the ruling class. They are our enemy in the fight for socialism. Through their ownership and control of the means of production they control the economic life and live off the profits they squeeze from the working class. Through the Tories, Labour and Nationalist parties the capitalist class uses the government for its own ends. Through its control of the State, the capitalists make the decisions which affect the whole of society. However, for all its power, the capitalist class is not a totally united class. There are divisions between domestic and foreign capital, between monopoly and non-monopoly capital, between state and private capital.

The working class is composed of all wage-earners - mental and manual, urban and rural - whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. Some workers earn more money than some in the so-called middle-class, but they are still members of the working class because they must sell their labour power to survive. Despite its huge numerical advantage, the powerful potential of the working class has been frustrated by division and lack of class consciousness. The majority of workers at this time do not understand the need for fundamental change to society. They have difficult lives but do not see how their problems can be resolved. They want an improvement in their lives and often struggle against their employers, but do not yet see the need for revolutionary change. There are also workers who are generally content with their station in life or feel that, even though things could improve, capitalism is the best system. They do not favour change and many are affected by national chauvinism. These workers normally agree with the capitalist class on major domestic and foreign policy issues.

The struggle for socialism will mainly be a protracted legal one, but the working class cannot chain itself to the rules established by the ruling class. The working class must make preparations to defend itself from attack and be able to adopt different tactics in the case of class war. We are internationalists.  

The Crisis Society

 Workers have to deal with the buying and selling in different ways from capitalist. Capitalists must sell the products in order to realise a return of their capital investment. Workers must live on the wages paid which requires them to be careful and search around for what are often called bargains.

Socialists want a society where people would take the goods they need from the store when needed and no money or bargains or Black Fridays or gimmicks or financial distress or frantic promotional and discounting would be necessary.  

The comments below extracted from the "Sarah Butler - The Guardian - 21 December 2017" under the title " UK retailers in financial distress" expresses a worry by retailers that shoppers are wising up to gimmicks which might not appear as good as they first appear.

 Nearly 45,000 retailers are in financial distress this Christmas as a snowy weekend and the squeeze on consumer spending power hit sales after the Black Friday rush.

Julie Palmer, a retail expert at Begbies Traynor, said retailers had faced a particularly disappointing few weeks of trading following the apparent success of Black Friday at the end of November.

"The increasingly frantic promotional and discounting activity we are seeing this week across the high street is simply not having the same effect on consumers as it once did," she said.

"UK shoppers are savvier than ever and prepared to search online for the best deals, having grown wise to the gimmicks and discounts on offer in store, which many now realise may not be as good as they first appear."

Fellow-Workers, Join Your Party!

The capitalists have attacked you with every weapon at their command. They have battered down your wages to starvation levels. They have cast you on the scrap-heap of insecurity and the gig economy in the millions. They have ignored your every protest. The working man or woman who tries to find a way clear through the hurdles and hardships of present-day conditions is faced with a hard task. Everywhere, there are distress and despair. Rising prices, falling wages, the uncertainty of a steady secure job and ever-deepening misery.

 The trade unions are engaged only in a desperate endeavour to keep their membership from disappearing.  The Labour Party leaders have nothing to say, although always ready to make all kinds of promises for a beautiful future time when they are the Government. New organisations and new saviours are held before the workers as salvation, shams to conceal from the workers their continued enslavement and hide from them the real issue and the only path for the workers - the path of the workers’ revolution.

The Socialist Party wants an end to this class tyranny and oppression. The pro-capitalist politicians all stand upon the backs of the workers and differ on only over their share of the plunder. We must stand together in the struggle of the workers against their exploiters. If our fellow-workers do not awaken in time a terrible fate awaits us all. The aim of the Socialist Party is to establish socialism and abolish the right of one person to rob another of the fruits of his or her labour. This is what makes our party different from all others.

In the event of a Socialist Party candidate being elected, he or she would enter parliament to expose the system´s falseness; to treat that body as the camp of the enemy, to fight above all for the class interests of the wage workers, by which we mean not only their economic but also their political interests. What are these? Simply, the achievement of a socialist society. Of course, we harbour no illusions that we will get a seat in parliament in the near future. The support for revolutionary politics is at a low level at present and we are well aware that the vote for the Socialist Party will be tiny, but we feel it necessary to state our views on how revolutionary socialists should treat parliament and parliamentary seats. Workers desperately need a political movement of our own. A movement which puts our interests first because it is a movement by, for and of us. Since the system we live under, capitalism, is based on our exploitation, such a movement needs to be explicitly anti-capitalist. It needs to aim for the overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a new truly socialist society, based on organising production to meet the human needs of all rather than private profit for a super-rich few. One part of building such a movement is running in elections, to challenge the parties which defend and manage exploitation and oppression and to get our ideas out to the widest possible audience.

Health and inequality

Significant health inequalities that persist between the richest and poorest parts of Scotland should “shame us as a society”, according to doctors in BMA Scotland. Men in the most deprived parts of Glasgow can only expect 44 years of a healthy life according to the latest statistics.

Official figures show the gap in healthy life expectancy between Scotland’s least deprived and most deprived communities of 26 years for men and 22.2 years for women. 

The rate of people being treated in hospital for a heart attack is twice as high in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived.

And analysis of cancer deaths in the same age group show people in the poorest areas twice as likely to die than in the wealthiest.

Alcohol related hospital admissions are six times higher on the most deprived areas than in the least deprived.

While the gap in alcohol-related deaths is 28 per cent lower than its 2002 peak, it has been increasing since 2013 and is now 13 per cent higher than in 1997.  The gap in alcohol-related hospital admissions has remained the highest over the longer term, while relative inequalities in heart attack admissions have increased since 2008. The difference in cancer incidence has stayed relatively stable. Relative inequalities in coronary heart disease, cancer and premature mortality have all increased over the long term.

BMA Scotland Chairman Dr Peter Bennie said: “These latest statistics show that efforts to tackle health inequalities still have a long, long way to go. “The gap in healthy life expectancy between our most and least deprived communities is stark and should shame us as a society. “Far greater action is needed to address Scotland’s health inequalities. That means stronger public health measures to address issues like obesity and alcohol misuse, but it also requires action to address problems like low pay, poor educational outcomes and inadequate housing. “We cannot keep letting more years pass without stronger action from every level of government to address these persistent inequalities.”

For a worldwide co-operative commonwealth.

In the earlier days of the socialist movement the labour movement demanded the “nationalisation” of this or that industry and this was understood to mean “ownership by the state” or public ownership. Reformist socialists generally accepted, without discussion, that the State represented society as a whole; that its parliamentary institutions provided the means for popular opinion to express itself; and when that opinion became socialist, or at least the majority of it, the State would become socialist automatically. Guild Socialism was a mixture of syndicalism and public ownership. The fact is that it is no more socialist than the Post Office was socialist. No amount of representation of the trade unions on this or that committee will constitute socialism.  The workers within state enterprises are as much wage slaves as the workers in private capitalism. The path to socialism is not through state-owned corporations or trade union representation on this or that public board but through a fundamental change in class relations.

Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue? But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs since man makes his own history and chooses what to do. What is determined is not his choice, but the conditions under which it is made, and the consequences when it is made. The meaning of scientific socialism is not that it tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to life. What will this mean in practice? It will mean that the capitalists will be deprived of their ownership and control of the factories and workshops, mills and mines, shipyards and transport. All these means of production which they have used and misused only to pile up profits for themselves will be taken from them. Socialism will put an end of production for profit and will carry on production for use. The needs of all will be met, and new needs and pleasures now denied to the working class will be created and satisfied by a socialist organisation and extension of production. We have to-day ample resources for producing all the things we need. Moreover, the workers will naturally produce far better and more willingly under their own management than they do now.  The ending of capitalism will put an end at the same time to the threat of wars, to the maintenance of armed forces in preparation for war abroad or suppression of the workers at home. 

Although many speak of Britain as “their” country, and many have died or have been injured in defence of what they called “their” country, as a matter of fact, Britain does not belong to the whole of the British people, but to a comparative few. How many of you can point to a particular spot on the map and say “this is mine”? The greatest portion of the United Kingdom is divided among a few great landlords from whom we rent our homes or pay the bankers their mortgage on it. The UK is spoken of as a wealthy country. Does that mean that the people as a whole are well off? Of course not. Some are immensely rich, most us get by on a bare living. The means of producing the nation’s wealth are owned by the capitalist class. Most of us own nothing except our muscles and brains, that is, our ability to work.

Under capitalism, production is carried on not for the purpose of supplying the needs of the people but for the purpose of sale in order to realise a profit. Only those who have something to sell can get a living. Only those can obtain things who can afford to buy. If things were produced for use, nobody would spend time in the manufacture of shoddy goods, jerry-built houses, or adulterated food. Commerce is the only purpose of British industry.

The worker has nothing to sell but his or her labour power, sold to an employer for so many hours a day for a certain price, that is, wages. Since one cannot separate labour power from one’s body it comes to this, that a worker actually sells oneself like a slave. We socialists, call the workers, “Wage slaves”. Wages are determined by what it costs to keep a person and family. How many working people do you know who can save out of their wages? Very few, these days. They may be able to put something by in good times, but a misfortune may arrive come and the savings are gone. It is a fact that in on the average a worker is not more than two weeks removed from penury.

The capitalist will only buy labour if he can make a profit out of it. Just compare the value of the goods you turned out in a day when you were in the factory, and what you received for your work. The difference between the two is the employer’s profit. Profit is the result of the unpaid labour of the worker. Under capitalism, the workers are continually robbed of the results of their labour.

The capitalist will compel the worker to work as hard and as long as possible, for as little money as possible. In spite of various Health and Safety laws, sweat-shop condition still flourishes, whole industries in which absolutely inhuman conditions of work and pay exist.

Even through the efforts of the best-organised trade unions wages never rise higher than the cost of living. And even this is not secured. In the endeavour to produce as cheaply as possible, the capitalist continually introduces labour-dispensing machinery, which enables him to produce more goods in less time and reduces the standard of skill required. As a result unemployment or precarious work is continually on the increase.

What does capitalism offer the working man and woman? A life of toil and drudgery. Always the dread fear of the sack. A drab, colourless existence when unable to work any longer, to be thrown on the scrap-heap. If capitalism remains in existence, the worker will still remain subject to the capitalist. There will still be riches for the few and poverty for the many. Palaces for the idlers, shoeboxes for the workers. Capitalism can offer its workers nothing but wage slavery. Yet, together we shall form a worldwide co-operative commonwealth.

WHY WE WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD

 “Study because we will need all your intelligence.

Agitate because we will need all your enthusiasm.

Organize because we will need all your strength.”

Antonio Gramsci

We are socialists out of conviction because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature and grinds the working people, sets one group against another. Capitalism today as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few. We see in socialism a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Socialists suggest an alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age, a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. We advocate and work for socialism – that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.). We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good. 

We see the primary task of the Socialist Party to be the building of a mass movement of the working class to strive for socialism. From this task arises the character of the organisation. People are our most precious resource.  We expect that as the Socialist Party grows, it will become richer and stronger, where members would and should develop social as well as political ties with each other. The organisation would have internal education, parties, outings, dinners, sports and the like, and would encourage an all-rounded development of its members. Men and women want freedom from misery, from exploitation, from the jackboots of the state, from living their lives in alienation and insecurity. People want freedom to become fully human, to develop all our talents and abilities. In the final analysis, we need a mass global socialist organization dedicated to welding together all the diverse struggles and resistance of the working class. We have no illusions that the Socialist Party will on its own become such an organisation, but one of our tasks is to help bring such a force into being when the conditions for it grow ripe. In the meantime, we will seek new members to push the road to freedom a little further into the new uncharted territory that lies ahead.

The principal function of the Socialist Party is to participate in the class struggle in such a way that the workers are educated to realise that it is their own political and industrial power which must lead to their emancipation as a class. The socialist revolution is not an endeavour of outstanding individuals or a select sect; rather, it is the endeavour of the exploited and oppressed of all lands. The working class is the commonality of the masses of people who are compelled to sell their labour power in order to survive. It is the only class whose liberation is impossible without the abolition of class society on a global scale. It is the class whose very functioning in the processes of modern society – based as they are in a collective process of production – predisposes it to reach an understanding of its own situation and the cause of its oppression, to combine with other exploited groups and classes for a common revolutionary struggle, and together with them to organise the life of post-revolutionary socialist society.

In the course of its evolution, capitalism has brought about an unprecedented rise of social productivity; based on the achievements of science and technology, capitalism has developed methods of production that require close cooperation of masses of human beings and make possible the creation of limitless plenty; in spreading over the entire planet, capitalism has created a global system that binds together all human beings across the planet in close mutual ties. But this development is based on the exploitation of human beings who are denied any control over the process of their labour, the means of their labour and the fruits of their labour, and are therefore denied control over the entire social process. In the capitalist system the products of human labour assume the form of commodities: everything is sold and bought – means of subsistence, means of labour, and even the brawn and brain power of human beings. Capitalism has created a system that enslaves and exploits. Capitalism is the foremost enemy of the socialist revolution: the revolution strives to overthrow capitalism, and the latter attempts to prevent and suppress the revolution. As the modern world is a single interlinked system, and as the privileged class in all countries have interconnected interests opposed to the socialist revolution, revolutionary socialists will act in mutual international solidarity, and to lend fraternal support to the struggle of every exploited and oppressed group of human beings.

Ireland's Scottish High King

In Faughart, County Louth, overlooking the border town of Dundalk, lies the remains of Edward de Bruce, brother of Robert de Bruce,  a Scotsman who crowned himself High King of Ireland. It was here in on October 14, 1318, that he met his end at the point of a sword.  Both countries original names where greater Scotia and lesser Scotia-Greater Scotia meaning Ireland and lesser Scotia meaning Scotland. 

 On May 26, 1315, Edward de Bruce landed on the shores of Larne with an army to overthrow English rule of Ireland. At first, he set his sights on laying siege to Carrickfergus Castle but the castle’s impregnable fortifications meant that he would have to look elsewhere.  De Bruce then turned his attention to Roche Castle, a formidable looking castle perched on top of a rocky outcrop. Bruce took one look at the Castle and decided that it would be virtually impossible to capture. So instead he headed to the nearby town of Dundalk which he proceeded to burn to the ground. 

After victories at the battle of Connor and at the Battle of Kells Edward de Bruce's forces looked unstoppable but then a foe came that de Bruce couldn’t defeat- the weather and famine. This led to the Scottish forces pillaging of the locals and had the effect of the turning many of the Irish against his forces.

At Faughart Co Louth on October 14, 1318, the weakened and depleted Scottish Army faced John de Berminghams force of 20,000.  De Bruce was advised that it would be prudent to withdraw his forces and wait for reinforcements but instead of retreating Edward decided upon a head-on full-scale assault. Predictably, the battle was a disaster.  A knight by the name of Sir John Maupas cut Bruce down and ended his short reign as High King of Ireland. The King was  beheaded, and his arms and legs were cut off and sent to the four corners of Ireland as warning to any other Irish who may have been thinking of rebelling against their English overlords. And so, ended the reign of Irelands Scottish High King.

The Best Thing To Dump For Collective Survival

Over 15,000 scientists tell us humanity is screwed if it doesn't lighten up on killing the biosphere. One leading scientists say, "We are in the throes of a mass extinction event that is anthropogenic. This is not something we can fix. If we lose 50 to 75 per cent of the species on the planet in this century — which is what scientists are telling us what will occur if we continue to operate as business-as-usual — if this happens, this can not be fixed." 

You'd think some of this sad news might wake up the swindling class trampling the workers to make a quick buck to stop and wonder about their lunacy.

But nope, the parasite class has proven beyond any doubt they can't do such a thing, let alone think about yielding to any sense of collective survival.

 It's time: Dump capitalism and dump them 

it's better for yours and my health.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

The future belongs to the people

What every worker must realise is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the causes which is capitalism but only its symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system and not against the system itself. When we fight for a demand like a wage increase we are merely fighting against the effects of capitalism. Not merely that. We are demanding it from the capitalists. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. That is why they degenerate to pure and simple reformism and, in the end, bolster up capitalism. Of course, every wage increase that is won by the workers is immediately offset by the employers by more intensive work, by stricter supervision etc. and by a general price increase. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he started. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it with socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles. The Socialist Party nevertheless does not oppose trade union struggles nor its members refuse to participate in them. It is very essential to organise workers and help them to fight against the reductions in their working conditions and for their day-to-day demands. The vote was given to us by our masters for their own purpose; let us use it for our own. Let us demonstrate at that ballot-box the strength and intelligence of the revolutionary idea; let us make the hustings a rostrum from which to promulgate our principles; let us grasp the public powers in the interest of the disinherited class.

The Socialist Party knows that no leaders are going to pull the workers into socialism. As Marx stated, “The emancipation of the working class must be the class-conscious act of the working class itself.” An ignorant muddleheaded working class will never be able to act correctly or move in the proper direction no matter how brainy the leaders may be. “The day is past,” says Engels, “for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses.” The Socialist Party correctly holds that the political party must be a party of no compromise. Its mission is to point the way to the goal and it refuses to leave the main road to follow the small bypaths that lead into the swamp of reformism. Its skirts are clean. The red banner of socialism is held high, uncorrupted, and not dragged down into the mire of petty reform.

There are many points on which the Socialist Party takes a different stand from that taken by other organisations claiming to be socialist. There are differences on principle and therefore, necessarily, differences in tactics. If an organisation’s principles are correct, the tactics reflected must also be correct. If an organisation’s tactics are wrong, it is nearly certain that its principles can be nothing else but wrong. For this reason, if organisations differ on tactics, there is apt to be a like difference in the principles espoused by each. Principles are fundamental and by showing that the principles of those other so-called socialist parties are wrong, we can proceed to demonstrate the incorrectness of their tactics. And at the same time, by contrast, it will be conclusively proven that the principles and therefore the tactics of the Socialist Party are the only logical ones to be followed.

The first difference to be noted is hinged around the conception each has of its goal. The goal of the Left is a form of workers' government. The goal of the Socialist Party is socialism. The Left claims that in order to achieve the workers must first go through a transition period. Therefore their aim now is for this transition period. The goal being such, the tactics adhered to must be in keeping with the same. The transition period, we are told, will last until the last vestiges of capitalism are destroyed and in order to safeguard the interests of the working class during this period, we must have a revolutionary 'dictatorship of the proletariat.'

When the working class takes political power, according to the Socialist Party, it controls all that is necessary to run production on socialised lines. A 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is unnecessary, the workers being in a majority. There will not even be a rule of the proletariat because the act of socializing the industries automatically abolishes all classes and therefore the proletariat as a class ceases to be. In order to run the industries for themselves the workers must first secure complete power over and ownership of them. In order to accomplish this, they must organize so that it can be done in a thorough manner to avoid anarchy and chaos. If the Socialist Party’s analysis is correct, then it follows that the tactics reflected by this analysis are also correct. And by showing that the left-wing's goal is wrong, that automatically disposes of the tactics that organization advocates. 

Freedom or Slavery - Your Choice

The Socialist Party endeavours to explain to our fellow workers the nature of the struggle in which they are participating. To tell them of the principles for which we work and fight. To reveal what we are confident is the way out for our class from the horrid nightmare of the competitive struggle which sets nation against nation, class against class, and individual against individual.

The struggle between individual capitalists to realise profits sets employer against employer. The conflict between national groups of capitalists sets nation against nation and produces war. But despite their individual and national conflicts, the whole capitalist class stands united in their common desire to exploit labour. Hence under capitalism, the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers, and are but mere commodities.

The master class lives upon the labour of the working class, and use all the powers of government, nationally and municipally, in their own interest and against those who labour. The master class, the dominant ruling class, strives by every means in its power to keep the working class in such a state of subjection that the process of spoiling or robbing the worker of his earnings, may go smoothly on with as little risks or dislocation as possible. The working class on the other hand perpetually rises in protest against the incidental details of the robbery, organises to reduce the theft of the masters, and ever casts down its tools, and enters on a bloodless insurrection against the conditions of its servitude. These protests, these organised movements, these unarmed insurrections of labour, these strikes are the inevitable accompaniment of the capitalist system of society – they are the salient proofs that the members of the Socialist Party know what they are talking about when they declare that the normal condition of society is not peace, but war; that the class war is the one, great fact in the modern world. The Socialist Party affirms that so long as one section of the community own and control the means of production, and the rest of the community is compelled to work for that section in order to obtain the means of life, there can be no social peace.

The capitalist state has not always existed any more than the capitalist class itself has always existed. Before the advent of capitalist democracy, there was the feudal state of the Middle Ages – the political-armed fist by which the then powerful landowning nobility ruled over and extracted wealth from the toil of the serfs. The young capitalist class undertook the revolutionary overthrow of the feudal state and the establishment of something entirely unknown in that age, namely their own capitalist state. The capitalist classes in the various countries did not – and could not have – accomplished their revolution by themselves. It was the seething discontented masses of serfs, worker, and townspeople who carried the capitalist revolution on their shoulders, fought the tyrants, gave their lives for liberty, equality, fraternity. To the rising capitalists, liberty, equality, fraternity were ideals they wanted for themselves alone. They had no thought to grant the lower classes liberty, equality, and fraternity. To the ruling class, the revolution ushered in a period of capitalist masterly over the subject classes, in place of the rule of the aristocracy.

 

Rally to the support of the Socialist Party which stands for the interests of the working class, seeking to capture the political power necessary to make the instruments of Labour the property, not of a class, but of a free people in a free social order, the world socialist republic. We appeal to fellow workers to rally around the only banner the red banner of socialism. Cast off all your old political affiliations, and organise and vote to conquer society in the interests of its only useful class – the workers. Let your slogan be, the common ownership of the means of life, your weapon the political organisation of the wage slaves to achieve their own emancipation.

The eyes of the world are upon you, fellow workers. The choice is yours.

Dicing And Slicing. Why Not BE Done With It?

One million Ontarians are on welfare. The recent report called A Roadmap for Change calls for a 22 per cent increase in welfare spending over the next three years costing an estimated 3.2 billion a year. It recommends a housing allowance akin to a voucher, a pharma-care and dental assistance plan for the working poor as well as those on welfare and proposes a rock-bottom poverty line of $22,000 for a single person and 30 per cent more for the disabled.

 As fine as this may seem, it doesn't mean a party running for office will get elected if it promises to implement such a plan. Our intrepid friends at the Toronto Star have done their research and concluded many will vote against such proposals, considering them a waste of money. They will, the Star's reporters assert, want their needs taken care of first, like hydro rate deductions, child care subsidies and a reduction in income tax.

If we take the above seriously, it means a program to considerably reduce poverty will not get its advocates elected, and even if they are, the next bunch who attempt to administrate the daily running of capitalism may abolish some of it; Mike Harris's government of the 1990's, which,' 'sliced and diced'' welfare payments, being an example.
So where does that leave us?
 It's significant that none of the major parties promise to abolish poverty because they've learned they cannot. All they can do is take steps to reduce it. So why not have done with all parties who stand for capitalist society, which by its very nature creates poverty? Why not have done with capitalism. So why not organize and work for a society where poverty and welfare payments will be a thing of the past?

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

Socialism is the only alternative

What is the meaning of capitalism? Capitalism is an economic term. It is applied by political economists and sociologists to the economic system of our civilisation, by means of which men achieve economic independence and have the privilege of living idly upon the labour of others, who produce a surplus value above that which they receive for their own sustenance. Capitalism refers to the system. A capitalist is one who profits by the system. If he labours himself, it does not alter the fact that he has an income apart from his labour sufficient to sustain him for life without labour, and therefore his is economically independent.

Socialism was born of the class antagonisms of capitalist society, without which it would never have been heard of; and in the present state of its development, it is a struggle of the working class to free themselves from their capitalist exploiters by wresting from them the tools with which modern work is done. This conflict for mastery of the machinery is necessarily a class conflict. It can be nothing else.

Capitalism is responsible for the insecurity, the poverty, misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of working people. The Socialist Party declares its object to be to firstly organise the working class into a political party to conquer the public powers of the State now controlled by capitalists so to abolish wage slavery by the establishment of a world system of cooperative industry, based upon the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members. The Socialist Party perceives clearly the nature of the class struggle and takes its stand squarely and uncompromisingly with the working class in the struggle which can end only with the utter annihilation of the capitalist system and the total abolition of class rule. We respect the honest effort of any, no matter however misguided, to better social conditions, but we have no patience with the frauds and quacks who in the name of “brotherhood” betray their trusting victims to the class that robs them without pity and without shame.

The Socialist Party opposes to the existing form of society, now known to everyone as the capitalist society. Why? Because a few people own the world and the factories and machinery of wealth production. These are the propertied class, including landlords, capitalists, and moneylenders (bankers). Most other people have to sell their brain-power or body-power, in short, their labour-power, to this class for a return in money called wages. This class is the wage-earning class or the wage-slave class. Wages are not based on the money value of the goods produced or services rendered by the slave-class, but on the cost of living. We have seen an unprecedented crash in wages, and wage-levels are still dropping. Workers, whether in town or country, are compelled to pay for permission to live on the earth; the houses, shops, factories, etc., which were built by the labour of our forefathers at wages that simply kept them alive are now owned by a class which never contributed an ounce of sweat to their erecting, but whose members will continue to draw rent and profit from them while the system lasts. As a result of this, the worker in order to live must sell himself into the service of a master – we must sell to that master the liberty to coin into profit the physical and mental energies.

A shopkeeper in order to live must sell his goods for what he can get, but a worker in order to live must sell a part of his or her life, nine, ten, or twelve hours per day as the case may be. The shopkeeper, if lucky, may get the value of his goods, but the worker cannot get under the capitalist system the value of his or her labour; we must accept whatever wage those who are unemployed are willing to accept at his job. This is what is call wage-slavery, because under it the worker is a slave who sells himself for a wage with which to buy rations, which is the only difference between this system and plantation slavery where the master bought the rations and fed the slave himself. There is only one remedy for this slavery of the working class, and that remedy is world socialism, a system of society in which the land and all offices, railways, factories, canals, workshops, and everything necessary for work shall be owned and operated as common property. There is only one way to attain that end, and that way is for the working class to establish a political party of its own; a political party which shall set itself to elect to all public bodies working men and women resolved to use all the power of those bodies for the workers and against their oppressors. In claiming this we will only be following the example of our masters. Every political party is the party of a class. What is wanted then is for the workers to organise for political action on socialist lines.

The Socialist Party points out that there is no alternative for the working class other than socialism. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation is not socialism, nor does a mixed economy. Nationalisation is state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. The task of the Socialist Party is to help the transfer of power from capitalists to working people. The time is arriving when every man and woman of our class will have to make a great decision. We shall have to choose whether capitalism with all its attendant miseries and horrors is to remain or whether we intend to be free.

Wealth Distribution

Breathing Problems. Breathing Solution.

Toronto Public Health Department estimates that air pollution causes 1,300 premature deaths and 3,550 hospitalizations each year. Motor vehicle traffic is the largest source of air pollution in Toronto.
Studies show that people living close to busy roads are more likely to have breathing problems, heart disease, cancer and premature death. The most susceptible are children, seniors, and people already sick. Traffic-related pollution is a mix of nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds. Though tailpipes spew out the most some comes from wear and tear on the asphalt, tires, brake discs and brake pads.
So whose for deep breathing exercises folks?

The very nature of life under capitalism, especially employment, make cars a necessity.

 So why not get rid of crapitalism before it gets rid of us?

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

The sacredness of property

“Workingmen of all Countries, Unite!” are the stirring words that close the “Communist Manifesto.”  In the struggle to liberate mankind from the reign of classes forever, unlike the capitalists, the interests of the working class are not tied to any particular country. Its struggle takes place on a world-wide scale to defeat the capitalist class on a world-wide scale. The consequence of this principle is that it means the simple solidarity of one worker with another, irrespective of nationality and readily support the struggles of workers in other lands. Nationalism helps bind the working class to the employers of its nation.  Socialism unites the working people of the world against the bosses. 

The Socialist Party is the partisans of the working class. We also advocate for fundamental system change.  Change never comes from elections alone, but it almost always proceeds through electoral battles for political power. The authors of the Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. The “self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”, cannot be anything else but democratic, if we understand by “democracy” the rule of the people, the majority.  “The first step”, said the Manifesto, “in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” Only the revolution that replaces the class rule of the capitalists by the class rule of the workers can really establish democracy. Capitalism, under any kind of government, is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists. Marxists defined socialism as a class-free society—with abundance, freedom, and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a so-called workers’ state. The Communist Manifesto said: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association.” Note that well: “an association”, not a state—“an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”

Although, the Socialist Party strives to replace capitalism with socialism, we also accept that it is both possible and essential to fight now within capitalism to defend and improve the conditions of the working people. The Socialist Party's aim is socialism because socialism is the only way to end the class divisions in society. Capitalist expansion entails political patronage and public plunder. Capitalism can well afford to extend a limited measure of democratic liberties without too great fear that its rule would be challenged. Socialism comes not as a remedy for the evils of existing society, but as alternative principles for a new society. The task of creating a free society is the mightiest to which humanity has summoned itself, and it is a task which now presses urgently upon us. No person is free so long as he or she is dependent upon some other body. Private ownership of property, of its productive machinery, means private ownership of the people. Who sells his or her labor-power for wages sells themselves; for his or her labour-power is life. The wages system is merely an advance in the slave-system, but it is no fit system for free men and women. We build, instead, on a sure foundation for the commonwealth, the common freedom, the common abundance and well-being of all men and women. Nature offers resources enough for the abundance of life for countless billions of human beings.

Some say that socialism might be the answer for a society of angels and that we must wait till we have a better brand of a person before we can have socialism. All of which is very much like saying that it is not safe to cure a sick person of illness until he or she gets well. It is a strange belief that makes men and women regard what they know to be elementally good as dangerous in practice, and what they know to be elementally wrong as practically safe. Socialism proposes to abolish that slavery and competition which capitalism sends with all its forces into making people brutal and dishonest. The whole influence of competition and capitalism is to war against empathy and liberty, and to make all that is worthy of human life impossible.

Lords of capital and lords of land will exist and despoil the earth with economic and military wars until the disinherited of the world arises to take possession of its inheritance. What the Socialist Party means by class-consciousness is that nothing can hide the hideous fact that one class of human beings are living off another class, that the capitalist class is helping itself to the products of the producing class. So long as workers are willing to be a mere wage-slaves, so long as we are led about by politicians, our conditions worsen. Fellow-workers must achieve their own liberty if it is ever to be achieved. Liberty cannot be handed down by superiors to inferiors; it has never been so achieved, and ought not to be so achieved. If liberty were something that could be endowed upon one class by another, presented as a gift, it would vanish in the night. Men are not free until they have won and established their own freedom and power. Socialism comes not to destroy, but to fulfill all the true ideals of liberty. It comes with no attack upon property, but rather to save the property from the attacks and ravages of a system that is the destruction of all that makes property sacred; for the property is sacred only as it serves the highest uses of all mankind in common.

The rich-poor divide

One percent of Americans held 39 percent of the nation's wealth in 2016, compared with about 22 percent in 1980.

 Meanwhile, the average annual income for the bottom 50 percent of Americans has stayed at $16,000 per adult over the last four decades, adjusting for inflation.

Most of the increase in wealth at the top has been due to fast-rising incomes among the very richest Americans; while annual income for the one percent has shot up by 205 percent since 1980, the top .001 percent of Americans—only about 1,300 households—have seen their earnings go up by 636 percent.

The top 10 percent of earners hold about 37 percent of wealth in Europe, and the income share captured by the richest one percent in the region has only risen from about 10 percent in 1980 to about 12 percent in 2016

Vacant homes

More than 37,000 homes in Scotland have been left vacant for six months or longer in the past year, according to the latest official statistics.

As of September 2017, there were 1410 more homes left long-term vacant across Scotland than in 2016 - an increase of around 4% on 2016.

Homes are categorised as long-term vacant if they have been empty for at least six months.

These figures do not include second homes or properties with unoccupied exemptions for council tax.

The Wrong Addresses

Toronto City officials recently announced their expanded services for the homeless, this winter. This will be five short-term-visit centres, providing warm meals, sleeping space and staff with

information on how to obtain permanent housing.

The total of beds for the homeless will be 5,656. The response to this largesse was swift and critical, which came under the heading of totally inadequate. 

Rafi Aaron, of the Interfaith Coalition to Fight Homelessness, said,''The answer lies in the creation of more permanent shelters with support services that address the root causes of homelessness, such as mental health and addiction and a major increase in low income and affordable housing options.''

 I guess it wouldn't occur to folk like Mr. Aaron to address the cause of mental health and addiction, or for that matter, homelessness itself.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.