Edinburgh Branch Meeting (1/3)

Edinburgh Branch

Thursday, 1 March
7:00pm

The Quaker Hall,
Victoria Terrace (above Victoria Street),
Edinburgh EH1 2JL


The Socialist Party stands for the sole aim of establishing a global system of society in which there will be common ownership and democratic control of the world's natural and industrial resources. We advocate a world social system in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation and an equal say in how their society is run; a world in which production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all.  The basis of socialism is there will be common ownership of the Earth. The people of the world will share the world. Wealth will be produced not for sale or profit, but solely to satisfy human needs. This means the end of buying and selling and all the other financial and commercial institutions like money, prices, wages and banks. People will co-operate to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs. Socialism will mean a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments, force or coercion. Socialism can not be brought about by a small dedicated minority 'smashing the state' in a violent revolution. Any attempt to establish socialism without a majority first being in favour is bound to fail. Socialism, by its very nature as a system involving voluntary co-operation, could only be kept going by those who really wanted it and knew what it involved.


The Socialist Party has no leaders and is controlled by its members. Nothing we say or do goes on behind closed doors. Any member of the public is free to attend any of our meetings and speak at the same.  Socialism can not be forced upon people as it depends upon majority understanding, not compulsion. 

Gutter politics

There are many reasons why socialists want a complete change in the basis of society.  Capitalism corrupts everything it touches. In this society the cash nexus is everything.  Capitalism is a society based on class ownership, exploitation, and the profit motive. capitalism is in its biggest crisis since the Great Depression. This means that wealth is returning to its ‘rightful owners’, the capitalist class; the workers, meanwhile, must make do with austerity. To talk of ethics in such a society is nonsensical. But it’s not just that things are bad. People are also losing confidence that things will get any better: a growing majority do not think their children will end up better off than they are, for example. It is this growing majority of disaffected working-class people who are looking for answers. And unless they look very hard indeed, beyond the mainstream media, the only answers they’re hearing are coming from the rising right-wing populists with their superficial appeal that proclaims the virtues of selfishness. The conventional politicians reveal how they have no good arguments with which to counter the xenophobic nationalists; and that it is precisely the failure of their ideas that turn the workers towards hopeless fantasies. All those liberals can resort to is to whine that the populists have taken “respectable” patriotism too far, that they are extremists. It’s up to socialists to provide better answers and get them out there and show that capitalism – even when it is operating perfectly well– must necessarily produce misery and exploitation. The ill-considered rhetoric needs to be confronted, contested at any and every opportunity. Self-replicating, regurgitated mantras built on lies, fears, and hatred need overturning without hesitation.

The typical Guardian-reading liberal may genuinely abhor the racism of the right but have been unsuccessful in confronting them because to do so would mean acknowledging the shortcomings of a system which they champion and which gives rise to the politics of prejudice. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the stench of the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it any wonder that workers fall for the scapegoating lies of neo-fascists and the quick fix they offer?

The professional politicians do their craven best to pander to this supposed collective identity and the nefarious influence of those ideas have on the workers can be seen from the treatment of the issue of “asylum seekers” – vulnerable migrants looking for refuge and sanctuary in safer lands. They project the line that they are “firm but fair” in dealing with the asylum “crisis”, desperate to deflect charges that Britain is a “soft touch” for immigrants so they advance every policy to speed up the process of ejecting “undesirables” from the country. They talk about legitimate asylum seekers, as opposed to economic migrants – as if poverty itself were not one of the cruellest breeds of oppression. All this, despite the fact that the government's own reports demolish a great many of the myths around refugees and actively refutes that the welfare state is a pull factor and a basic motive for travelling around the world to come to another country. The majority of asylum seekers had little or no knowledge of the UK social services other than, a vague idea that they would be “looked after” because after all, that was what they had been repeatedly told – the good Samaritan character of the average Briton. The Socialist Party understands that the thing which makes workers leave behind their communities and go to a place where their language is not spoken, is the capitalist system itself. We see the harm that is done by national boundaries, that prevent workers from moving to be with whom they want to be with; prevent them from sharing their skills and their knowledge as they see fit; prevent them from seeing their common cause.

The members of the Socialist Party do not swallow the deceit that working class “foreigners” are different from working class “nationals”. That Britain is “ours”, not “theirs” when in reality it is neither. Politicians are rewarded for their management of capitalism, and the media repeatedly foments anger and vitriol amongst the working class in order to keep cashing in with their nasty anti-social “news.” The real “undeserving” are the exploitative capitalists and their devious political henchmen. If you are looking for scroungers , you should direct your spleen at the really rich – the top five percent or so of the world's population who own far, far more than the rest of us ever could. They, not asylum seekers, are the scroungers of this world and will continue to shaft us as long as we let them. Millionaires and billionaires, thanks to the exploitation of the working class, are free to fly first-class anywhere in the world are the real migrant “scroungers” who need to be kicked out.

The system is rotten!

We say of the miner that he produces coal, of the baker that he or she produces bread, but such is not the case. They assist each other in the production of coal and bread and are at the same time dependent upon the balance of the workers for their equipment and materials. Before the miner goes down into the earth his fellow workers in every line of human endeavour have co-operatively labored to supply him with house, food, furniture, clothing, tools, powder, etc.; so that in the mining of coal all of the workers assist him. They do not go to the coal-face, but he could not go there without them. The mining of coal is, therefore, a social function in which all the workers participate. What the miner does is to perform the last social act necessary to transform the natural deposit into usable shape. But the coal is not yet produced—coal is not mined to be used by the miners, it is intended to warm some home or furnish power to some industry—other workers follow the miner to complete production of the coal. For no commodity is produced until it reaches the purchaser who consumes it. Only when this has happened is the objective which inspired its production attained—the satisfaction of an individual or social need. The miner has been used for illustration here, but you can substitute for him the farmer, office clerk, bricklayer, driver, etc., and no matter which of these you select a study of their activities will show that they work in conjunction with and cannot function without the balance of the working class. Capitalist industry has so organised the workers that their mutual inter-dependence is its outstanding feature. There is no independence for either the individual or the group. As a class they labour and produce; as a class, they are exploited, and as a class, they must organize, and through a class organization only will they be enabled to achieve any betterment in the present or emancipation finally.

If you are a wage-working man or woman, your life is conditioned upon having access to a job; you must establish yourself as an employee to some employer. To establish this relationship you must possess something which the employer requires in the business in which he is engaged. You have the power to produce wealth—labour power. It is the only thing you have, but it is an essential factor in industry. In fact, all capitalist industry is predicated upon the existence of men and women like you who have no other way to live, except by offering their life energy, labor power, for sale. The labour power of the workers in nearly all industrial occupations is used in connection with other expressions of power such as steam, electricity, gas, water, gasoline, and horses. Labour power differs from these other powers in that it not only expends itself but expends itself intelligently and directs, controls and uses these other power expressions. The brain of the worker, as well as his or her arms and legs, is a factor of his or her labour power. The other powers would as likely injure as serve without the guidance of labour power.

When you sell your labour power to the boss you agree to deliver to him the use of it for so many hours per day, usually ten, for which he, in turn, agrees to pay you a stipulated price (known as wages) of, say, $3.00 per day; or you agree to embody a certain amount of it into the raw materials he provides at a given price. The former is the time system of selling labor power, the latter is the piece work system. In either case, you sell your labor power to the boss, measured by the clock or incorporated in some article. The worker sells his labor power and receives in return a wage, out of which he must provide the means of life for himself and his dependents. The boss buys labor power because he needs it to operate his establishment, whether that be a factory, a mine, a railroad or a farm. The most up-to-date equipment is valueless as a means of producing wealth unless the magic influence of labor power sets it in operation. It is not a philanthropic motive that inspires the boss to employ the wage worker; it is because he must employ him, or fail in his enterprise. When he does employ the laborer he drives as hard a bargain as he can, which means that he will pay the laborer as little as the laborer will work for. But the least the laborer is inclined to accept, on the average, is a wage sufficient to maintain him and his family according to the standard of living obtaining among the workers. And this standard is what determines his wage. The labor time necessary to produce values equal to that required to maintain and reproduce the laborer sets the exchange value of his labor power, or the wage of the worker. As you will see later this is what determines the relation of all commodities to one another—the amount of socially necessary labor time contained in them—and, as labour power is a commodity, its exchange value is similarly determined. But labour power, unlike other commodities, besides being part of the worker is associated with the aspirations, hopes, ambitions, and will of the owner. That is, as well as being a commodity, it has human attributes, and being inseparable from the labourer has the effect of. reducing him to a commodity basis. In capitalist society he is not only a producer and seller of a commodity—labour power—but is himself practically a commodity—a package of labour power wrapped up in a human skin.

Who owns the North Pole? - A "Polar Silk Road"

It has been a long while since this blog returned to this once regular feature bt the issue of the Arctic has not gone away.

China now describes itself as a "near-Arctic state".

"The Arctic situation now goes beyond its original inter-Arctic States or regional nature, having a vital bearing on the interests of States outside the region and the interests of the international community as a whole, as well as on the survival, the development, and the shared future for mankind," a Chinese white paper said.

China wants to make sure its point of view is reflected in the region, through involvement in Arctic governance and by shaping its agenda. China wants to be included in economic benefits here, that is the reason for their involvement even if they do not possess legitimate geographical reasons to be considered a member of the region. China is able to provide financing for Arctic countries, their activities, and expeditions.

The country entered into joint ventures with Russian gas companies, it built a large embassy in Iceland, it helped finance the Kouvola-Xi'an train in Finland, it thawed its relations with Norway and it invested into Greenland. The influx of investments is important to Greenland's goal to become less reliant on Denmark. In exchange, China wants access to the mines in Greenland

Lanarkshire's Age "Problem"

A demographic age time bomb is primed to go off across Lanarkshire – as the number of people aged over 75 is set to rocket over the next two decades.

Life expectancy is continuing to increase dramatically over the region according to NHS Lanarkshire, placing a “great strain” on resources. In 20 years, it is projected that there will be 35,600 more people aged over 75 – a rise of 71 per cent.

The interim director of public health, Gabe Docherty, who said: “People are living longer which is fantastic. However, many are living with a range of long-term conditions which is placing great strain on our health and social care services. In these times of increasing demand and of fewer resources, we all need to look at how we use services.”

A further health divide is also exposed across the county, with life expectancy higher in South Lanarkshire than in North Lanarkshire. Men in the north can expect to live for 75.3 years, while the figure for the south is 77. Women in the north are likely to live for 79.6 years while the figure for the south is 80.8.

 However, life expectancy is still below national levels. People in Lanarkshire live on average a year less than others in Scotland (men one year less and women 0.9 years). Compared to the UK as a whole, men in Lanarkshire die three years earlier and women 2.6 years earlier.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/report-reveals-population-timebomb-child-12065110

Wealthy Cities

According to new research undertaken by Zoopla analysing property values in the UK’s ten largest cities, Glasgow ranked behind London and Bristol in first and second place respectively.

Glasgow had a huge value of £90.75 billion and its annual percentage growth in the value of homes sat at 5.38% – the second highest growth numbers behind Sheffield.

Edinburgh was sixth, with the value at a total £68.27bn and a steady annual growth of 4.04%.

In Glasgow, G12, which includes the West End and Glasgow University, has a total property value of £4.27bn. 

EH4 in Edinburgh, which includes Dean Village and Comely Bank, has a total value of £8.61bn.

For peace, prosperity and plenty for all!

The "spectre of communism" still haunts the world's bosses. The battle between bosses and workers rages everywhere. One class—the capitalist class—owns and controls the social necessaries, to wit: the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all institutions to its own interests. On the other hand, there is a class—the working class—which is eventually to change the whole system of ownership of the means of production. Workers are beginning to realise that in the constructive work for the future they have to learn the facts of past evolutions and revolutions. And from these facts, expressed in theories, they find the guide for the course that they have to pursue in their struggle for the possession of the earth, and the goods that they alone have created. 

The Socialist Party does not oppose trade union struggles or refuse to participate in them. It is very essential to organise workers and help them to fight for their day to day struggles with their employers. Because, it is only in the course of these fights, that the workers learn about the system of capitalist exploitation and the need to abolish it. What is mistaken is to stop at that stage, limiting ourselves always to trade union struggles. We must teach them how to fight for the abolition of the wage system itself. The working class must make its stand against its own capitalist system – whose lust for profits and interest, for investments, markets, and expanded capital, for raw materials and cheap exploitable labor, can mean only exploitation. For it must be understood that distribution is always ultimately controlled by those who own and control production. Today the bosses own. Tomorrow, the workers will own production and would, therefore, be in a position to control and direct distribution in the interests of the people and society. The ownership of industry is the source of the power of the profit-seeking class. It gives them control of the opportunities of the people to secure the necessities of life. The millions of men and women who are dependent upon the wages they earn for a living are wage slaves. The power to hire and fire the workers, to give and take away the opportunity to earn a living, carries with it the power to compel the workers to work for such wages as will leave the capitalists a profit from their labour. There is no mystery about the source of profits. The capitalists do not create wealth out of the air in juggling with industry. They make profits because they purchase the labour-power of the workers for less than the value of the goods the workers produce; that is, they do not pay the workers the full value of their labour. There is no other way of making profits out of industry. The lower the wages for which the capitalists can purchase the labor-power of the workers and the longer their hours of labour or the greater the intensity, the more will be the capitalist’s profits. Naturally, the capitalists pay the lowest wages at which they can induce the workers to work. Since they are in a position to deny the workers the opportunity to earn a living if the workers do not accept their terms, they have been able to keep the wages at the point where they yield the workers a mere subsistence. The workers naturally seek to increase their wages and reduce their hours of labor. They endeavor to secure for themselves more of the wealth they produce and better working conditions. The capitalists resist. The existing industrial system is a huge profitmaking machine, which has no relation to the happiness and well-being of the people. In practice it results in drawing away from the millions of producers the bulk of the wealth they produce and in heaping this wealth in the laps of the relatively small class which owns the machinery of production, and in this process its by-products are generally insecurity, low wages, and industrial conflicts, thus making happy, healthy lives impossible for the masses of the people. If the work of reconstruction is to result in a better world, its aim must be the abolition of the wages and profit system.

Millions of workers are cold, hungry, homeless. Many more endure slum housing. Tens of millions of young workers are unemployed. Millions of young will never find work in capitalist society. Older workers are thrown out like garbage when they no longer have value to some boss. Capitalism has failed miserably to provide the basic necessities of life for hundreds of millions of workers around the world.

With socialism, goods are produced for the use of men and NOT for the profits which they bring in to bosses. Labour power is no longer regarded as a commodity to be bought and sold. It is not purchased at all, let alone purchased at the lowest possible price to keep it alive and able to produce more value. Men and women, in socialism, will work and produce useful goods. But they will produce these for their mutual needs and for their mutual development. The sufficiency of goods which men and machines can create will be given to men to develop their bodies so that their minds can grow rich in the wealth of human knowledge, aesthetic appreciation, and artistic creation. From day to day, from week to week, and from year to year, the spiral of possible individual activity will widen rather than taper, as human productive and intellectual achievements increase. Mankind, no longer fettered by the necessity of working not only for their own material maintenance but for the bosses’ even more material profits, will be freed to live more fully. The time that each must work will be small, yet the goods produced for all to enjoy will be plentiful.

The Socialist Party seeks a society whose workers run everything in the interests of the world's workers. We want a system that encourages every worker to become involved in running society; that trains everyone to act for the common good and does not indoctrinate people to "look out for number one;" that opposes placing selfish interests above the social needs. We want society to help each person grow and develop. Capitalism is the dictatorship of the bosses. They hold power through their political parties. Socialism will abolish socially useless forms of work that exist now only for capitalist profit. A socialist society will not need millions of lawyers, advertisers, or salespeople. In one stroke, it will do away with layers of needless government bureaucrats, as well as the hordes of petty supervisors and administrators who oversee and manage us for the bosses. It will free everyone to perform socially useful work, which is the source of true creativity.

Young and Little Hope of a Home

YOUNG Scots will have to wait until they are nearly 30 and earning more than £10,000 over the average wage to get their foot on the property ladder, according to  research.

Figures show that while average Scottish salaries have stayed static at around £23,000 a year in the past 10 years, the typical first-time buyer’s earnings have risen from £28,685 to £33,873 over the same period.

Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, added: “These statistics once again show Scotland’s broken housing system where young people struggle to get a home.

“At the heart of the problem is demand for homes outstripping supply. To tackle the problem, we need a huge injection of new properties of all tenures – but especially homes for social rent – to reduce inflationary pressures and make a fairer housing system for all.”

Well-off families are using a government scheme that provides tens of thousands of pounds to help people get on to the property ladder.  The Scottish Government has helped out thousands of buyers since it introduced its Help to Buy scheme, but figures produced last year showed that more than one in three of those were from households where earnings were more than £50,000. Dozens of families with six-figure earnings also benefited from state aid for their new home.

Our Socialist Vision

“Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s Work,’ we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wages system.’ "

if you dream of becoming rich and really living the dream, your job isn’t going to get this job done. That’s because when you work at a job you work an hour, and you get paid for that hour. The problem is, it doesn’t matter if you earn $15 an hour or $150 an hour or even a $1000, there are only so many hours in a day. That limits how much money you can make. Fortune 500 CEOs who earn millions of dollars a year get rich, sure, but they’re the exception because they also get paid in stock options. It’s not some vast conspiracy. Companies have a financial obligation to their bottom line and their investors to pay employees the lowest possible salary the market will allow. That’s Business 101. Poor men and women may indeed become rich but not by the simple wages of their labour. They never do become rich except by availing themselves, in some way, of the labour of others. Until the workers get rid of the capitalist system itself, the cause of all the injustices they face, they will constantly have to take up their struggles over and over again.

The Socialist Party tries to educate and unify the working class and show that every conflict between workers and the bosses is part of the general struggle in society between the capitalists and its state on the one hand, and the working class on the other. By starting from the working-class point of view and a scientific conception of society, the Socialist Party educates fellow members of the working class and encourages their conscious participation in political action to overthrow the capitalist system.  It recognises that the peoples of the world have the same interest; to end the barbarous profit system. For many long years the Socialist Party pleaded with fellow-workers to organise and take over the entire means of production and distribution. Books, pamphlets, leaflets, and journals of all kinds were freely circulated, with scanty result. Heedlessly the workers moved along, turning their backs on revolution by their blank indifference to questions of supreme importance.  It is the academics who try to make a few elemental principles of political economy and of sociology so difficult of understanding yet the subjects are easy of understanding. All workers who are satisfied with their wages, the wages system and capitalism would probably get mad as hell if they took a little time off to read more about what is really going on. Do not be frightened at the long words. If we can get a clear conception of the socialist method of production and distribution, then we can use that idea to challenge the present method employed by capitalism and obtain the support and organisation of the workers to put it into practical operation. The industries are already in the hands of the workers, but the strength of the employers lies in the fact that they control and direct the product. Who will pay the wages? No one. Money, the most powerful weapon of the capitalist is discarded. But we must eat to live. Very well, the canning factories, the docks, and warehouses are already in the hands of the workers. The flour mills and bakeries, the dairies and packing houses are controlled by them. The dockers, railwaymen and lorry drivers deliver the food, the shop assistants and canteen workers supply it to the workers and their families. Distribution will not be according to the amount of money a person has but according to his or her need. Here is a system of industrial democracy, the only true democracy, not the choice of choosing Tweedledum or Tweedledee every five years and being controlled by him and his partners for the period between, but the control of one’s own job and environment, the control of one’s own life. The government of people gives way to the administration of things. We are now poor and enslaved not because of lack of reforms made by politicians, but because the employing class owns and control the means of production, without access to which we cannot live. So long as others control the means whereby we live so long shall we be slaves? Only by taking common ownership and democratic control of the means of distribution can the workers be free.

Today we are less preoccupied with the abolition of the wages system than ever, and this fact stamps itself as a hallmark on the enslavement of our socialist movement to snivelling attempts to mollify inhuman social relations whilst preserving them intact. The old cry for a fair day’s pay echoes itself time and again. The Socialist Party recognises the class war between the property-less and the possessing class and it can only be resolved by the complete control over all the great means of production and distribution by the whole people, thus abolishing the State and the wages system, and constituting a co-operative commonwealth or a social-democracy.

Socialism entails the total abolition of money, buying and selling, and the wages system. It means the community must set itself the task of providing rather more than the people can use of all the things that the people need and desire, and of supplying these when and as the people require them. Any system by which the buying and selling system is retained means the employment of vast sections of the population in unproductive work. It leaves the productive work to be done by one portion of the people whilst the other portion is spending its energies in keeping shop, banking, making advertisements and all the various developments of commerce which, in fact, employ more than two-thirds of the people today.

The Socialist Party has always maintained that socialism will onlybee achieved by a majority of the working class taking conscious, revolutionary action to capture political power and institute common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Before this step can be taken workers must be equipped with an understanding of what socialism entails. When socialism does eventually come to be established, someone born into this society, the final emancipation of all mankind, would accept common ownership and working for the needs and betterment of all human life (indeed, not working for nothing) as the normal way of life. He or she would look back unbelievably at a system of society, whereby the propertyless majority were exploited and used for their whole lifetime, subjected to wars, hunger and poverty, for the benefit of the propertied few, and wonder how this system lasted for so long. A person born into the capitalist system of society is conditioned from birth to accept this system as normal, until he is educated to the fact that there is an alternative to the capitalist system of society. The alternative being a system of common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interests of the whole community. A class-free society that would end for ever exploitation, war, and poverty. A system of society whereby man would have a free, satisfying, full life. Secure for all time from the ravages of the capitalist system, with an unlimited horizon ahead to work for the betterment of all mankind.

 Capitalism exists today because of a class monopoly of the means of production. This monopoly can only be broken by the combined efforts of the working class and, for this task, the workers need their own political organisation. In the UK, this is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Production for use

The fetishism of money is part of the ideology of the market system which claims uncountable victims across the world.  In the pre Colombian societies of South America, in homage to their gods, human sacrifice was widely practised.  For example, this was a cruel and gruesome ritual amongst the Aztec people in what is now Mexico. Many of the sacrificial victims were children and we think of this as barbaric.  Perhaps for this reason we now prefer to keep out of our minds that because of the constraints of the market system, on a world scale we sacrifice many more children’s lives than the Aztecs could ever manage.  We sacrifice them to the god of money, on the altar of the capitalist system.

It is important to refer to production in socialism as being “solely” for use.   This is for the obvious reason that in all societies, be they bread, bricks or bombs, things are produced for a use of one kind or another. But in the market system, commodities are also produced for sale. Goods for sale have a twin identity in that they exist in both an economic and useful form. The same is true of the labour that produces them.  In employment, the wide range of different skills have one thing in common, they have economic value. Labour as a commodity is bought and sold on the labour markets. In the production, distribution and consumption of commodities the ability of consumers to use goods depends upon their ability to first pay for them. This is because the primary motive of capitalist production is profit and the accumulation of capital. In socialism this profit motive would not exist with the result that goods would be produced “solely for use.”

Human society in its development unfolds the secrets of the Universe but at no time has this been so accelerated as in the capitalist mode of production. New discoveries and inventions plus mankind’s experience have a direct bearing on all ideas that are held in society. We are in part of an age when religious ideas, having already undergone changes in the past, are once more moving to a new field. The wide adherence to old dogmas held by the masses has now weakened. Workers should try to come to grips with the material and social causes of the problems that beset and worry them.

The aim of socialism will be to provide for the many and various needs of all the members of the community. The satisfaction of human needs will be the guiding principle. So the aim of planning will be to provide what human beings want. The technical side of production will have to socialism will be to provide for the many and various needs of all the members of the community. The satisfaction of human needs will be the guiding principle. So the aim of planning will be to provide what human beings want. The technical side of production will have to operate always within the framework of human welfare instead of as at present within that of profit.

As the means for producing wealth will belong to the community as a whole, Socialism will be a class-free society. There will be no built-in conflicts of interest between different sections of society. Further socialism will be thoroughly democratic since a society based on the rational co-operation of free men and women can only flourish if its members play an active part in running it. This means that the whole administrative structure for planning will be under democratic control. The planners will not be bureaucrats with the power to order people about but duly-chosen delegates carrying out a necessary function on behalf of the whole community. As all human beings will have free access to the wealth they need the conditions for the corruption of officials by material favours just will not exist. And, of course, the coercive apparatus, so necessary to capitalism, will long ago have been disbanded.

The first task that men and women in socialist society will face in providing for their needs is to decide what and how much they want. This is not difficult. It is a principle of statistics that though you cannot predict the needs and wants of individuals and small groups the more people involved in any survey the more reliable become the figures—as individual peculiarities even each other out. It is just a matter of research and statistics to work out how much, say, bread or shoes or houses will be needed over a given period. In fact, these techniques are already used today by governments, universities and market researchers. And of course, socialist society would lose nothing from planning to produce a little more than strictly it needed as a kind of insurance against disasters or even against faulty statistics. If too much were produced then the result would not be the disaster it would today, with factories closing and men thrown out of work. All that would happen is that stocks would be larger and people would know how to produce less next time. Similarly if too little were produced. So, first, it is a question of using social research and statistical techniques to estimate future needs. Such estimates could he submitted for discussion and approval to the community. Naturally, the figures could be challenged and, if demanded, estimates based on different assumptions worked out in much the same way as now the Government Actuary  will work out the implications of rival pension schemes submitted by management and unions in the state industries.

Once needs have been estimated and figures for various things agreed on the next problem is to decide how they should be produced—that is, where, under what conditions, with what techniques. Working and living conditions will be something that the planners will have to take as given. Minimum standards will have been agreed on previously, by the usual democratic methods, using human welfare and not technical efficiency as the criterion. For instance, from a technical point of view it might be better to set up a power station in some beauty spot. If the community decided that this place should not be spoiled then this would have to be taken into account by the planners. Similarly some production techniques may be ruled out because the community, or even the producers involved, judges them unsafe or unhealthy or degrading. Once the community has decided what working and living conditions it will not tolerate then, respecting these decisions, the planners can begin working out the best technical way to produce the wealth required. This is a complicated task, demanding the use of computing machines, since every branch of industry is dependent, in however indirect a way, on every other. A decision, for instance, to build more electric cars will mean that more steel, rubber and other things will he needed too. But once the basic ratios are known then the requirements of any combination of needs can be worked out. These ratios are governed mainly by technology which changes very slowly. This technique, associated with Wassily Leontief. is called input-output or inter industry analysis and should come into its own in the non-commercial society that Socialism will be.

Once produced the wealth must be got to the places where the people who want it are (strictly speaking, this is still part of the production process). As the means for producing wealth will belong to the community so, as soon as it is produced, will all new wealth. There is no question of trying to sell it since it was not produced for this purpose but to satisfy human needs—and also since of course buying and selling has no place in Socialism. There is just the technical question of getting the stuff to the distribution centres from where people can freely take what they need.

We are not here drawing up any blueprint but merely trying to show that Socialism is technically feasible now. The technical basis for Socialism—a technology capable of providing plenty for all, skilled and adaptable working human beings, the statistical and planning techniques — has long existed. What is lacking is just the desire and will to establish it.

A state of zero growth would be possible in a socialist society. This is not to predict the future, nor to anticipate any policy decisions that would be made in socialism.   The point is to simply set out what would be practical and possible, given all the advantages that a system of cooperation and production directly for needs would be able to work with.  What we can envisage is a strategy of development aimed at zero growth that could be achieved in possibly three stages. A state of zero growth would be a position where communities need only concern themselves with the day to day production of goods for consumption, particularly those such as food which have a limited shelf life. Also necessary would be the running of services and maintenance. In socialism, the achievement of zero growth would mean stable levels of production for stable levels of consumption using production facilities which would be in use for long periods. The projects necessary to get to a state of zero growth would call for both world cooperation and world organisation, particularly in the supply of information, planning and decision-mak-ing.  It follows that when accomplished, not only would production levels fall but the need for information, planning and decision-making would also be reduced.  This anticipates that centres of organisation at the world and regional levels, could give way to more locally organised production   for the work of providing for daily needs, the running of services and maintenance.

What is possible here is a self-regulating society with work activity in balance with daily needs and in balance with the environment. What this could mean is that providing for the necessities of daily life would be more under local con¬trol involving less allocations of social labour. This could create vigorous communities with wide scope for individual development and diversity of expression. Would a sensible society, conscious of its need to limit productive activity and keep it in balance with care of the environment, really want to continually develop new production facilities?  How much of the innovation that goes on represents real gain, and how much of it is part of changes in fashion to do with consumerist values and attempts by corporations and their advertisers to increase sales?  We can surely assume that people in socialism would not go on and on with the increased production of goods and services for the sake of it. This would be a self-imposed treadmill. Would a socialist system really want to follow the example of capitalism where life’s objectives are focussed on the acquisition and consumption of material things?  It will of course be important that needs are satisfied but the concept of needs will no longer be based on the idea that increased happiness comes with increased consumption and possessions.   Such an illusion, expressing the consumerist values of a market system could give way to a responsible, self-determined appraisal of needs which would reflect the enjoyment of more meaningful community relationships. 

 

Dispelling the too many people myth

It seems common sense that more people in the world must mean more resource use, therefore fewer resources to go around for everyone. It is a logic that has led to some highly unsavoury arguments and policy decisions, such as Ike's racist views. By arguing that population growth is the main cause of mass starvation and environmental ruin, we play into the hands of ruling class who wish to blame the victims. One such consequence is that helping the poor not only hurts them but also threatens to drag the well-fed down to their subsistence level. Under this hypothesis, no sharing is permitted, as it will only generalise starvation to the entire population because there is only so much to go around. So do asTrump say. Build the Wall and the fences. Keep the outsiders out and kick the newcomers out.  

But that sounds crass so some resort to a more sophisticated justification - the carrying capacity of the planet. We transform ecosystems to sustain ourselves. This is what we do and have always done. Our planet’s human-carrying capacity emerges from the capabilities of our social systems and our technologies more than from any environmental limits. There is no environmental reason for people to go hungry now or in the future. There is no need to use any more land to sustain humanity — increasing land productivity using existing technologies can boost global supplies and even leave more land for nature — a goal that is both more popular and more possible than ever. The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social system. Societal collapses due to populations reaching “environmental limits” are not the norm. Existing technologies could sustain current and anticipated human populations while increasingly sparing land for nature.   Human well-being and improved stewardship of the biosphere are limited primarily by the type of social system and its technologies, not by population or environment.  

We have indeed spoken of socialism in terms of abundance and our   green critics claim that human wants are "infinite" interprets this as meaning that socialism will be a society of ever-increasing personal consumption, of people coming to consume more and more food, to take more and more holidays, and to acquire more and more material goods. If humans wants were "infinite" then this would be the result of a society based on free access and geared to meeting human needs, but human wants are socially-determined and limited. Humans can only consume so much food, for instance, and only seek to accumulate more and more material goods in a society of economic insecurity like capitalism. In a society, such as socialism would be, where people could be sure that what they required to satisfy their needs would always be available then we would soon settle down to only taking what we needed and no more. This is all we meant by talking of socialism as a "society of abundance": that enough food, clothing and other material goods can be produced to allow every man, woman and child in society to satisfy their likely material needs. It was not a reference to some orgy of consumption, but simply to the fact that it is technically possible to produce more than enough to satisfy everyone's material needs, thanks, we might add, to technology and mass production.  Meeting everybody's likely material needs will indeed involve in many cases an increase in what people consume.

The end of capitalism

The owners of property are ever on the look-out for means of augmenting their possessions. They employ their capital in industrial operations simply for the purpose of deriving from its use profit or interest. So long as they get their profits increased they care little for the conditions under which the work in their factory, in their mine, or on their railway is carried on. They never seek to know whether those working for them are living happy and contented lives. For them the worker is an abstraction—the materialisation of some portion of their capital in exactly the same way as another portion of their capital shows itself as raw material, as auxiliary material, as factory building, or as a finished product. He sees the worker figuring on his periodical balance-sheet as “Wages,” and cares nothing that “Wages” means so many sentient human beings capable of thinking, loving, functioning even as he does.

Why then should he hesitate, when the markets are glutted, when his “wages” have been transformed into more goods than the market can consume, when goods cannot be sold because hungry men and women have not the wherewithal to buy food, when ill-clad children cannot have clothing provided for them because there is too much in the shops, to turn adrift those he no longer wishes to employ because they are no longer profitable?

And the result is invariably that, during periods when the markets are teeming with food and clothing, the workers are sent adrift and cannot purchase the things of which they are so sorely in need.

The only solution to this state of affairs is to abolish capitalism. The whole trend of events is in the direction of collectivist production and the inquirer into things political and economic can see that the capitalist, having ceased to be useful, is using the whole governmental machinery to safeguard the interests of his class. 

The worker must learn that he has to look to himself and his fellows to work out the emancipation of the working-class. Only by combining to capture the political machinery and to use the power thus acquired for the overthrow of capitalism can he hope to obtain, once and for all, a full and complete solution to the unemployed problem.

The capitalist-class are fighting to increase or maintain their powers and privileges; and as these can only be maintained or increased at the expense of the working-class, their greatest concern is to keep the latter in subjection; to prevent them improving their position, except in-so-far as that improvement is necessary to capitalists. On the other hand, the working-class are fighting for the best conditions they can get; to improve those conditions if possible, and to prevent them being adversely affected in any event. And as they cannot improve their position, or for that matter maintain it, except in opposition to and at the expense of, the class above them, they are in necessary conflict with that class. Obviously then, the antagonism of interest existing between these two classes must prevent any intermingling except in conflict.

The victory of the socialist working-class is the only possible ending of this great struggle. This, however, does not mean the subjection of the capitalist class by the workers: it means the abolition of capitalism and the end of classes, for the great many unprivileged cannot secure equality of opportunity without abolishing class privilege, and privilege is based on private property. The triumph of the great working majority thus involves the emancipation of all from class oppression, for the interests of the toiling majority are fundamentally the interests of humankind. The interests of the humanity are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with capitalist domination.

 Socialism is the ownership of the means of production by society as a whole.

Liberation can seem like a dream. But it is real

Capitalism has infected minds across every section of this society.  Many even think attempting to use this exploitative system is the solution to ending their abuse. Many on the left hold the liberal idea that the political system and institutions working against us are reformable. For sure our needs are many: some need to be fed, need clean water, need health care, need a home or safety, need a community. The list goes on. The work of changing this world is extensive and requires us to not expect overnight results. People who have invested their entire beings into ideas and policies that aren't working are having their dreams and hopes shattered repeatedly.  What's clear is that people need to be more organised. It is crystal clear that a liveable future for humanity is absolutely required.  We live in a world where conflict and division characterise the relations between people and countries. The goal of the Socialist Party is to agitate for world socialism to liberate all of humanity from the chains of exploitation and oppression by the abolition of classes themselves. In this way, the divisions between the city and countryside, and between mental and manual labour will also be abolished, and a society without a State will be created since the State is nothing other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the others. The emancipation of the workers will be accomplished by the workers themselves.  Only an informed working class, informed can create a socialist society. They will achieve it through socialist revolution and replace capitalist commodity production by the socialist organisation of production based on the labour of all the members of society and designed to ensure the complete well-being and full development of each person. The Socialist Party demands the abolition of every form of expropriation and oppression of man by man in social, political and economic life. Men and women shall be free and equal without exception. The principle of all for one and one for all will be the life principle of the coming society. Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as in Britain today where 1 per cent of the population owns 90 per cent, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

 Wage-slavery is a fact. They who buy and they who sell in the labor market are alike dehumanised by the inhuman traffic of human beings. Without this commerce in human life, capitalism would crumble and perish. There is but one issue, the overthrow of the capitalist system and the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery. The political solidarity of the working class means the death of despotism and the birth of freedom.  Socialists did not invent human aspirations for a just, egalitarian and free society; mankind has cherished such dreams for a very long time. What socialists have done is to take these aspirations and shape them into a revolutionary project.  Socialism, for Marx, as for the Socialist Party, is the self-emancipation of the working class, and it is nothing else. There is no socialism without collective, democratic rule by the people who do the work and create the wealth. No leader nor vanguard party can substitute for the working-class struggle for socialism. Future society will be a free societ without rulers and ruled, leaders and led, masters and slaves.

  The Socialist Party does not intend to lead fellow-workers towards a class-free society because they are a part of the working class themselves and adhere faithfully to the motto of the First International: The emancipation of the workers is an act of the workers themselves. If people wait for a revolutionary vanguard to lead them to the classless society or the free society, they will neither be free nor classless. The function of the Socialist Party as revolutionaries is to expose capitalism and propound the view that the destruction of capitalism liberates the people and opens the door to the construction of a new society.  The Socialist Party strives for the complete victory of the social revolution of the working class.

Edinburgh's Child Poverty

There are now as many children in poverty as there are pupils at private school in Edinburgh, the estimate came from finance and resources vice convener Marion Donaldson 

Just over 20% of children in Edinburgh live in poverty.

Why socialism - Here's why

The materialist conception of history identifies social classes as the product of a competitive struggle for scarce resources and a social division of labour: the most important beliefs within society are seen as related to this basic struggle, and thus to class. Ideologies or systems of beliefs relate to the arena o! social conflict, for the purposes of groups competing for scarce resources. They don’t come from nowhere and to no purpose.  Marxism, originally a theory of the self-activity of the working class in the industrialized parts of the world, was corrupted into “Marxist”-Leninism and Maoism to become the conservative ideology of a new class society, a body of formalized doctrine designed to justify the existing nature of society and to leave complete freedom of action to its leaders. Socialism is not a tactic for forced economic development under State control but a society in which the working class will have achieved its freedom. Marxists identified the industrial proletariat as the sole agency for achieving socialism (and therefore, socialism was only an appropriate aim in developed countries where the proletariat was a majority), not just because it was poor, but because of its role within the economy, because it sustained and developed the industrial economy by its own efforts, because it was concentrated and organised in the major cultural centres, because it learned discipline and the advantages of interdependence, because by its experience it had the ability to run the economy.  In China the result was a theory, disguised in Marxist terms, very similar to the pre-Marxist Narodnik (or Populist) revolutionaries in Russia such as a belief that the intelligentsia plus peasants could produce a revolution: that revolution could create socialism; that ‘nationalism’ completely encompassed socialism, that the ‘people’ encompassed the proletariat, and that the local national struggle was the key to the progress of mankind; that the country concerned could industrialise without undergoing capitalism; that socialism was a peasant way of life rather than an emancipated developed society.

The Socialist Party’s opposition to the capitalist system by no means springs simply from a recognition of the misery, slavery, and degradation which capitalism entails, though being human and not mere automata of logic, Socialists are naturally strongly influenced by such facts. They know, however, that capitalism has been a necessary and useful stage in the evolution of human society. It is because the system is neither of these today because it can be shown that the functioning of wealth as capital is now a hindrance to economic and therefore to social and intellectual progress, that the Socialist Party regards capitalism as an obsolete and evil institution.

If the Socialist Party holds exploitation and class oppression to be morally wrong, it is because, for the first time in history since the formation of class divisions away in the remote past, the material means are now available wherewith these, together with all their consequences, may be eliminated from human institutions. It is because this latest existing phase of class society, capitalism, is the great obstacle, holding mankind back, so to speak, on the very threshold of a new and splendid era manifesting untold developments in the material, social and mental triumphs of the race, that the Socialist Party holds this system and all the agencies which uphold or tend to perpetuate it, in hatred and abomination. We live in a world that’s facing many destructive and entwined crises including, climate change, poverty, pollution and human rights violations. Our current economic system has created these crises and is perpetuating and exacerbating them. If economics is about the allocation and distribution of resources as many first-year university textbooks claim, then capitalism has failed. We need a new economic system to protect our planet. We require a sustainable economic solution for our communities.  We must ensure meaningful participation in our decision-making process.

Capitalist cant and humbug manifest themselves at every turn. It is the socialist contention that only when we eliminate the profit account can mankind really deal with the human suffering that goes on in the world today. After all, so much of it is down to the economic cost factor, the need for capitalists to produce quicker and therefore cheaper than their competitors, and then to the competition for markets, sources of raw materials and places of strategic importance, that we really can condemn capitalism for murder.  Every bit of misery that capitalism creates will bring into being a reformist organisation, and so we get a fragmentation of the revulsion that human beings feel when they see any form of suffering. This is of benefit only to the capitalist class, because it diffuses the concern over these problems that is in most of our minds, and prevents most workers from seeing that they have an origin.

To the Socialist Party, it all seems so simple: society is divided into two classes, and the motive behind production is exchange with a view to profit for the owning or capitalist class. All things are sacrificed to this “God" of profits: the health and safety of workers, the children of Yemen and South Sudan and the migrants and refugees around the world.