How does more money get you to no money?

We're swamped by pro-universal basic income messages and the enthusiasm requires to be dampened down. There will be  trial in Scotland. Four councils are faced with the task of turning basic income from a utopian fantasy to contemporary reality as they build the first pilot schemes in the UK, with the support of a £250,000 grant announced by the Scottish government last month  The independent think-tank Reform Scotland, which published a briefing earlier this month setting out a suggested basic income of £5,200 for every adult, has calculated that much of the cost could be met through a combination of making work-related benefits obsolete and changes to the tax system, including scrapping the personal allowance and merging national insurance and income tax.

The Socialist Party analysis of UBI is that it would be a subsidy to employers. Indeed, in the Swiss referendum on the matter in June 2016, the advocates of a UBI openly stated that everybody’s wages would and should be reduced by the amount of 'free money' from the state. The other socialist objection is that ignores the economic imperative of capitalism, enforced through competition, to accumulate more and more capital out of profits, and so profits must come first before meeting the consumption needs of the population. Catering for these is kept to the minimum to maintain productive efficiency or, in the case of 'free money' payments to the poor, to the minimum needed to avoid bread riots. The basic income scheme will be used to undermine social and public services.

Those left-leaning liberals should ask themselves why the right-wing Adam Smith Institutes promotes UBI

“UBI is politically feasible, socially desirable and financially sustainable,” the report says...Even if it gets implemented, UBI won’t solve all our problems. Its parameters, scope and size will have to be fiddled with for a long time to come. But no one can deny that it’s a feasible reform that can nudge our society forward.” their report's Otto Lehto, explained, 

Sam Dumitriu, the head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said “A UBI streamlines the provision of welfare services and improves the autonomy and incentives of individuals. Allowing poor people to spend their money as they see fit stimulates a bottom-up market solutions and cuts down on the bureaucratic red tape. All this pulls resources away from wasteful rent-seeking into wealth creation Attempts to protect jobs through Luddite regulation will backfire and mass retraining schemes have a shaky track record. Cash transfers are our best bet at ensuring the benefits from coming technological change are felt by everyone. We now need to experiment with different ways of doing it”

And always in search of votes, the Labour Party has leapt upon the bandwagon and considering proposing a universal basic income that would be paid unconditionally to all citizens.

The Fabian Society endorses a compromise alternative, not the full idea. 

Tax-free allowances should be scrapped and the money used to pay a flat-rate benefit to all adults...The report’s authors reject the idea of a “fully-fledged” universal basic income –... They warn such a plan would create too “many losers and not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with the least”. But the Society’s researchers say a similar flat-rate “individual credit” for all adults that sat alongside the existing benefits system could “significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes”. They say child benefit could also be integrated into the same system, with a “child credit” paid to a child’s main carer.

“At this time there is not a good case for integrating universal credit, tax allowances and child benefit into a single flat-rate payment for each individual (ie a ‘basic income’),” the report’s authors write. “There is growing interest in the idea, which has the merit of reducing the employment disincentives, complexity and intrusion associated with means-testing. “But a basic income has significant disadvantages – any revenue neutral reform would create many losers and would not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with least today. Reform would be very unlikely to eliminate the need for means testing and conditionality.

“Instead, the tax-free allowances and child benefit should be converted into an ‘individual credit’ for all adults and a ‘child credit’ paid to the main carer. Unlike a basic income, this payment would sit alongside universal credit and as a result would significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes.”

As many have always suspected, the idea of UBI is merely tax structure reform.

While many projects got glowing headlines, the devil was in the details. These pilot schemes are not testing a "universal basic income" but a reform of the poor law system.

Finland plans to give every citizen 800 euros a month and scrap benefits. Prime Minister Juha Sipila was quoted, “For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system”

“It’s not really what people are portraying it as,” said Markus Kanerva, an applied social and behavioural sciences specialist working in the prime minister’s office in Helsinki. “A full-scale universal income trial would need to study different target groups, not just the unemployed. It would have to test different basic income levels, look at local factors. This is really about seeing how a basic unconditional income affects the employment of unemployed people.” Kanerva describes the trial as “an experiment in smoothing out the system”
Marjukka Turunen, who heads the legal unit at Finland’s social security agency, Kela, which is running the experiment explains that the Finnish benefit system is simply “not suited to modern working patterns”, Turunen said. “We have too many benefits. People don’t understand what they’re entitled to or how they can get it. Even experts don’t understand. For example, it’s very hard to be in the benefit system in Finland if you are self-employed – you have to prove your income time and time and time again.”

Authorities believe it will shed light on whether unemployed Finns, as experts believe, are put off taking up a job by the fear that a higher marginal tax rate may leave them worse off. Many are also deterred by having to reapply for benefits after every casual or short-term contract. “It’s partly about removing disincentives,” explained Marjukka Turunen, who heads the legal unit at Finland’s social security agency, Kela, which is running the experiment. The benefit system is simply “not suited to modern working patterns”, Turunen said. “We have too many benefits. People don’t understand what they’re entitled to or how they can get it. Even experts don’t understand. For example, it’s very hard to be in the benefit system in Finland if you are self-employed – you have to prove your income time and time and time again.” For UBI purists, the fact that the monthly Finnish payment – roughly equivalent to basic unemployment benefit – is going to a strictly limited group, and is not enough to live on, disqualifies the Finnish scheme. The Finnish experiment’s design and objectives mean it should perhaps not really be seen as a full-blown UBI trial at all, cautioned Kanerva: “People think we’re launching universal basic income. We’re not. We’re just trialling one kind of model, with one income level and one target group.”

The provincial government of Ontario is to run a pilot project aimed at providing every citizen a minimum basic income of $1,320 (£773) a month. People with disabilities will receive $500 (£292) more under the scheme, and individuals who earn less than $22,000 (£13,000) a year after tax will have their incomes topped up to reach that threshold.

$25m (£15m) project over the next two months, which could replace social assistance payments administered by the province for people aged 18 to 65.

Inside the article it clarifies that it is only a pilot project of $25m (£15m) over the next two months, which could replace social assistance payments administered by the province for people aged 18 to 65 on three distinct sites: in the north, south and among the indigenous community of Ontario determined by high levels of poverty and food insecurity should be chosen for the test project. It is due to launch in spring 2017, will be voluntary and promised “no one would be financially worse off as a result of the pilot”.

 Unconditional monthly payments will begin to flow this summer; single people will receive up to C$16,989 ($12,570) while couples will receive C$24,027. All participants will continue to receive child or disability benefits, if applicable, to 4000 folk, in a 3 year three-year, C$150m pilot program drawn from the cities of Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay. 

Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s premier said “It’s not an extravagant sum by any means,” 

The new Canadian pilot project is not really about a universal basic income. It's about an unconditional basic income for people who would otherwise be on some other, means-tested state handout, i.e. it doesn't apply to everybody but only to those on below poverty line incomes. And although the payments won't be means-tested the recipients will be pre-selected on this basis. So, more a reform of the poor law than a step towards breaking the link between work and consumption. Which is the most "UBI" will amount to if it is ever implemented.

Why do all these sympathetic articles assume that if the government gives everybody, working or not, a regular income this is going to have no effect on wage levels? They seem to be assuming that this would be in addition to income from work whereas what is likely to happen is that it would exert a huge downward pressure on wages and that over time real wages would on average fall by the amount of the "basic" income.

In other words, that it would be essentially a subsidy to employers. It would be "basic" in the sense of being a minimum income that employers would top up to the level people needed to be able to reproduce and maintain their particular working skill. Don't they understand how their much-vaunted law of supply and demand works.

In the name of realism these radical supporters of a Universal Basic Income want to end capitalism while presupposing its continued existence. If people are free from any compulsion to work for a capitalist company, this would destroy the capitalist mode of production. This, after all, relies on the workers to produce the products which are turned into profits. It also relies on the exclusion of workers from these products so that they can become profits. However, at the same time, the same supporters also ask the same capitalist firms to produce the profits to pay for freedom from them in the form of a Universal Basic Income. They want both: the continued existence — for now — of the capitalist mode of production where the reproduction of each and everyone is subjugated to profit and the end of this subjugation by providing everyone with what they need. They want companies to make profits, which relies on and produces the poverty of workers, while at the same time ending mass poverty. They want to maintain the exclusion from social wealth through the institution of private property and end this exclusion by giving everyone enough money. Not possible of course.

Socialist Standard No. 1363 March 2018

 

Whole issue as print ready pdf: 

Socialist Standard March 2018.pdf

• Editorial: Privatisation No Better
• Pathfinders: Space Oddity
• Karl Marx's Legacy
• Cooking the Books: Greed or Need?
• Greasy Pole: What’s ‘Appropriate’ Then?
• Material World: Dying Younger
• For Whom the Carillion Tolls
• In Search of Populism
• Turkey: What's Going On?
• Peter McDouall: Scottish Chartist
• Cooking the Books: What the Poor Law Pays
• Proper Gander: Delicious Chips For Their Tea
• Book Reviews: 'Not a Crime to Be Poor - the Criminalization of Poverty in America', 'A Party With Socialists In It - A History of the Labour Left', & 'The Kronstadt Uprising'
• Exhibition Review: Robots
• 50 Years Ago: Labour and the Health Charges
• Obituary: Karla Rab, 1940-2017
• Think Globally - Act Globally
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

For a Sustainable Future

We live in truly frightening times.  Global catastrophe is a real and growing possibility.  Life is becoming more difficult for most and many of the advances made by our class are being pushed back.  We accept that the world is full of horrors, otherwise, we would not want to change it. Without a vision of a better world and the organization that goes with it, protest go nowhere yet the need for a socialist transformation has never been greater.  Without fundamental social change, future generations are facing a bleak future indeed. We are running out of time. There must be a mass world socialist movement, or there may be no future at all. The Socialist Party presents a vision a society that serves the well-being of humanity and nature alike where workers participate democratically in decision-making. There is bound to be disagreement among socialists as to details. Socialism has been defined and interpreted in lots of different ways. Scholarly tomes on the subject became surprisingly popular as economists probe the sources of unequal wealth distribution. We emphatically maintain that socialism should be identified with the abolition of the wage-system. This clearly distinguishes us from all those who identify socialism with planned state economy or with redistribution of wealth, etc. We maintain that socialism requires the transformation of the means of labour, means of production, into the common property of society. The Socialist Party can only see into the possibilities, based on our own experiences as a political party that has been existence for 114 years and has witnessed all manner of policies and practices. All we can do is continue the hard work we do each and every day working for socialism and supporting whatever struggles our fellow-workers engage in. When we sow or ideas, we never know what seeds will take root.

Opposing irrationality is a precondition to such change. There is throughout the world a popular perception that socialism is a coercive authoritarian system, and the experiences of the former Soviet Union justified that perception. Generally speaking, people feared what they thought was socialism. This was at the heart of socialism's crisis. The Socialist Party, however, never identified socialism with state ownership of the means of production, but with common ownership and democratic control. The collapse of the Soviet Union was not the defeat of socialism’ and its end. What we witnessed was the demise of a particular type of capitalism, state-capitalism, a model of a centralised command economy. The Soviet Union was not a socialist country and was totally alien to the socialist vision. The fall of the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc is no case against the socialist idea. Instead of common ownership of means of production, nationalisation by the State of the means of production was adopted. Waged employment, money and prices , the market and exchange value, plus the separation of the producing class from the control of means of production, all remained. A centralised state-bureaucracy ruled.

The only party in this country to stand for Socialism is the Socialist Party. Class ownership of the means of production causes workers’ problems and any government, be it Labour or “right-wing”, which takes power within capitalism cannot solve these problems and must come into conflict with the workers. It must run capitalism in the only way it can be, as a profit-making system in the interests of the privileged few who live off rent, interest, and profit, and to the detriment of the workers. As socialists, we are not particularly concerned whether the capitalist government is Labour, Tory, SNP or a coalition of them all. They are all anti-working class. It is not just the Tories that are the enemy. It is capitalism and we are equally opposed to all parties that support it, Labour as well as Tory.

We are not out to change human “nature”. We merely assert that human beings behave in different ways under different social conditions and that they can change themselves by changing these conditions. The change from capitalism to socialism will not be made by us on behalf of the people but by the immense majority of workers who want socialism and are fully aware of what is involved in establishing and running such a society. Once workers are socialist-minded Socialism can be established fairly quickly. When the workers have political power it won’t take long to use it to convert the means of production from class to common ownership. This done, then production for use, to meet human needs can begin. Socialism will have been set up. Socialism can only be established by the democratic political action of a working-class convinced of the need for it. In Britain, universal suffrage and parliament (and the local councils) can be used to win political power. But there is nothing special about the British constitution. Other states have different arrangements but as long as they allow a majority to get its way they can be used to establish socialism. We welcome the break-up of dictatorships and the coming of democracy, however limited. But we do not support democracy in the abstract, but as a means to an end: Socialism. We always have held that democracy is of value both to the working class and to the socialist movement, but we do not think that it should, and in the end can be defended by uniting with non-socialists or by war. Some critics suggest that when the Socialist Party grows the government will take steps to try to crush it. Maybe, but we doubt it. For as the socialist movement grows so the power of the capitalists is weakened. The balance of class power shifts in favour of the workers. Any government, be it Labour or Tory, which tried to crush the socialist movement would be biting off too much. By the time the socialist movement has grown so as to be a threat to capitalist power then it will be too late to crush it. No doubt when the socialist movement grows those who support capitalism, fearful of splitting the anti-socialist vole, will rally around one or other of the large capitalist parties. It may be the Tories or it may be Labour or they both may form an anti-socialist electoral alliance. It does not really worry us what they do. That is their problem and that of the class they represent, the capitalists. We assure of one thing, though. Going by the record of past Labour governments, if there are any repressive measures to be taken against socialists and workers generally, Labour will be only too pleased to oblige.

The solution to the problems of workers will come by uniting with each other and with their fellow workers of the world. Then, when the workers are united their energies can be turned to the real conflict—that between capitalists and workers, not between workers with different national and religious tags. However, the workers must, in the first instance, reject all the nationalist and religious ideas, which lead them into willing submission to the capitalist class. Only by a close examination of society can the workers learn the reason for their poverty and to see that their adherence to capitalist divide and rule tactics helps perpetuate their exploitation which is the sale of their labour-power and only after casting aside all forms of nationalism and religions can society be examined in a clear manner. Only by learning where their true interest lies can the workers go out, organise consciously and take the proper steps to end their subservience. Capitalism can only be fought with knowledge.

Lest we forget

Obituary from the January 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with regret that Glasgow Branch reports the death of long-serving member Peter McKenzie. Peter had been a Glasgow member since 1940. He was an active and enthusiastic one who was especially valuable as a chairman at Branch meetings: when Peter was in the chair the business was always dealt with in an efficient and thorough fashion.

He was in many ways a link between the younger members of the Branch and the pre- and early-war periods. He was full of anecdotes and stories of the Party’s activities in those days. A cheerful character who had a clear-cut, no-nonsense style of propaganda, he introduced many workers to the Socialist case. A railway worker, he made many useful contacts among his workmates.

One story illustrates the effect he had in discussion in railway bothies when the talk got round to politics. During the war, when hysteria and hatred gripped many workers, he argued consistently against war and the other horrors that capitalism produced. Returning to his home from work, after midnight, he found two “gentlemen” awaiting him. They asked where he was born, where his father was born and—being thorough—where his grandfather had been born. After Peter had convinced them that he wasn’t a German spy, they told him he had been reported by one of his workmates. With great relish, Peter told how he returned to his bothy discussions and tried to figure out who among his political opponents was the "patriot”!

He was an outstanding example of the older generation of Glasgow members—a mature man thoroughly grounded in the basics of Marxism and a fearless advocate of Socialism. Besides the Branch’s loss of a valuable member, many of us have lost a warm friend. He is survived by his wife and five children, one of whom is a Party member. To all of them, we extend our sympathy at their sudden bereavement.

A Change of Politics

The members of the Socialist Party are frequently beseeched by the Left to join in some sort of anti-capitalist alliance. They endeavour to convince us with siren-songs that such a coalition against capitalism would bear fruit, either by driving the non-socialists out of the Labour Party like weeds or providing the shoots of a new “socialist” party, glibly offering popular reforms. The life-cycle of such developments can be charted in close connection with the recurring crises within capitalism born and re-born with each succeeding economic crisis. In all their incarnations, they have remained a reformist movement in body and spirit, hoping to politicalise workers and recruit them into their ranks. Even at their most radical, the political platform does not transgress the boundaries of that are built into the capitalist system. Armed with their reform programs, the Leftists vainly storm the citadels of the capitalist class to extract as many concessions and reforms as they can. Occasionally, very occasionally, they even control some local governments. Nevertheless, any reforms they managed to exact do not result in any basic changes in the workers' lives or reverse the processes of capitalist accumulation, centralization, and control.  In some cases, they even produced consequences contrary to those anticipated or promised.  After every losing battle and even ignoble capitulation to the master class, the Left has lost more of their mass support. Without bold revolutionary aims, unable to grasp the dynamics of the principal forces at work in capitalist society, the reformist movement progressively lost whatever trust and confidence it once possessed within the working class. Their “revolutionary”  shrivelled into vacuous phrases to cover their alliances with pro-capitalist parties. This many-faced, myriad-minded social movement of protest against the plutocratic rule of Big Business and High Finance lack the power and the will to revolutionise the political system and the economic structure of capitalism.

 Our aim in the Socialist Party is a cooperative commonwealth without State, without ruling Government, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all. We appeal to fellow-workers to rally to the World Socialist Movement and muster under the banner of socialism. The capitalist class is constantly revealing itself in its true colours with its rising cost of living, growing unemployment, the savage repression of all efforts of the workers to better their condition, the deportation and imprisonment of migrants. The working class must capture the power of the State and reconstruct society in their own interests, to turn it from the government of men into the administration of things. Everywhere the capitalists cry: “More production! More production!'’ In other words, the workers must do more work for less wages, so that their blood and sweat may be turned into gold to pay for the ruination of the capitalist world. To save their system of exploitation the capitalists unite and chain the workers to the machines of industry. So long as the capitalist system exists, a few men will be making their money out of the toil of others. All reforms of the present system of society simply fool the worker into believing that he or she isn't being robbed as much as before. Workers can no longer wait to experiment with reforms. Before it is too late, the class-conscious workers of the world must prepare to attack and destroy capitalism and root it out of the world. The State is used to defend and strengthen the power of the capitalists and to oppress the workers.  Capitalist society presents a solid front against the worker.

The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the social property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of all in common. Industry and its factories, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the worker, in each industry, but of all in common and must be administered for the benefit of all.  The word “politics” is to many like a red flag to a bull. Politics, to people, means simply politicians trying to catch votes to elect them to some comfortable office, where they can comfortably forget all about the voters, until the next election campaign. This is using the word “politics” in a corrupt sense. One of the principles upon which the Socialist Party was founded is expressed in the saying of Karl Marx: “every class struggle is a political struggle”. That is to say, every struggle of the workers against the capitalists is a struggle of the workers for the political power – the State. This is the sense in which we socialists use the word “politics.”

The Left believes that they can gradually gain this political power by using reforms to legislate capitalism peacefully out of existence. This leads them to preach all sorts of reforms of the capitalist system, draws to their political opportunists and adventurers of all kinds, and finally causes them to make concessions and compromises with the capitalist class. The Socialist Party engages in electoral campaigns to give us an opportunity to speak to the working class, pointing out the class character of the State and their class interests as workers. They enable them to show the futility of reforms, to demonstrate the real interests which dominate the capitalist political parties, and to point out why the entire capitalist system must be overthrown. When Socialist Party members are elected to Parliament, their function to make propaganda; to ceaselessly expose the real nature of the capitalist State, to obstruct the operations of capitalist government and show their class character, to explain the futility of all capitalist reform measures, etc. In Parliament, the Socialist Party can show up capitalist brutality and call the workers to revolt. The most common objection to electing candidates to capitalist legislatures is that, no matter how good revolutionists they are, they will invariably be corrupted by their environment and will betray the workers. This belief is born of long experience, chiefly with Labour Party fakirs. But we say that a real revolutionary party such as we have the means to retain the loyalty of our elected delegates. The special function of the Socialist Party is to educate the workers for the capture of political power and the administration of the socialist cooperative commonwealth.

Industrial Despotism or Industrial Democracy.

The capitalists class are a menace to humanity. Capitalists perform no useful function in society. The Socialist Party is the only party that stands against the present system. All forms of capitalist interest, rent and profit is a rake-off from industry and is sheer robbery. It is the only party that boldly avows itself the party of the working class and its purpose the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails, the toiling masses will be struggling in the hell of poverty as they are today. The Socialist party is absolutely the only party which faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly for socialism. Private ownership has had its day. The Socialist Party stands for common ownership and co-operation. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand the Earth for all the people. Ending the gigantic robbery which is the very base of the capitalist system will at once release vast resources for useful social ends. With the deadly limitations of the capitalist market with its terrible misery and suffering,  removed, the way is open to satisfy the needs of the people.

Where there is no capitalist class to demand its profit production and distribution can take place for use, an enormous increase in efficiency. The socialist system of planned production, based upon social ownership of industry and the land, is incomparably more efficient than the anarchic capitalist system founded upon private property, competition and the exploitation of the workers.  It will end the hundreds of useless and parasitic occupations and the entire crew of “middlemen,” real estate sharks, stock brokers, advertisers, sales-people, whole rafts of government bureaucrats, police, clerks, and sundry capitalist quacks, fakers, and grafters. It will turn to useful social purposes the immense resources consumed by these socially useless elements. Socialism will also conserve the natural resources of the planet which are now being ruthlessly wasted in the mad capitalist drive for profits. Socialism will put a stop to criminal environmental recklessness and have as one of its principal aims the careful conservation of all the natural resources.

It is characteristic of capitalism to justify all the robbery and misery and terrors of its system by seeking to create the impression that they are caused by basic traits in human nature, or even by “acts of god.” Thus they invent mysterious explanations for preventable disasters as to make them appear natural phenomena over which mankind has no control, like tornadoes and earthquakes. The same general attitude is taken with regard to war. War is put forth as arising out of the very nature of humanity. Man is pictured as a war-like animal, and therefore capitalism escapes responsibility. The ravages of warfare, too, will cease with the end of commercial rivalries between nations. Mankind is by nature a gregarious and sociable. We do not make war because he dislikes others who differ in language, religion, place of birth, etc. Wars have always arisen out of struggles over the very material things of wealth and power. This is true, whether we have been living in a tribal, slave, feudal or capitalist economy, and whether we have obscured the true cause of wars with a religious garb or with patriotic slogans about making the world safe for democracy. The cause of modern war is the policies of the capitalist nations to rob others in the global struggle for markets, raw materials, and territory. In a society in which there is no private property in industry and land, in which no exploitation of the workers takes place and where plenty is produced for all, there can be no grounds for war. Conflicts are not to be ended by peace conferences and disarmament treaties, but by revolutionary struggle of the working class against capitalism itself.  It will be only when the workers have finally defeated capitalism and re-assembled the world on a socialist basis that universal peace can come.

The result of these consequences of the socialist revolution will provide the material base for a well-being of all in the world. The aim of technology will be to achieve the highest possible standards for working people, not the welfare of a few capitalists. Production will be scientifically calculated in advance. The needs of the people and the possibilities of the industries will be carefully studied, calculated and met. With a thoroughly organised industrial system the carrying out of the production plans will be easy and natural. A socialist society without planned production is unthinkable. A socialist world will be a unified, organised world. The economic system will be one great coordinated and interlinked network. The resources of the world will be at the disposal of all the peoples of the world.

A classical capitalist argument against socialism is that it would destroy incentive; that is if private property in industry and the right to exploit the workers were abolished the urge for social progress, and even for day-to-day production, would disappear.  With no exploiting class to rob them of the fruits of their toil workers will welcome better technology because they shall get the full benefit of them. They have broken the chain of capitalist slavery and are building a new world of liberty, prosperity, and happiness for themselves and families. It is understandable why the producing masses under capitalism betray no such enthusiasm in their work. We are robbed of what we produce and for us, robotic and automated improvements in production mean wage-cuts and unemployment. With socialism no one will have the right to exploit another; no longer will a profit-hungry employer be able to shut factory gates and sentence thousands to starvation; no more will it be possible for a little clique of capitalists and their political henchmen to plunge the world into a blood-bath of war. The socialist revolution will create in the new and better development of the individual.  Theirs will be an individuality growing out of and harmonizing with the interests of all. It will not have the objective of one’s getting rich by robbery.

 The capitalists seek to justify their destructive behaviour by asserting that it is rooted firmly in human nature. Such appeals to “human nature,” however, must be taken cautiously. By that method of reasoning it would be quite easy to conclude that the rich capitalist who heartlessly casts workers out of his shops penniless and gives no thought as to their future has quite a different “human nature” than the hunter-gatherer who, with a higher sense of clan solidarity, before eating his kill, calls loudly in the four directions in case perchance there may be another hungry hunter nearby. Changed social conditions develop different “human natures.” Thus competition, a ruinous, anti-social thing under capitalism, becomes, will with socialism, become highly beneficent. Life in a socialist society will be varied and interesting. Individuals will vie with other individuals, as never before, to create the useful and the beautiful. Locality will compete with locality in the beauty of their architecture. The marks of individuality and originality will be found on everything. The world will become a place well worth living in, and what is the most important, its joys will not be the monopoly of a privileged ruling class but the heritage of all mankind.

The socialist revolution is the most profound of all revolutions in history. It initiates changes more rapid and far-reaching than any in the whole history of humankind.  The millions of workers striking off their shackles of wage-slavery, will construct a free society and inaugurate a new era for the humanity, the building of a new world. The overthrow of capitalism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems. Some of these originate in capitalism, and others have plagued the human race for centuries. Among them are war, religious superstition, prostitution, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, illiteracy, race and national chauvinism, the suppression of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. Socialism will liquidate these handicaps to the happiness and harmony.  Capitalism, based upon human exploitation, stands as the great barrier to social progress. By abolishing the capitalist system, we release the productive forces strong enough to provide plenty for all and relegate the capitalist baggage of ignorance, strife, and misery to the past. Socialism frees humanity from the stultifying effects of the present essentially animal struggle for existence and opens up before it new horizons. The day is not so far distant when our children, will look back with horror upon capitalism and wonder just why it lasted for so long. For generations many have dreamed and planned their utopian societies and being mere speculations disconnected from actual life, they fell on deaf ears. Today, the socialist revolution is no longer an abstraction, a mere theory.  The advance of the revolution is difficult but its direction is sure and its movement irresistible. 

Revolution – Our Only Future!

The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to gain. Workers of the world—unite!

 This is the world of competition, of exploitation, of production for profit.  Hunger, disease, and death stalk all peoples. This is the capitalist world. Capitalism outlived its usefulness long ago. It is no longer capable of progress, of raising the standards of living of the people. Capitalism is only capable of guaranteeing new wars, mass unemployment, and misery.

Under capitalism the production of wealth is carried on for profit. The desire for profits is the motive force which drives the capitalist class to use its capital in the production of wealth. In order to secure profits the workers must be exploited. Part of the product of their labour must be turned over to the capitalist class in the shape of dividends and interest. The task falls to the Socialist Party to take the anger and the hatred that our fellow workers have toward the capitalist system and arm them with a deep understanding of why we have to live this way, whose fault it is and what we can do about it. There are two roads we can follow. One is to say: “Well, that’s too hard to deal with and let’s just deal with the easy problems, just with the day to day problems. Let’s just talk to the workers about things they can agree with us and understand, not about revolution and socialism because that turns them off.” Others will say, “This system’s too big, it’s too powerful what we’re up against, I got enough problems in my factory, in my community. I got enough problems in my home, man, don’t talk to me about that kind of political stuff.”

It is only by understanding how capitalism is against the interests of working people, of how capitalism must be fought by the working class and when the people are equipped with an understanding of capitalism as the enemy–then we can progress on the road to revolution. Only by completely getting rid of this system of wage slavery and its law of profits and the system in which the capitalists own and control everything, including us and our labour can we advance towards socialism. There’s no way step by step we can win, it’s only by getting rid of the whole source of these problems, the system of capitalism, that we can build a new society run by and for the working class. The only power that can save humanity from the peril of barbarism is the working class. It must free itself of all dependence on the possessing classes. It must cease all collaboration with the exploiters and embark on the road of class struggle, the road of socialist victory. The class struggle is a political struggle. It cannot be fought successfully by the workers unless they have a political weapon, which means, their own political party. The capitalist class has its own political organizations. The workers need a party of their own.  The workers have their own political party, which openly calls itself the party of the working class – The Socialist Party of Great Britain.  It is the first big step in breaking from the capitalist parties and capitalist politics, and toward independent working-class political action. The maintenance of the sacredness of private property is the basic principle of every capitalist government. To this principle, it subordinates everything else. The Socialist Party holds a basically different principle. To the evils of capitalism, it must propose social progress and human welfare. Against the interests of a ruling minority, it advocates the interests of all humanity. Its aim must be to assure abundance for all and peace to all. Are not these the things that all the people long for? Capitalist class rule has demonstrated it cannot, by its very nature, achieve this aim. Yet its achievement is not only necessary, but it is quite possible.

Civilisation hovers at the edge of an abyss and socialism is the only possible salvation. Private property generates war. Private Property is the enemy. Production must be released from the fetters of private property. The resources of the world must pass into the possession of humanity. All other problems, the problems of nationality and of race and colour will be solved once society is freed from exploitation and class divisions. A socialist system will bring real democracy. The people of the world want an end to this capitalist system. They want jobs, peace, freedom, security. They want a new life; they want a change from the chaos of the profit system which has proved its incapacity to maintain a high level of peacetime production in the interest of the people. A new social, system, that is, socialism, is the only hope for humanity. 

A belated message from the Socialist Party's EC

The aim of the Labour Party programme is to improve the conditions of the workers without destroying the private ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution (land, factories, railways, etc.) and without transforming them into the common property of the whole community under democratic control.

The only solution for the problems of the working class is Socialism. This is the urgent question of the day. In this country, only the Socialist Party of Great Britain is organised and carried on solely for the direct, unceasing fight for Socialism. Only the S.P.G.B. is deserving of the support of the working class...

...If the S.P.G.B. were willing to sacrifice its Socialist principles and independence by soliciting support and votes on a programme of reforms, it would at once be able to overcome the obstacle. It would be able, like the so-called “Labour” parties, to gain a large membership and apparent strength. That growth would not, however, help forward the Socialist movement, which can only progress to the extent that it gains the understanding and support of convinced Socialists. The S.P.G.B., therefore, does not solicit the votes of non-Socialists, whatever the nature of the reform measures in which they may be interested.

The S.P.G.B. receives the support of Socialists alone.

To prevent the enemies and false friends of Socialism from interpreting the failure to run candidates as evidence that Socialist propaganda is not making headway, Socialists can mark their ballot paper with the word “Socialism,” thus demonstrating the growing strength of the Socialist vote in this country.

The Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, October 22nd, 1935.

Is the Red Flag Flying?

We are living in serious times. Grave events will test the socialist movement.  Only those who have thought out their principles and know how to hold to them firmly will be able to sustain themselves in such times. One of the biggest questions confronting humankind in trying to understand its own destiny and evolution. Our movement, the movement of socialism, judges things and people from a class point of view.  Capitalist disasters are all around us, clear to see. Yet most people believe capitalism is the best system we’ve got. Before they oppose capitalism, they want to know what is to be put in its place? There is an alternative way of running society. It is called socialism. However for many on the Left, socialism is not a society too different from capitalism, but rather, a form of capitalism in which the working class has achieved a higher status It is, as Engels once mocked, "the present-day society without its defects."

Socialism is not government ownership or control of industry. Socialism struggles for the end of the state, not the enlarging of its functions.   Socialism is the struggle to place the ownership and control of industry directly in the workers through the overthrow of capitalism. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the government of persons, but the administration of things. The state, and its authority masking itself as democracy, disappears.  The Socialist Party's goal is the realisation of a humane human community.

A socialist society is not created by steps toward socialism. Socialism is a result of conscious social building, planned and conducted by the organised workers who have won political power and supported by the majority of the population. There are no short cuts. Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and exchange, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last, freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development. Anything less you can call whatever you wish, but it will not be socialism. The Socialist Party reaffirms that socialism for us, yesterday, today, tomorrow means the end of class rule; the end of class privilege; the freeing of the people from all chains and all coercion, the fullest realisation of democracy, the emancipation of men, women and of children from wage-slavery, abundance for all, and therefore liberty for all.

Capitalism is an economic system based on profit. Profit-seeking is the sole motive force in all economic life. The accumulation of capital is regulated by the laws flowing from this search for profit.  Because the capitalist economy is an economy for profit, the contradictions inherent in capitalism – particularly the inevitable disproportion between the different sectors of production – periodically provoke abrupt interruptions’ in the realisation of this profit which is the raison d’être of capitalism. The movement of capitalist economy this acquires the spasmodic and cyclic character which is peculiar to it, swinging abruptly from periods of stagnation and crisis to periods of growth and upswing. This movement, peculiar to capitalism, is valid for the entire world market, for all countries. 

 

Social Revolution

We live in a society racked with crises. This society can neither guarantee them a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. The threat of nuclear war casts a shadow over the lives of all of us. This society places a premium on wealth. The vast majority of our people work out their lives for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. The economy staggers from one recession to another, increasing an unending drive against the rights of labour, all these are hallmarks of the "system" we live under. The system is capitalism. Under it a small minority rule in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs comes not-at-all.

Hunger and deprivation in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production. Capitalism is long on promises, short on performance so that there is forever the recurring contradiction between words and deeds. The vicious capitalist drive to beat down the living standards of the workers is conducted under a barrage of propaganda about raising these living standards. The main illusion fostered by capitalist democracy is that of the State as being above the classes, acting in the “common” interest.  The working class by its own bitter struggle and bloody sacrifice utilizes the rights won by it to organiSe opposition to capitalist exploitation, to organize its own democracy in the form of trade unions and political parties. But the ruling class uses its power to shackle them to the capitalist system by controlling them through professional leaders, union bureaucrats and tamed politicians in the reformist parties. These “leaders” are experts in organising sham battles through which they “deliver”‘ (betray) the organised workers to the master class.

Freed from the clutches of the profiteers and their hangers-on, production, and distribution must be brought under common ownership and the economy planned by the people themselves in their own areas of work. The profit system cannot make use of automation for the benefit of society; socialism will! The future society that will be constructed under socialism will reduce work to an insignificant part of daily life and offer the individual the fullest possibilities to pursue his own abilities and interests.  Capitalism is a system in all its hideous absurdity, the great destroyer of social wealth, and of human happiness, security and life itself. The wondrous productive machine which it developed and which, if rationally organised, could easily supply the needs and comforts of all, proves to be a mechanism that degrades the people to misery, wretchedness, and suffering.

Socialists have often been accused of wanting to overthrow capitalism by force and violence. When they accuse us of this, what they are really trying to do is to imply that we want to abolish capitalism with a minority, that we want to force the will of the minority on the majority. The opposite is the truth. We believe we can win a majority to support a change in the system. First, you should be clear in your mind about the meaning of the word “revolution”. Many people have a stereotyped picture of what a revolution is like. They say a revolution is about building barricades and armed militias taking over a city. What they do is they confuse revolution with insurrection.

Everything you use, everything you eat or wear, your car, your housing — you didn’t make any of these things. We don’t produce these things as individuals. We produce socially. But, even though we produce socially, through co-operation, we don’t own the means of production socially. And this affects all the basic decisions made in this society about what we produce. These decisions are not made on the basis of what people need but on the basis of what makes a profit. What socialism means is not simply that a socialist party come to power, but that a class — the masses of the working people — come to power.  The ruling class is never going to solve its problems through the capitalist system. Therefore, the objective conditions for revolution are going to arise over and over again. We don’t create these conditions, but there is one thing we can do, we can be the socialist party in waiting.

It’s their system, not ours!

 There presently exists a lack of theoretic preparation for the day when the people can actually abolish capitalism. We are talking about the person who wishes to see another world, but thinks it can come about, if at all, by simply doing away with bosses, or paying everyone the same amount, or whatever political, legal, and administrative reform measures they have been led to believe can accomplish the redistribution of power and wealth and can really make their lives better. The Left tends to reinforce naive confuse visions of anti-capitalism, instead of providing theoretical clarity. A new human society cannot emerge through spontaneous action alone. People need to know not just what to be against, but what to be for, not just “what is to be done,” but what is to be undone––what is it exactly that must be changed in order to have a viable and emancipatory socialism? Unfortunately, this issue receives almost no attention. They have not attempted to remake society totally.

The source of capital is no mystery. Capital is simply money and commodities assigned to create a profit and be reinvested. Profit is made by the "magical" addition of surplus value to the value inherent in the product. The "added value," the profit, is produced by workers. And this capital is born to expand or die. To be useful, the investment must result not only in a profit but in a growing rate of profit. Capital represents the stored-up labour of millions of workers accumulated in the hands of the bosses. Nor is the role of such capital any. mystery. “Capital,” Karl Marx, said, “is dead labour that vampire-like only lives by sucking living labour and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” It is the very essence of capitalism to keep labour at a minimum point, just sufficiently above the starving point so that it can continue to produce – never enough above this point so that the worker could save for a period of not working. The boss has no other interest in the worker. Meanwhile, however, all the accumulated labour of the workers, stored up in machines, becomes ever more potentially productive of goods which, utilised for the workers, would unfold possibilities of unlimited development. Surplus value derives from unpaid wages. The worker is never paid for the value of the product, only for the value of her or his labor time, which is considerably less, and which meanders widely depending upon the historical, cultural and social conditions of a country. Labour-power is miraculous, like the Virgin Birth. You get more out of it than you put in. Workers produce a commodity which has more value than what they get in wages to keep them functioning. This differential is surplus value, which is the source of capital.

But, capitalism, no matter how it plans and hopes and prays, would never actually be able to do more than drive the worker to the bedrock of subsistence – although there is plenty to provide a featherbed of luxury for all.

Only socialism, where the stored-up labour is utilised for the social good, can realise the potentialities of human productivity and development. Only when accumulated labour belongs to those who produce it – to the worker who turns the wheels.  Once workers realize, however, that the “return” should be to them and society instead of to the bosses, they will have begun to see the socialist solution. The secret of value, the labour theory of value, that was unearthed by the classical economists and by Marx is what the money barons fear and hate. It is the secret that will set the world free. People will learn how to control the supposedly sacred, eternal, and inscrutable method of production and distribution that now controls us. 

People in a socialist world will produce for use according to a reasonable plan and without a thought for the odious notion of profit. And with no insatiable parasitic class to maintain, socialist society will produce abundance for all. That's a fact. The global human family will arrange its standard of living as easily as affluent families do today. The socialist says that progress consists not in smashing the giant corporate conglomerates of industry but in taking them away from the private owners and making them the property of the whole people, those who produce all the wealth of the world. Owned by the toiling people, by the workers, the poor farm labourers, the dispossessed and all the poor, these global industries could produce plenty for all. That is the road to socialism, to a world system, of peace, security and freedom. We believe in telling the truth to fellow-workers. We believe only the truth can serve the cause of socialism. We don’t believe in choosing the “lesser evil” over a greater evil. We choose instead something good for working men and women: A socialist party! The Socialist Party demands the abolition of the profit and wages system altogether. In a period the self-organisation and independent mobilisation of the working class, it has opened up the possibility of challenging capital’s hegemony. It has developed and nourished the idea that society as a whole is responsible for the well-being of its members. This social consciousness remains a dagger aimed at the heart of the profit system. For capitalism to flourish, social solidarity must be replaced with the notion of the consumer who is free to make “choices.” To the consumerist vision of the atomised individual we respond: Another world is possible!