Changing The World

A socialist party must admit only conscious socialists to its membership for the simple reason that to do otherwise would attract people of all sorts of political opinions; people interested in anything but socialism. To do this would destroy our character as a socialist party. Our sole criteria for existing as a party is to propagate the idea of socialism.  A working-class party must have as its object the only political object in the workers’ interest — the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism. We have always kept our object clear. This is not sectarian—it is consistent and principled.

At election time voters are asked to pay the price for their political gullibility. “Vote for us" cry the defenders of the profit system: “Send us to Parliament r and we will make the country a pleasant place to live in". Many workers don't bother to vote in elections. Campaign leaflets are thrown away by the pestered electorate as casually as the promises within them will be cast aside by the winning party. Workers are right to be cynical about the parties of capitalism: what have they ever done for us? The real issue in elections is not which leader to choose or which policies to enact. The workings of capitalism are not susceptible to the manipulation of l government. Whoever gets in, profits still come before human needs. The real issue is which social system we want to live under capitalism or socialism? None of the manifestos will say anything about the system. The politicians will not make speeches saying “Vote for us so that we can run capitalism—we stand firmly for a system of class division and legalised exploitation a vote for us is a vote to continue the same old problems". Well, they wouldn’t say that, would they? But in effect, that is precisely what they mean. Elections are never about the real issue. Petty, reformist trivialities are presented as if they're what it's all about. Nobody mentions The System—but that is what the whole performance is about.

When the Socialist Party arrives on the election scene and talk about the real issue, the defenders of capitalism become terribly embarrassed: Labourites go red in the face, Tories go blue in the face and Nationalist return to the economic status quo. But there is no escaping it—the real electoral issue is whether we are to live in a competitive, class-divided society or whether we are commonly to own and democratically control the resources of the world. The choice is yours.  Making a social revolution takes a bit more than “breaking the mould". How, then, are we to enact this great change? The first step is to want it. There can be no socialism unless people want it. Do you want a society where food is produced solely to be eaten, houses solely to live in, clothes solely to wear? Do you want to get rid of the buying and selling system where we can only obtain what we want if there is a profit in it for the capitalists?

We want socialism: but wishful thinking will not make a revolution. Capitalism survives because of mass consent. So what would happen if there was mass dissent—if a majority of the working class (which is itself a majority of humanity) withdrew its support from capitalism? The system cannot continue without our acquiescence. Mass dissent or majority socialist consciousness—call it what you like—does not appear by magic. Most people accept the capitalist system because they are used to it. Workers believe that capitalism has always existed and always will. The job of socialists is to show that capitalism is just a temporary stage in human evolution. There is an alternative. Once a majority understand and want socialism, what must they do? They must do the opposite of what they do to support capitalism. Instead of electing leaders to run capitalism they must elect socialist delegates who will carry out their political will. Once socialists get into the parliaments of the world they will have one act to perform: the expropriation of the capitalist class and the transfer of the means of wealth production and distribution to the whole community. That is the sole aim of socialists; that is the real electoral issue. Any political promise or demand less than socialist revolution is worthy of the hostility of the working class.

Socialism will be the result of social forces within capitalism driving workers to the conclusion that the present system does not operate in their interests and that only a society of common ownership of the means of production. democratically organised by themselves, can. The Socialist Party is one among many of these forces. We do not think that our efforts alone will bring socialism, but that the whole range of workers’ experiences (including contact with our party) will prepare them for it. If to some people this preparation seems a tedious process and our progress seems slow, we must say that we too would like to see the socialist idea spreading more quickly. However, important ideas in human history have always taken quite some time to become popular and have only seemed credible to the majority after once being accepted by a sizeable minority. Then they have spread very quickly. Historically speaking the socialist idea has only been around a brief moment. Capitalism has not been around long either. We hope it won’t be with us much longer, but we may have to live under it for some time yet. This we must be realistic about and accept.

But if you agree with us, it’s not your admiration we want. That won’t bring socialism any nearer. We want your active support. Join us and help add weight of numbers to our logic and rationality. The bigger we are, the less likely it is that the people you argue with will say they’ll never be convinced that the society we want will ever work.

Our rich heritage

Party News from the July 1957

From Glasgow (City and Kelvingrove Branches).— “We don’t deal in emotion and sentimentality; we adopt a scientific attitude,” quoted the Glasgow Herald. The speaker was Comrade Shaw, addressing an interested audience in Queen’s Park Recreation Grounds on May Day. While Comrade Shaw was presenting the revolutionary proposition, Mr. Frank Cousins, the official May Day demonstration speaker, was dishing out the sentimentality in the Bandstand in Queen’s Park. Our audience, however, showed their appreciation of the scientific attitude by donating £2 for the purpose of carrying on the good work. It was a grand start to a promising May Day. The Glasgow membership was more active than in recent years, and about 16 members scurried busily about Queen’s Park selling literature to the tune of 11 dozen Socialist Standards. The evening meeting was held in St. Andrew’s Hall, in opposition to the Communist Party and a Skiffle Group competition. A lively audience of 70 heard Comrades Richmond and Higgins expounding “ The Socialist Way Out.” Several nights before the meeting the centre of the city was “decorated” with whitewash advertising our activities, but the Fates and the rain were against us.

A fortnight later, at Rothesay. Comrade Richmond, on behalf of the Party, addressed a Week-end School of the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers. His subject was “Modern Trends in Marxism.” The school consisted of about 40 trade union branch delegates and provided Comrade Richmond with an alert and interested audience. Socialist literature was sold at the meeting, and the venture seems to have been very successful. This is the first time a Trade Union School has requested a speaker from us, but judging by the amount of interest Comrade Richmond’s incisive lectures aroused, it does not seem like the last.

All during May, the Socialist platform has been erected in West Regent Street, where large and interested audiences have gathered to hear the antidote to Capitalist Propaganda. Literature sales and propaganda collections have been encouraging, and there is a possibility of some more members airing their vocal chords there during the rest of the summer.

We Need Socialism

 Many agree with our object socialism but disagree with our view of how it should come about. Well, the important thing is that we agree about the socialist objective. We’re sure our differences about methods can be reconciled by discussion and debate. The struggle for socialism is a political one and its object is to achieve the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with socialism by a majority of socialists. On the political front, there is only one kind of action which is consistent with the socialist objective—work to persuade the majority of workers that only socialism can achieve the common ownership of the means of production and the establishment of a system of production for use on the basis of equality and co-operation. There cannot be a long-term objective which can be reconciled with short-term actions to ease the worst effects of capitalism. These "short-term actions”committed to advocating a modified form of capitalism which would surely be hostile to socialist principles. We cannot seek the abolition of capitalism by advocating some modified form of it. This is surely contradictory.  The decision to support reformist parties of an allegedly working class nature has been a complete waste of time. The working class the world over are still an exploited class; we still have poverty, unemployment, wars and all the social problems that go with capitalism. If all those who argued that the socialist objective should be set aside in favour of political attempts to improve capitalism had instead joined the socialist movement based uncompromisingly on socialist principles, then we would have a large and influential socialist party. The choices in the real world are these you either have capitalism with all its unavoidable consequences in terms of its problems, or you have a socialist system of production for use which would enable the people of the world to solve those problems. The political and economic realities are that there is no ground in between. By its very nature capitalism cannot be run in the interests of the community; its social and political limitations are essentially economic in nature and cannot be controlled. This is what all reformers have ultimately discovered. The difference between the socialist and the anti-socialist is clearly that the socialist is one who takes up the prosecution of the class war to its final aim: the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. He or she who, claiming to be a socialist abjures this, is, therefore, no socialist and of necessity must be anti-socialist

Capitalism deprives the working class of the full product of their labour. It makes a world of conflict, terror, famine, disease. Its hallmark is exploitation, poverty, the degrading of its people. The engine of modern capitalism is commodity production. Goods are produced and services made available because it is profitable to do so. “Things” are a potential source of profit with the result that capitalism elevates the material and the tangible to positions of exclusive supremacy. That which is measurable and which has currency in dollars, marks, and pounds, etc. is—by definition—more important than attributes and experiences which are not so quantifiable.

Capitalism is disconcerted by beauty, truth, dignity, generosity of spirit and so on because these are intangible and elusive. You may have to pay ten pounds to buy a recording of a Mozart symphony and perhaps a million times that amount for a landscape painting by Renoir, but in neither case does the cost reflect the beauty sublimed in the experience of listening to the music or looking at the painting. On the contrary, it is the scarcity of the two artifacts which is crucial. If only one CD of a Mozart symphony was available but several million paintings by Renoir existed, we would expect the prices of the record and the paintings to reflect these facts. Capitalist economics might now make the record a million times more expensive than any one of the paintings. To paraphrase Marx: in the capitalist society, their price is related to scarcity and not to intrinsic value.

What value can be attached to a Mozart symphony, a Renoir painting, the exhilaration of a sunny day in May, a mother’s love, a teacher’s power to enthuse, the integrity and conviction of a stunning piece of acting, the sense of being a respected member of a team, congeniality, generosity and fraternity? Capitalist economics has nothing to say about such matters. It is as though they were part of another world—a netherworld remote from the “real” world of buying and selling and the market. Because they are not the subject of commodity exchange they are—in capitalism’s terms— capricious and unimportant, insubstantial and trivial. Yet for most people, they are the essence of what makes life worthwhile. A society obsessed with markets, with buying and selling, with profits before all else, transforms humankind, and in doing turns potentially creative, altruistic and sociable people into materialistic monsters. Capitalism is always prepared to spend a huge part of its resources on destruction, regardless of how much deprivation there is in the world. It is no coincidence that it is at its most inventive, efficient and productive in wartime when its aim is to destroy as much, and murder as many, as it can. 

Lothian Socialist Discussion (25/7)

Wednesday, 25 July 
7:30pm - 9:00pm
The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, 
17 West Montgomery Place,
Edinburgh EH7 5HA

For years we have witnessed the “success” of a procession of practical efforts to rally workers to socialism by clever policies. We have seen the transformation of these advocates of socialist goals into supporters of the status quo — rebels who have been converted into supporters of the system. Their trademark has become the reforming, improving and administering capitalism. Rebels become transformed into administrators of capitalist states, recruiters for capitalist wars. In the name of building up a socialist movement among the masses, they have emasculated and compromised socialist principles. When elected, they have actually administered capitalism in the only way it can be administered, in the interest of the capitalist class, even to the extent of supporting capitalist wars and crushing workers on strike. 

Where are the convinced socialists they were going to make? Where are the socialist masses? Their practical, realistic policies have proven worse than illusory. They have failed to make socialists! Yet they continue to heap scorn and sneer at the Socialist Party for our small numbers. With smug superiority, they dismiss the Socialist Party as “ivory tower utopians,” “dogmatic sectarians,” “impossiblists,” etc. The real question is: Who have ignored the lessons of experience? Where are the socialists you have gained by your efforts? The oft-vaunted new and fresh approaches have proved to be very stale indeed. 

We have been confronted and challenged by those who fight for something “in the meantime” and who are actively participating in the “workers’ struggles.” The lure and fascination of protest marches and making demands is very attractive. (In a sense, it indicates how deep-rooted discontent with capitalism really is, and it demonstrates the latent strength of socialism once the masses wake up to the need for changing the system instead of adjusting to it.) But — and this is the vital point — these activities are not in harmony with the immediate needs of our time: the making of socialists. The lack of socialists is all that stands in the way of socialism, now.

 The militants and activists” have had impressive “successes” and “victories” in every field except one. The lessons of experience and history have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that they have not remotely convinced the workers of the need for socialism. From campaigns carried on in the name of socialism, the one thing conspicuous by its absence has been any mention of the socialist case. The great indictment of these activists is that they divert the workers from the genuine socialist movement, and have hampered the growth of socialism by many years. Were all that tremendous energy and enthusiasm harnessed in the genuine socialist work of making socialists, how much more the movement would have been advanced! The “practical realist” has proven to be an impractical utopian; the “activist” has proven to be the occupant of an ivory tower. These “practical realists” with their “in-the-meantime” activities have sidetracked the movement from what is truly meaningful. All those dedicated energies have diverted overwhelming numbers of workers from genuine socialism. Had all these efforts and all that enthusiasm been devoted to socialist education, just imagine how much further advanced and inspiring the movement would be today. 

What is encouraging is that, in spite of the antics of the Left, we see some signs of the times that workers are waking up!

Defeat the Masters

Whenever Leftist literature mention “socialism” it always hastens to say “of course we realise the people are not ready yet for socialism” giving the impression that they are very glad the people are not yet convinced of socialism.

...yet while the people In the U.S.A. are less socialistic minded than European workers, the Party has underestimated the amount of socialist sentiment among the workers and farmers, unclear though these ideas are. Nevertheless, there is a portion of the working people who realise that there is something wrong with the chaotic and rotten capitalist system and think that there could be a system whereby plenty would be produced and distributed for everyone. The Socialist Party, by raising the question and explaining socialism in connection with every injustice and oppression of capitalism could find many a recruit from among these people. The Left say we are calling for immediate socialism and yes are for the building of socialism just as soon as the workers wish it. The kind of economy we envisage would, for the first time, make possible an end to wars. The aim of the working class would be to end capitalism and all forms of exploitation everywhere, and everywhere introduce a socialist world. The working people themselves should own and operate the industries cooperatively. This would end production for profit and the waste of competing corporations. We propose that all resources, all land and buildings, all manufacturing establishments, mines, all the means of transportation and communication, should be, not private property, but the common property of all, without any class division. We propose that production be made to serve the needs of those who work, rather than to serve the needs of a few parasites.  When the Socialist Party speak of a society organised on the basis of planned production and distribution we mean something we have in mind to do away with production for profit. Production for profit must be supplanted by production determined by the needs of the entire people and directed by the associated producers themselves. This is the socialist remedy for capitalist anarchy, insecurity, and misery. Capitalism is not simply an exploitative system, but an essentially unstable one.

Socialism, as conceived by Marx and Engels, would be a social order based on the collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. Social production in such a society would be for use as against production for profit. Its objective would be the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, arising from the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs would be completely eliminated. The productive capacity of a socialist society would at last free humanity from economic exploitation, from oppression, and from any form of coercion by a state machine. It would enable people to devote themselves to their fullest intellectual and cultural development. We have to develop class solidarity. There are only two roads for the working class—the capitalist road, which, in the conditions of our time, can lead only to starvation, poverty, and war; and the road of the socialist revolution, which points the way to plenty, prosperity and lasting peace.

The working class is the only class with the capacity to end the insanity of capitalist rule. The fundamental task of the Socialist Party is to instil in the class the consciousness of its historic role. For a socialist world, we summon our fellow-workers. A socialist world can give us peace and plenty. Look now how the capitalism totters on the brink of destruction. Climate change is no longer a fear but a grim reality. The capitalist parties are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain themselves and the capitalist system today only by piling additional burdens upon the people. For the future, they offer only more conflict, continued insecurity, and increasing austerity. The evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. A socialist society will do away with the anarchy of capitalism. Democratically-elected councils in every industry and district will manage the factories and community services. Forward to the new world that awaits us. Vote, for socialism.” Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary banner unfurled. We must win the support of every man and woman who desires to see the end of anxieties, frustrations, and fears caused by capitalism. The capitalist class is developing a ruthless attack on working people. We stand at the threshold of great class battles. If we are bold and clear-sighted, workers can repel this attack, and in their turn to launch a smashing offensive against capitalism. From the great mass struggles for living standards will develop a movement steeled in the struggle that can defeat and overthrow the capitalist class and establish a socialist world.

Socialist musings from Canada's past

The Slave of the Farm (1914) By Alf Budden

Our work is plain before us, the masters hold their place because they hold political power, they are few, we are many, we must then join hands with our brothers of the factory, mill or mine and workers all, go to the ballot and grasp political power; Send our own men to parliament to rule as we shall dictate. 

The Socialist Party have this aim in view, not to dally with reform but to go straight to the goal and sweep the master class from power. Farm slaves, your case is desperate. The minutes are flashing past into hours, the hours into days, the days into years. The new form of society – Social ownership (not to be confounded with Government ownership), is ready to burst the cramping shell of the old. It awaits but the effort of a united working class. How long will you dally? 

Knowledge is power. Read, study, think and then act. For things will go from bad to worse until you have sense enough to call a halt.

 http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/slave.of.the.farm.htm

For socialism,

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

Oppose Capitalism. Support Socialism

The case for socialism is even stronger today than it was in the past.  How capitalism works today strengthens the case for socialism. We need a different form of society, one in which working people get together to decide collectively and democratically how the world’s resources should best be used and shouldn’t be controlled by elite cliques. We need an economic system based on democratic planning whose aim is to match resources to the real needs of the people. With each passing day, the working class confronts more starkly the inability and unwillingness of the capitalist system to provide security. Most working people are aware of this state of affairs. The key questions are, why is it and what can be done to change it? We will show that the crises of capitalism and cannot be solved within this system. What is behind this madness? It is the nature of the capitalist system itself.  As Marxists, the Socialist Party believe it demands a revolution.  Leftists who claim to know the truth about capitalism and who still raise reformist illusions are lying to the working class. Reformism is the conviction that 'socialism' can be achieved by the use of and participation in the existing political institutions. Every delay in breaking with and exposing reformism does harm to the cause of promoting working-class consciousness. The task before us is a vast one.

We live in a world where technological achievements unimaginable in previous societies are within our grasp. Yet millions of lives are stunted by poverty and destroyed by disease. Our society is dominated by insecurity and conflict.  Capitalism, cannot function without the working class. The workers are the main force in production. Without the worker there can be no production; not a wheel would turn. Workers often forget. Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. Our enemies are the capitalist class and all those in league with them.

Economics is a subject which is regarded by many as mysterious, defying understanding. Marx started from the proposition that economics is first and foremost about the way in which society organises to fulfil its immediate material wants. He identified himself as a materialist, in opposition to the idealist thinkers who thought that history was determined by the will of a particular deity, the ruling sovereign or some abstract idea called “human nature”. Marx describes how whereas in primitive tribal societies it was possible for individuals to produce the means of their own subsistence through hunting and gathering etc, with the technological advances brought on in agriculture and metallurgy there was a greater division of labour with people fulfilling more and more specialised roles. In order to satisfy their basic material needs people now had to produce not just for their own individual use but to exchange in return for other goods.

But how were people to determine the value ratio at which different products would exchange? Marx explained that this was done on the basis of their one common denominator - the amount of labour time that went into producing a particular article. This exchange value does not necessarily correlate to the original use value (i.e. the utility it possesses for human beings) - for instance, diamonds are of very little practical use, but still realise a high exchange value since their extraction is a time-consuming and labour intensive business. Likewise, many things which have a high use value to human beings (such as air) do not command any exchange value. Exchange value is determined not at an individual level but in terms of socially necessary labour time; that is the average time across the whole of that economic sector and factoring in the existing level of technology and specialisation. Thus just because one worker takes 30 minutes to produce a watch which normally takes 10 minutes to manufacture does not mean that that watch will be able to realise 3 times the exchange value. Rather the watch-maker would have to work three times as long to produce enough goods to exchange for the same amount of other products. It is important to stress here that when Marx talked about the value of goods being determined by labour time this was not the same thing as price, since prices are in a constant state of disequilibrium and fluctuate constantly above or below actual value.

Now as we know very early on in human history our societies evolved from being mere aggregations of free independent producers to class societies in which existed on the one hand a large majority of un-free or semi-free labour and on the other a small elite which produced nothing at all but reserved for themselves the task of ruling over the others. But how could they support themselves without labour? The answer, of course, was that they would forcibly expropriate the surplus labour of others. That is to say, all of the value created over and above that needed to meet the subsistence needs of the slave or peasant farmer would accrue to the slave-owner or feudal lord. This exploitation was transparent and obvious, which is why it could only be justified by recourse to some sort of claim of divine providence or simple brute force. The genius of capitalism was that in place of this overt exploitation it was able to introduce a far subtler, more form. In an apparently free and equal exchange the capitalist who owned the means of production would advance to the worker wages in return for gaining control over the workers’ labour power. Since all commodities exchange at a value which corresponds to the socially necessary labour time necessary to reproduce them and here the commodity being exchanged is none other than labour itself. Therefore the wages paid will go to meet the upkeep of the individual worker, as well as his family which ensures the continued survival of the labour supply. However, unlike all other commodities (such as raw materials, plant machinery etc.) labour is unique in that it is capable not only of imparting a portion of its own cost of reproduction into a finished product but of also creating new value. Over time tools or machinery will use up their accumulated reproductive value in the production process and have to be replaced, but not so labour. Thus a worker may work 8 hours a day but in 5 hours produce enough value to meet his or her subsistence needs. This means that the value produced in the other 3 hours is surplus value, and since the worker is remunerated only for the cost of reproducing his or her labour - not the full value of the goods or services which their labour creates - it will accrue to the capitalist as profit. Another way of thinking about it is to say that since all commodities exchange on the basis of the labour time that went into their production (including that needed to extract raw materials and build machinery, not just in their final manufacture) and yet the worker does not receive the full value of the commodity, clearly exploitation exists.

However, by treating labour as a just another commodity going into the production process alongside raw materials, tools and plant machinery the capitalist system conceals this exploitation in a process which Marx calls “commodity fetishism”. From this people derive the idea that the capitalist him or herself actually creates value too since they supply the materials and means of production, when in fact without the introduction of labour these commodities are unable to do more than conserve their existing value. The relations of exploitation which were readily apparent under feudalism - where the peasant worked so many days of the year on his own land to feed and provide for his own family, and the remainder on the lands of the local baron the proceeds of which went to maintain the feudal lord - are under capitalism completely obscured. Under capitalism - unlike feudalism or other forms of pre-capitalist society - commodities are converted into money form only in order to then be exchanged for other commodities. However, in the current epoch this entire process is stood on its head so that money or capital now is converted into commodities (means of production, raw materials etc) only in order to generate a larger amount of capital. If it did not require the crucial addition of labour power in order to create new value, but could simply increase its own value spontaneously then there would be no need for it to engage in the sphere of production at all. Clearly, though this is not the case. This is significant particularly when thinking about all of the current hype about the new “pure” form of financial capitalism, in which money supposedly breeds money without any reference to the real physical economy. Marx explained in his Theories of Surplus Value, interest and rent are fundamentally just an apportionment of some of the surplus value created by the worker. Though the relationship between the finance sector and the “real economy” has never been so convoluted and mysterious as it seems today, the truth remains that these profits realised by private equity partnerships and speculators have to be paid for out of the profits of the capitalist engaged in actual production.

Since all production is subordinated to the need to accumulate more capital, individual capitalists must always strive to increase the level of surplus value they extract from their workers as well as to sell more and more commodities. An increase in surplus value can take place in one of two main ways: firstly through the increase in the duration of the working day (absolute surplus value), or secondly through an increase in productivity through increased levels of mechanisation, speed-up or a more specialised division of labour (relative surplus value). The first method (increase in the working day) is generally typical of capitalist development in a period of low technological development, such as Britain in the nineteenth century. It gradually lost its appeal as larger capitalist firms which could afford greater outlay of fixed or constant capital in plant machinery etc realised greater productivity from their workers, making each individual product or commodity cheaper to produce and in turn lowering the amount of socially necessary labour time to produce a specific commodity as determined across the whole economy. The smaller capitalists who relied on more traditional methods of surplus value extraction were as a result driven from the marketplace. 

Summer school update

Below are the timings of each Summer School session. If anyone wants to just attend particular talks, a booking still needs to be made. 

Our weekend of talks and discussion will examine how gender issues relate to wider society and

to revolutionary politics. Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100. The concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in advance.

E-mail enquiries should be sent to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk. 

To book a place send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN.

Friday 3^rd August

19.45

Inside The Matrix

This talk will argue against the premise that oppression is simply the product of class struggle and that feminism can be dismissed as identity politics which distract from the real issue. Feminism and socialism are not either / or, positions. An understanding of class, patriarchy and intersectionality is crucial to the challenge of establishing a world based on socialist principles.

Lorna Stevens and Paddy Shannon

  

Saturday 4^th August

10.00

Equal Work For equal value?

This talk will look at the relevance of value, and the labour theory of value to discussions around the gender pay gap in the workplace. It will look at value as a story told to lay claim to the output of society, and will relate that to Utopian visions of women and womanhood. It will argue that that value is not a value-free idea, but in fact a deliberate move in the class struggle to enforce the power of the capitalist class. Along the way, this talk will take in how the working class is exploited, and how this exploitation contains within itself the end of capitalist values. Finally, it will suggest that the struggle over equal wages contains within itself the drive toward the abolition of the wages system itself.

Bill Martin

13.45

Dangerous Women: How History And The Establishment Hide Female Militancy

From the militant 18^th Century female trade unionists who dunked strike-breakers under water pumps, to the matchwomen, suffragettes and the true founder the Me Too movement, many of history’s most inspiring women have been designated the ‘wrong kind of heroines’ and their stories suppressed or minimised.

Guest speaker Dr Louise Raw has spent 20 years uncovering them, and will introduce or enlarge upon the histories of women of colour, of the working-class and with disabilities, who have much to teach us even today.

19.15

Film showing: Did Gender Egalitarianism Make Us Human? by Camilla Power (Senior lecturer in Anthropology at the University of East London)

Introduced by Carla Dee and Richard Field, with discussion afterwards

Sunday 5^th August

10.00

Sex And Power

The sex industry makes up a significant, if partly-hidden, sector of the economy. Prostitution and pornography represent extremes of exploitation, lucrative to those with the power and damaging to those pushed into selling themselves. This talk will examine the differing impacts which the sex industry has on both women and men, and what this tells us about capitalism as a whole.

Why a class struggle

A labour organisation must bend its efforts toward overthrowing the system of industrial slavery. Only a Marxist party can the working class accomplish its historic mission, the overthrow of capitalism. Socialism is not some distant dream. It is the only road out of exploitation. The capitalist class is the irreconcilable enemy of the working class. Destruction of the environment, the ever-present threat of nuclear war and the looming problem of pandemics are calling the very existence of the human race into question. The battle is class struggle. The war is for the existence of humanity. A new society must be based on the common ownership of the means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. Capitalism has made possible a sustainable economic paradise of abundance for all. Under capitalism, however, it leads to chains of poverty, exploitation, and toil. In socialism, all members of society in equal enjoyment of all the good things and comforts of life will be the arbiters of their own destinies in a free society. The working class alone is interested in the removal of social inequality. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the essential industrial institutions, the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all humanity. Many have claimed the right to carry the red flag of revolution. No doubt there will be others still. But claims do not make a revolution, nor endow it legitimacy. 

 It is capitalism, with its system of production for profit, its system of international rivalry for domination of foreign territories and trade, which produces one war after another. It is capitalism which keeps millions subjugated and exploited by its wage system. Capitalism cannot give peace and plenty to its people but socialism can. Socialism means production for use and not for profit. Socialism means that one working class is not pitted against the others in wars, It means that one working person is not pitted against the other in the fight for a job. The criteria for production under socialism would be – how much is needed? Some people will argue that it can’t work, it’s a utopia. We can only answer that capitalism has demonstrated that IT can’t work. A society organised on the basis of production for use would have more of a chance of working than our present economic system. The thing to observe is it is impossible to make capitalism work. Untold misery, poverty, and unemployment are the living facts that prove that capitalism doesn’t work – not for the working class, anyway. In a system of universal co-operation for production for use, all destruction of wealth, all waste, would be a sheer loss. And all war is waste. Under the present system of capitalism – with its class ownership and control of all natural resources and all means of production – with universal competition and production for profit, waste means gain and is not only inevitable but necessary. It is as idle and utopian to dream of establishing peace in the midst of capitalism. Under capitalism war is inevitable. If you, fellow-worker, desire to abolish war, we say: Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it with a system of production for use and not for profit – all over the world.

Reformists refuse to see the truth of capitalist society that it does not function to achieve social goals the community as a whole regards as desirable, but rather operates to achieve the aims considered desirable by a small part of society, the ruling capitalist class, which places its profits as the paramount concern of society. Society does not exist to satisfy the requirements of the community but the profit needs of the capitalist class. The government, no matter whether conservative or liberal, remains a social organisation whose purpose is to ensure the rule of the capitalist class, and by its policies to assure the receipt of profits, which is considered the first claim on society. When the needs of the great majority of society come into conflict with the capitalist system and the capitalist class, the State's role is to ascertain that the latter triumphs. Capitalist class parties may differ and sometimes do differ deeply on how to achieve the purpose of the state, but despite these differences, all capitalist parties represent poorly or well the capitalist class. Only through an irreconcilable struggle against capitalism, towards its elimination and the establishment of socialism, will the people of the world find the full freedom, equality, and democracy for which they aspire.

The problem is not the Tories or Labour.....

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Understanding The Socialist Party

 Understanding the nature of capitalism helps us in imagining the fundamental change needed to end unrepentant capitalism and its global expansion. The Socialist Party does it best to provide some historical background and context to make people remember their roots and to get them angry against the system. Our task is to promote a consciousness that equips working people with the knowledge to take control of their lives and change it for the better. Today’s so-called critics of the capitalist order seem very tame by comparison. Be men and women in the full sense of the word, self-reliant and confident, Come, take your heritage, for you have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win. The land is a gift of nature to all men and women, technology and all the means of production have been brought into existence by the energy and industry of the workers. We, therefore, propose taking over the land and the means of production and working them in the interest of all. If this were done, with our increased knowledge of organised production and distribution, the present industrial hell would be converted into a heaven of delight, where peace and plenty would bring joy and happiness to one and all.

Under the wages system you and your children, and your children’s children, if capitalism should prevail until they are born, are condemned to slavery and there is no possible hope unless by throwing over the capitalist and voting for socialism. Declare war, not on the individual capitalist, but on the capitalist system. The Socialist Party is for the freedom of the working class. We appeal to our fellow members of the working class to come together in one class-conscious solidarity. We are asking them to open their eyes and see a new dawn approaching. We declare then, that the time has come when working men and women should open their eyes to the class struggle when they should have an intelligent understanding of socialism and pave the way for its triumph and the abolition of capitalism. It is socialism or capitalism. The working class must be aroused. They must be made to hear the trumpet call of solidarity. Economic solidarity and political solidarity!

The Socialist Party knows its mission is so to organise the mechanism of production that wealth can be so abundantly produced as to free mankind from want and the fear of want, from the brute’s necessity of a life of arduous toil in the production of the brute’s mere necessaries of life. Only the working people themselves can improve their miserable conditions. We demand human dignity and justice and to achieve this goal, we strive by all peaceful means through our representatives to influence our society. The socialist movement is as wide as the world, and its mission is to win the world — the whole world — and dedicate it to humanity. The mission of the Socialist Party is the creation of the cooperative commonwealth. The world the Socialist movement is to win from capitalism will be filled with wealth for all to have and to enjoy in its abundance. And why not? Nothing is so easily produced as wealth. The planet is one vast mass of raw materials. In every passing breeze, in every wave, in every river and ray of the sun are the magic forces to transmute into energy sources.

Socialists may disagree. We may be divided. It is possible that we shall quarrel and yet still be perfectly sincere. However, we are all subscribers to the same fundamental socialist principles. We all stand upon the same uncompromising platform. We are all battling for the triumph of the producers of the world. We are educating, we are agitating, we are organising. It is only a question of time when socialists will be in the majority. We will succeed on a platform declaring for the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. Then the factory will no longer be a dismal prison thronged with industrial convicts. Then for a’ that and a’ that, man to man the world o’er, shall brothers be for a’ that. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism. We can only hope for and work for the best.

Scotland's Deprivation Means Early Deaths

Scotland has the highest rate of avoidable death in the UK and the figures are getting worse, BBC analysis has found. In 2016, the rate stood at 301 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 287 in 2014.

North Ayrshire has the highest avoidable death rate in Scotland, the fourth most deprived local authority area in Scotland, saw the highest rate - 373 per 100,000 people, while Shetland has the lowest.

Experts blame social deprivation, with access to alcohol, tobacco and fast food also a factor.

It means the gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor is worsening.

Dr Andrew Fraser, from NHS Health Scotland, said: "We know that people in poorer areas experience more harm from alcohol, tobacco and fast food than those in more affluent areas. Part of the reason for this is that it is easier to access the things that harm our health in those areas. To prevent death, disease and harm we need to take actions where and when they are needed. We must address harm from alcohol, tobacco, being overweight or obese. However, these are often common factors, co-existing in communities, groups and individuals, and so we must also address the environment we live in."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-44872590

Wealth for all

Workers who support capitalism are easily overcome by the propaganda supporting its class rule, exploitation, poverty, famine, war. Only the socialist—who is conscious to the facts of capitalism and the need to replace it with socialism understands. Socialists are not alone in hating what capitalism does to people but they are unique in their understanding of why it does and of how to end it. Capitalism is always prepared to spend a huge part of its resources on destruction, regardless of how much deprivation there is in the world. It is no coincidence that it is at its most inventive, efficient and productive in wartime, when its aim is to destroy as much, and murder as many, as it can.

To most people the word ‘poverty’ means one of two things. Either life below the breadline, such as experienced by many in this country in the last century and by millions still today in the less developed parts of the world. Or simply being badly off, of having enough to live on but not being able to afford the extra comforts which most other members of the community enjoy.

Looking at the first type of poverty, where people actually suffer sickness or death from undernourishment, we find that it has virtually disappeared from Britain. The second type however is still rife. It exists among various sections of the population, the low-paid, the unemployed, the old, the disabled.  If the first type of poverty has been wiped out, why then should the second type still be so prevalent? After all we are no longer in the dark days of the 19th century when wealth was limited and goods seemed scarce. Today our local supermarket bursts at the seams. Why in the midst of all this plenty does there still not seem to be enough to go round with fair shares for all? Why this continual inequality? If the “poor” are still with us, it’s not because there isn’t enough to go round (with today’s technology and expertise, resources, if used rationally, could be easily sufficient to satisfy all people’s needs), but because the anarchic, uncontrollable nature of the economic system under which we live does not allow for the elimination of poverty, only for unpredictable ups and downs in the production and distribution of the world’s wealth.

As an alternative to the system which produces and perpetuates poverty we have a completely different kind of society to propose, one which will do away with poverty in all its definitions. We propose a world community in which all the resources at man’s disposal are used to satisfy the needs of people, not of profits. There will be no poverty of any kind quite simply because all wealth will be owned in common and all persons will have free access to all goods. There will be no money, no employers, no wages, no frontiers. Only voluntary cooperation and economic equality In a society in which what you need will be readily available when you need it the “I want more” mentality will inevitably be absent. To achieve this change of society we need a revolution in ideas followed by a political revolution in which people by majority vote (not by minority violence) will usher out the present world system of buying and selling. This is your choice – capitalism which means reaction and chaos or a workers’ world which means a higher level of civilisation and culture. Socialism as we use the term, means a community of men and women who are able to understand, express and determine their lives as dignified human beings rather than  in which they no longer need to feel themselves prisoners of social forces and decisions beyond their control or comprehension.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to end the capitalist system of society, based on the exploitation of man by man, by means of the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalists and dismantling the capitalist state, the apparatus of force by which they rule; To establish the rule of the working people; To build a socialist society based on common ownership of the means of production, with economic life planned in the interests of the masses of the people – a society which will develop material; abundance and create a socialist society based on the principle “to each according to needs”.

Conflicting Plans

Things are changing day after day concerning NAFTA with Trump, Trudeau and their counterparts getting their panties in a twist over its implications. 

All these guys are really saying is, ''I have to look after the interests of capitalism in my country, so screw you, buddy, if that conflicts with your plans.''

 It certainly highlights the insanity and anarchy of capitalism. 

Imagine a world where there were no countries to squabble with each other, no trade, and where all could partake freely from the common store of wealth. Then you wouldn't have this nonsense. The funniest part of it is that critics of socialism say if established it would degenerate into chaos.

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

Abundance for All

Employers are impelled to squeeze the last drop of profit from the workers. At this very moment, the employers are trying to reduce the already totally inadequate pay and dismantle working conditions. A systematic campaign has been waged by the employers  for the destruction of the trade unions. Day in and day out, the media express their distaste for the workers organisations. In Wages, Price and Profit Marx insisted that if workers were to abandon their battles around wages and working conditions, then “they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation ... By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.” But these battles are not ends in themselves. In the very next paragraph Marx also warned against exaggerating the importance of such battles and becoming “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never-ending encroachments of capital...” Thus while this struggle is necessary if the proletariat is to resist everyday attacks and still more to develop its fitness for revolutionary combat, such struggle is not itself revolutionary struggle. Moreover, unless the economic struggle is linked to building a consciously revolutionary movement – unless, as Marx puts it, it is waged not from the view of “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” but under the banner of “abolition of the wages system”–then such struggle turns into its opposite, from a blow against the bourgeoisie to a treadmill for the proletariat.

But what are wages? When a worker hires himself to an employer he agrees to work for him, that is, to give him a portion of his time and energy each day in return for a specified sum of money. Hence it is seen that to shorten hours is, by decreasing the quantity of time and energy given, equivalent to raising wages and may be included under that head. Similarly, as wages are, in the long run, not the actual money but the "living" which that money will buy, the betterment of conditions generally may also be included in the general term wages. We find, then, that the object of the union is to secure for its members a betterment of wages. Wages being, superficially, the sum of money, but, in the last analysis, the living, in exchange for which the worker delivers up to an employer for a specified time his or her physical energy, in other words, labour-power. We find the fact that we must work for ever less and less wages is merely a necessary corollary to the simple fact that we must work for wages. We find that we must work for wages because we have not the necessary implements of production to enable us to work for ourselves. We must, therefore, in order to gain our livelihood, work for those who own these means of production. We cannot employ our own power to labour, we must, therefore, sell it to those who can employ it. Purchasing our power to labour, to them belongs the fruit of that labour; in it we have no part for we have sold out and receive our portion, at best a meagre living.

Seeking the cause of our enslavement we find it in the ownership by the masters of the means of production, the mills, mines and factories and the avenues of transportation. Owning these they, as a class, command our labour. To them we must sell, in competition with our fellows, our power to labour for a wage, the equivalent of which but a few hours of the day’s toil will reproduce. The hours we labour thereafter are the profit of the masters. Out of that unpaid toil are their rent, interest, and dividends paid, for to the owners of the means of wealth production belongs the wealth produced. It follows, therefore, that were the means of production collectively owned by the workers, to the workers the wealth produced would belong. The fruits of what is now their unpaid toil would then be theirs to use and enjoy. The enhanced productivity due to improved technology, the benefits of which accrue now to the masters would accrue then to the workers, to whose ingenuity they are due and by whose effort they are employed. The lessening of the labour needed then, in place of constituting, as now, an ever-pressing peril and an increasing source of hardship and degradation, would, by lessening the necessary hours of work, be but a boon and an easement to the workers. Increased productivity, instead of spelling intensified poverty would but signify enhanced ease and plenty.

But between the workers and the ownership of the means of production stands the State. If the property of the masters is stolen, restitution and punishment come at the hands of the State. If the ownership of property is in dispute, the State adjudicates. If property is threatened the State, with police and militia, with judiciary and legislature, hastens to its defence. The title deeds to property are written and guaranteed by the State.

The State giveth, the State can taketh away. It is now the instrument of the masters to preserve their property. It can become the instrument of the workers to turn that property into their hands. Now the control of the State is in the hands of the masters. The old political parties represent, if they represent anything, but warring factions of the master class. Whichever party wins to political power neither helps the workers. The politicians reign but, unseen, the capitalists rule. Be he never so honest or well-meaning, the old party politician can but serve Capital, not Labor, whether or not he wills or knows it. By training, education and thought he is the henchman of Capital.

So long as the workers can be beguiled into supporting any of the parties of capital, that is any party which is not against capital, capital is safe, be the victorious party never so fierce in its denunciations of abuses, never so sincere in its professions of sympathy for labour. While capitalist ownership is untouched, capital is master, labour slave. Only by themselves conquering political power for the purpose of abolishing capitalist ownership of the means of production can the workers ever obtain any easement. They must have the whole loaf or be content with none. So to the conquest of the State we, of the working class, have set ourselves. Not for honour or glory. Not for personal political advancement. These we might achieve more easily otherwise. Nor for the love of suffering humanity. But because we know we are slaves; we have lived enslaved long enough and are determined at least to die freemen.

Arrayed against us are all the powers at the command of the master class: their wealth, their media, their intellectuals. But on our side capitalism, which seeks to combat us, itself creates us recruits for our ranks, foments our revolt. Capitalism, whose upholders deny the feasibility of socialism, exists for no other end than to prepare the way for that society. Capitalism has gathered us together, educated us, drilled and disciplined us into a huge co-ordinated army of production, given us ideas and aims, interests and aspirations in common. It has brought the means of production, so to speak, under one roof and has developed their efficiency many hundred fold. It has organised them ready for our collective ownership, and has imbued us with the desire to own them, nay, has dictated to us the necessity of owning them, leaving us no alternative but to own them or perish.

The greatest obstacle in our path is the ignorance of our fellow slaves of their enslaved condition. But that ignorance is being steadily dispelled. We do not seek to accomplish the impossible, to get blood out of a stone, to better our condition within a system whose very existence predicates that our condition must grow worse. We seek only the possible and the only possible remedy. The wage slave’s salvation lies in emancipation and in nothing less. That is the aim and purpose of the Socialist Party.