Our campaign for socialism

Marx wrote a great deal, on a wide variety of subjects and over a long period of time.  Some of their writing was in response to political issues of the day which are long forgotten, some were concerned to criticise opponents who held views now rarely encountered, while some were of a very abstract and philosophical nature.  So it can be very difficult for someone with no previous acquaintance with their work to know where to begin.  And diving in at some unsuitable place (Capital, vol. 1, ch. 1, for instance) may discourage further exploration. Marx’s writings cannot be simply divided into those on economics, those on history and those on politics, for these subjects, were for Marx closely interrelated. “Production for use” is a phrase uttered so often by socialists as to become almost a cliché, yet understood (in a superficial fashion) by both enquirers and opponents. It describes our concept – our visualisation – of a future social system superceding the present “un-social” system we call capitalism. The descent of millions of families into relative poverty is beyond appalling.

It is capitalism, not overpopulation that is the cause of present-day pollution, resource depletion, and environmental degradation, and, even if population growth were to become a problem in terms of putting pressure on the Earth's resources, it would only be within the framework of a world of common ownership and democratic control that such a problem could be tackled. Similarly, if people's pessimism were to be confirmed and capitalism really did bring ecological catastrophe, then socialism would still be relevant as only a global approach treating the Earth's resources as the common heritage of all humanity would provide any chance of minimising the damage and saving what could be saved. Capitalism is incapable of tackling the ecological question in a rational way since under it production is carried on by profit-seeking enterprises all competing to maximise their profits. 

Socialism won’t evolve automatically or gradually out of capitalism. Its establishment requires a decisive break — a political and social revolution — that will replace class ownership by social ownership. Our argument is to replace capitalism by a planned money-free society. Technology, if not restricted by the money system, could provide goods and services in such abundance that they could be given away free. But certain people, the rich have a vested interest in preventing abundance since only in conditions of scarcity can they make profits. If goods were abundant, prices would be nil — and so would profits. So the rich seek to prevent abundance and maintain scarcity by all sorts of artificial methods: wars and preparations for war, planned obsolescence, not automating. The unleashing of modern technology would not only allow goods and services to be given away free; it would also allow the abolition of toil. With machines as their slaves, people could lead a life of leisure and creative activity. Modem technology now means that a money-free society in which people’s needs are fully satisfied is possible and it can never materialise under capitalism. As technology advances, capitalism becomes increasingly a system of artificial scarcity and organised waste. One of the things we face is the fact that after over a century of remedial legislation the world is still an unhappy place for most of its inhabitants. The alleged progress has been, to a considerable extent, backwards.

Profit comes out of the difference between what the workers get in wages or salary for producing, and what the owner gets for the sale of the article. Wars, crises and industrial strife arise out of this basic position. They will plague the world until a new system of society is established in which all that is in and on the earth is the common possession of all mankind. Where all will join in co-operative production, privilege will no longer exist, and each will take according to need.

The Socialist Party exists to encourage the working class to establish socialism by democratic political action. We are a political party which advocates socialism and nothing else. Members join on this basis and we are in effect a body dedicated exclusively to spreading socialist ideas by all available means. As a political party, our field of operation is the political arena. Here we oppose all other political parties since they all seek to reform or manage capitalism in one way or another while the only form of political action we support is political action for socialism. This is why we also do not support or join broad campaigning movements which, without aiming at winning political power themselves, aim to bring pressure on governments to adopt certain policies or enact certain reforms. In this sense they too are reformist. This does not mean, however, that we stand apart from such organisations in the physical sense and rely solely on our own meetings and publications. We attend their meetings and demonstrations to make contact and discuss with those involved in them, with a view to pointing out that only in a socialist society will the problems they are rightly concerned about being able to be solved. Indeed, many of our own members first came into contact with socialist ideas in this way.

Trade unions, on the other hand, are not political organisations but organisations formed by groups of workers to negotiate their wages and conditions with employers. Workers in employment have to bargain over the sale of their productive skills and it is clearly better that they do this collectively rather than individually (“unity is strength"). Members of the Socialist Party do participate in trade unions (and similar bodies such as tenants associations, parents associations, claimants unions), but as individual workers directly affected not as party members carrying out some "party line". We do not practice "entryism" like the Trotskyists who infiltrate organisations with the aim of taking them over. On the contrary, our members always insist that such organisations should be run on a fully democratic basis and on the need to avoid being manipulated by politicians and politically-motivated groups. We are, for instance, opposed to unions being affiliated to the Labour Party.

Money must go

Money: the curse of our lives. Waste your week working for it. Rush round the shops looking to spend it then waiting aiting for the bills to arrive through the letterbox—now you have less of it. Dreaming of winning the lottery. Dreading debt and the knock on the door from the bailiff to tell you the consequences of not paying it. On the streets the homeless beg for it. Women sell their bodies for it; so do rent-boys. Families break up over it. Criminals smash and grab it. Bitter strikes to get bosses to pay out a few more pounds of it.

Money stunts our lives until we are hardly living at all but on the treadmills of money payments. Money afflicts the many and makes affluent the few.
The parasitic rich live in expense-account luxury, thinking little of a few hundred pounds for a business lunch. Mothers anguish over how to buy shoes for three pairs of children's feet. It is a sick set-up.

The one workable alternative, the sane way forward which the Socialist Party will not be silent about. We must abolish the need for money. Money is only needed when some possess and most do not. Most must buy from some. Workers who produce must buy the necessities of life from the capitalist few who possess the world's wealth. The right of the minority to own and control must be ended. Class division must be ended. Buying and selling must cease. Money will then be done away with. We will produce for use. The ingenuity of administering money madness can be devoted to the infinitely saner and worthier cause of organising world production to satisfy human needs.

In a money-free world, there will be an end to the hardships which are faced by millions today as if they were a natural plague. No more starvation or homelessness or debt or repossession or cheap and shoddy bargain lifestyles. But we do not romanticise “the good old horny-handed worker”. We members of the working class also are conditioned to know ourselves only through a slave consciousness which fights against trust and collectivity. The young are turning against the old and white against black and men against women and fit against disabled—and all of these the other way round as well. The struggle to survive makes petty-minded money-grabbers out of the best of us and drives us as workers to adopt the meanness of spirit and factional hatreds of our oppressors.

Freedom from money will mean freedom of access to all that we need. But it will mean much more. It will mean the freedom to be freely human; to explore our natures and to nurture our behaviour. We shall be free to work not for money, but because we are social beings who express ourselves best through the expenditure of useful energy. We will be free to be more than just postmen or just mothers or just doctors or just painters: we will be free to be all of those things. The alienating division of labour will come to an end. It is humanity which will look after humanity, not a class whose function is to service higher (i.e. richer) forms of humanity. The struggle for a new system of society—for social revolution and nothing less—is more than a struggle for workers to "get more" out of society. A revolution carried out to let the homeless have shelter and the starving eat and the families on benefits to enjoy more. But we in the Socialist Party do not advocate and struggle for a few more “things"—or even a lot more. 

We do not seek a new world system which is just like capitalism only with more of everything for everyone. We seek—we demand—the freedom of all humans to have full control over society, for only then will we have full control over our humanity. We do not want more money, we want no money. We are not demanding welfare for the poor, but an end to the condition of buying and selling which necessitates poverty. We seek not a better-off working class but an end to the working class. We are workers who want to be humans, victims of wage slavery who will be satisfied with nothing less than an end to all slavery in all of its forms. Only then will we be free to live as true social animals: co-operatively, consciously, happily, in dignity.

 To become human we must abolish money: nothing less, no compromises. 

Three Days in Calcutta

Party News from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new party advocating world socialism was founded in Calcutta at the beginning of March when a previously existing organisation, the Marxist International Correspondence Circle, publishers of the Bengali-language Lal Pataka, adopted the principles of the World Socialism Movement and changed its name to the World Socialist Party (India). 

Two delegates from the Socialist Party of Great Britain were present at this conference. One of them, Richard Donnelly, gives his impressions.

The streets of Calcutta are alive with the harsh throb of poverty and desperation. To visit Calcutta for the first time is to experience the sharp pain of human helplessness in the face of such deprivation.

In Sealdah railway station families sleep on the concourse, counting themselves fortunate not to have to face the relentless onset of the monsoon that has to be endured by the pavement dwellers outside.

I have felt the unforgettable rage of seeing young women suckling their young on the pavements of these filthy streets, where dead dogs lie rotting in the sun and rats scamper in the rubbish heaps in competition with human beings.

It was amidst these awful scenes, where starving children follow you from street to street begging for a few coppers, that I arrived at Bankim Jatterjee Street for the inaugural meeting of the World Socialist Party (India).

There I heard young men speaking of threats of violence, of loss of jobs, hounding of their parents, and their pledge to work for World Socialism. It was the most crushing indictment that I have ever heard of the money-grubbing, self-aggrandisement of all reformist parties.

Truly, to have been in that hall was to be proud that you were part of a movement that said: "To hell with reformism, we are dedicated to win this planet for World Socialism."

Those days, from 1 to 3 March, may not have been "three days that shook the world", but they have undeniably shaken the writer of these so inadequate words.

Richard Donnelly
(Glasgow Branch)

No-Ownership

The environmental crises grows ever more threatening with each new day yet we are no closer to a solution because that requires nothing less than a social revolution. Some day or fellow-workers will awaken from their stupor. They will set about the task of ridding themselves of an obsolete social system; a system that prevents them from enjoying the fruits of their labours. They will take the land, the factories and “all that in it is” from those who now own it and will work to produce the necessities and comforts of life for all. You name it and the nations attending the climate change conferences have reneged on it. Ideas of a world compatible with a profit-driven market economy are illusory and their prospects for reform in the interests of humans and the environment a fallacy.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to persuade others to become socialist and act for themselves, organising democratically and without leaders, to bring about a new socialist society. We are solely concerned with building a movement for socialism. We are not a reformist party with a program of policies to patch up capitalism. Our aim is to build a movement working towards a socialist society and seeks to deepen and better articulate our understanding of the world.

 The Socialist Party has consistently advocated a fully democratic society based upon co-operation and production for use. It has opposed every single war and offered solidarity to fellow-workers in their class struggle Since its foundation the Socialist Party has functioned as a democratic and leader-free organisation. The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers.  The more who join the Socialist Party, the more we will be able to get our ideas across. The more experiences we will be able to draw on and greater will be the new ideas for building the movement for socialism.

In all class societies, one section of the population controls the use of the means of production. Another way of putting this is that the members of this section or class own the means of production, since to be in a position to control the use of something is to own it, whether or not this is accompanied by some legal title deed.

It follows that a class-free society is one in which the use of the means of production is controlled by all members of society on an equal basis, and not just by a section of them to the exclusion of the rest. For a society to be ‘class-free’ would mean that within society there would be no group with the exception, perhaps, of temporary delegate bodies, freely elected by the community and subject always to recall which would exercise, as a group, any special control over access to the instruments of production; and no group receiving, as a group, preferential treatment in distribution. In a class-free society, every member is in a position to take part, on equal terms with every other member, in deciding how the means of production should be used. Every member of society is socially equal, standing in exactly the same relationship to the means of production as every other member. Similarly, every member of society has access to the fruits of production on an equal basis.

Once the use of the means of production is under the democratic control of all members of society, class ownership has been abolished. The means of production can still be said to belong to those who control and benefit from their use, in this case to the whole population organised on a democratic basis, and so to be commonly owned by them. Common ownership is when no person is excluded from the possibility of controlling, using and managing the means of production, distribution, and consumption. Each member of society can acquire the capacity, that is to say, has the opportunity to realise a variety of goals, for example, to consume what they want, to use means of production for the purposes of socially necessary or unnecessary work, to administer production and distribution, to plan to allocate resources, and to make decisions about short term and long term collective goals. Common ownership, then, refers to every individuals potential ability to benefit from the wealth of society and to participate in its running.

Even so, to use the word "ownership" can be misleading in that this does not fully bring out the fact that the transfer to all members of society of the power to control the production of wealth makes the very concept of property redundant. With common ownership no one is excluded from the possibility of controlling or benefiting from the use of the means of production, so that the concept of property in the sense of exclusive possession is meaningless: no one is excluded, there are no non-owners. We could invent some new term such as no-ownership and talk about the classless alternative society to capitalism being a no-ownership society, but the same idea can be expressed without neologism if common ownership is understood as being a social relationship and not a form of property ownership. This social relationship equality between human beings with regard to the control of the use of the means of production can equally accurately be described by the terms classless society and democratic control as by common ownership since these three terms are only different ways of describing it from different angles. The use of the term common ownership to refer to the basic social relationship of the alternative society to capitalism is not to be taken to imply therefore that common ownership of the means of production could exist without democratic control. Common ownership means democratic control means a class-free society. When we refer to the society based on common ownership, generally we shall use the term socialism, though we have no objection to others using the term communism since for us these terms mean exactly the same and are interchangeable.

Overcrowded?

 Scotland has 12,000 hectares of vacant and derelict land. A register of disused property was set up 30 years ago but the total area - around twice the size of Dundee - has barely changed since.

It is estimated that three in every five people live within 500m of a vacant or derelict site.

There are more than 37,000 long-term empty homes, according to Shelter Scotland

Can Robots Free Us?

With capitalism once again running into choppy waters, its administrators, of whatever party, will be casting about them for policies to keep it on an even keel. But, as usual, the problems which have always baffled them continue to do so. There has been a stagnation of wages and a stubborn increase in insecure employment, and after all this time they are still talking about urgent measures to solve the housing problem.

Lacking knowledge of the real cause of these problems, workers will cast their vote in despair from one capitalist party to the other. It is only the Socialist Party which says “a plague on all their houses” and works on for the day when the alternative of common ownership will be known on a mass scale and capitalist society will be no more.

We are in the middle of a technological revolution. Once, the craftsman had to give way to the factory worker. Now, the factory worker has to give way to the programmer. Eventually, the penny will drop that we possess the means of producing and distributing wealth which can belong to everyone. This will mean that computers will be used to satisfy the needs of everyone. It is not possible to predict exactly the uses to which computers will be put, because it all depends on the will of the majority of people at the time and none of us is a mind reader. But it is useful to think about what computers could be used for, because this gives us an insight into what socialism could be like. The possible uses are:

• matching production to needs;
• “electronic democracy”
• automation of dangerous or unpleasant work;

Matching production to needs:
If you want to know what people need, you ask them, or better still, arrange for a computer to ask them for you. It saves you travelling all over the world, asking monotonous questions such as: "Do you use aftershave?" — useful information for someone who does his/her bit by brewing aftershave. In turn, the aftershave manufacturers could enter into the computer the raw materials that are needed and in what amounts. The computer would transmit this information to the suppliers.

“Electronic democracy”
If a computer can count aftershave users, it can also count votes cast for and against any proposal presented by any person, such as "Should we continue making aftershave?" It is likely that the system will be polycentric, a local computer counting votes for local proposals, a regional computer counting votes for regional proposals and a world computer counting votes for world proposals. Bigger decisions affect more people and so would be decided by delegated democracy. This system could be implemented today. Ask yourself why governments which spend millions on supposedly defending democracy are not willing to spend even thousands implementing it.

Automation of dangerous or unpleasant work:
There will always be dangerous or unpleasant work that needs to be done. It will be possible to automate work that produces essential goods and services. The technology to do this has existed for several years. Robots can now assemble cars, manufacture computers. make furniture and so on. More recently, computers can mimic workers that make decisions according to rules, such as quality control inspectors, lawyers and doctors. The reason some work is not automated yet is because it is still unprofitable to do so. But the technology is there, waiting to be used should society decide to use it. For example, if our aftershave producer decides to grow bananas for a change and no replacement was immediately available, he/she could see an expert systems programmer. This programmer would write a programme that would instruct the computer to operate the aftershave brewery. Should the ex-aftershave brewer get nostalgic, he/she could always return and pull the plug on the computer.

The building blocks for constructing the computer systems described above have been available for decades. What you have read is not science fiction. It is fact. computer networks are used by companies, especially multi-nationals, in order to co-ordinate their activities and to communicate with each other. The hardware is already in place. All that is necessary is to reprogramme the computers to perform the tasks described in this article, should that be the wish of the majority of the people at the time.

Defenders of the capitalist status quo tell people that socialism is not workable. They think that workers are not intelligent enough to run a system of production for use, one where there are no followers and leaders but a system where everyone co-operates in decision making. They forget that workers are intelligent enough to perform the tasks necessary to run a capitalist society. It is workers who design, build and operate computer systems. When the wage and salary earners of the world, the working class, want socialism they will have it.

Work in 2030

 A think tank has warned skills system reform is needed to deal with a forecast gap of more than 400,000 workers by 2030.

IPPR Scotland research found the current 29 pensioners per 100 workers is expected to increase to 32 by 2030.

To offset pressure on public finances, protect living standards and maintain the current ratio Scotland would need an extra 410,000 workers by 2030 or an equivalent increase in productivity. The impact of ageing population will be felt as automation brings sweeping changes to the jobs market. 

The IPPR said almost half (46%) of jobs in Scotland face high automation potential. A large reduction in jobs is not seen as likely as 5% of current roles can be fully automated but one in six have a “significant proportion” of automatable tasks.

http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/national/16890037.scotland-faces-410000-worker-shortage-by-2030/

Political Parties in (In-)Action

We have no quarrel with any individual whatsoever: our quarrel is with the capitalist system.

A class is a body of people united by a common economic interest: the existence of one class presupposed the existence of at least one other and consequently a conflict of interests or a class struggle. When Marx spoke of the increasing poverty of the workers he was relating their position to that of their masters, poverty and riches being relative. Many believe the people with real power to-day were not the capitalists, but the rising managerial class, who were neither capitalists nor workers. Managers are not capitalists, and capitalists do not need any special capabilities of knowledge to attain their superior social position. It was very strange that despite the privileged position to be the lot of the managers, no capitalist wanted to suffer the social fall to a manager, but many managers wanted to rise to capitalists. There is a necessity for the working-class first understanding and desiring socialism before that system of society could be established.

The Tory Party began as the defender of landed property, that was its conscious purpose. In the course of time, it has become the conscious defender of capitalist property as a whole. The Tories only became interested in the working class, in the first place to the extent that working-class discontent threatened to upset the system, and later on to the extent that the workers had votes and were therefore potential supporters of Tory candidates. In its essence, as the defender of property against the propertyless the Tory Party has never changed. Every move, every reform measure sponsored by them has been designed with the object of strengthening property interests and helping them to power. Socialists certainly want to see the Tory Party die, but for a purpose, the purpose of achieving socialism. Capitalism is the removable evil from which the working class has to rid themselves, Therefore all who defend capitalism are the enemies of the working class. This includes the Labour Party even though their defence of capitalism arises not from a conscious aim, but is forced on them by the fact that they have taken on the administration of capitalism and can do no other than defend it.

The Socialist Party insists that nothing less than the conversion of the means of production and distribution into the common property of society could achieve emancipation. The Labour Party, however, promise by means of social reforms, taxation, and whatnot to make gradual but increasing inroads into capitalism until, imperceptibly, socialism would be here. We have had the reforms, and Labour governments. And socialism has not been introduced nor is it in process of being introduced. We still confront the same ruthless, exploiting, war-producing capitalist system. The task of achieving socialism still remains to be done and the method set out by the Socialist Party is still the way to go. Labour Party supporters will contest the Socialist Party charge that capitalism has not been essentially changed yet the concentration of wealth remains still in the hands of the small minority. Capitalism, which the Labour Party has never understood. has made nonsense of their well-intentioned but misconceived programmes. The class struggle still goes on, as it will forever under capitalism. The only cure for capitalism is its abolition. The only road to emancipation is that proclaimed by the Socialist Party.

Every now and again in the radical movement there crop up attempts to think out afresh the foundations of socialism and its implications in the modern world. The alleged “fresh” thinking always turns out to be a rehash of earlier attempts to bypass the obstacle of universal working class understanding; each attempt also overlooks or is ignorant of, the fact the old ground is covered again in much the same way as it was covered in the past. Always the world of production and distribution is supposed to have thrown up some aspects that merit a change in outlook—but the outlook does not change; it is just the same reformist outlook attempting to iron out some of the wrinkles that mar the smooth running of the capitalist social system. The fruit of their work has always boiled down to the oiling of the machinery of capitalism to reduce some of the squeaks. There has been a plethora of this refurbishment of stale ideas. But the basis of their discussions, like the “new" thinking of the past, will get them nowhere because, like their forbears, they accept commodity production. Their concept of revolution in America must be accomplished as the Grand Central Station was built tearing down the old, building up the new, and keeping the train service on schedule, all at the same time, the little by little bit attitude of all reformists. It has no effect worth talking about on the fundamental basis of capitalism—on the class cleavage between workers and capitalists. They are windy purveyors of stale ideas and tools of the ruling class —even if unconsciously.

First, let the Socialist Party point out that the problems faced by people are inseparable from the system of society in which we live. This system produces poverty, insecurity, disease, and all the vicious things that stem from those, and it gives rise to the wars for which governments are constantly preparing. The Socialist Party doesn’t raise these points just to be awkward, or to be academically correct. We fully comprehend that the stakes are very high: in fact the possible extermination of many of us.

But expressions and resolutions of disapproval of capitalism have all been passed before. They have all had no effect. Time and time again the Socialist Party has demonstrated that war stems from capitalist struggles for markets, trade routes, sources of raw materials, and places of strategic importance. All these springs from the production for sale, with a profit motive for a small section of society, the capitalists. This in itself works against the interest of the overwhelming majority of society, the working class. This working class is in every nation and faced with exactly the same problems as the working class of the UK or US. So it is at this level that international conferences must take place, and it must be international conferences for socialism. We have a job to do, in this century, the establishment of socialism. To do that we must explain the basis of capitalist society, its commercial rivalries, its anomalies, its inhumanities. That is the task of workers throughout the world. So long as they blame their leaders' mistakes for the problems of capitalism, they will be content to try to put things right merely by changing the headers, or by something else equally futile. Which means that they will not consider socialism as the only way out of their nightmare. And that is the biggest mistake of all. 

Is Marx out of date?

The insatiable drive for profits, which is fundamental to capitalist society, damages health and destroys lives. Though the capitalist system is inexorably doomed to perish as other systems have perished, its longevity is considerably aided by the ignorance and gullibility of the working class. The capitalist class, naturally enough, are only too ready to seize upon the undiscerning working-class brain and to chloroform and cloud it with hype worked up by the media. The main object of the worker should be to achieve his or her emancipation. Defenders of the capitalist status quo tell people that socialism is not workable. They think that workers are not intelligent enough to run a system of production for use, one where there are no followers and leaders but a system where everyone co-operates in decision making. They forget that workers are intelligent enough to perform the tasks necessary to run capitalist society. It is workers who design, build and operate computer systems. When the working class, want socialism they will have it.

  So many things have happened, they say, that Marx could not know about; capitalism has undergone such unforeseen changes. Unaccountably the questioners forget to put it to themselves. If Marxian theories have long been disproved and discredited why do the opponents of socialism go on, year after year, making new attempts to disprove and discredit them? The answer is that capitalism has not changed in its essentials: it is still a system of society in which the means of production and distribution are class owned, in which commodities are produced for sale and profit by a non-owning working class which lives by selling mental and physical energies to employers. When we come to economic theory, Marx’s analysis of capitalism in operation, value, prices, unemployment, banking, crises and so on is more valuable in depth and scope than anything done by his detractors. One sphere in which Marxian theories hold their own is in the explanation of price changes, including the prices of individual commodities, the price of labour-power (wages), the general upward movement in booms and the downward movement in slumps, the general movements related to changes in the value of gold and finally the general movements related to the volume of currency.

Leaving aside the day to day fluctuations of price caused by market fluctuations of supply and demand and the fact that some commodities normally exchange above or below their value, Marx postulated that the basic element in the exchange of all commodities in capitalist society is value, measured by the amount of socially necessary labour in all the operations required in the production of a given commodity. From which it follows, firstly, that if one commodity requires twice as much socially necessary labour as another, its value will be twice as great, and secondly, that in gold all other commodities find their “universal equivalent”, again related to value. This explains what is behind the value of gold coinage; the coin is a weight of gold representing the value of gold. In concrete terms the Pound or sovereign which circulated in Britain in the nineteenth and into the present century was, by law, a fixed weight (about one quarter of an ounce) of gold.

The next proposition is that in order to carry on the sales and purchases of commodities and other payments a certain amount of gold coin (and subsidiary silver, copper etc., coinage) would be needed. A number of factors enter into the determination of what volume of currency will actually be needed; the volume of transactions, the prices of commodities and the rapidity of circulation etc., for a description of which the reader is referred to Marx’s Capital Vol. 1. Chapter 3. “Money, or the Circulation of Commodities”.

The next stage in Marx’s explanation is that a circulating gold coinage can, without any alteration of the proposition, be replaced by a convertible paper currency, that is freely convertible into a legally fixed and unchanging weight of gold. In 19th century Britain, Bank of England notes, which circulated alongside the gold coins, were by law convertible on demand into gold.

Then comes a completely different situation, the replacement of gold coin and convertible bank notes by an inconvertible paper currency—the situation in Britain today. The Marxian proposition, still based firmly on the concept of value, is that if the inconvertible paper currency exceeds in amount the amount of gold coinage that would be needed, the general price level will correspondingly rise.

 If the quantity of paper money issued is, for example, double what it ought to be, then, in actual fact, the pound, has become the money name of one-eighth of an ounce of gold instead of about one-quarter of an ounce. The effect is the same as if an alteration had taken place in the function of gold as a standard of price. The values previously expressed by the price of £1 will then be expressed by the price £2. (Capital Vol. 1 page 144 Kerr edition).

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The economists who reject Marx have to explain why events are explicable on the lines of Marx’s proposition about the effects of an excess issue of currency, but quite inexplicable on their theory that the amount of currency can be disregarded.

Socialism - Pure and Simple

The Socialist Party has always insisted upon two things. Socialism is the only final solution to the problems of modern society. And socialism can be established only by a working class who consciously opt for it because they understand it. This insistence has doubtless hampered our numerical growth. How many applicants have we turned away because, on examination, we have discovered that they were religious or held nationalist attitudes to politics? It might make it easier to gain more support if our attitude were more flexible; if we campaigned for higher pensions. Easier, perhaps; but futile beyond a doubt and In any case, there are enough organisations doing that already and probably making a better job of it. Our achievement, in political terms, is that we have kept out of it. We have kept the only worthwhile issue clear: Socialism versus Capitalism. 

Socialism is a reaction against capitalism and because of this, it is often described in what may seem negative terms. It is often described as a world of withouts—without money, without national barriers, without social classes, and so on. Yet each of these negatives is, in fact, a positive, active element of the future socialist world.

Socialism will be a world without money. This is so because money is essential to Capitalism; in what we are pleased to call an advanced society, it is a convenient method of exchanging wealth. Nobody escapes this. Everyone who works for a living exchanges his labour power for the things he needs to live, and this exchange is carried out by money, in the form of wages.

Money is essential to capitalism because all wealth, in one way or another, is produced for exchange, or sale. This is an inevitable development from the basis of capitalism, which is the class ownership of the materials and apparatus which are needed to produce wealth.

But money is one of capitalism’s symbols of restriction. Most of us never seem to get enough of it; even if we earn a bit more—if, say, we get a rise in wages—we usually find that this is wholly or partly wiped out by a price rise. Money is convenient for capitalism but for most people, it is anything but a good idea.

The end of money, then, also means an end to the restrictions which money entails.

This will not leave an economic vacuum, with no method of circulating goods. Socialism will replace money with a system of free distribution. This will spring from the basis of socialism just as money does from the basis of capitalism.

Socialism will be based upon the universal ownership of all the things which go to produce and distribute wealth. One of the consequences of this will be production for use and free access which all human beings will have to whatever is produced.

No more massive effort will probably be needed for this than is needed to turn out Capitalism’s wealth today. The administration of it will be largely a statistical exercise of finding out where each sort of wealth can best be produced and where it is needed, and arranging production and transport.

There will probably be points of distribution, specially designed to hold and to pass out particular types of goods; bread, for example, will need different facilities from clothing. From these distribution centres people will simply help themselves.

Nobody will go along with a pocketful of metal discs or paper notes. Nobody will have to sign any cheques or surrender any coupons. Because human beings need certain things, they will make them and distribute them. Society will devote its knowledge and energy to the task of satisfying its own needs.

The restrictions and poverty of capitalism, negatived by socialism’s basis, will be replaced by the positives of free availability of goods. Socialism will be man's culmination to his search for control over his environment. It will negative each aspect of capitalism with its own positive. It will replace poverty with abundance, fear with security, repression with freedom, strife with brotherhood. In countless ways, we have kept our political honour. We have not urged workers out to slaughter each other on battlefields. We have not broken strikes, nor planned the production of weapons. We still want now what we wanted when we were formed in 1904—Socialism, simple and, yes, pure. We have seen many upheavals in our time, wars, revolutions, strikes. Our analysis has not faltered and in every basic requirement has been proved correct. This is not to say that we have not made mistakes. We did not envisage what the Nazis did to the Jews with their death-camps.

But perhaps as a political party, our gravest mistake was our optimism in thinking socialism nearer than it was.

Glasgow University - An apology

A study by the university into thousands of donations it received in the 18th and 19th Centuries found some were linked to slave trade profits. It included sums for bursaries and endowments.

In total, the money it received is estimated as having a present day value of between £16.7m and £198m. Donations to the 1866-1880 campaign to build the university's current campus at Gilmorehill found 23 people who gave money had some financial links to the New World slave trade.

It acknowledged that the university received "significant financial gifts and support from people who derived some, or occasionally much, of their wealth from slavery."

Glasgow University Principal Prof Sir Anton Muscatelli said: "The university deeply regrets this association with historical slavery which clashes with our proud history of support for the abolition of both the slave trade and slavery itself."

What do you owe capitalism? Your chains.

We are a species in deep trouble. No matter how much our politicians dismiss the reality of global warming, minimise its impact or offer false solutions to climate change, the intensifying weather events and their unpredictability are happening here and now.  The fate of humanity hangs in the balance.  The future looks grim.

Things are not produced today to meet people’s needs. They are produced to make a profit. And that’s the cause of the problems we face. Under the profit system profits always come first, before providing basic services like health care and transport, before improving conditions at work, and before protecting the environment. At the same time, it encourages a get-rich-quick climate where competition to make money takes over from cooperation and community values. Everything is reduced to its cash value and people are judged, not for what they are but by how much money they have.

Look at the results. The health service is crumbling. The transport system is in chaos. Schools have become testing centres. Pollution is rife and the environment under attack. The poor have got poorer. Begging and homelessness have spread. Crime is rising. Racism is reviving. Business culture reigns supreme, with "market forces", "competition" and "profit" as the buzzwords. Life is becoming more and more commercialized and empty. People are becoming isolated from each other, with drug abuse and mental illness on the increase. The standard of living may be going up, but the standard of life is going down.

The health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. That’s what minimising costs means. This is why at work we suffer speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, overwork and accidents. This is why we have to work long hours, part-time work, shiftwork and zero-hour contract work. This is why the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all polluted. This is why the Earth’s non-renewable mineral and energy resources are plundered. This is why natural balances are upset and the environment destroyed. This profit system can’t help doing this. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why it must go.

Under capitalis,m there are no "good times" for the working class, but just so long as the working class does not see through the capitalist "work hard now and wait for reward" fairy story, there will always be Tories and Labourites,. Only the Socialist Party keeps to the sound working class position that the only remedy for the evils of capitalism is socialism, and that the time for it is now.  Our present system cannot be made to function efficiently no matter which government holds office, crude attempts to shuffle off the blame for the current state of affairs onto disaffected workers using the media of broadcasting and the press to do so reveals a blatant and cynical determination on the part of the capitalist class to hide this truth from the only other section of capitalist society which has the power to put things right: the 90 per cent of us who constitute the world's working class.

The Socialist Party has always said that under this capitalist system the most decisive factor in production is the profit motive, and that production itself is geared to a marketing system that does not take any account of the real social needs of the community. We have said that capitalism channels all men's efforts down the narrow inhibited path of commerce and reduces his vast potentialities in the field of production to within the bounds of profit making. What is needed is a system of society wherein the means of production shall be held in common ownership by all of humanity instead of a privileged few. Wherein production can be consciously regulated to meet human needs and requirements. Wherein commodities are not produced for sale to the highest bidder, but are produced for the benefit of all mankind. Only in socialism can there be found the answer to the problems of the working classes of this world. 

What then is to be done? If the working class realise that political action need not consist of a repetitive switching from one futile government to another, what else is open to them? First, they must grasp that politicians have only a limited relevance. They are prevented by something outside their plans and claims and deceptions from organising society as they say they would have it. That “something” is the capitalist social system, which from its basis outwards can only be run in the interests of the parasitic minority who own the means of wealth production and distribution. Just a couple of weeks ago we saw two representative members of this minority dress up and parade through the streets to get married. Everything about that event—the opulence, the cynicism, the ballyhoo in the media emphasised the class division of capitalism into those who own but do not need to labour and those who must labour but do not own. The workers, who made all that went into the wedding, owned none of it. Their part in the cruel farce was to stare and wonder and to cheer, to testify to their own degradation.
And in that fact there is the reason for the impotence of capitalism's politicians. Workers are ready to blame MPs for their problems, overlooking the fact that they themselves vote for these leaders and all that they stand for. It is the working class who choose their own repression, who respect and admire their exploiters and who are therefore responsible for their own plight.

We are arguing here, as always, for another approach. The Socialist Party insists that workers need to examine the basis of capitalism as the cause of the world’s problems and to act to change society from that basis. We are arguing here, as always, for a social revolution to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism—a social system based on common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. Socialism will be a classless society, without privilege and poverty, a society in which all human beings will stand equal in their freedom.

In face of that, the posturing, impotent leaders of capitalism fade into their true proportions. It is not they who will change human society into one of abundance but the mass consciousness of the working class. Socialism is something for the workers of the world to get excited about and then act to achieve.

Revolution can’t be outsourced to some sort of heroic leader who will come to the rescue. As the Internationale says:

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear

The only real saviors are the people themselves. We are going to win this war—the CLASS War. Join up and do your bit. 

What is the socialist revolution

The liberation of mankind must be the work of mankind itself, must be majoritarian and democratic. No elite, whether violent or non-violent, can substitute. Peasant-based insurrections do not and cannot lead to the establishment of a democratic, classless society since the peasants, being incapable of ruling society, must hand over power to some minority. Such insurrections bring to power a new ruling class as has been shown in China and Cuba and Vietnam. Contemporary revolutionists claiming the Marxist label are not really Marxists at all. In different ways, they all represent rule by an elite, but they use Marxist language and peasant revolution (consciously or not) to justify their present or future rule. This may not be the intent but it does seem to be the objective function of the contemporary peasant revolution and of its ideologies.

In modern industrial countries, an insurrection can only succeed if the vast majority of the people support it (or are at least neutral) and if the government's machinery of suppression has broken down. In the absence of these conditions, an isolated urban insurrection will be crushed with great bloodshed. This was demonstrated in Paris in 1871, in Dublin in 1916, in Shanghai in 1927, in Vienna in 1934 and many places since. A possible alternative strategy for an active minority in a modern industrial country is to wage a protracted campaign of sabotage—or even of non-violent civil disobedience—in a bid to bring about the collapse of the machinery of government. This would probably rather lead to the rise of a fascist dictatorship and, even if successful, being the work of an active minority only, could easily lead to the rule of a new privileged class as in peasant-supported revolutions.

To succeed the revolution must be essentially non-violent and democratic involving the vast majority of the population, especially white and blue collar workers for they are the only class which, due to their relationship to the functioning of modern society, have both the potential for making a revolution and the capability of carrying it through on a democratic basis. To attempt a revolution without such majority support is almost inevitably bound to result either in a counter-revolutionary fascist society or in a revolutionary dictatorship which destroys the goals for which the revolution was undertaken.

 A socialist party must be democratic and open and so reflect the society it wishes to achieve. It must not get involved in conventional politics or seek to form the government. We cannot agree however that it should engage in the day-to-day struggle as well as agitate and organise for Socialism. To do so runs the great risk of becoming yet another conventional political party since engaging in the day-to-day struggle of people under capitalism necessarily involves advocating reforms. A reform programme would attract people who want reforms rather than Socialism. In a democratic, open party such people would come to dominate it and turn it into an instrument for trying to get reforms rather than for carrying out the social revolution. We look back at the fate of the German Social Democratic Party. The best way to avoid this danger is for a socialist party, while not being opposed to reforms and always being on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors, not to advocate them.

We are able to see that existing more or less democratic institutions can be transformed into instruments of the socialist revolution. Given that there is effective universal suffrage, local councils and some central elected body like Parliament or Congress it seems pointless not to use them both to register majority support for the revolution and to co-ordinate the measures needed to carry it through. Why bother to set up also institutions that would parallel existing structures of government? No doubt as the socialist revolution approaches people will be organising in all kinds of informal bodies ready to take over and run society after the end of class rule, but as long as democratically-elected councils and parliaments exist winning control of them through the ballot-box must surely be central to the strategy of any socialist party in a modern industrial country. The socialist revolution cannot take place on a national scale but must be international and lead to the establishment of a world society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life with production solely to satisfy human needs.

Socialism is the result of social development and is seen as evolving from capitalism in much the same way as previous forms of society have evolved, that is, growth and development up to the point where change, a complete change, is essential — a revolution. Capitalism, by its own development of large-scale organisation and high technical efficiency, its production of a working class owning no property in the means of production, has performed its historical task and must give way to its successor, a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of production — Socialism.

No social system, however, has ever disappeared in a mechanical fashion, out of recognition of historical necessity as it were, and there is no evidence that suggests capitalism is an exception. The class position of the capitalists generally make it impossible for them to understand that their social usefulness has ended; they are deaf to all socialist appeals because such appeals are in essence appeals for them to commit social suicide. The poverty and destitution of a large portion of the world’s population, wars, economic crises, and financial panics contain no lesson for the capitalists who will use all the power they possess to keep the present system in being. Expecting only opposition from the capitalist class, the Socialist Party is compelled to turn to the working class, the class which produces all the wealth, performs all the necessary services in modern society yet suffers all the social indignities of to-day, the class which has nothing to lose by a change in the system, but everything to gain. The only class which can make a revolution. The working class is always in conflict at numerous points with capitalism. In this conflict, however, the working class lacks the understanding of its basic cause. It is and must be the work of present-day socialists to place such understanding at the disposal of their fellow workers. Workers do not need convincing of the necessity to establish socialism by Utopian experiments or plans, as capitalism itself gives many practical reasons as to the need to change society. The details of the future society on which Utopians love to dwell, fade into insignificance in face of the importance of gaining political power.

Political power is centred in governments as is demonstrated in the ability to make and enforce laws by means of the judiciary, police and armed forces. This power is used when necessary to protect the interest of one national group of capitalists against a competing foreign group. This can and often does, lead to war. In this modern capitalist world, the educational system is under the control of the central power and in many parts of the world the whole medium of propaganda and communication is included. This form of power which exists in all those countries where the capitalist mode of production prevails can only be maintained by the active or passive consent of the majority of the population, that is the working class. This consent must be withdrawn and replaced by the deliberate and conscious act of taking over this power in order that the basis of society can be transformed from a capitalist one to a socialist one. The refusal to continue capitalism and the readiness to replace it with the new form of society presupposes that a class which has become revolutionary has at its disposal the requisite organisation to carry out its purpose. In those countries which have developed a political party system, a party which has for its object the establishment of Socialism, with a built-in refusal to compromise with capitalism, will if not already in existence, have to be formed. In those parts of the world which have developed a different political form, the struggle for political power must take place in line with such development.

As it becomes imperative for society to progress and remove the last form of slavery, the state which is a barrier in its present form must be taken over, altered and shaped for the task of social revolution. Once this has been achieved it can fade away. The taking of political power and transforming it from a means of oppression to one of emancipation is the historical mission of the working class. This mission requiring as it does the conscious understanding by that class places the responsibility on present-day socialists for creating and maintaining the organisation which can be used by the revolutionary class. Also to make available political knowledge to speed the development of revolutionary consciousness. The false and dangerous notions about barricades and armed risings must be exposed and the difference between revolts and revolution understood and explained. For modern capitalism has been compelled to provide the weapon which can be used for its destruction. The ballot used by a sophisticated working class can make possible the use of political power to establish a world society where the problem of access to food and shelter will be solved by making these freely available to all.