We Need Socialism

Over the past decades nobody can deny that lots of things have changed, but just how much has the social system altered in those years?

The founders of the Socialist Party back in 1904 looked on a social system in which the accumulated wealth was concentrated in the hands of a small minority, the propertied class; a world in which the workers' life was harassed with poverty, unemployment, bad housing, pauperism and the threat of war. They maintained that if you want something better it has to be a new social organisation, socialism and that you can't do anything useful with this present social system: capitalism. Our opponents believed otherwise and argued that through social reforms, things could be made essentially different. Over the years the politician has been claiming success and that the great change had already taken place, in what they called the Welfare State. Of course, the political parties differed among themselves on some details, each thinking they could do better than them but they were all at first of one mind that poverty, unemployment, and slumps had been abolished and all agreed that slums were on their way out. Nothing whatever has been solved. As the Socialist Party always said nobody can prevent capitalism from breaking through and showing itself for what it really is. There is a very long list of unsolved social problems that were going to be solved by the reformists. And, to return to the basic question, the accumulated wealth of the country is still concentrated in the hands of the propertied class.

The position may be summed up as follows. As under present conditions, all commodities are produced for profit, production must cease with the cessation of profit. As profit and wages between them constitute and have their only source in the value created by the worker, profit can only appear while wages are prevented from consuming the whole product of labour. As wages, the price of labour power, are regulated by the relation of supply and demand, a surplus of labour-power (the unemployed), is necessary to prevent wages swallowing up all profit. Therefore the unemployed army is a vital necessity for Capitalist production, and there can be no solution under capitalism.

The supporters of some form of capitalism continue their bedraggled slogan-shouting processions. Instead of spending time and thought grappling with the cause of social disharmony, they waste their time and energy in futile protests. Governments are solely concerned with the interests of their capitalist controllers and will fight against, or acquiesce in, changes according to their bearing on these interests. The Socialist Party vision is for a more caring society in which nobody is denied what they need based on income, on property, on capital, a society in which people are valued over profit, in which everyone has access to the things they need not just for basic survival but to thrive, an economy run democratically—to meet people's needs, not to make profits, a society free of all oppression with a democratically-run, ecologically-sustainable economy. Our goal is a socialist world. The Socialist Party has learned through decades that the capitalist system serves the interests of the ruling class. It is designed to meet their needs and protect their power from threats from below. The Socialist Party is about fighting to build a society in which everybody can live in dignity and have the resources to live as equitably as possible and to have]the resources that we need not only to survive but to flourish in our society. It’s about empowering people.  It means that everybody within reason will truly have autonomy and control over their own destinies. 

The Socialist Party has one objective, socialism. This can only be achieved when a majority of the working class reject the squalid expediencies of opportunist politics. We do not think that our small party will establish socialism: the working class will — and the capitalist class cannot prevent the working class from establishing socialism. To establish socialism the majority of workers have got to become socialists. If they don’t, capitalism continues. If there is one lesson the last hundred years has taught it is, above all, that no “seizure of power” by insurrection or a general strike can abolish capitalism. The majority have got to break with social reform. This, for many workers, is quite difficult. The pioneers of Socialism, including Marx and Engels, could have had little idea of the potency of modern “social security”, which siphons off much working-class discontent and seriously retards the growth of class-consciousness. How long it will take the workers in their millions to see through the reformist racket is impossible to say

In spite of this, the fact remains that capitalism is a revolutionizing system: compelled by its very nature to organize, train and educate a revolutionary working class. Sheer disenchantment of itself leads nowhere but to smashing windows, rioting etc. Discontent is the fertile soil for socialist campaigning, but without the seed of socialist theory — no new world will bloom. It is the socialists who provide the catalyst. It is the socialists who make precise the vision of a future society, to turn mere rebels into conscious revolutionaries. The socialists transform the miserable degrading requests of trade union for a few more pennies, or for longer tea-breaks, into the dazzling vista of a new world. It is the socialist who raises mere destruction of the old into construction of the new. The Socialist Party argues that socialist economics provides the answers, and to evade the responsibility of explaining it to our fellow-workers would be criminal.

What Population Explosion?

Many in the past have predicted mass starvation due to catastrophic population growth outpacing food production. This has not happened.

The main drivers of population growth are death and birth rates. Lifespan has lengthened due to medical miracles, while fertility has dropped across the board due to birth controls and family planning because of the education and empowerment of women.

While population growth rates have declined, the total population has continued to grow due to the initial size of the population, referred to as population momentum. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs projected in 2017 that Earth’s population would surpass 11 billion by 2100, despite these fertility and population growth rate trends. The UN expects that nearly 70 percent of the world’s population for the latter half of the 21st century would be made up of a population with fertility rates below-replacement (less than 2.1 births per woman). And yet, there still has been a steady call for population reduction.

Now it is situated within the context of emission targets developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to meet global warming goals. The concern with overpopulation, now often dovetails with concerns about climate change. Won’t higher population devastate the environment? All developed countries have a high environmental footprint and no developing country can achieve higher standards of living without increasing its per capita consumption. The consumption patterns of humans show no hint of slowing down. Both in developed and developing countries.

It is evident that a growing population puts an enormous burden on natural resources, energy sources, habitats for all other species, and on land use change. Birthrates across the globe have been declining. One complication is that fertility decline tends to increase GDP per capita, as families invest more in human capital for each child. While the educated and empowered women have fewer children, the main motivation for that is to provide more resources to each child. Per capita consumptions continue to grow when each child is given more resources or wealth. Per capita consumption shows no decline anywhere on the planet. Even in countries like China and India, where the per capita emissions are half and one eighth, respectively, of those in the U.S., the wealthy denizens of these developing countries tend to have a similar per capita emission to the US. The averages are thus not an indication of lower consumption across the board but just an indication of poverty. Even if the developing world accomplishes miraculously high reductions in populations, the total emissions will not come down unless per capita consumptions are reduced even faster. 

However, unintended consequences cannot be ignored. The developed world has a narrow base of younger population with a nearly even distribution up to the aging population. Japan stands as a stark example of an ever growing aging population due to stagnating birth rates. 

 Developing countries, on the other hand, display a pyramidal age structure with a large base of population under 25. This offers a golden opportunity to educate and empower girls and young women. Nothing has proven more effective as a contraception than educating and empowering women. Population is a problem that is solving itself. Our penchant for high-energy lifestyle shows no signs of diminishing. Our energies are best focused on evolving into carbon-neutral sapiens who will naturally settle into a healthy population level.

Blaming over-population is misanthropic. Humanity will be the source of the solutions we need to the problems that humanity has created for itself. As an argument, it is often inherently racist - it is directed at those populations growing fastest, which happen to be mostly black and brown.  It is intended to excuse what is the real culprit: CAPITALISM

There is only one way to effectively prevent, alleviate, or reverse dangerous climate change: SOCIALISM. Population has little to do with it   

 Consider that the European Union has approximately 300 people per square mile, making it as dense as the ninth-densest US state (that is, similar to Pennsylvania or Florida). The continental United States, on the whole, has about 110 people per square mile (excluding Alaska), making the US less than one-third as densely peopled as the EU.  If the continental United States were as heavily settled as the EU, the US would have nearly a billion people living in it. If just the states east of the Mississippi had European-style population density, and the other states maintained current population, then the United States would still have more than 400 million people. 

Adapted from here

https://www.newsweek.com/global-human-population-explosion-carbon-emissions-consumption-1138996

The Problem With All This hatred Of The U.S.A.

Everywhere I go I hear people express anti-American sentiments, intensified now there is a real jerk in the White House. 

It's at least half-way to understandable considering what the American capitalists have done all over the world. 

They offer loans to countries, knowing they can never pay them back, then force them to accept their companies going into these, little better than colonies, and then proceed to legally steal their natural wealth, particularly oil. In the process, they destroy the environment, force the locals to slave for them for low wages and turn the rivers into flaming cesspools. In some cases, they blatantly invade, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The world's financial institutions, such as the World Bank are largely American controlled as are the major global corporations. 

Furthermore the leaders of the countries the US rape have to play ball or they will be forced out like Mossadegh was in Iran in 1951 and Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Some guys weren't so lucky and were murdered, typical cases being Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in 1961, Roldos, Ecuador 1981, Torrijo, Panama also 1981, a busy year, and Allende in Chile in 1973. They even offed one of their own boys, JFK in 1963, who wasn't playing ball with powerful American capitalists.

 The problem with all this hatred of the US blinds people to the truth, which is the Americans are not the enemy; not the working class, the capitalist class, the banks or the global corporations, but the entire capitalist situation which creates all the social evils we find so despicable. 

Kicking the Americans out, however hard that would be, would not solve anything if the locals were exploited by local capitalists.

 Hate is all very useful if leads to understanding, but if it doesn't its conducive to a continuation of crapitalism.

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

Where Trade Is Used For Other Than Economic Means.

Saudi Arabia cancelled its four-flights-a-week between Toronto and Riyadh and halted its purchases of Canadian wheat and barley on August 7, in retaliation of Ottawa's criticism of its human rights abuses. 

In July the Canadian government protested the detention of activists, including Samar Badawi, whose brother, Raif was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. His wife, Ensaf Haidar, is a Canadian citizen.

 In 2017 Canada sent 135,000 tonnes of barley to Saudi Arabia and 70,000 tonnes of wheat. 

Nor does Ottawa show any signs of backing down. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said,''We continue to call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi''.

 Protectionism is one of the new trends capitalism is going through, where trade is used for other than economic means. 

We, of the SPC, cannot say that nobody elected to a position of responsibility will behave in a childish manner in a socialist world, but two things we can say; first that it would not be tolerated, and also, that circumstances like the above could not occur.

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

Socialism - A rational civilisation

People are right to be concerned about what is happening to the environment. There is a serious environmental crisis but the issue is not whether it exists but what to do about it. The Socialist Party explains that no government nor any international treaty can protect the environment. Governments exist to run the political side of the profit system. And the profit system can only work by giving priority to making profits over all other considerations. So to protect the environment we must end production for profit. Production today is in the hands of business enterprises, all competing to sell their products at a profit. All of them — and it doesn’t matter whether they are privately-owned or state-owned — aim to maximise their profits. This is an economic necessity imposed by the forces of the market. If a business does not make a profit it goes out of business. Under the competitive pressures of the market, businesses only take into account their own narrow financial interest, ignoring wider social or ecological considerations. All they look to is their own balance sheet and in particular, the bottom line which shows whether or not they are making a profit. The whole of production, from the materials used to the methods employed to transform them, is distorted by this drive to make and accumulate profits. The result is an economic system governed by uncontrollable market forces which compel decision makers, however, selected and whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder and to pollute.

Governments do not have a free hand to do what is sensible or desirable. They can only act within the narrow limits imposed by the profit-driven market system whose rules are "profits first" and "you can’t buck the market". Too many environmentalists are not against the market and are not against profit-making. They imagine that, by firm government policy, these can be tamed and prevented from harming the environment. This is an illusion. You can’t impose other priorities on the profit system than making profits. That’s why environmentalist activists will fail. They also fail to realise that what those who want a safe sustainable environment are up against is a well-entrenched economic and social system based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding economic law of profits first. If the environmental crisis is to be solved, this system must go. What is required is political action aimed at replacing this system by a new and different one which will allow us to meet our needs in an environmentally-friendly way. To do this we must control production but to be able to control production we must own the means of production. That’s the only basis on which we can meet our needs whilst respecting the laws of nature. And it’s the only basis on which we can begin to successfully reverse the degradation of the environment already caused by the profit system.  Until those who do the work of the world understand that only when privilege in all forms, and class ownership of the means of living, have been abolished will it be possible for the people of the world to live in harmony with their surroundings and their neighbours.

The world’s governments are “nowhere near on track” to meet their commitment to avoid global warming of more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial period, according to an author of a key UN report. A massive, immediate transformation in the way the world’s population generates energy, uses transportation and grows food will be required to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C and the forthcoming analysis is set to lay bare how remote this possibility is.

“It’s extraordinarily challenging to get to the 1.5C target and we are nowhere near on track to doing that,” said Drew Shindell, a Duke University climate scientist and a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Shindell said that the more ambitious 1.5C goal would require a precipitous drop in greenhouse emissions triggered by a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, particularly coal, mass deployment of solar and wind energy and the eradication of emissions from cars, trucks, and airplanes. The fading prospect of keeping the global temperature rise to below 1.5C has provoked alarm among leaders of low-lying island nations that risk being inundated should the world warm beyond this point. Last year, global greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly again. A difference of 0.5C in temperature may appear small but the IPCC report, which is a summary of leading climate science, is expected to warn there will be major impacts if warming reaches 2C.

“Even 1.5C is no picnic, really,” said Dr. Tabea Lissner, head of adaption and vulnerability at Climate Analytics. Lissner said a world beyond 1.5C warming meant the Arctic would be ice-free in summer, around half of land-based creatures would be severely affected and deadly heatwaves would become far more common. “0.5C makes quite a big difference,” she said.

The Only Democracy Worth Campaigning For - A Socialist Society.

On July 27 Doug Ford caused another uproar when he said he will use his constitutional right as Ontario's Premiere to slash the amount of councillors in Toronto from 47 to 25. 

What upset so many candidates is the fact that many have campaigned, long and hard for election to seats that may not exist at the by the time of the election, October 22. 

Ford argues it will save the city money and will make it easier for them to come to an agreement during debates. That there is opposition to this heavenly decree would be putting it mildly. 

Would it be more democratic Ford's way or less are hardly matters that concern socialists and should not concern anyone else, because in the final analysis there is only one form of democracy worth campaigning for - a socialist society.

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

Don’t be fooled by words

As socialists, we don’t go in for moralising in this way about the "goodness" or "badness” of whole sections of the working class. We too are concerned about the conditions our fellow workers in other parts of the world have to live and work under. We know that the role of the police and army is everywhere to protect private property and the existing political set-up. Yet we base our views on an analysis of the material conditions. “

"All I want to see is my country free, happiness peace and prosperity" is a familiar refrain, we in the Socialist Party often hear. But let's see what they really mean.

FREEDOM: In capitalist society means the right of the vast majority to be property's wage workers producing wealth to be sold on a market with a view to profit.

MY COUNTRY: The countries of the world are owned by a privileged minority. The working class has problems and interests that are produced by capitalism and not by the existence of national barriers.

PROSPERITY: All workers are poor, some are destitute. A prosperous working class is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is as incapable of producing a working class that is prosperous as it is of producing a government that is popular. 

PEACE: Even if the shooting stopped the class war would remain, that is the struggle which goes on all the time over the ownership of the wealth of society, whether it be in a so-called “United” Ireland, the “United" States, the "United" Kingdom, the "United” Arab Republic, Russia, Africa, in fact wherever capitalism is the predominating form of society.

Everywhere capitalism exists it creates conflict. Capitalism pits state against state over positions of military and economic influence, capitalist against capitalist over markets, raw materials and cheap labour power, capitalist against worker over wages and conditions and worker against worker over a continuous scramble for scarce jobs. Conflict is capitalism’s permanent condition; the problem is that there is no shortage of people whose ignorance and bigotry enables the conflict to masquerade as one based on nationalism, religion or race. The only way to stop racism and fascism is to understand its cause — the competition between workers engendered by the capitalist system — and, instead of wasting time fighting the effects, remove the cause once and for all. Let’s look at what unites rather than divides workers

Protest movements are nothing new. They exist everywhere and show that everywhere workers are discontented with some aspect of their lot. It is by promising to do something about this that politicians obtain your votes — and it is their failures that lead people to protest on the streets. The politicians fail not because they are dishonest or incompetent but because capitalism cannot be made to work for the good of all. If you accept this, then you will see that direct action is in the end as futile as voting for parties that stand for capitalism. You will see too the uselessness of nationalism and independence as a way of solving the problems of workers. This would merely be a political re-shuffle — a change of masters — that would leave unchanged the class basis of society which is the real cause of these problems.  It is because of the Left’s policy of mouthing the lunacies of nationalism in practically the same breath as they spout platitudes about their spurious socialism that most workers are openly hostile to even discussing socialism.  Their entire vision of the world resolves itself into supporting “good” nationalists against “bad” nationalists, “good” governments against “bad" governments, and, ultimately, much as the religious superstitionists do, “good” people against “bad" people.  State-capitalism supporting “socialists” have done their best to alienate workers from real socialist ideas. But they haven’t entirely succeeded. Some members of the working-class are now starting to articulate their position in a more positive way. They recognise that discrimination everywhere in capitalism, was not practised by those who fought over the crumbs, it was practiced by those who took the cake and left the crumbs to be fought over. If a few workers were relatively materially any better off, it was because their majority strength compelled the ruling class to fob them off with slightly bigger crumbs. The state was born in violence and was governed and politically structured both to resist violence and promote violence as an instrument of establishment policy.

 The vast majority of us in a class which is economically exploited by a small minority of capitalists who use "love of country" and cultural differences to persuade us that we must continue to engage in economic battle with each other simply to preserve the privilege of the few. Little Englanders use this to whip workers up against European workers and pro-Europeans use it to engender competition against the rest of the world. All this nonsense is about their interests, not ours. We should begin to ponder our everyday lives in a social system which continues to isolate and alienate us all from the possibility of living full human lives as free men and women in a community of equals. An essential ingredient for the solution of internecine strife will be the throwing-off of national an religious beliefs which stand in the way of workers recognising their common class interests and adopting rational ways of thinking and socialist principles. The building of the necessary consciousness would not call for the relinquishment of valid cultural differences, although once rid of the divisive factor of imposed dogma it is remarkable how similar is the traditional dress, folk-music and dance, cuisine and life-style of all lands. A working class, united in its determination to establish a Socialist World undefiled by national frontiers, will bequeath to future generations a democratic global village in which cultural variations will be a stimulus to creativity rather than pretexts for those seeking to become a new ruling class. 

Crime Is Endemic To Capitalism

One might think that with all the gang violence in Toronto there may be some steps taken to prevent it, but no way Jose.

One gang prevention program is closing down due to lack of federal funding. It is called Taking Action to Achieve Growth Success or TAAGS and was operated by the Agincourt Services Association and ends on August 31. 

During its five year run, TAAGS provided counselling and help with education, housing and employment for 380 youths, 285 of which had been on probation or charged with a crime when they entered the program. The records at TAAGS show that 25 per cent had no police involvement after they left. 

Once again capitalism creates a problem it can’t fix, but how can it when crime is endemic to capitalism? 

The fundamentals of capitalism are themselves conducive to crime - the legalized theft of the world's wealth from the many to a few. A socialist society would see the end of all crime illegal and legal.

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

The New Clearances

Last week, the Duke of Buccleuch put a portfolio of land on the market called Evertown, which includes farms, productive farmland, commercial forestry and planting opportunities near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway. The 9,000 acres is composed of 18 lots on sale for £19.5 million – most hill ground is priced at three times its agricultural value and advertised as “suitable for forestry planting”.

The practice of moving people off the land for tree-planting is no more acceptable today than evicting tens of thousands for sheep farming and deer hunting in the Highlands or agricultural and industrial uses in the Lowlands.  Recent removals of tenant farmers show that grim way of life continues. 

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/lesley-riddoch-scotland-s-modern-day-clearances-under-way-1-4807527

Rovics in Glasgow (8/10)

Radical songster, David Rovics is performing  on:

8 October, 2018 – 7.30 p.m -

 £10.00

At:

The Doublet Bar, 74 Park Road, Glasgow G4 9JF

Some of his songs will appeal you, others less so.

Austerity Kills

The National Records of Scotland figures show life expectancy for a boy born between 2015 and 2017 is 77 years. For baby girls, it’s 81.1 years. The figures are the worst in the UK and both are down by 0.1 year on the estimates for births during 2014 and 2016.

How on earth can it happen with all our breakthroughs in medicine, science and technology?

There have been particularly high numbers of deaths amid 50 to 74-year-olds over the past few years - the middle-aged and older. Experts say they have detected the change since about 2012. And the last time a similar effect was noticed was in 1983, during the Thatcher years.

So we could hazard an educated guess at what’s happening. This comes in the wake of the most brutal slashing of welfare budgets anyone can remember. We’ve had eight long years of austerity.

Last year, a study by leading academics found there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory austerity than would have been expected before the policies were enforced.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who has advised the Government on health inequality, said: “My general view is while we have been reluctant to join in and say austerity is killing people, the fact is you can’t keep cutting social services, welfare benefits, adult social care, local government and expect nothing to happen.”

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/austerity-given-scotland-cruelest-cut-13332924

The Realisation of Socialism

 Einstein suggested, “…we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organisation of society.”

An economic system such as capitalism, based on profit competition, brings out the worst, predatory instincts. In contrast, socialism, based on cooperation in fulfilling society’s basic needs, brings out the best. From the perspective of class struggle, people are on one or the other side of the barricades.

The Socialist Party challenges any alternative as a firm basis for final socialist triumph than the “conscious” political action of the working class. Socialist knowledge is the keystone of the future socialist edifice.  The workers of all capitalist countries are faced with the SAME problems. Workers, be they British, French, Nigerian, Chinese or any other, are without the means of existence unless they can sell the only thing they possess (i.e., their power to labour) to the capitalist class. All workers are alike in this respect. They possess no means and, to live, they must work to produce a profit for a capitalist.

Workers get a wage which is, on an average, just sufficient to enable them to live and reproduce future wage-earners. This again applies equally to workers of all lands and colours. Often they are overworked, ill-clothed, badly housed. They find it hard to make ends meet, so that at death, after a life of toil, they are just as they were at birth, i.e., without property.

The capitalist, however, is far from being in that position. To whatever race or nation he belongs he owns the machines and instruments which produce the means of life. Furthermore, he insists that whenever the wheels of production turn he gets a handsome profit. “No profit. No production!” that is the watchword of the capitalist. If his workers are of the same race and religion as himself, the rule still holds: if profits are not forthcoming from production he will close the doors of the factory and his' workers are left workless in the street.

The enemy, then, of the workers of any country, is not the worker of another. Their enemy is the system of society—capitalism—which keeps them in poverty, overworks them and throws them on the scrap-heap when profits are not being produced. Sooner or later, the workers will realise this. Capitalism itself will make them realise it because capitalism can give them no solution to their problems. Then, the workers will be class-conscious, they will realise that all workers of all lands must join together against the common enemy, capitalism. They will scorn the attempts of the capitalists to stir up hatred between workers of different nations. Instead of slaughtering each other in the interests of the capitalist classes, they will unite to establish, in their own interests, a system of society which will bring security to every worker—Socialism.

The lowest-paid sections of the working-class are generally the most reactionary: the apathy and indifference of the poverty-stricken to the facts underlying their miserable condition is one of the most appalling factors of the situation. The insecurity of the worker’s employment, as a result of the means of production being owned by the capitalist class, is the secret of the latter's power and is the source of the mental and moral degradation of the working class.

The wage-slaves, with any courage left inside, feels instinctively the secret power of the chains which keep them in bondage and tries to break or weaken them by means of union with fellow workers. When they force increased wages, shorter hours, or better working conditions from their exploiters they feel they have achieved something. Their struggles though cannot suspend the working of economic laws or prevent the downward tendency, but it can counteract the results of the economic process on the psychology of the working class. In addition, the fight itself develops eventually the desire for ultimate freedom and educates working-people to an understanding of the causes and conditions of the struggle. And, at the same time, the struggle must be growing more intense.

For the fight only affecting the results of the downward tendency, and being powerless to remove its cause, whatever gains are made cannot be kept unless the fight for them is kept up, and the fight must be intensified as the tendency increases. The working class is steadily advancing in economic power and independence, in the sense that it takes possession of more and more responsible positions in the economic life of the nation, diverts to itself, by means of the corporation and otherwise, all the growth of the concentration and centralisation of capital; and particularly with the development of the corporate form of economic activity, the capitalist class abdicates its functions, the proper functions of a ruling class, those of economic management, into the hands of the working class.  The working class thus not only becomes revolutionary in its ideas, desires, and aspirations, but it has the organised power to carry the revolution into effect, and is fully equipped to take hold of all social and economic activities and functions after the revolution and carry them out successfully.”

‘Clans and Clearance'

‘Clans and Clearance – The Highland Clearances Vol.1’ by Alwyn Edgar

e-book published by Theory and Practice (www.theoryandpractice.org.uk). ISBN 978-0-9956609-3-9.

This volume ‘looks at the clearances generally, and at some surprising orthodox beliefs about them; and then examines the Highland clans as they were before the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-6, an account which sometimes differs from what is now often affirmed’.

For a previous article by the same author on the same subject see: https://tinyurl.com/y75ey9y6

A Still Birth Reform

Ontario's new P.C. government lost no time in proverbially saying ''Screw You'' to the working class, as if they're not already screwed enough. 

Fury was unleashed in the debate about the cancellation of the Liberals proposed basic income plan, which was launched in April 2017 and offered low-income residents in three communities $14,000 a year to individuals, or $24,000 to couples, and an extra $6,000 for the disabled.

 Doug Ford had said he would allow this proposed reform to proceed if elected Premier, but Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod axed it on July 31. Nor can the aggrieved turn to the Federal government for help. 

The Social Development Minister in Ottawa, Jean-Yves Duclos, said such programs are up to the provincial governments. Though Ottawa runs income programs for seniors and children it doesn't for low-income adults. 

We've all seen reforms abolished and watered-down by new governments, but here was one gotten rid of before it had a chance to start. 

So much for the benefit of reformism

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

Educate, Educate, and Educate

The Socialist Party seldom instructs our fellow-workers and rarely tells them what to believe, preferring instead to indicate why it might be wise to distrust what those in control tell us we should believe. Without the vision of how a socialist society will rejuvenate all our lives, how do we expect to win the support of the working class? Education and understanding is the key. Education, no matter how hard or impossible it may seem has a positive effect. Understanding the practicalities of an alternative society is vital. Vital that we not only realise what is wrong with capitalist society but how it really operates and manipulates our everyday lives.  Anger and passion are admirable and it is exactly what we need. What disappoints is seeing people missing the importance of a basic understanding of the essential elements of a socialist society. It can only be established by a majority of socialists throughout the world. It will be a society based on production for use and not production for profit. It must mean the abolition of money and all markets and with it all, the sickening, competitive relationships that capitalism forces us into.

Why is there is hunger in a world with the potential for abundance; the simplistic answer is there must be an imbalance between supply and demand, so let’s grow more food. Alas, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of capitalist economics is aware that food is not produced to be eaten, but instead to be exchanged for money with a view to realising a profit; if you don’t have the cash to pay, you don’t get the bread. Attempting to sanitise the capitalist system has never and will never work.

 For most of us, life is a tedious existence consisting of days spent doing an often mundane, uninspiring job week in, week out, punctuated by brief spells of recreation, socialising and occasionally a holiday. Even those workers who produce useful or essential goods and services are alienated from any fulfilment because of the negative nature of the employment relationship. Work is generally regarded as a necessary evil into which we are coerced by the need to earn a “living”, and all the concomitant imperatives associated with employment—such as time-keeping, fear of unemployment, etc.—prevent the majority of us from enjoying the positive aspects of work and its relationships. Humanity must take second place to the needs of capitalism.

Before capitalism there were other social systems and different rulers. In feudalism, land was appropriated by and exclusively for an aristocracy. It exploited the masses by forcing them to toil on the land for a pittance to generate the wealth that supported castles and manor houses, the church and monasteries, For several centuries the power of this tiny elite went largely unquestioned. But then a class of merchant/entrepreneurs emerged, challenging the landed aristocracy with a new means of industrialised production. They drove the peasants off the land to build factories. That elite lived off the exploitation of men women and children in “dark satanic mills”.  Each elite produced justifications to placate the masses who were being exploited, to brainwash them into believing the system existed as part of a natural order or even for their benefit. The aristocracy relied on a divine right of kings, the capitalist class on the bogus claims of social mobility and equality of opportunity. Plutocratic rule has allowed a tiny elite to stash away more wealth and accrue more power than any feudal monarch could ever have dreamt of. And because of the global nature of this elite, its corruption is more endemic, more destructive than any ever known to mankind. Global corporations are filling the oceans with pollution and the plastic from our consumerist society, and chopping down the forests - the lungs of our planet - for palm-oil plantations. Just as a feudal Lords and Barons were driven by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of land; just as early capitalists were driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of industrialisation; so today's employing and owning class is driven not by ethics but the pursuit of profits through the control of the planet.. They care nothing for you or your children. It is a cold-calculating system, unconcerned about the fate of people or the planet but with only one goal – wealth accumulation. Take a look at the whole picture and choose whether this is really the future you wish for you and your family.

Socialism is characterised by economic emancipation, with people determining—in full consciousness of the consequences of their choice—their own needs, and freely satisfying these. In like manner, a socialist society will be concerned with educational emancipation or with people finding their own voice.

As members of the Socialist Party, we will continue to learn so that we may teach others to help build a majority of socialists fighting for the establishment of a socialist society and not help fuel the illusion that capitalism can be reformed. People cannot be led to socialism. We, for our part, can only continue to point out the remedy, Confidence in our future imbues our members, from the old- timers to the newest recruits. In its turn, this confidence is the best guarantee of the victory of our cause – the cause of socialism.  More and more workers are beginning to look with disfavour upon the rule of the richest 1% and their agents and are already in process of making the transition from a purely negative attitude toward capitalism to a positive standpoint in support of socialism. Our members are proud of the Socialist Standard, and justly so. It is playing a vital role in the class struggle generally and in the growth of our movement in particular; it is destined to play a far greater one in the immediate future.  The presence of our party finds its physical expression in a centrally-located, well-kept and efficiently run head-office. The battle to emancipate the population from ideological conditioning and false consciousness has barely begun.

Solidarity 2

On Sunday the 30th of September a collective of Glasgow tenants is holding a demonstration against the eviction of a reclaimed slum tenement block by Police Scotland in alliance with notorious slumlord Harpal "Harry" Singh. Here is the text from their demo callout.

We, a collective of Glasgow tenants, call for change from below to redress the power imbalance between landlords and renters. For this reason we peacefully entered and reclaimed Harry Singh’s property at 4 Queens Crescent, on the back of repeated injustices and crimes committed against his tenants.

Our objective was to make 4 Queens Crescent a community space for local residents and organisations to work in for free, host workshops exploring housing alternatives and work towards serving Glasgow’s growing homeless population.

Our eviction yesterday showed that landlords such as Singh are supported by the Police and outdated trespassing legislation, propping up a housing system that values profit over people.

After decades of allowing safety hazards, harassing tenants and imposing illegal evictions, yesterday Singh violently threatened protestors as we attempted to call a halt to his illegal practices and move towards empowering the community.

With this demonstration, we demand that the landlord's properties be repossessed, put into community hands and used to confront the housing crisis.

This action is just the first step towards empowering the community to reclaim wasted properties. Come and show solidarity with the protesters and be a part of changing the housing crisis from below.

Housing is a human right, this is why we have to fight!

Sunday 30th September 4.00pm-5.30pm
Outside 4 Queens Crescent G4 9BW

Demo Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/357919528082420/

Solidarity

On the 23rd of September, a collective of Glasgow tenants took back a block of tenements from notorious slumlord Harpal Singh. This is their statement on the events that followed.

On the 23rd September we, a collective of Glasgow tenants entered the empty property at 4 Queens Crescent. We are not affiliated with any one political organisation or ideology; instead, we are united in our common struggle in support of housing as a fundamental human right. We did not break in - the external and internal doors were already open after the landlord Harry Singh illegally removed the locks to intimidate and evict his tenants. The collective secured the property and held it for six days to highlight Singh’s unacceptable treatment of his tenants and to protest the wider corrupt and unequal housing system.

Two tenants died in 1999 in a house fire at a property owned by Singh as the property was not equipped with working fire alarms. Mr Singh lied to court at the resultant inquiry, was charged with perjury and went to prison for thirty months. His landlord license was rightfully revoked. Despite this, on release from prison, Harry Singh continued to rent out private properties in appalling conditions, operating without a license. This year he was found to be renting out fourteen properties, none of which met fire safety standards, risking the lives of his tenants and making a mockery of housing law and safety in Scotland.

The collective repossessed the entire tenement block at 4 Queens Crescent to put to use for the benefit of the community. The demands of this political action were that Singh’s properties be repurposed from decaying buildings to vibrant spaces that would serve the neighbourhood and confront the housing crisis. The collective took the first step towards that end by demonstrating that we could take better care of the property and put it to better use.

Today, on the 28th of September a representative of Singh called the police. The collective made the police aware of Singh’s history and the reasons for the protest. The police fully cooperated with the slum landlord, breaking down the front door and forcing the people inside to come out. The Police claim they were enforcing the Trespass Act 1865 (an archaic piece of legislation passed to criminalise highlanders resisting the Highland Clearances). Without a court order, we hold that this was illegal and in violation of our right to protest, as guaranteed by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Singh soon arrived in a luxury car, and as he received criticism from those assembled to support the protest, he was escorted by the police into the building. At a later point, Singh brandished a length of wood at the protestors and he also grabbed one by the throat.

We call on everyone to speak up and publicise these events. We also call on everyone to stay tuned for updates and to show their solidarity. There will be more information soon. Below is the statement the collective wrote to distribute to the local community.

STATEMENT FOR THE COMMUNITY

Dear local residents,

On 23rd September we, a collective of Glasgow tenants entered the empty property 4 Queens Crescent. We did not break in, the external and internal doors were already open after the landlord illegally removed the locks to intimidate and evict his tenants.

We are your neighbours and we will act with the utmost respect to this community. If you need a hand changing a light bulb or clearing a tree off the road (!) you know where we are. We are not here to lodge, hold parties, make any inconsiderate noise or interrupt any legal activity.

We reject the exploitative relationship between renters and landlords. We strive for a society where safe and humane housing is protected as a fundamental right, above the interests of profit. We are here to call attention to the broken housing system in Glasgow and call for change from below.

The space where we are protesting is the private property of Harry Singh. In 1999, two tenants died in a house fire at a property owned by Singh. The property was not equipped with working fire alarms. Mr Singh lied to court at the resultant enquiry, was charged with perjury and went to prison for thirty months. His landlord license was rightfully revoked.

Despite this, on his release from prison, Harry Singh continued to rent out private properties in appalling conditions operating without a license. This year he was found to be renting out fourteen properties, none of which met fire safety standards, risking the lives of his tenants and making a mockery of housing law and safety in Scotland.

Mr. Singh’s case is representative of the wider landscape of the housing sector which is geared towards generating profits at the expense of people’s dignity. From 2010 to 2017, there has been a 19.9% cumulative increase in average monthly rents in Scotland. Meanwhile, cases of damp, infestations and decay are worsening year on year. This is leaving us paying more for poorer housing conditions, forcing tenants to choose between food and heating, and worse, forcing people onto the street.

The problem is not limited to Scotland. Last year the Grenfell fire led to the deaths of 71 people, victims of a housing system that values profit over people’s basic safety. This is a society where dignified housing is a privilege not a right.

With this political action, we intend to reclaim the property that has been the site of landlord harassment and neglect for so long and repurpose it. We are determined to make this space meaningful to local residents, organisations and the people left behind by the housing system. In this spirit, we will organise workshops, talks and community events that are open to all, focusing on the housing crisis and how we can change it, together.

Housing is a human right, this is why we have to fight!

Footage of the police eviction here: https://www.facebook.com/LivingRentGlasgow/videos/250666502299607/?hc_ref=ARQwB40Ir8SDEtni0yyQc01DIcGZcz1vI8BFl1mZa34ZR7eZtbYY3dXl-390bOZcWT8&fref=gs&dti=523619061151303&hc_location=group

Taken from Libcom

https://libcom.org/news/glasgow-tenants-take-action-against-slumlords-28092018