Against Racism

When workers are struggling for homes and jobs anything that appears to stand in their way becomes a menace to be got rid of.  Consequently, immigrants were bound eventually to appear as the threatening menace, Dispossessed, frustrated and alienated workers will always look for a short-cut to even up the imbalance between themselves and their masters. The root of the problem is not colour, but social conditions that are produced by capitalist society. Various solutions to the problem have been put forward, but these solutions ignore the root from which the problem grows. Present racial antagonism is bound up with the general conditions of capitalism. Like the other evils of capitalism, it will only disappear when capitalism itself has been replaced by a social system in which all human beings will be able to move freely over the earth and live in harmony because their interests will be identical. This can only be a reality under socialism. Racism is not the poorly-thought-out doctrine of a few hundred boneheads. Racism will only be destroyed through a change in society, not with physical force, nor with laws. Racism has to be seen for what it is — a parasite on the back of nationalism, which is itself a disease of world capitalism. 

The Socialist Party deplore attacks of workers on each other, regardless of the colour of their skins. Workers should be aware that the only way to confront such attitudes is on the battlefield of ideas, not with clubs and boots. The fact that so many “left-wing” groups believe they should be banned is evidence that they have yet to come up with the arguments to discredit them. It does not say much for allegedly socialists to call upon the state to pass laws proscribing fascist activity. A ban on the thought-crimes will not eradicate racist sentiments. If they really had the interests of the working class at heart, they should be pointing the finger of blame at the real perpetrator of racism — the capitalist system.  Is it any wonder workers are hoodwinked into believing ethnic communities are the cause of their misfortune, and so must bear the brunt of their frustration. 

The task for the Socialist Party in their argument with racists is to convince them that workers have no nation and that there is more that unites the exploited members of the human race, all of whom have the same basic needs than can ever divide us culturally or historically. Racist ideas are a manifestation of capitalism in crisis, and will only be eradicated when the capitalist system itself is expunged — not through physical violence or laws, but by workers taking control of their own destiny, becoming conscious of their position in the relations of production and by democratically establishing a socialist society. It is worth saying also that only in a socialist society will it be possible for the first time for all people to develop freely towards satisfying and full lives. 

If workers want to end self-defeating competition, it is necessary that they s that racial antagonisms are a tactical measure of capitalism to prevent working-class unity. The capitalist class that controls and profits from the wealth produced by working people clearly benefits from racism because it enables employers to impose lower wages on minority workers and thus increases capitalist profits. Further, racist ideology among the working class divides it, weakening its ability to resist the austerity now being imposed by the ruling class. In fact, racism has in the past and will continue in the future, to pit worker against worker and to prevent them from taking collective action against capitalism. In this way, racism acts as a powerful force militating against working-class solidarity and is as such one of the main pillars of capitalism. Racism has been with us for centuries. Under capitalism, it has become a social institution. In implementing the austerity aimed at boosting profits at the expense of workers generally, the ruling class has not hesitated to fan the flames of racism. Capitalism has generated an atmosphere in which racist ideology and racist violence can grow and fester.  

Working class conscious of its political and economic potentials and of the means to achieve a liveable world for all can put an end to economic insecurity and the interracial distrust it breeds by putting an end to capitalism.  One thing is certain. So long as the destructive competitive spirit generated by capitalism continues to permeate every aspect of society, racism will not only prevail, in many respects, it will grow worse. For it is primarily a product of the conflicts generated among workers of all races as a result of the competition for jobs, housing, and social services, all of which are steadily falling further below the need and the demand. All workers have a stake in fighting racism. The lower wages paid minorities and high minority unemployment rates increase job competition and thus exert a downward pressure on all workers’ wages. As a result, capitalists reap every higher profits from the working class as a whole. The fight against racism must challenge the capitalist status quo that reinforces it. For example, under capitalism, there are a limited number of jobs. Accordingly, white workers tend to see gains for minorities as coming at white workers’ expense. At the same time, the disproportionate share of unemployment borne by minorities and the failure of the trade unions to fight on their behalf has left millions of jobless minority workers without access to the economic power they might otherwise have to defend themselves.

The Socialist Party has long pointed out that the fight against racism is an indispensable element in, and part of, the struggle for working-class emancipation. The capitalist class can be effectively challenged only by the economic and political strength of a united working class. If white workers are to free themselves from capitalist exploitation, they must contribute to the building of a labour movement that embraces the struggles of minority workers against racism.

A movement to defeat racism once and for all must seek to replace the racist social institutions, artificial economic scarcity and profit motive of capitalism with a collectively owned and democratically administered economy that produces on the basis of satisfying human need. This means building mass, workplace-based organizations that will struggle for socialism and rebuild society from the bottom up. Such democratically controlled economic organizations would enable workers to bring their collective economic power to bear in struggles against all forms of capitalist oppression and ultimately provide the working basis for a socialist society.

In the face of the upsurge in racism, workers must link the demand for an end to the more intense exploitation and oppression suffered by minorities to the class struggle for socialism. For the struggle against racism cannot be successful unless and until it is transformed into a force for building the working-class unity needed to end exploitation generally. 

Once again, there is a demand that the racist groups in this country should be legally banned. This demand comes mostly from what we can loosely call the left-wing.  Racist theories, with their vicious fallacies, are as active in the world as ever. Whatever ideas they may try to proscribe, will make no difference.  At the moment ignorance is in charge and racism rolls on.

The Freedom of Socialism

No social movement can mature without a cause and a vision. That vision is a vision of a world free forever from economic exploitation and want, from race and national hatred and from sexual oppression. That vision is a vision of a world where the material needs of the people are satisfied by an ever-expanding technology that has freed humanity from toil. The vision is one of peace and social harmony. Today, the level and development of the means of production makes this cause possible. We no longer have to work long hours just to eke out a miserable existence for our families. The new technology makes a world of material abundance and cultural development for all possible. Yet it is the capitalists who have reaped unprecedented profits from new technology. But relative poverty is growing worldwide. With little hope of a decent future we, wage-slaves, represent a threat to the capitalists. Increasingly, the ruling class is making its intentions clear. It is unable to solve the problem of growing poverty. Therefore, it is moving to tightly control the tens of millions of workers who will not suffer in silence.  The ruling class aim is to divide the poor.  

Socialism is — on the face of it at least — attractive to many: the apparent principles of “fairness”, or looking after everyone in the community (rather just number one) have broad appeal of course. But that is often insufficient to outweigh what many consider to be the main downsides to socialism. Prime amongst the perceived disadvantages of a socialist society is the idea that socialism is an inefficient way to produce wealth. In contrast, the market system portrays itself as a dynamic, productive and creative mechanism. By incentivising the inventors, the entrepreneurs and the risk-takers (so the fairy-tale goes) capitalism liberates human beings to work harder and smarter, producing more wealth and more choice. The only problem with this superficially-appealing narrative is that capitalism is not in fact geared to the production of wealth per se, but rather is tailored to the production of profit, a very different thing. The reason is that inside a market-based system of buying and selling, wealth is not produced to meet human needs of the entire population, but instead to meet the profit expectations of the minority who monopolise ownership and control of the means of producing wealth.  Capitalism liberates nothing. The market system itself creates nothing beyond profit and misery, and will routinely stifle or sacrifice productivity for profitability. The ideological claims for capitalism as being an efficient system just don’t stand up to any sort of examination, with endemic inefficiency and wastage inherent. And attempts of governments to “correct” or regulate the market are usually cosmetic, partial and powerless in the face of the iron law of profitability. 

Many people still believe that hunger is caused today by over-population and that if there were fewer people in the world, then, and only then, could they be adequately fed. This is not so. In the first place, the resources and technology exist now to feed the world’s population many times over. Second, even if the population did decrease substantially, there would still be a hunger problem, since hunger like homelessness is essentially an economic problem, a poverty problem. People can buy food if they have money, but hungry people do not have money. The hungry have no money to buy food at existing prices, so they do not constitute a market. Under capitalism, food is a commodity and commodities are only produced when there is an effective economic demand. People feeling hungry is not the same thing as “economic demand for food”. Capitalism has developed all the productive techniques necessary for production for abundance. But the capitalist economic system can only produce in response to economic demand and the prospect of a profit is a sine qua non, in farming as in every other sphere of capitalist production. The farmers must have “incentives” — and Oxfam pictures of starving children do not amount to an incentive. The begging bowl is not just a symbol of the charities: it is a symbol of the misery and want in many forms endured by the poor. It is the hallmark of the most productive economic system mankind has ever developed. The stark contrast between the starving millions on the one hand and the enormous potential for food production, on the other hand, emphasizes the need to end commodity production. We have developed social production, with global cooperation we can make use of the techniques for increasing food output. Socialism can make this possible: only Socialism can release our productive potential and make the begging bowl a museum curiosity. 

The Socialist Party's foremost task is to agitate and campaign around the cause of the working-class movement. Our vision is one of peace and social harmony. To teach the ideas of revolution, our classroom has to be the streets, the factories, and wherever there are injustice and oppression. They are few; we are many. Socialism will allow more personal freedom because it will permit individuals to develop their identities more fully in the absence of capitalist pressures. The social evils that infest and corrupt our life, and that men and women must uproot and eliminate before general happiness becomes possible is poverty, a life-long struggle to obtain food, shelter, and clothing.

Climate Change and Change

The IPCC 2018 special report on 1.5°C comes at the request of a number of vulnerable nations made at the time the 2015 Paris Agreement was reached. The report compared the effects of warming at 1.5°C with 2°C. The report interpreted the existing body of scientific literature (6000 studies reviewed by 91 experts from 40 countries) using a consensus-based approach and so this means it adopts a fairly conservative bias to describe the impacts of climate change. The conclusion is that preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet. These world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

“For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the report.

1.5C versus 2C of global warming

• Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5C, and increase further with 2C.
• Those at disproportionately higher risk of the adverse consequences of global warming at 1.5C and beyond include disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, some indigenous peoples and local communities that make a living from agriculture or coastal activities like fishing.
• Regions that are particularly threatened include Arctic ecosystems, dry regions, small-island developing states and least-developed countries.
• Any increase in global warming is expected to affect human health, largely negatively. The risk of heat-related deaths is lower at 1.5C than at 2C, while risks from some insect-carried diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, are likely to rise with the temperature.
• Limiting global warming to 1.5C compared to 2C could reduce the proportion of the world population exposed to increasing water stress by up to half, although this varies considerably between regions.
• Sticking to the 1.5C target would keep global sea level rise 0.1 metre (3.9 inches) lower by 2100 than warming of 2C. That suggests up to 10 million fewer people would be exposed to related risks, based on 2010 population levels and if no adaptation occurs.
• If sea levels rise more slowly, there will be greater opportunities for small islands, low-lying coastal areas and deltas to adjust to coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion and damage to infrastructure, among other risks.
• Countries in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere subtropics are projected to see the largest negative impacts on economic growth due to climate change if warming rises from 1.5C to 2C.
• Extreme hot days in the planet's mid-latitude temperate regions would be hotter by up to about 3C at global warming of 1.5C, and 4C at 2C of warming. Overall, the number of hot days is projected to increase in most regions, especially in the tropics.
• Risks from droughts and rainfall shortages are likely to be higher in some regions at 2C of global warming compared to 1.5C.
• Heavy rainfall associated with tropical cyclones is projected to be higher at 2C compared to 1.5C of global warming. Globally, heavy precipitation is likely to be higher at 2C of warming and, as a consequence, the fraction of the world's land affected by floods is also projected to be larger.
• Holding warming to 1.5C is projected to result in lower net declines in yields of maize, rice, wheat and potentially other cereal crops, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America.
• Less food is likely to be available at 2C of warming than at 1.5C in the Sahel, southern Africa, the Mediterranean, central Europe and the Amazon. Livestock are also expected to be adversely affected as temperatures rise

• Curbing warming to 1.5C rather than 2C would be less damaging for global efforts to develop in a sustainable way, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality.

Much of the planet and its people, today and in the future, are going to experience significant climate impacts—including worsening drought, water scarcity, flooding, heat waves and wildfires—even if we succeed in reducing emissions. The task ahead for the world's survival is clear: cut emissions as much as possible  Future generations depend on the choices we will make today. The scientific consensus is that we cannot afford to delay action for very much longer.  Current emissions reduction pledges are not enough to meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement. The only way out of runaway global warming is for nations of the world to come together to tackle the climate crisis. We already have the technical know-how to limit emissions such as low-carbon energy sources like wind and solar energy. and expanding carbon-friendly re-forestation and management of land use practices. We’ll possess the technologies and processes to decrease reliance of fossil fuels in the transportation and industrial sectors. We can also development and deploy next generation solutions, battery storage, carbon capture and sequestration, safe nuclear power, off-the grid electricity generation to increase energy access for the millions of people in the world who still don’t have access to modern energy services. The choices we make now daunting and  they may come with adverse unintended consequences.

 Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if we could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Among other things:

• Half as many people would suffer from lack of water.
• There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases.
• Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less.
• Half as many animals with backbones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats.
• There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts.
• The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting
• And it just may be enough to save most of the world’s coral reefs from dying.

Limiting warming to 0.9 degrees from now means the world can keep “a semblance” of the ecosystems we have.  The world has already warmed 1 degree C since pre-industrial times, so the talk is really about the difference of another half-degree C or 0.9 degrees F from now.

“Global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate,” the report states.

The pledges nations made in the Paris agreement in 2015 are “clearly insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 in any way,” one of the study’s lead authors, Joerj Roeglj of the Imperial College in London, said.

“I just don’t see the possibility of doing the one and a half” and even 2 degrees looks unlikely, said Appalachian State University environmental scientist Gregg Marland, who isn’t part of the U.N. panel but has tracked global emissions for decades for the U.S. Energy Department.

For socialists, here is a problem which we can all agree must be tackled swiftly and decisively? What a hope!

 Governments are more concerned about the effects which determined action against carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases would have on the economy. For example, the coal and chemical industries would suffer badly. Despite all the talk about the need to do something about global warming, despite all the policy strategies, emissions targets and ingenious incentive schemes, governments have failed to constrain the extraction of dirty oil. If even this energy source, the most harmful of all, cannot be ruled off limits, then what can be the purpose of those strategies, targets and schemes? Presumably only to conceal the helpless complicity of governments in face of the blind and relentless drive of capital to expand.

What about the underdeveloped countries? They stand to lose most from global warming so aren't they keener to take action? Afraid not, because they insist that they must industrialise even more if they are to help their starving, homeless millions. 

We have never thought that achieving socialism will be easy, but compared to getting capitalism to outlaw global warming at the expense of profit and political power, it should be a push-over.

Houses for People

Scotland has approximately 2.5 million homes for the estimated 2.45 million households recorded by National Records of Scotland in December 2016. On the face of it, a balanced equilibrium between supply and demand. 

Why, then, do we have a housing crisis with more than thirty thousand people homeless in Scotland

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/comment-co-ops-could-open-doors-to-solve-housing-crisis-1-4810464

Who owns Scotland?

Denmark’s richest man,Anders Holch Povlsen, whose family owns the Bestseller clothing company, has spent much of the past decade snapping up vast swathes of the Scottish Highlands.

 Povlsen’s 221,000-acre property portfolio has now overtaken the 217,000 acres controlled by the Duke of Buccleuch.  Povlsen’s estates also surpass the 133,000 acres controlled by the 27-year-old Duke of Westminster, although the latter is Britain’s wealthiest landowner because of his holdings in Mayfair and Belgravia in central London.

 Povlsen, , who is thought to be worth £4 billion,

Whose side are you on?

The Socialist Party has not and never has been “left-wing.” Its position is unique, being totally opposed to capitalism and all its political adherents including the Left. It is the only political party to consistently advocate and work for the establishment of socialism to the exclusion of everything else.  Other parties talk about “socialism”, but when you analyse the realities behind their words it is clear that they are no more interested in socialism than are avowedly capitalist parties. The left acts as a kind of guilty conscience for capitalism. A kind of safety-valve which always has plenty of steam and hot air to let off.

The word revolution is almost as misused as the word socialism. If a government is changed, a political leader is replaced, a coup takes place, the media shout “revolution!” 

Revolution means a transformation in the object to which the term is being applied. If it is being used about society, then it means a total change in economic relations. The easiest example to understand is the revolution that took place to transform feudalism to capitalism. In feudal society, the majority were tied to their superiors. Over and above what they produced for themselves and their families in order to live, the serfs were compelled to produce for their feudal masters and The Church. That form of society was transformed by a revolution into a society—capitalism—where there is no direct ownership of the lives of people by other people in the same way.

In all forms of society, minorities have owned the means of living, with the result that the other classes have had to submit to the dictates of the minority whilst that particular form of society existed.  Feudalism depended on agricultural production and personal subservience by the majority to the aristocracy. Whilst in feudal society by and large it was birth that determined into which class one fell, in capitalist society it is purely a question of ownership of wealth however obtained. Privilege in capitalism depends not on accidents of birth (though these can be of importance to the individual) but on the ownership of capital.

The revolution that will change capitalism into socialism will involve the replacement of all the relationships of capitalism. Instead of the primary characteristics of capitalism—production for profit, the buying, and selling of all things including labour-power, and private (or state) ownership of wealth, society will be characterized by common ownership and of free access to that wealth. Production will be for human satisfaction only, hence no money nor all the paraphernalia that goes with it, and will be based upon voluntary co-operation by all in the interests of all. To get to that form of society involves a transformation—a revolution. It is only in Socialism that man will solve the major problems he now faces. That is why the Socialist Party is a revolutionary party. Because the next revolution must be the work of the majority consciously co-operating in the work that it will entail, a transformation in mankind’s ideas is the pre-requisite to its successful implementation.

 Class consciousness is greatly determined by social experience, but social experience includes ideas. In fact, mankind is the only species which has been able to accumulate knowledge, systematize it and hand it on culturally, making it unnecessary for succeeding generations to re-learn anew everything which has gone before. It has been pointed out many times that capitalism brings into being its own grave-diggers; the working class. The inability of capitalism to create conditions which would enable the working class as a whole to live full and harmonious lives in line with social potentialities will lead inevitably to the realisation of the need for a new social system. This process needs the intervention of the accumulated knowledge of human society systematized into ideas; not ideas which interpret everything in terms of what is necessary for the continued existence of capitalist society, but the ideas, on a class basis, of what is necessary for the emancipation of the working class; in other words, socialist ideas.

An existing social system cannot be destroyed unless it is at the same time replaced by another, otherwise, this would mean that society would cease to exist altogether. Working-class consciousness means, therefore, a realization of a positive as well as a negative understanding, and this can only be developed by the spread of socialist ideas. When the working class as a class adopts these ideas and brings into being socialism as a working system of society, this will be the beginning of changes in human behaviour in line with the change in social relations.

 Everywhere there is much to do, much to learn, and much to gain.   Vote, then, for socialism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary banner unfurled. 

Forward to Socialism! Forward to the Social Revolution!

The widespread ignorance of class interests among workers offers no permanent hindrance to our socialist policy. That ignorance is due to certain causes, and the lack of interest in revolutionary ideas a is a phase which is true of every country for a time. This lack of interest, however, is not simply a reflex of conditions but a result of capitalist propaganda by the media and other capitalist institutions, which are carefully used ,to mould the working class to capitalist views. There runs the desire of the great majority of working people to make as decent a life as they can despite the odds They seek almost universally to make unpromising surroundings agreeable, to be good neighbours, to provide the best possible future for their children. It is precisely this desire for something better that makes them vulnerable to promises and enticements: only give me your vote today, says the politician or the captain of industry and you shall have jam tomorrow.

Often workers know they are about to be sold-out again, but believe what else is there to do but take the lesser evil? Often too they are aware that an alternative does exist, but hang back from going against what appear to be stronger forces of opinion. Only a little more understanding and a little more will are required: and the next twenty-five years can bring a life altogether different. The problems of society lie in its structure. While ownership of the means of life remains in the hands of one class it means the consequent enslavement of the non-owning class. There is a continual conflict of interests between those who produce wealth and those who possess that wealth. The solution to that conflict can only come by converting the means of production and distribution to the common ownership and democratic control of the whole of society. The understanding required to abolish capitalism and institute Socialism is within the capability of all workers; and the working class who run society from the top to bottom for the capitalist class now, are more than capable of running Socialism for themselves. The quickest way is the only way to Socialism, and that is by a majority of the working class understanding and wanting that change in society, organizing politically for the capture of the powers of government, and using that instrument for its own emancipation. Turn your backs on despair and disillusion, and join with the world’s socialist movement to sweep capitalism from the face of the earth!

Since the middle of the 19th century many reform measures have been introduced, some of which have benefitted both capitalism and the worker. If reforms make capitalism more tolerable for the worker, they make it more secure for the capitalist. Capitalism is never at rest; the gains of yesterday can be dissipated by the events of the present. There are no safe reform anchorages or havens which afford permanent shelter. The battle demands to be fought over and over again, as events in the past have demonstrated. Most workers believe that the choice of introducing social reforms or dealing with major social problems is a matter for the government of the day. This is not the case. Governments of all varieties represent the interests of the ruling class. Reforms have to be paid for out of taxation, and the burden of taxation rests on the employers. Taxes mainly are paid out of income, and the income of the capitalist employer or shareholder is derived from the surplus-value created by the worker. The rate of taxation can never exceed the level of profit, any more than the part can be bigger than the whole. Social reforms are not within the gift of the government. There is a certain amount of room for manoeuvre, but it is capitalism which has developed the powers of government, not the politicians. If its basic function is to secure the capitalist in his privileged position, it cannot contradict the basis of its own existence. It cannot ignore the economics of capitalism and the capitalist’s right to profit. Experience has shown that to the extent that the capitalist introduces reforms which “benefit” workers, so are these taken into account when wages are negotiated. Subsidized rents, subsidized food, free medical treatment, children’s allowances, and any other “benefits” are taken into account by both trade unions and employers when dealing with wage claims.

The idea that prevails amongst the Left that agitation for reforms will provide the worker with sufficient experience to demand Socialism has not stood up to a historical examination. It simply has not worked, despite the ceaseless reformist and trade-union action carried on over the past 150 years or so. The capitalists are in control over the working class so long as reformist ideas form the mainstream of political thinking. The only way to counter the propaganda of the reformer is to show that it hasn’t even achieved the limited objectives of making capitalism tolerable, let alone advance socialism. The difference between socialist society and capitalism is that social requirements would be dealt with and carried out as soon as the community became aware of the facts of the problem, and as a matter of course. There can be no question of reformers begging social reforms from useless parasites for and on behalf of the deprived useful members of the working class. We do not want their charity now, and we will not need it later.

The great majority of society, the working class, are always on the losing end of capitalism, and as a result of this conflict of interests, the two sides are involved in a continuous struggle. The owning class naturally wishes to maintain its supremacy, using its control of the machinery of government, the armed forces, the police and the legal system to do so, while the working class resists the pressure as best it can. What the working class ultimately must do is take this power from them and use it to abolish the divisive system of capitalism.

 We do not want sweat-masters or enlightened employers. We do not want capitalism on the best terms unions can obtain: we want to end it. We stand for the abolition of the wages system. 

Whatever Marx did or did not say, the position of the Socialist Party is the only feasible one: Socialism through democratic political action. The Socialist Party is unique among political parties in this country because unlike all others we propose a revolutionary change in the basis of society. We stand for the establishment of Socialism, a society in which the means of wealth production and distribution will be owned and controlled in common in the interests of the whole of society. Such an idea is not new, but this does not detract from its value and relevance. We argue that a system of world-wide common ownership can only be introduced with the conscious political action of the vast majority and to achieve this a revolution in thinking must first occur. We make this point because other political parties who claim to represent working-class interests seem not to regard it as important.

The social system under which we currently live, capitalism, is popularly portrayed by spokesmen for the so-called left and right wings, as an entity which can be modified in such a way as to meet both the requirements of that minority who own the means of production and distribution; and the vast majority who must work for the owners in order to live. Such a picture may be likened to a group of car salesmen who each promise that their particular model can travel forward and in reverse at the same time. In fact the economic interests of the owner are fundamentally opposed to the interests of the non-owning worker.

The capitalist requires a profit from the production of commodities and will not allow production to take place unless there is a good chance of success in this. The workers, on the other hand, need not worry about the extent of their personal profit—they get none. Instead, a worker receives a wage, referred to in more genteel circles as a salary, which basically accords with the amount it costs him and his family to live. It needs hardly be said that the standard reached by workers compared with that of the owners is a poor one. The necessity for profit means that there is a constant struggle between capitalist and worker over the division of wealth. Workers must attempt to resist pressure from employers to push wages down or to hold them in check, while the owners attempt to increase their share of the wealth which has been produced by the labour of the working class alone. It is accurate to say that members of the capitalist class have no need to work, and play no part in the productive process as such. It is their ownership of the means of production which puts them in this position, and it is a position in turn preserved and defended by the capitalists’ executive — the State and its coercive forces. Far from adopting the revolutionary stance of the Socialist Party—the abolition of property ownership whether private or State—the reformers seek minor modifications within a system founded upon private property ownership.

Today's society is based on the entire productive wealth of society being owned and controlled by a small minority. The rest of society, being thus separated from society’s wealth owns nothing but its ability to work and, in order to live, must sell this ability to the owning, capitalist class, by whom it is applied to reduce commodities and increase capital. It is true that the working class receives wages and salaries in return for its ability, but these represent not the value of work done but only the maintenance of the working class.

As a consequence of this basis, an elaborate economic and social structure has developed. Private ownership requires a legal system which defines and protects rights in property. Ownership implies selling and buying, and this requires a means of exchange, money, which today has whole industries devoted to its management, for example, the banking and insurance industries. The vast Civil Service handles the taxation, social security and state industry departments on behalf of the government. While any modern system would require some form of administration, the resources and labour used in administering capitalism are immense in proportion to the productive base. And the expense (or waste) does not end there. A feature of capitalism is economic competition, whether it be between individual nations or international alliances, or between separate companies or groups of companies. Such competition is claimed to be beneficial in that it promotes high efficiency, low costs and therefore low prices. In practice, it leads to duplication, high promotion costs, and wasted resources. Since the capitalist class, as such, exists only to make profit, production and marketing are geared to this end, regardless of the real needs of society. Witness the burned-out wheat fields and coffee plantations of the Americas, the milk-filled mine shafts of England and the butter-mountains and wine-lakes of Europe.

Whereas the working class has this single interest, however, the capitalists are divided amongst themselves, each faction wishing to own and control as much as it can of the available wealth, and to administer capitalism in its own way.  Socialism will present quite a different picture from chaotic, wasteful and inequitable capitalism. Since the means of living will be owned by society as a whole, buying and selling will be unnecessary. The technology already exists to produce more than the world’s material requirements and has only to be organised. With an abundance of production, goods and services will be freely available to all. In the absence of money, the present complex of industries and administration that it entails, and the inherent waste of labour and resources, will also go. Welfare benefits, pensions, wages, and taxation will become words in history books. Armies to procure and protect land and property will no longer be necessary, nor will the prisons and police forces that are used now against people who offend against property-based laws. The Socialist Party exists to bring about Socialism for the first time. This is its sole purpose. The new society having been established democratically, through the ballot box, the Socialist Party will cease to have any function and will disappear as the last trace of capitalist society.

Nationalist Nonsense Again

Once again, the Scottish nationalists took to the streets, this time in Edinburgh, to demand independence and another referendum.

The nation-state was created as the political unit for capitalism in a series of changes which began four or five hundred years ago. It was accompanied by the growth of national consciousness. People were half encouraged and half forced to identify themselves with the countries they lived in. The fiercest jingo nationalism today is to be seen in the new nations. Before the nation-state, partisanship was related to small-scale economic interests. Wars were fought between cities, tribes and the proprietors of rival domains. The peasant population took part only to the extent that it was tempted or compelled to. The armies and mailed knights of the Middle Ages were mostly mercenaries. Nationalists argue that the problems of workers in a given country will be solved, and a golden age for them begin, by recovering or enlarging the country’s supremacy. This is the promise of nationalist leaders in new countries and is also being made by the Scottish nationalists.  Unfortunately, there is little evidence that this could be or has ever been so.  Pleasure in one's place or birth or culture he or she was brought up in has nothing to do with the matter. It is a reasonable sentiment on which nationalist fraud builds, but which capitalism will destroy without compunction.

Nationality is an accident. “Ours” is the deceitful word in nationalist propaganda the world over. In a newly developed country, nationalism is the demand of native capitalists to exploit the workers and peasants lest somebody else should do it and have the profits. What kind of “ours” is being talked about? In Britain and other industrialised countries workers talk about “our” trade, “our” reserves, “our” jobs allegedly taken by immigrants. They are not. They are all at the disposal of those who own the means of living. The worker has no claim on them: we owns nothing but our labour-power. There is a different affinity to recognise. This is the identity of interest of all those who live by selling their labour-power. The working class is worldwide, and as members of it become conscious of the nature of capitalist society and their position in it. The working class have no country. By persuading workers that they have a stake in “the nation”, capitalism obtains their support at critical times. What they should bear in mind is that the nation-state is the political institution of the capitalist system: its raison d'être is to keep the working class propertyless. Nationalism can do nothing for the workers except confirm or worsen their position. Socialism will mean the end of nationalities and frontiers.  Socialism sets out to abolish the antagonisms and divisions between the peoples of the world.

Part of the left has given up on the search of any alternative to capitalism in the name of the “realism” of nationalism. Nationalism is a capitalist ideology and expresses the “yearnings” of the national bourgeoisie for a nation of its own, i.e. a home market and the right to exploit its own people. The workers simply yearn for an end to all oppression.

As the Edinburgh Anarchists put it “an independent Scotland would in most respects have resembled the Scotland of the UK, a patriarchal, capitalist, environmentally destructive society. A country with the most unequal land ownership in the developed world – where 50% of the land is owned by just 432 individuals. A country dependent on North Sea oil for much of its exports – oil that must be left in the ground to prevent climate catastrophe. A country with huge poverty and huge wealth and little in the way of organised working class action to change that dynamic. And in so continuing to uphold the same institutions, the same structures of power, the same business interests, and the same political configuration, our fight against the state, capital and oppression continues.... We have a world to win and only our own working class self-activity and organisation will secure it.”

https://libcom.org/library/dont-mourn-organise

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.