Capitalism is the Cause of Social Evils

Throughout its existence, the Socialist Party continually refers to capitalism as being the main cause of the evils which exist to-day. Those evils are almost too well known to need recapitulation. They are widespread poverty and semi-starvation in the midst of an abundance of wealth, lying advertisements—part of the enormously wasteful method of distribution, with its myriads of shops and salesmen and deliverers, the colossal waste of human effort in the building of battleships, aeroplanes and armaments, the fussy and useless activities in the circularizing of letters and the faking up of news as an adjunct to the advertisers, the waste of valuable human labour in ministering to the whims and caprices of wealthy idlers—these, and the evils which arise directly from poverty itself, such as prostitution, robberies and murders.

If capitalism is the cause of these evils, then it is obvious that any party which maintains that this is the case must constantly refer by name to that order of society. In all sciences, there are words which indicate certain basic ideas or principles, and if any discussion upon any section of that particular science is to be understood at all, those words must be used whenever that particular idea or principle is referred to. For instance, in physiology one constantly has to refer to the heart and the circulation of the blood. In the same way, in sociology, one has to refer to the elements which constitute a particular society, and the particular form of society in which we are living at the present time, and which therefore interests us the most, has been given the name of capitalism. It is, therefore, frequently necessary to use this word, and no apology is required for doing so.

That capitalism is the cause of the evils enumerated above, besides many others, has been abundantly proved in the previous posts of this blog. It is not proposed to go into this in detail here, but it is sufficient to point out that the characteristics of capitalism are—the private ownership of the means of production and the production of articles for profit. It is not very difficult to perceive that those evils arise from this fact of private ownership and the efforts of the few people who own them to dispose of those commodities.

Does it not logically follow that if the means of living are owned by one class, then any other class can have no other relation to the first class than that of slaves? But if a logical deduction is not sufficient, then what are the facts? Unless he or she steals or begs, a person without capital has to work in order to live. We have to find a master. That master is generally some big corporation or other. During the time that we are with that company we have to work hard, we have to do what we are told, we frequently have to smile back when we are insulted, humiliated and bullied, and if we dare to stand up for ourselves, we endure the torments of unemployment. We are now “free,” but as it is difficult to live upon the dole, quick as though we have to start searching for another master. Whilst on the dole we are constantly being summoned to interviews for our case to be “reviewed”; an investigator comes round to see if we have managed to put by any savings or if he has earned a few pounds surreptitiously, and if we have and has not disclosed it, then woe betide us. Is this person not a slave to the class which employs him or her and which, when out of work, administers the relief and the unemployment benefit?

Capitalism a class society? (1969)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sirs,

While agreeing entirely with your aims of socialism, I would quarrel with the idea, enshrined in your declaration of principles, that society is still clearly divided in such a way that everyone is a member of either the “master class” or the “working class”, or as you put it those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. There are now a vast number of people who, for example, work and own shares. It seems to me that the idea of a divided society is no longer valid: all the other objections to capitalism are in themselves more than enough, but the concept that everyone can be put on one side of the fence or the other is not acceptable. In particular, this would suggest that anyone who, for example, receives interest on a bank account, or who is partly paid in shares of the firm he works for, cannot support the SPGB' as “all political parties are but the expression of class interests.”

Yours sincerely,

Neil Mitchison, 

Edinburgh.

Reply.

A class is a group of people who all have the same economic interest. The makeup of classes, the dividing lines between them, their functions in society, the number of them in existence, have all varied with different social systems.

One thing which capitalism has done has been to tidy up classes. There are now only two of them and, with relatively few exceptions, the whole population of the capitalist world is in one or other of them. The exceptions may be peasants living and working under social relationships more akin to feudalism, or shopkeepers and tradesmen existing in a sort of class twilight These people — and they are a small minority — may be unclassifiable but this does not affect the overall, significant class division of capitalism.

The vast majority of people can be placed in one class; they are forced to sell their working abilities in order to live. They do this to the owners of the means of production and it is only by selling their working power that they are allowed access to the means of production. It is reasonable, and accurate, to call these people the working class and to call the other class, who own the means of production and who therefore buy labour-power, the capitalist class.

Now what about the person who sells his labour power to an employer but who also owns some shares, or receives interest on savings? This does not alter the fact that he depends for his living on selling his ability to work; his relationship to the means of production makes him a member of the working class.

The division of society into classes, with opposing interests which cause so much unrest, is only one of capitalism's malaises but it is not to be ignored or minimized. The revolution for Socialism will overthrow the capitalist class and take away their monopoly of the means of production. It is, therefore, against their interests but it is in the interests of the other, subject class — the working class. That is why it is only the Socialist Party which stands for the interests of the working class and why all who oppose Socialism, or who stand for something less than Socialism, express the interests of the capitalist class.

Editorial Committee.

A Living Wage?

Research shows 19% of workers in Scotland were paid less than the Living Wage. 

The real Living Wage currently sits at £8.75 per hour outside London, where it is £10.20 per hour.

Jenny Stewart, Partner at KPMG in Scotland, said: “Scotland still has 435,000 workers paid below the Living Wage, and progress seems to have stalled with 19% of the workforce paid below the Living Wage compared to 18% last year...“If you’re one of the following – a part-time worker, or under the age of 21, or female – you are much more likely to be paid less than £8.75 per hour.”

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2018/11/04/rate-of-workers-in-scotland-paid-less-than-the-living-wage-is-below-uk-average/

JOY OF FREEDOM

Once the workers of the world take over parliaments by electing a majority of socialist MPs (actually socialist delegates) mandated to pronounce: Annulment of all property and territorial rights whereby all that is on and in the Earth becomes the common heritage of the whole humanity, just imagine how great will be the massive popular impact of this revolutionary event all over the world.

People will not just remain sitting beside televisions at home simply watching the results; instead, they will take to the streets and terraces in a gigantic delightful mood to celebrate this emancipatory historical occasion whereby the centuries-long hope of socialism is being materialised. Parliaments will actually be surrounded by workers from all walks of life, including the members of the armed forces as members of the working class, and others, even from some enlightened members of so far adversaries as well, joining them. Not hundreds, nor thousands, nor even hundreds of thousands, but millions will gather to voice support and join hands to make their own history with their victorious delegates and to enjoy the JOY OF FREEDOM forever from the clutch of the age-old class division of society.

The world will see a new humanity without alienation and competition, and the budding of humanity’s full potential of cooperation. Will there be anybody to oppose this earth-shaking occurrence that relegates to the past class-divided pre-history by initiating the real universal human history in the making? In all probability, there will be none. Yet, for argument’s sake, if there were to be any at all, will those brainwashed recalcitrant brutalized ruffians be able to face up to this human uprising the world over? Any rebellion would be appropriately dealt with by the winning workers having the necessary political power and command at their disposal. This momentous change will abolish the government over people and usher humanity into the realm of freedom by reorganising the global community into a three-tier participatory democratic organisational system – local, regional and global to administer things and the affairs of life.

Let us examine capitalism. Here we find a privileged group at the top owning the means of production and in possession of the control of government. Underneath is the mass of the population, the working class, dependent on the owning class for their means of living. In order to live workers must find a buyer for their manual and mental energy. It does not matter what the nature of their working capacity may be, they must find employment for it in order to live. With few exceptions, this is the lot of the worker from early years until old age.

To whom does the worker apply for a job? To the masters individually or collectively. It is true that it is not to the masters in person that the worker applies for a job as a rule because nowadays the masters are usually hidden behind a company, a trust or a state concern. It is to a paid representative of these concerns that the worker must apply. All the while the worker is at work he or she is haunted by the fear that he or she may lose his or her job and perhaps not get another one, or be thrown among the wreckage of the industrial system. Consequently, we humble ourselves in ways that sometimes make us squirm. We are respectful and subservient to those above us and to the wealthy class in general. We fear and jump to the call of “the guv’nor.” Like the chattel slave, we depend for our living on the will and the whim of another. Consequently, we are slaves. It is true the worker is personally free, which the chattel slave is not, but this is cold comfort when the hooter goes, calling us to our daily toil.

The capitalists as a class own the means of production and are therefore in a position to determine when, where and how the worker shall live. There is no escape from the shackles under present conditions apart from death. The workers depend on the wage we receive in order to get the necessaries of life, and we are rightly described as wage slaves to distinguish us from other kinds of slaves. Hypocrisy is a leading characteristic of modern times, and one often reads remarks of satisfaction over the fact that slavery is long since dead and that freedom is the right of all people to-day. Unfortunately, the victims of the system are themselves only too ready to accept this view, even though they occupy abominable slums, hurry in harassed and turgid streams over the bridges in the morning, haunted by the fear of being late on the job.

Within the ranks of the working class itself, there are many who suffer from the illusion that they are in a class apart from and above the common worker; in fact, that their interests are identical with those of the masters as against the rest of the workers. Amongst these are scientists, managers and salaried workers of various kinds. These types of workers would be under no delusion if they would apply to their condition the test of a slave. On what do they depend for their living? Are they dependent wholly or mainly on selling their energies for wages or salaries in order to live? If this fits their economic condition then they are members of the working class, slaves, always in fear of losing their jobs and suffering accordingly. The point always to be borne in mind is the frailty of the hold upon that on which the living depends, and the ease and swiftness of operation of the power of the job-controllers. Many in exalted positions have had this very cruelly impressed upon them, and although they scorn the suggestion that they are enslaved, yet they take good care to placate and dance to the tune of those responsible for the salaries. There is no escape, therefore, from the conclusion that the fundamental interest of all who depend upon wages or salaries is identical, and is opposed to the interest of those who own the means of production and pay their slaves wages or salaries. It is a slave interest opposed to an ownership interest.

The slaves of old tried to release themselves from their bonds by bloody revolts, which, however, were always suppressed, because the masters controlled the political machinery, the instrument of power. The slaves of to-day have had passed over to them the means to obtain control of the political machinery. Thus they are able to mould society to suit their needs when they know what those needs are and how they can be satisfied.

One thing above all is essential to ensure the triumph of socialism, and that is the enthusiastic advocacy of our principles and policy by those who accept them. Given this enthusiastic support then there is every reason to believe that Socialism will be a matter of our life-time. It is just because Socialism is a practical question of to-day, and not an ideal of a hundred years ahead, that we are organised in the Socialist Party. Consequently, we urge all really practical workers to give our principles and our policy their serious consideration. The more convinced and enthusiastic advocates we have the sooner will socialism be here and with it an end to our economic troubles. It should be an inducement to waverers to know that there is a Party whose principles are so soundly based on facts that they have been a safe political anchorage for many years, through peace and war and post-war troubles.

The Socialist Party alone can look at the world without pessimism or despair. Socialists never built up false hopes, and have not been disillusioned. Seeing the world as it is we know how great the task is, but we know what can be done by determined, organised work towards a clearly-outlined goal. The world is out of joint because the social system is faulty at the foundation. The private ownership of the means of production and distribution is no longer necessary or desirable. It produces the evils of poverty, unemployment, competition, war and class hatred. It has got to be abolished. Instead of an anarchistic war of private owners seeking profit and permitting the workers to produce wealth only when profit is to be obtained by so doing, the social system needs to be refashioned on the new basis of common ownership. Society must assume possession of its means of life. The private owners must be dispossessed. Their private interests and their class privilege must not be allowed to stand in the way of social progress and the welfare of the whole community. The Socialist Party has taken on the great task of organising for that end. We concentrate on the one vital question, capitalism to be replaced by socialism, private ownership to give place to common ownership, privilege to give place to equality.

Our aim is one to which the workers of the whole world can rally, "without distinction of race or sex.” The Socialist movement is the one movement in the van of social progress, able to face the present world troubles with understanding and confidence.

Common Ownership: The Only Solution

No matter how sincerely a Labour government wishes to protect the interests of the workers, no matter how benignly they impose their unwanted ‘leadership’ upon us, they can do nothing other than be puppets of the economic forces of capitalism. It makes no difference whether Tory or Labour govern, the real power is that of the capitalist system and only its replacement by a genuine socialist society will do.  When will the Left realise that socialism will only be achieved when we have awakened the social consciousness of the working class throughout the world? Socialism will be won by struggling to free the minds of the workers from their capitalist bonds, and never by putting in a Labour government. Decades on from the beginning of the slum clearances, when city planners thought it would be a good idea to house people in a soulless high-rise, the problems continue to exist, and the ideal of abolishing poverty has been quietly dropped. All we are left with is Labour’s ongoing attempts to administer poverty. At least that way, they can be seen to do something. The poor are fated to always be with us, it seems. The political parties just accepted, and thus condoned, that poverty would continue to exist. Poverty is the direct and necessary result of the way the capitalist system works, and nothing can be done to end poverty, so long as the capitalist system remains accepted as the first premise for action. If these communities truly want to help themselves, they will need to begin organising to end capitalism once and for all.

Political parties are bidding for your support and vote with programmes which may seem to offer some hope of easing, or even abolishing, many of the problems of this country and of the world. Millions of people find these programmes attractive enough to vote for one or other of them. The Socialist Party argues that none of them stands up to examination. Every government comes into power pledged to abolish slums and to end the housing crises. They all seem to have it all worked out, with their declarations of intent and their statistics. The result is that today’s housing problem remains a disgrace to any civilised society. It is true that sometimes a particular problem might be alleviated, but this is only for others to take its place. For example; we are told that our lives have been improved by the development of new technology, but we are also faced with the fact that these very developments threaten greater job insecurity.

What causes the problems of the world? This is a society based on the private ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. Private ownership at once divides society into two classes — the owning, or capitalist class and the deprived, or working class. It is the working class who suffer poverty and all it means in terms of bad housing, inadequate medical services, sub-standard food and so on.

The Socialist Party puts forward the alternative society. Socialism will be a society in which the whole of humanity, without distinction of race or sex, will own in common all we use to make and distribute wealth. Common ownership means a society without classes, without privileges, without different standards of consumption. In a socialist society, everyone will have free access to the world’s wealth and will stand equally in that respect. Socialism will produce its wealth for human use instead of for sale. This will make it a society of cooperation instead of competition. There will be no frontiers to divide the world’s people. Socialism will be one world, with one people working together for the commonwealth. Socialism will be an efficient world, in contrast to capitalism, where waste and shoddiness are profitable. For the first time, men and women in Socialism will realise their capabilities to the full. Socialism will produce an abundance and at only one standard — the best we are capable of.

The Socialist Party is not another collection of leaders telling you to trust us and promising you almost anything for the sake of winning your vote. No leader can give you Socialism, no clever politician can pull you by the nose into the new society. Neither will it happen by accident. Socialism must be your work; it needs a conscious political act by the mass of the people, opting for the new society in full knowledge of what it is.

We are a political party, hostile to all others, including those phoney revolutionaries of the Left. The Socialist Party is different — we are the political instrument to be used by the working class to transform the world from a chaos of deprivation and strife into an order of abundance and harmony. The Socialist Party has consistently argued, that the party aiming at the emancipation of the working class can play no part in the government of capitalism; they must continue building up support for socialism. 

The Edinburgh Divide

Inequality in Edinburgh is unlike any other city in Scotland. The clue is in the fact it’s the “capital” city. Capital in this context being another word for money. Nearly 45 per cent of the population hold a degree or professional qualification

In places like Dundee and Glasgow, social classes usually exist side by side, often just a corporation brick’s throw away from each other. In Edinburgh, it’s a little different. Areas of prosperity are fortified near the centre, while deprived communities tend to exist on the periphery. House prices in some places are enough to make your eyes water.  A quarter of all secondary school pupils attend fee-paying schools.

Yet social deprivation is higher than the national average, which is a bit odd considering the vast wealth so clearly on display. A quarter of all people in Auld Reekie live in poverty, including one in five children – 20,000 to be more specific. Food bank use is at record levels, with one food relief project handing out more than 9500 emergency food supplies this year. That’s an 18.5 per cent rise on last year and more than twice the number being handed out five years ago – when everyone believed food banks were a temporary thing.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/rapper-loki-edinburghs-poor-locked-13513965

Wake up, wage-slaves

Workers are encouraged to see in national independence a solution of their economic problems they will—like the Irish, the Poles and many others—suffer a grievous disappointment. It is the duty of the Socialist Party to work to destroy the present illusion and thus avoid the future disillusion. Let the workers organise not as national citizens alongside their home capitalists, but as workers. They should reject the fallacious argument of foreign political parties which urge them to do otherwise. This fallacy is based on an old saying that “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.” In truth, the capitalist enemies of the capitalists are not, and cannot, be the friends of the workers. If the foreign capitalists happen to be at loggerheads with native capitalists, that is no reason why British or foreign workers should imagine they have a friend in the foreign employing class. The real task of the workers everywhere is to fight against capitalism whatever the national flag under which it hides. The duty of the Socialist Party is to keep this issue always to the fore, not to rouse deadly national hatreds which obscure the class divisions in society and retard the growth of socialism. 

The State is the organisation of the division of individuals into masters and subjects and has always been based on the notion of territory, which simultaneously responds to the needs of the various kinds of exploiters to fix their slaves and subjects on a specific territory and to give notice to their potential enemies concerning which regions and inhabitants belong to them.

The nationalist idea is based on the myths of the land of one’s birth, of the foreigner, myths that limit and distort one’s view of the world.  Capitalism conferred worth not on a real community, but on the imagined representation of a community manifested in the fetishism of national anthems and flags and symbolic national heroes.  This invention of a fake community masks the division between socially antagonistic classes, making way for a rationalisation of capitalism’s rule divided by competition, a unity corresponding to the higher interests of the State. While this native capitalist rule shelters behind the borders of the State, it continues to rely on a process of globalisation, on the tendency to conquer and create markets. It has standardised life throughout the world where you find much the same kind of food and everywhere. The carefully nourished local colour is a marketing ploy. Nationalism and xenophobia have developed where a person's knowledge of and sense of belonging in ones environment had diminished and  decayed.

Socialism signals a break with the old ideas of territory, father/motherland, nation, and State. The problems that will have to be solved are global and can only be resolved by a worldwide human community that totally destroys national and international barriers. Men and women will not be imprisoned behind border fences and walls. Cultural and ethnic frontiers will disappear. Socialism will be a single humanity and everybody will be welcome to join and participate in one or another community without birth-place being an obstacle to his being accepted.

To establish socialism the working class must wrest control of the machinery of government and of the armed forces from the hands of the capitalist class and use them to convert the present class ownership of the means of production and distribution into common ownership by the whole of society. In other words, it is necessary to take political action to establish a free society. We maintain and can demonstrate, that Marx’s analysis of capitalism is still valid today.

We also hold that the materialist conception of history is the key to the way in which societies change. The different stages of social development are the result of classes in society pursuing their material interests. Socialism will be the outcome of this class struggle. It will be the outcome of the conscious political action of the vast majority of the working class — the last class in history to achieve its emancipation. It cannot be the work of "enlightened” élites or of a vanguard party of intellectuals. We also hold that socialism means the abolition of the wages system and the institution of a class-free, state-free, moneyless world community with common ownership and democratic control of the means of life with production for use not for sale.

The Socialist Party has always warned against workers following leaders, even if and when the leaders seemed people of some quality. Workers must do their own thinking. But how much more sense does our advice appear when it is obvious that the famous names who monopolise the media and make sure that a socialist voice is almost never heard.

COME AND VISIT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SOCIALISM

Socialist Standard No. 1371 November 2018

Socialist Standard November 2018

• Editorial: The First World Slaughter
  
• Pathfinders: Monkey Dramas
  
• Letters: ‘Getting rid of capitalism’, ‘Bone and Mogg’, & ‘Correction’
  
• Cooking the Books: State Capitalism
  
• Wood for the Trees: Invisible Elephants
  
• Material World: Bolivia – Morales comes up against capitalism
  
• The Great War – Opposing ‘A World Gone Mad’
  
• Remembering What?
  
• The First World War and its Aftermath
  
• Ad Nauseam
  
• ‘Resistance is futile’
  
• Cooking the Books: Unpaid Work
  
• Proper Gander: The Great Russian Fake Off
  
• Reviews: ‘Big Capital – Who Is London For?’ & ‘Why Socialists Oppose Zionism and Anti-Semitism’
  
• Exhibition Review: ‘Peace and Plenty? Oldham and the First World War’
  
• 50 Years Ago: The Suffragettes
  
• Human relationships in socialism
  
• Obituaries: Joe Carter, Ian Williamson, & Ron Stone
  
• Rear View
  
• Cartoon: Free Lunch
  

The future is up to us

If humanity is to survive a totally new vision of the way society runs is required. At the root of many, if not all, of the social ills, is our socio-economic - capitalism. The raison d’être of the capitalists is to maximise market share and generate profits, irrespective of the harm to people or damage to the environment.  Capitalists actively work to curtail democracy and deny the establishment of a just economic system; they steer and direct government policy and consistently obstruct anti-business legislation.

Socialism is a shift of an unjust and unsustainable economic model to an equitable and egalitarian participatory way of living. Sharing and solidarity are at the heart of socialism. The Socialist Party is to bring about real change and alter social relationships and express positive democratic ideals, such as social justice, tolerance, and compassion. Sharing of resources, knowledge, skills, ideas that shape our lives is real meaningful participation.  The Socialist Party looks beyond nationalism and seeks a movement forming throughout the world.

Socialists are not overly obssessed solely with the standard of living of the working class and increased their share of income. Our opposition to capitalism strikes at the very root of the working class condition: the need to sell our ability to work to those who own and control the means of production and distribution. The only way to ensure that the interests of the working class are fulfilled is through the abolition of the working class itself. Indeed, the working class is a class whose interests are destined never to be fulfilled. This does not mean that it must give up the struggle to improve its conditions. That would be a disastrous course of action. What it does mean, however, is that in the struggle to improve its conditions, the working class will come up against the limitations of what can be achieved under capitalism. They will necessarily confront the conditions of their existence as a class. This leaves two courses of action open to the working class. First, it can work within the limitations of capitalism to obtain what it can. But the history of the working class shows that this is precious little, and there is no reason to believe that the future will hold anything different. Or it can take the second course of action: to confront the class limitations with the determination to break them down. To abolish the condition which creates and recreates the working class: the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the capitalist class.

A reformist accommodation to capitalism’s problems, disguised as an embattled militancy, not only puts off the time when capitalism will be replaced by socialism but also postpones the discussion of why only socialism is the solution to the problems confronting the working class. But the reformist argues that something has to be done now! If this or that problem can at least be ameliorated, then this is a worthwhile goal; they cannot wait for socialism to provide a solution. When challenged to give an example of a solution to a working-class problem, the reformists will be at a loss. They will even go so far as to agree with the socialist that capitalism has no solutions. But, they will retort, at least a reform will ensure that fewer people are suffering from this or that problem: something is better than nothing, isn’t it? There is a gaping hole in this argument. The justification for supporting reformist proposals is the comparison of the position before and after the reform. Before the reform, there are, say, 60,000 people living in stinking, rotten houses, whereas after the reform there are hoped to be a mere 40,000. How could the socialist deny support for the reform? Not to support it would condemn 20,000 more people to live in stinking, rotten houses than need be.

But socialists, in not supporting the reformist programme, are not advocating that nothing be done. Far from it. We are calling for the working class to unite to introduce socialism now. In comparison with living conditions possible in a socialist society, the reformist changes are a bloody disaster for the working class. The choice for the working class is not between "Reform or Nothing". It is "Reform or Revolution." 

Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

http://townsendproductions.org.uk/shows/a-new-one-man-magic-lantern-show-of-the-classic-book-the-ragged-trouseed-philanthropists/

A socialist classic has been adapted into a one-man show.

Scottish venues are:

NOV 13 - CLYDEBANK TOWN HALL 
BOX OFFICE: From the trade unions in West Dunbartonshire or e mail: tam_morrison@yahoo.co.uk / WEBSITE
NOV 15 - UNITE THE UNION, JOHN SMITH HOUSE, GLASGOW 
BOX OFFICE: E mail: glasgowhnh@gmail.com / WEBSITE 
NOV 16 - 7.30PM - NORTH EDINBURGH ARTS 
15A PENNYWELL COURT, EDINBURGH EH4 4TZ 
NOV 17 - 7.30PM - CHAPLAINCY CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE 
CHAPLAINCY CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE, NETHERGATE, DUNDEE, DD1 4HN, SCOTLAND 
BOX OFFICE: 07949635910 / WEBSITE 

Cancer and the poor

People in deprived areas of Scotland are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer and more likely to die from it than their wealthier peers, according to NHS figures released yesterday.

 Diagnosis rates for 2017 were more than a third higher in the most deprived areas when compared to the least deprived, while mortality rates are 76 per cent higher, according to Information Service Division (ISD) statistics.

 The inequalities increased for diagnosis and death by almost ten per cent since 2016.

 In total 16,105 deaths were caused by cancer in Scotland in 2017, up from 15,813 the previous year and the highest number in 25 years.

https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/deprivation-linked-to-higher-scottish-cancer-death-rates/

Protect the kelp forests

An Ayr-based company called Marine Biopolymers (MBL) is now seeking a licence from Marine Scotland to take kelp from the Scottish seabed using a large mechanical arm. MBL commercially extracts polymers from seaweed for use in industries including food and pharmaceuticals.

Their dredging method would harvest seaweed using a mechanical comb, measuring between three and four metres to trawl the seabed. This method removes entire kelp plants, with the idea that juvenile plants are left to promote more rapid recovery. MBL claims that over five years it will start harvesting 30,000 tonnes per year of the seaweed Laminaria hyperborea, a large, leathery brown kelp.

Researchers in Norway have investigated the effects of kelp dredging on commercially important species, and found 90% fewer young fish in harvested areas. Scottish Natural Heritage suggests that Scottish kelp holdfasts typically house between 30 and 70 different species, including worms, molluscs and anemones. In turn, these animals provide food for fish and mammals like seals and otters. 

Existing Scottish kelp harvesting is limited to hand-cutting fronds, and ensuring that the stems and holdfasts (the part of the plant that connects to the seabed) are left intact. The new proposed dredging method will rip up entire kelp plants, including their holdfasts. Kelp dredging will also lead to a reduction of genetic diversity making kelp forests more susceptible to potential diseases and climate change.

Sir David Attenborough explained,  'These kelp forests - which can be found right here, around the coast of the British Isles - not only form an important part of the food chain, but also act as a vital habitat for a wide array of species. Their thick foliage offers food and safety from predators, and provides a nursery ground where juvenile fish can mature in safety. Look closely among the intricate stems and fronds of kelp, and you will find a range of fascinating sea life, from invertebrates such as sea stars, anemones and limpets, to mammals such as sea otters. Many of the fish species, such as cod, that are so important to us economically and culturally are also found here. For these reasons and many more (carbon storage being just one), it is absolutely imperative that we protect our kelp forests. It is perfectly possible to harvest them sustainably by removing their fronds while leaving the rest of the plant intact. But dredging - or indeed any kind of harvesting that removes the whole plant - is a wholly short-sighted measure that risks the wholesale devastation of our kelp beds. I urge decision makers to take the necessary action to protect these vital, and globally important, habitats.'

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/october/kelp-dredging-in-scotland-would-be-a-disaster.html

If we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us.

People have been talking about overpopulation for a very, very long time. Overpopulation is a prominent myth that remains largely unchallenged. Liberals, environmentalists, and xenophobes alike assert that the human population is out-growing the “carrying capacity” of the Earth who attribute global warming, mass migration, pollution to the growth of the global human population. However, such claims are emblematic of capitalist attitudes.  Earth is not overpopulated and given current demographic trends never will be. All of the problems that are blamed on 'overpopulation' are not population problems but social problems caused by the nature of our economic system. The idea of 'overpopulation' is rooted in racism and nationalism which targets the poor and people of colour. Africa is poor, not overpopulated. If anything, Africa struggles from UNDER-population. It doesn’t have enough people to effectively exploit its own resources. Africans suffer not because of their own use of its natural resources but because of the manner in which the natural resources are stolen by the West.

The ideal fertility rate is around 2.1 children/woman, but in developing counties (due to war, famine and inadequate medical care), it's closer to 2.3 children/woman. The total global fertility rate for the 2010s (so far) is 2.36 children/woman, and has been consistently falling since the 1950s. If 'overpopulation' was a problem, it seems we've already corrected it. The countries whose fertility rates are above the 2.3 ideal replacement rate are overwhelmingly poor and developing nations: whose citizens consume  fewer resources than the citizens of 'developed' nations. If population rates continue to drop, we're going to need newcomers from high-growth countries to supplement our workforce. We will need immigration from high growth countries to support our ageing populations.

Shit on the Tracks

A railway union has called for urgent action to prevent train operator ScotRail from breaking an agreement not to dump human faeces on Scotland’s railways. A deal between unions and the Scottish government scrapped the practice by December 2017 but a shake-up in the ScotRail fleet will lead to its return.

The RMT general secretary, Mick Cash, said a senior ScotRail staff member has confirmed of the 10 high-speed trains expected to be in service by December, only one will be fitted with a tank for human waste. He has written to the company’s managing director, Alex Hynes, and the Scottish government transport secretary, Michael Matheson, calling for urgent action on the issue and highlighting the “serious health risks” posed.

Cash said: “Our members are rightly appalled that ScotRail have sought to rip up a clear agreement to end the filthy and disgusting practice of dumping human excrement on Scotland’s railways. This disgraceful and retrograde step must be halted now and the union will take whatever action is required to hold ScotRail to their agreement with the union."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/29/rail-union-urges-scotrail-not-to-dump-human-waste-on-tracks

If we are to survive

What has the world to offer the child born into it? We might be tempted to answer, "Not very much at all,"

The world is and will remain, a mass of trouble as long as capitalism lasts because capitalism with its privileged and unprivileged, its class cleavage, and its hunt for profit for the privileged contains the seeds of trouble. No sooner does one sore appear to be healed than another breaks out. There is only one solution to the misery and insecurity of the mass of the world’s population and that solution requires that its workers of the world realise that they perform all the functions necessary to feed, clothe and house everybody. That the reason so many go short is because the means of production are owned by a relatively small proportion of the population who reap the benefits of the worker’s toil without the need to work themselves. In other words, that the workers carry parasites on their shoulders. When the workers achieve this knowledge they will realise that the solution lies in making these means of production and distribution the common and equal possession of all mankind. When this awakening occurs then genuine optimism will supersede the fatuous and spurious optimism that occasionally appears today.

 so long as world society is split up into rival groups of nations, competing with one another for the sale of their commodities, with 90 per cent. of the national wealth owned by 10 per cent. of the population, causing as it does, the POVERTY which besets the mass of the human race, there can be no solution in agitating for fiddling reforms or hoping for “better times” under the present of any future “governments.”

What is required is the total abolition of class ownership of social wealth, including mines, electricity plants, productive machinery of all kinds and transport on land, sea, and in the air. In short, the abolition of commodity production, with its buying and selling and advertising: shoddy goods for the masses, but diamond tiaras for the few. Its mansions, and its hovels. To say nothing of the colossal waste of human lives and socially produced wealth in recurring wars, etc. Despite their failures—and even though their successes are few and futile—the appeal of the politicians persists. Workers vote for them in their millions with, apparently, hardly a thought for an alternative They are content to be exploited to keep the capitalist system running. The Socialist Party presents a viewpoint that is completely opposed to the other parties —that viewpoint is one of working-class interests. For all the talk of “democracy” and “equality of opportunity,” what has the political parties ever done for you or for the working-class generally? Did it solve the housing problem? Did you become substantially better-off? The answer is an emphatic NO.

Why is this so? The answer is a very simple one. None of these parties sets out to solve your problems or to make you better off—what they set out to do, in fact, is to run this social system called capitalism in the only way that it can be run; that is in the interests of your bosses, employers, ruling class, call them what you will.

What then is the basis of this social system? Capitalism means a social organisation where all the means of producing wealth (mines, land, factories, transport and so on) are owned by a small section of the people. That leaves us, the working class, with nothing except our ability to work. And work we must, or else we suffer. From the employer’s point of view, it is a simple proposition—more for you means less for them, and so they do all that they can to prevent any raising of your living standards. But this isn’t our only objection to capitalism. Our bosses are always squabbling with the ruling classes of other countries over the distribution of the loot, resulting in continual international crises and minor wars, leading sooner or later to major ones.

We say that there is an alternative  Socialism - means a world where the things of life will be produced solely to satisfy the needs of mankind, instead of for the purpose of realising a profit for your bosses; a world where the whole of humanity will own and control the means of living and where wars and international tension cannot exist: a world where people will no longer be subject to the threat of unemployment and to the perpetual struggle to make ends meet—in short, a world where everyone will freely and equally associate and enjoy all the fruits of their labour. 

Housing is one of the most pressing questions and although the Labour and Tory parties talk glibly of the numbers of flats and houses they promised to build, the fact remains that to-day’s housing problem is as bad as it ever was. At root, the lack of decent accommodation for working people is a part of the working-class poverty problem. If you happen to be well-off, there is no shortage of fine houses and flats—at an appropriate price. In other words, workers live in poor housing because they cannot afford anything better, and never will be able to afford anything better as long as they remain members of the working-class.

Education too, under capitalism, means the fitting of our children into the tasks required by the social system; in other words, the production of the engineers, programmers and all the other kinds of worker that are essential to capitalism. The present-day bias towards technology education is but a reflection of the industry’s needs for more and more technical workers. Nothing wrong with that, you might think. But the trouble is that capitalism has no regard for the realisation of a child’s potentialities or for education in the sense of equipping children for full and happy lives.

Your wages, generally speaking, are no more than sufficient to keep you and your family going from one pay-day to the next, and this is affected little, if at all, by the raising or lowering of the level of taxation. We say that all these problems are capitalist problems, which means that they are inseparable from the nature of the society under which we live. All the efforts of the reformers over the years have not altered your basic position one bit. What is required is something far more drastic—a revolutionary change in the nature of society.

Our proposition is a simple one. We, the working-class, not only produce all the wealth but also carry out all the necessary functions to keep society going. The tragedy is that we keep it going for the benefit of a privileged minority. What we suggest is that workers throw off the domination of the ruling class and organise and run society in their own interests instead of in the interests of their bosses. Then and only then will we see an end to the problems that have beset the working class for so long. This is well worth struggling for, hence our participation in elections. Our candidates are a protest against capitalism, and to give working people an opportunity of registering their support for the only constructive alternative to capitalism and for the only effective solution to their problems.

Our fellow-workers should join up with the world movement for the achievement of socialism, helping to abolish the chains of wage slavery. Everyone who joins us in the struggle against this pernicious social system is helping to make the life of capitalism shorter and helping to bring about a sane and rational social order. The need for socialism becomes ever more pressing in a world riddled with frightening problems, and a start must be made in wresting power from the ruling class. Every socialist means another step towards a freer, better world.

The Socialist Party, a party of revolution

Mainly the workers live on wages and any changes that occur in the amount of wages have a definite bearing on their conditions of life. The wages which they receive represent a portion of the wealth they produce. This portion takes the form of money and is given to them by the owners of the places where they work in return for the use by the owners of their ability to work for specified periods of time. This is a condition of existence common to all workers, not less to those who wear white collars than to those who wear overalls.

Over the years working people throughout the world have employed a variety of methods in the hope of improving their living conditions. They have petitioned parliament, supported candidates for office, organised political parties. They have paraded in the streets, erected barricades and fought against police. But most important, they have organised in trade unions, which have provided them with their most effective weapon, the strike.

The trade union exists to protect and improve wages and working conditions. It engages in a number of other activities most of which are worthless, sometimes harmful. Because its members are not politically informed, it often allows itself to be used as a stepping stone to office by aspiring politicians. Indifference and apathy amongst its members sometimes lead to careerism. But the real worth of the trade union must not be overlooked.

It seldom happens that a worker by himself can negotiate with the employer and obtain a pay rise. Certain workers in particular types of employment may be able to do this, but not the average employee. He or she would be more likely to find him or herself on the street searching for a new employer. Workers may influence their wages and working conditions only by collective effort and only by being in the position to stop working if their demands are not met. The ability to withhold their services is a weapon in their possession. It is the only final logic known to employers. Without it wages will tend to sink to subsistence level. With the threat of the strike a substantial check can often be placed on the encroachments of the employers and improvements both in wages and working conditions can be made.

The strike is not a sure means of victory for workers in dispute with employers. There are many cases on record of workers being compelled to return to work without gains, sometimes with losses. Strikes should not be employed recklessly but should be entered into with caution, particularly during times when production falls off and there are growing numbers of unemployed. And it should not be thought that victory can be gained only by means of the strike. Sometimes more can be gained simply by the threat of a strike or a work-to-rule. Workers must bear all these things in mind if they are to make the most effective use of the trade union and the power which it gives them.

But above all, the workers, besides making the greatest possible use of the trade union, must also come to recognise that even at their best the unions cannot bring permanent security or end poverty. These aims cannot be gained within the limits of capitalist society. Yet it is working people themselves who perpetuate this foolish system; who do the useless tasks as well as the useful; the unproductive as well as the productive. The trouble is that the alternative, a world of common ownership and common effort, is frightening in its simplicity. It seems too easy to be true. Nevertheless, true it is. It’s as simple as that! When the workers have raised their sights high enough to envisage a society where there can be no conflict over wages and where each will contribute to the production of wealth according to his ability and receive from the produce according to his needs, they are thinking of a goal that can be gained only after they have become organised into a political organisation having for its object the introduction of socialism. Such an organisation is the Socialist Party.