Shamocracy

For far too long discussion has been monopolised by the politics of the mundane - how and who will deliver either more or less of the same. It’s time for an explicitly case for socialism that exposes the limitations of capitalism and reveals the political, social and economic boundaries that capitalism imposes while  challenging its apologists on the Right and on the Left.  Socialism has meant many things to many people. How one defines socialism determines the politics of the matter. Ask someone what socialism means and you get various responses - it means government control, state ownership, regulations, deficit spending, economic intervention by government, redistribution of income, progressive taxation. It’s the welfare state, the mixed economy, or totalitarian state capitalism, the one-party command economy. It has been described the so-called “real existing socialism.” Some have concluded that the very meaning of socialism has been lost and it is quite unfashionable to even utter the dreaded ‘S’ word at all. Often when someone proclaims that he or she is “a socialist”, they have difficulty defining what that actually means other than they are for good job conditions, full employment, free health care, etc. In the past number of years there has been a great public and worldwide outcry against “predatory” “globalized” capitalism. The nature of much of this protest has been termed “anti-capitalist”, but being anti-capitalist or anti-capital does not make an individual or movement consciously socialist. The problem with such “socialisms” is that they all leave capitalism in place.

Perhaps the best way to begin defining socialism anew is to define what capitalism is. By understanding capitalism and how it works, we can come to a clearer understanding of what socialism should mean.

Capitalism is a system of capital creation and accumulation. Capital must not only be created, it must be necessarily accumulated and expanded (and unless accumulated to a great extent the system breaks down resulting in recession and economic crises).  The existence of capital presupposes two things - first, a working class which is divorced from, does not own the means of production. The only thing that workers really possess is their labour power, their ability to labour which they must sell for a wage or salary. Secondly, the existence of a class which owns or controls capital, which buys the labour power of the workers and uses it for the creation of surplus value, profit. Thus, capitalism is a class divided society. On the one hand those who own only their labour power, on the other hand those who own capital. On the one hand those who survive by selling their labour power, on the other hand those who gain their existence by living off the profit (surplus value) created by the other class.

The working class was essentially created. Peasants, serfs, farmers were driven off their lands, dispossessed of everything they owned, forced into the cities, forced to sell the only thing they had left - themselves, their ability to work. It was either that or starve. In essence, it was enforced wage slavery in which capitalists made use of the powers of the State (laws in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries were made to that end; the enclosures throughout England and Europe; the destruction of Scotland’s Highland clan system and the forced clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries; the forced dispossession and removal of the Irish peasantry; the imposition of an oppressive colonialist rule in what became known as the ‘Third World’; apartheid; the brutal industrialisation and collectivisation in the Soviet Union and China. The process continues to this day with the destruction of lands of indigenous peoples around the world). Marx was correct. Capitalism came into existence dripping with blood. The distinguishing feature of capitalism is not that capital/property is privately owned or that production is anarchic, that there is no planning. It is that labour is alienated, exploited. If the State, government intervenes into the system, it does not affect the fact that workers remain exploited. If the State nationalises property and eliminates private capitalists the State itself becomes the single capitalist, its bureaucracy the de facto owners of capital. Capitalism as the ‘system of capital’ remains unchanged.

The workers do not produce ‘goods’ for themselves. They do not use their mental and physical abilities as the essential, creative part of their own nature as human beings. They simply produce to the dictates of capital and the need for capital accumulation. They are told what to produce, how to produce it, how fast and under what conditions. 

The actual existence of capitalism as a ‘system of capital’ imposes limits to what that system can do. In the end, the system cannot work in a way that is detrimental to capital and all action within this system of capital (reforms, taxation, public works, health care, issues of the environment and ecology, etc.) are determined and restricted by the inevitable fact that capital must accumulate. To the consternation of many the inevitable fact remains that capitalism and capital cannot act uncapitalistically. The politics within capitalism is then a series of trade-offs for those who define themselves as part of the political Left. Environmentalists are limited to what industry must maintain as a healthy profit margin. Jobs versus environment becomes an issue. Health care workers see public funds frozen, diverted or cut back because the State “just doesn’t have the money”. The same said for education, child care, scientific research, artistic development, unemployment assistance, etc. Trade unionists end up as supporters of multinationals to maintain jobs against workers in other countries. Unemployed workers fight for jobs against hired workers. Activism reproduces itself as a non-ending activism (i.e., the endless fight for higher wages, better work conditions, societal reforms) in a system that simply cannot deliver. Capitalism not only limits what one can do it also divides people against each other in an acknowledged ‘Rat Race’ that lays the foundation for the politics of despair, racism, sexism, ethnic division as people compete for the crumbs offered.

Socialist politics means radical break from capitalism, then all the premises of capitalism (production for profit, buying and selling of commodities, etc.,) must be fundamentally challenged. Production to the dictates and needs of capital must be replaced by a system of production controlled by society and based on the satisfaction of real human need. Since the very existence of capital implies economic exploitation of a working class then capital itself has to be abolished. Property (the means of producing and distributing) is not to be nationalised. It is to be taken over by the community, the collective, by democratic control of society as a whole. The very real and observable antagonistic relationship between capital and labour can only be overcome by the abolition of capital (and thus the abolition of waged labour). The goal of a society where the individual as part of the collective is able to determine production and meet his or her needs - what we call socialism - is desirable, necessary and achievable. It is in every way ‘practical’. It is those who defend and work through the system of capitalism and expect a society fit for human beings are the ones who are the Utopians. Their ‘practicality’ cannot go beyond the limits of capital. Their proposed solutions to very real problems from joblessness to refugees, from hunger to environmental destruction, are bound up with this inevitable limit. In the end, a society in which people’s needs are met and the possibility of a full, creative life is simply impractical under capitalism. The politics of its ‘shamocracy’ becomes a game of the absurd where billionaires become Prime Ministers and Presidents.

Our Aim in the Socialist Party

The working class has always been inspired by one idea—the overthrow of capitalist society, built on slavery, exploitation and violence. In this struggle of labour against capital, the working class can win only by mustering all their forces against the common enemy. This is why for the working-class unity is imperative. There is but one power that can save mankind from being plunged into chaos and catastrophe. There is but one power which can defend the workers of all countries against political and economic oppression and tyranny. There is but one power which can bring freedom, welfare, happiness and peace to the working class and to humanity. That power is a well-organised and determined working class, ready to fight all who would oppose and prevent its emancipation. The Socialist Party exists to assist the class struggle and the destruction of capitalism. The Socialist Party’s aim is to encourage the democratic organisation and understanding necessary for the working class to achieve its own emancipation. We fight against the division of people into theorists and activists and leaders and led, within and outside the group. We seek to encourage the growth of the  socialist movement in other countries and to work with them towards the goal of world socialism.

Perhaps never as before has the bankruptcy of our social system been more widely recognised. Today we see the beginnings of a desire for change. Yet, today even the limited gains achieved by our fellow-workers are fast disappearing with regular attacks on peoples' living standards. It is not enough to bemoan this situation. We describe ourselves as revolutionaries not because we consider all reforms worthless and to be opposed, but simply because we think that most of the major problems afflicting working people are incapable of solution within the framework of present-day society. By reforms we mean changes in society, whether or not achieved by legislation, which leave the basic structure of capitalism intact. This society cannot be made to work against its fundamental nature by a straightforward accumulation of reforms. Islands of socialism cannot exist within an ocean of capitalism. Thus, although we may be involved in organisations, campaigns and experiments of a predominantly reformist nature, our activity is guided by a set of priorities different from that of the majority of participants.  Workers gained major reforms during capitalism's periods of expansion, precisely because these also helped in capitalism's own development and modernisation. Today, with each recession, even these basic reforms come under attack. Reforms of benefit to workers are not impossible now, but they are certainly hard to come by. The old merry-go-round offers less and less; revolution becomes more and more obviously the solution. As socialists and workers we participate in all the struggles of our class. We do so, not with any illusions. but in order to assist the class struggle. We do not seek to become leaders and manipulate workers. Workers in capitalist society struggle in many ways to assert their needs as human beings against the profit-making motives of capital, to defend their conditions of life and work, and to contest the total control over production and society exercised by the capitalist class. To make advances in these struggles, especially during a period of crisis, workers have to develop the capacity to organise in a democratic way, and unify struggles in different industries, areas, nations and aspects of life. 

The socialist aim is the democratically administered social affairs (education, health, design of the environment, planning), and the satisfaction of the real, self-determined needs of human beings, and the fullest possible development of individuals and society. Thus goods and services are produced solely and directly for use, instead of for profitable sale on the market as commodities. Useful work will be re-organised to gear technology to human needs by automation of boring and dangerous tasks, by making goods to last much longer than at present (ending built-in obsolescence) by eliminating wasteful packaging, by conserving energy, etc. As the working class abolishes all classes, including itself, and integrates their members into a single human community, the need for the State disappears. We see various bodies transcending the division between work and the rest of life, and co-ordinating by general assemblies, delegated congresses and councils at industry, area, region, continent and world level. The administrative organs will use whatever aids are available such as computer and statistical systems through which the community can plan, assess and monitor its needs and productive efforts, discuss and make decisions on social issues. Decisions about production will take into consideration peoples desires and needs as voluntary producers, as consumers and as residents, and short and long term environmental and social consequences. Different types of decision will be made and different types of activity co-ordinated at different levels, with the aim probably of arranging matters at the 'least central level consistent with the effective use of technology. For example, although broad energy policy may be decided at world level, the use of local energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal) could enable local communes to satisfy many of their own needs. The community will face enormous problems left by capitalism. It will have to co-operate with the inhabitants if the underdeveloped parts of the world to relieve their impoverishment as rapidly as possible, and enable them to participate fully in social administration. It will have to salvage and protect the ravaged natural environment, re-build the worlds' cities and integrate city and countryside. It will have to reconstruct transport and energy systems, and provide better facilities for children. Priorities will have to be set for concentrating resources on the most urgent problems first - for example, the first problem is to guarantee basic necessities to the whole world population. Although money becomes obsolete when socialism is established, democratically agreed rationing of some goods and services may be necessary for some time until free access to everything becomes possible. In socialism, people will be able to experiment with a great variety of ways of living, working and playing together, and society will develop in ways we cannot now foresee in detail.

Pensioners hit again

Thousands of Scotland’s poorest pensioners who are in a “mixed age couple” could stand to lose out on around £7000 a year when new UK Government changes to Pension Credit come into force in May.

Mixed age couples affected are those where one is below pension age and one is in receipt of a low state pension. Pension Credit tops up the state pension to £163 a week for a single person and £248.80 for a couple. The Universal Credit rate, which would be applicable for new mixed age couple applicants, is around £115 a week. The difference is around £7000 a year for those on the lowest incomes. The move was quietly announced through a Written Ministerial statement on a busy Brexit vote day in the UK Parliament in January. The new changes will go in effect on 15th May 2019.

Until now, mixed age couples will be able to choose whether they claim Pension Credit or working age benefits. However, from 15th May, a couple will have to wait until they both reach their State Pension Age in order to claim Pension Credit. Those who are not able to be on Pension Credit will also lose out on cold weather payments, housing benefit, Council Tax Reduction, social fund funeral payments and may not be entitled to the warm home discount.

Age Scotland’s Chief Executive, Brian Sloan said: “This outrageous new policy will have a devastating impact to Scotland’s poorest pensioners and will make older couples of mixed age poorer for living together. When the move was announced the UK Government did not know how many people it would impact. Weeks later it emerged that it would impact 15,000 people in 2019/20, 30,000 the following year and 40,000 the year after that, but still no official assessment for Scotland. We estimate that at least 1500 of the poorest pensioners in Scotland will be hit next year and double that the following year. It’s not acceptable. The health of Scotland’s most vulnerable pensioners will be harmed as they struggle to pay bills and heat their homes all because of an out-of-touch policy. Right now, four in ten pensioner couples have difficulty paying their fuel bills and 38% of people over the age of 50 are financially squeezed. Pension credit is massively underclaimed and can help older people out of pensioner poverty which affects around 170,000 in Scotland. 

The change does not affect existing recipients or those who submit a claim up to 14 May 2019. The change is not restricted to Scotland.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/poorest-scots-pensioners-face-devastating-7000-a-year-blow-1-4885525

There can be no fairness in an unfair world.

Historians have unwittingly conceded the material conception of history upon human development when they designate early periods of social evolution the stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age, etc. These minerals and their relations to the economic process form one of the most influential factors in society.

Everything you use, everything you eat or wear, your car, your housing — you didn’t make any of these things. We don’t produce these things as individuals. We produce socially. But, even though we produce socially, through co-operation, we don’t own the means of production socially. And this affects all the basic decisions made in this society about what we produce. These decisions are not made on the basis of what people need, but on the basis of what makes a profit. Siding the capitalists is not going to help the workers’ cause. It only pits us against our fellow-workers throughout the world.

Under the capitalist system basic goods and services are produced for and obtained from the market. But above all, it’s a system in which the main economic actors, workers and employers, are dependent on the market. Market dependence is the essence of the system. This unique way of organising material life has had a relatively short history. Other societies have had markets, but only in capitalism is dependence on the market the fundamental condition of life. This means that a wide range of human activity is subject to the market and determined by its requirements in a way that was never true before.

In capitalism, the workers who supply our goods and services are market-dependent because they generally live by selling their labour-power for a wage. In other words, labour-power has become a commodity. Capitalists depend on the market to purchase labour power and capital goods, and to sell what the workers produce.

But here’s where it gets tricky. Workers are paid for their work. That seems just the opposite of peasants exploited by landlords, peasants who pay some kind of rent to the landlords. But do workers in capitalism really get paid for all the work that they do? What are they actually paid for? They’re paid for their labour power for a certain period of time, not for what they actually produce during that time. Whatever the workers produce belongs to the capitalist, and the capitalist appropriates the difference between what the workers are paid and what their products or services will fetch on the market. So, capitalists appropriate the surpluses produced by workers in the form of profit, just as landlords appropriate surpluses from peasants in the form of rent. Karl Marx called this exploitation. Capitalism, however, means a very specific way of extracting surpluses from workers — it’s not done by means of direct coercive force but through the market.

Capitalists have to compete with other capitalists in the same market. Competition is, in fact, the driving force of capitalism — even if capitalists often do their best to avoid it, by means, for example, of monopolies. But the social conditions that, in any given market, determine success in price competition is beyond the control of individual capitalists.

Since their profits depend on a favourable cost/price ratio, the obvious strategy for capitalists is to cut their own costs. This means above all constant pressure to cut the costs of labour. This requires constant pressure on wages, which workers constantly have to resist. It also requires constant improvements in labour productivity. That means finding the organisational and technical means of extracting as much surplus as possible from workers within a fixed period of time, at the lowest possible cost. To keep this process going requires regular investment, the reinvestment of surpluses. Investment requires constant capital accumulation. So, there’s a constant need to maximise profit. The point is that this requirement is imposed on capitalists, regardless of their own personal needs and wants. Even the most modest and socially responsible capitalist is subject to these pressures and is forced to accumulate by maximising profit, just to stay in business. The need to adopt maximising strategies is a basic feature of the system and not just a function of irresponsibility or greed — although it’s certainly true that a system based on market principles will inevitably place a premium on wealth and encourage a culture of greed. Capitalism devotes a huge part of its economy to lying and cheating, to hurting or killing each other. A major part of capitalism’s scientific activity has been devoted to fabricating the means to kill, torture and maim human beings. These have functioned with great efficiency: millions perished miserably in wars and death camps. In every part of the world, there has been a drive to apply the discoveries of chemistry and biology to agriculture and to medicine. The consequences, however, have never been what was intended. They include the destruction, of natural eco-systems,

Capitalism is not an efficient way of supplying crucial human needs. Capitalism may be efficient in producing capital, and it’s certainly true that capitalism has generated great material and technological progress. But there’s a huge disparity between the productive capacities created by capitalism and what it actually delivers. Production is determined not by what’s needed but by what makes the most profit. Everyone, for instance, needs decent housing, but good and affordable housing for everyone isn’t profitable for private capital. There may be a huge demand for such housing, but it’s not what the economists call “effective demand,” the kind of demand with real money behind it. If capital is invested in housing, it’s most likely to be high-cost homes for people with money. That’s the whole point of capitalism. It consumes vast amounts of resources; and it acts on the short-term requirements of profit rather than the long-term needs of a sustainable environment.

Where production is skewed to the maximisation of profit, a society can have massive productive capacities. It can have enough to feed, clothe, and house its whole population to a very high standard. But it can still have massive poverty, homelessness, and inadequate health care. You only have to look at the United States, where there are some of the highest rates of poverty in the developed world and where tens of millions have no access to affordable health care. What possible excuse can there be for that in a society with such enormous wealth and productive capacities?

Workers desperately need a political movement of our own. A movement which puts our interests first because it is a movement by, for and of us. Since the system we live under, capitalism, is based on our exploitation, such a movement needs to be explicitly anti-capitalist. It needs to aim for the overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a new truly socialist society, based on organising production to meet the human needs of all rather than private profit for a rich few. One part of building such a movement for the Socialist Party is running in elections, to challenge the parties which defend and manage exploitation and oppression and to get our ideas out to the widest possible audience.

A Crowded World?

There is no world overpopulation problem. There are some people who consider the population issue as the most important and pressing problem, because "overpopulation" threatens us. The fear of overpopulation is very old and usually arises at periods when the existing social conditions are unstable. Rather than question the manner in which food and other vital resources such as housing are produced and distributed, the blame is ascribed primarily to the excess of people. Even among “progressive” ecologists claim that the danger of overpopulation in the not too distant future lies in the law of "diminishing returns." Many in the Green movement are hopelessly locked into the Malthusian mentality, assuming the inevitability of overpopulation. The soil and our fields become "exhausted", increasing harvests can no longer be expected with climate change and the land fit for cultivation constantly becomes scarcer because of urbanisation. They tell us that the danger of a scarcity of food is imminent if the population continues to increase. Yet with a little bit of study it is found that everywhere the existing mode of production and distribution brings about privation and misery, not a surplus of people.

All sorts of people want to solve the problems of world poverty. We’re told ‘There are too many people in the world for the resources available.’ Experts in the NGOs are blind to both facts and prospects that promise to alleviate the present situation. Their evaluation of world food resources is both pessimistic and myopic. We are now getting near-optimum yields of food. We now have the scientific knowledge necessary to feed twice the present world population, and by the time the population has doubled, if it does – and that is debatable – there would undoubtedly be new discoveries. 

People are not poor because they have large families, quite the contrary; they have large families because they are poor because the old and infirm are dependent on their children. Family planning programs become a means of scapegoating poor women. Women everywhere need access to birth control, abortion services and sex education. But they also need adequate health care, housing, education, jobs and child care, so that control over their reproductive lives is actually possible. A declining birth rate is an effect, not a cause of economic progress. Higher living standards will slow down the birth rate.

At present there are seven billion-plus human inhabitants on the surface of this planet. For many malnutrition and disease are the “normal” condition. They dwell perpetually on the margins hungry and homeless.  Even on the basis of present technology it is possible to provide a satisfactory diet for a greatly augmented world population. The problem is not too many people. If people could decide what they produce, there would be more than enough food and homes for many times the world’s population. The problem is that only a minority decide – a minority who want to organise production for their own benefit and for no one else’s. That’s why they promote a false discourse to “prove” that hunger and poverty are not the fault of the rich for deciding not to produce what people need, but the fault of the poor and hungry for being too many.

In a socialist society mankind will for the first time be truly free and living according to natural principles, it will consciously direct its own development. Mankind will act consciously and according to a plan and to the whims of the market economy. With socialism overpopulation will not be an issue. The solution to the population

“problem” is to overthrow capitalism for if production is geared to the needs of the people and not to filling the coffers of a few capitalists and their corporations there will be no population problem. It is not people who are “polluting” the world but Big Business.

Socialism - Claiming What is Ours

While you and your neighbours may be worrying about how to feed your families a decent meal, capitalists are always telling us that prosperity is just around the corner for you while they themselves are busy raking in profits at a terrific rate. We are told employment at an all-time high and the stock exchange is at an all-time high. But our pockets are empty and we are borrowing and increasing our debt just to get by. We know much better today than ever before what the needs of mankind are. The religious preached feeding the hungry and quenching the thirst of the thirsty, clothing the naked and so forth.  The means to fulfil these needs for every human being are not only to hand now, but have been to hand for years. Nevertheless, the poor are still with us, and very little is being done to comfort them. It’s not because the food isn't or there are shortages of houses. There is no longer any need for material scarcity whatever. This reverses the basis of text-book economics — economics was always described as the science of scarcity. The difficulty is a political-economical difficulty and not any material difficulty.

Modern wars are part and parcel of the capitalist system. The capitalist economic system must continually expand or suffer from trade slumps and recessions. Each capitalist nation is continually driven to seek new markets, new sources of raw materials and new areas for investment. The capitalist needs to expand continually makes of each a competitor. It has come to be regarded as a commonplace among socialists that war is inevitable under capitalism; that the fundamental class antagonism through which capitalist exploitation is carried on engenders a whole series of antagonisms, including that competition for markets for the surplus product, which is the ever fruitful and inevitable cause of rivalry and war under the capitalist regime.

There can be no end to war without an end to capitalism. Permanent peace is only possible when planned production for use has taken the place of competitive production for profits. Planned production for use on an international scale means a world socialism. Today, the capitalist drive towards war is assuming irresistible dimensions. The nature of capital accumulation cannot be changed. There is only one way to prevent war and if it breaks out to end it, namely, by the overthrow of capitalism, the real root from which war springs. Around the globe, the World Socialist Movement has always been fighting for peace between the peoples of other nations. Its energies have been directed towards the elimination of the causes of war. The interests of the working class are bound up with the maintenance of peace.

It is a never-ending class war between the owners of the means to produce wealth, on the one side, and the owners of the labour-power, who can only earn wages by enabling these owners to produce at a profit, on the other. If one should ask, who will win the class war? We, the workers, will win! To help prepare the conditions for that victory and to hasten its advent is the task of our party. There are no short-cuts to the Social Revolution. The revolts of rage and impatience only play into the hands of the ruling class, as all experience has shown. Unorganised wage-earners cannot build the co-operative commonwealth. State-ownership and control still leaves the wages system being maintained. Production will not be socialised until the wage-earners themselves are prepared to undertake administration and distribution, on communal lines, for the benefit of the entire population. World socialism is the goal of humanity. It is the only way to have peace and security. The yearning of the peoples of the world for lasting peace on earth and good will among men can be fulfilled only through a social system based on human needs.

Fight nationalism - Not Love It

The Socialist Party has been told that our critique of nationalism is resented by many on the left-wing. We say it is a deplorable mistake for any socialist to ally in any way with parties that deceive the workers for their own interests. Deceived by the nationalist movements, workers will discover, in some years’ time, that they have been most cruelly misled and have been wasting their time. Workers must not be deceived by the supposed potential progressive facade of nationalism. Instead of tragically wasting their time fostering nationalism (in whatever form), they must equip  the people with socialist understanding and knowledge. The motivating force of revolution is not ’love of country’ but class struggle. No amount of secession or separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom.

Nationalism is a powerful and poisonous force. Since its foundation, the class-conscious workers of the Socialist Party have combated the capitalists’ chauvinist appeals with appeals for the international solidarity of the working class. The Socialist Party fought the attempts of the ruling class to enlist the workers in its nationalist strivings with its appeals for the workers of all lands to unite against world capitalism. The mouthings of the nationalist contribute nothing but division and confusion. They ally with the bosses and don the garb of “socialism” in order to reach the voting public. Socialists are internationalists and seek to join with workers of other nationalities in ending all oppression and exploitation.

It is nationalism that can divide the workers so that the workers of one nationality are struggling against the workers of another nationality for a few illusory crumbs the rulers throw out exactly for that purpose! It is nationalism that can pit groups of workers against each other with the most hideous rage, while their mutual oppressors skip off with both their purses for sun and fun. Nationalism is a capitalist ideology which developed with the emergence of nations and the rise and development of capitalism. Nationalism serves the wealthy. Nationalism does not serve the interests of the working class.

Any nationalism implies that those people are better than all others. We are all victims of a nationalism that preaches superiority and inferiority. By dividing and weakening the working class nationalists actually set back the struggle to end capitalist domination.

The SNP is not a socialist organisation. Nor will it evolve in that direction. True, some of its recent propaganda is embroidered with radical sounding phrases but they are representing business interests.

Friends and Neighbours?

Nearly a quarter of Scots have never spoken to their neighbours and the vast majority would never introduce themselves to a new neighbour, a new report on the relationships people have with their communities reveals. The figures also show 40 per cent of people do not know their neighbours’ names.

“Closing the Distance Between Us” shows how connections outside close friends and families have been seriously eroded thus reducing communities’ ability to cope in a crisis.

However, despite the breakdown in relationships 70 per cent of those questioned north of the border said they believed it was better for communities if people know their neighbours.

 A total of 61 per cent of respondents said they would say ‘yes’ if a neighbour invited them round for tea.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/report-finds-growing-number-of-scots-don-t-know-their-neighbours-1-4884106

Is There a Future for Humanity?

“Capitalist development has dragged humanity down to so low a level that it no longer knows, and can no longer know, other than one incentive: money. Money has become the prime mover, the alpha and omega of all human action. Balzac calls it ‘l’ultima ratio mundi’ [the world’s last argument].” Paul Lafargue

The entire capitalist world is currently in a period of great economic and social crisis damaging the lives of millions while a small minority reaps the benefits and profits. Capitalism is now being seen to be the main enemy of the people of the world and an awareness is growing among the working class that piecemeal reforms cannot solve the problems our society faces. Men and women are also coming to see that their overall liberation hinges on the demise of capitalism. Many of our fellow-workers are advocating a thoroughgoing change in the system. The conflict within capitalism is between the working class and the capitalist class which exploits its labour. This exploitation is the foundation of the capitalist system and provides the working class with its objective interest in the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. Further, because of its role in the production and distribution of all goods and services, only the working class has the numerical strength, strategic position, basis for collective organisation, and therefore, the potential power to overthrow capitalism. Critics adopting a tone of consummate reasonableness dismiss socialism as a dream. But that’s precisely what it is. It’s visionary. While there are others who criticise socialism for not articulating a bold and transformative vision for the planet. Socialism is the world’s last best chance to get it right. Otherwise, the future will be some sort of dystopia. 

What race are you? What colour are you? What’s your nationality? What Gender? What’s your sexual orientation? It’s capitalism’s bogus and divisive nature. Like cattle we are branded.

The Socialist Party supports strikes for higher wages and improved working conditions. As workers ourselves we know that under capitalism we get nothing save through organisation and struggle. The social conditions of capitalism, where a tiny minority own the means of life, inevitably give rise to a struggle over the division of wealth. The class struggle will last as long as capitalism because the interests of workers and owners are irreconcilable. Strikes are an expression of this class struggle though it is fair to say that very few workers fully understand this. They do not recognise that there is an irreconcilable conflict between workers and owners everywhere. They do not recognise that workers have no country and that patriotism is a delusion and a snare. They do not recognise that the wages system shows up the dependence of the workers on the owners for a living.

One of the disappointments of the ecology movement has been its failure to understand the challenge that requires us to explain how we would build a political movement to shape a better world. Our idea is of the democratic common ownership and control of the economy. Either we develop the socialist transformation of society or we are eventually destroyed. There is nothing inevitable about the further advancement and evolution of the human species. In the world today only the working class has sufficient objective interest in the overthrow of capitalism and the strength to carry out this revolutionary task if it chooses to do so. The working class has it within its power to overthrow the crisis-ridden moribund capitalist society and in so doing to pave the way for the liberation of the whole of humankind. It is now required to challenge the regime of capital which is based as it is on the cheapest and fastest exploitation of labour and nature and the endless expansion of exchange value — and the creation of a sustainable steady-state economy

Halting climate change requires a change much more fundamental than making a series of lifestyle choices. Many in the environmental movements insist that we all have to make sacrifices for the sake of the planet. Only a self-denying existence can save us. However, it is the structure of existing society that determines what the individual does, not the other way around. And it is the impact of corporations driven by profit which is causing climate change, not individuals. There may well be a small minority of people prepared to reduce their living standards, but think of the billions across the world who are already live below the poverty level. Imposing cuts in the living standards of millions of people already deprived of well-being and comfort should be inconceivable. It is the private ownership of the means of production which is the principal cause of all the calamities which the capitalist system continues to visit upon humanity.

Do we stand upon the brink of the destruction of the whole of mankind? If the catastrophists and those who predict social collapse are correct that ecosystem is in fact in the process of irreversible destruction, then all alternatives, even socialism, would seem to be not only utopian but futile. The popular media presents us with the dystopian vision of a Mad Max scenario rather than off a positive socialist alternative. The Socialist Party explains that we stand upon the threshold of a new age of peace, prosperity and plenty. What is the future of mankind? That is for humanity to decide. It must be decided by the majority of the working people. They must organise and speak with one voice: We demand life with socialism before death under capitalism. The fight for socialism has become the fight for the very existence of humankind. We have always said that the future belongs to socialism.

The Economics of Food

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Dom Helder Camara

As each year passes many people are eating worse, not better, high prices prevent people buying the food they want and a great number of people are eating less of the more nutritious foods. This indifference of people about their own food supply is one of the most surprising features of our social life.

Why does the farmer grow crops? Because there are people who want to eat? No so. As far as the farmer is concerned, they can go without if they do not the money to pay for it. there are people wanting all sorts of things, but nobody is going to try to provide them because there is no profit to be made. Yes, profit! The farmer grows food with a view to making profit, on which he lives. The food processers and distributers engage in the self-same purpose—that of making profit.  Bakeries make bread for no other purpose than profit.

If it is more profitable to use artificial fertilisers to grow more crops then the farmer uses those chemical fertilisers. If bakery companies find that supermarkets do not want their bread to go stale too quickly on the shelves then the baker adds preservatives.

The more anonymous the origins of the food we eat, the better we prefer it. We aren't burdened with the  responsibility of knowing whether it is the suffering of the beast of the field or the suffering of the field-hand, poisoned by pesticides and fertilisers. Yes, even vegetarians cannot escape social culpability unless they only eat what they themselves grow or only choose organic but this being capitalism, money and economics will always come first both for producer and consumer.

The current industrial model of farming is unsustainable. It is not based on methods of conservation but rather uses enormous resources that can only be purchased from the market. Large-scale and monoculture farming uses inorganic fertilizers, increases water usage and destroys biodiversity with the use of herbicides and pesticides. Today’s livestock-based food system consumes grains that people have traditionally eaten. And farm factories where livestock are crowded together need chemicals, antibiotics and hormones to control bacteria, and the animals’ manure pollutes the water table. Big Ag corporations are interested in maximizing profit, not in a sustainable and healthy food system.

So long as society is run in this way, we will have the present state of affairs—the factor that is wrong is neither the farmer, nor the baker, nor even the public, but the commercial motives of capitalist society that produces these potentially harmful food manufacturing practices. Only within a socialist framework can we have a rational food policy. A rational food production system would not see food produced determined by the needs of Big Business to maximise profits. The food industry will not produce food except for profit.

The most important point to reiterate is that there is currently the ability to produce enough food to adequately feed the world’s population. The primary problem facing the developing world is the distribution of food and its control. The problem is a not lack of food, but rather lack of access to it. Capitalism has created the supply-chains in which food can be efficiently transported around the world. The motivation for farmers must no longer be for sale and for profits through sale, but for human beings, to satisfy their needs. Malnutrition and actual hunger threaten the working people around the world until the production and distribution of food is taken out of the hands of the capitalists and politicians. The question is this: Will the people eat – or will the food corporations be allowed to accumulate profits as usual. Even bread and milk – the mainstays of life – have not been exempted from the machinations of the economic and political bosses working hand in glove. There is no other way out. Food must be under the control of the people themselves through committees of the consumers and the producers. Such a step will mean more and better food for every man, woman and child.

Edinburgh Branch Meeting

Thursday, March 7, 
at 7:00 pm 

Quaker Hall, 

Victoria Terrace, (above Victoria Street)
Edinburgh EH1 2JL

The Edinburgh branch of the Socialist Party advocates the principles of World Socialism; that is, we seek a change in the basis of society - a change which would end the distinctions of classes and nationalities. The Socialist Party aims at the realisation of socialism, and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all lands. For us geographical boundaries does not make rivals or enemies. For us there are no nations, but only fellow-workers and comrades, whose shared sympathies and mutual interests are perverted by our masters who stir up rivalries and hatreds between the peoples in different countries.

Some people try to escape the system. They try to ignore it, whitewash it, pretend it doesn’t effect them. Sooner or later life and the system catches up with them and they discover they are in a class war. Sooner or later they find themselves in a battle. And learn the importance of solidarity. We’ve got to stick together if we’re going to change things. There’s a big class struggle going on. And the question is, what side are you on? 

The Socialist Party has a vision of the future. We don’t have a detailed blueprint, but we do have a theory. And we believe our theory holds up to scrutiny and is inspiring enough to offer a guide.

Socialism - A Bold Idea

The anxiety is genuine and the insecurity is growing, but we in the Socialist Party wholeheartedly reject attempts by those in power to blame immigrants. In situations of growing desperation, many want an outlet for their anger and blame someone or some group of people. Politicians stoke this racism and fear to keep the poor at each other’s throats. Politicians are constantly presenting us with an enemy to focus on, offering messages inciting us to blame immigrants for all our troubles, whether it’s lack of jobs or the problems with health care or education or housing. It’s all rubbish. It is our system of capitalism to blame. It’s very clear that apologists for capitalism have one plan for dealing with the problems it creates: scaring the hell out of people.

The mantra of “immigrants are taking our jobs” comes from people with little knowledge of the job market. The jobs held by immigrants are often either the low-skilled jobs that locals refuse take, or they are professional high- jobs in our science labs, hospitals, and engineering firms that similarly benefit us all. As always, the ruling class will foster divide-and-conquer by racism and national chauvinism. Capitalist society is based on exploitation in which one class, through its ownership of the means of production, is able to live as a parasite class, not producing, but living off the labour of—that is, exploiting—the other class. In capitalist society, too, the fact of exploitation is clearly understood, at least by every worker. We knows that while we and our fellow-workers do all the work, it is the small class of capitalists who enjoy the lion’s share of all that we produces. The nature of the exploitation, that is to say how we are exploited, is not however so obvious, because, unlike the slave or the serf, the wage worker is not legally forced to work for our masters. Yet in fact, like the serf, we work part of the time for ourselves and part for our employer. Like the slave, what we produce is not ours but the employer’s, who owns the means of production.

The trade unions sprang up during the early stage of capitalism as an organisation aimed at improving the economic conditions of the workers within the framework of the existing capitalist system. At first, they considered it as their task to fight only the individual capitalists in defence of the immediate professional workers' interests, without affecting the foundations of capitalist exploitation and without going beyond the pale of the capitalist industrial social organisation. The abolition of competition among workers of a given trade, the restricted access of new workers to it and the resorting in extreme cases to strikes - those were the usual methods used by the old trade unions in order to obtain higher wages, shorter working hours and better working conditions. Despite the fairly innocuous character of the first trade unions the employers and their state opposed them vehemently and tried by violence, repression and legalised bans to destroy them, sensing instinctively that they might develop into dangerous class organisations for the abolition of the capitalist system. The violence, repressions and bans against the trade unions, however, far from failed to produce the result expected. It compelled the ruling class to get reconcile themselves to the existence of trade unions, while attempting to tame them and to turn them into compliant organisations which would regulate relations between workers and capitalists. Adopting this industrial policy towards the workers, the capitalists strove to make them believe that an improvement of their condition could be achieved not through strikes, not through a struggle against capitalist exploitation, but solely through an increase of capital, through an expansion of production, through constantly growing capitalist profits. The capitalists have at their disposal various means of counteracting the efforts of the trade unions, aimed at improving labour conditions, as well as at divesting them of the fruits of their struggle. The trade face limits and chances of success where its results remain insufficient and precarious. They do not create for the working class in capitalist society the possibility of living well, nor do they even substantially decrease the material and social misery in which it lives. The trade unions, however, are not in a position to impose sufficient and lasting improvement. Within the framework of the capitalist system this is excluded. For its attainment, the first condition to break and go beyond this framework.

Despite the billionaire bombast, socialism remains a viable force for change in the world. At present, only small numbers of workers see through the lies presented by the political parties and understand the need for a revolutionary solution. Our goal in the Socialist Party is the creation of a world party of socialist revolution. We oppose any kind of support to capitalist parties no matter how “progressive” they like to style themselves. Elections focus attention on political questions, and we in the Socialist Party seek to participate ourselves. A revolutionary campaign would not promote illusions in reforming the system but would instead expose pro-capitalist policies. We urge working-class people to learn more, to discuss with us the case for socialism, and to join the fight to end capitalism and exploitation through social revolution.

The Cul De Sac of Separatism

In a society of economic scarcity, hardship, and poverty, questions about who is more poor and more needy, among the poor, is directly and indirectly attempting to hide a more important question, why should anybody have to live in poverty and hardship? It is that lack of questioning which allows and drives the development of racism, sectarianism, and xenophobia. The Socialist Party stresses our common humanity. Real or imaginary “evidence” of colour of skin or nationality are used to break the unity of humankind. It is no longer an age of great enlightenment. Something is clearly wrong in a world where a rise in productivity is often seen as a curse and when a system can be driven by arms spending but cannot develop of education, health, or the protection of our environment. Across the world, the state is increasingly failing to deliver any form of social redistribution to the most disadvantaged. And some areas, most of which are in Africa, have seen not just increasing poverty but actual social collapse, brought on by economic crisis, which the state has been unable to prevent.

For sure, in 1917 the Russian Revolution did capture the imagination of people throughout the world and did inspire millions of downtrodden to action. For quite a time people believed a socialist future was being forged. Those hopes vanished a very long ago but it does not show that the socialist transformation is impossible. The failure of the Welfare State exposes that the reformist humane management of the capitalist system is impossible.

To try to maintain their position, the capitalist class cut the pay of the poorest in a myriad of ways and vilified immigrants in the newspapers they owned or influenced. The workers had to be distracted from the rise in inequality and poverty. After decades of innuendo and outright propaganda suggesting that immigration was the main source of most of their woes there were some people who believed the propaganda that all the problems in health, housing, and education were due to immigrants, and some really thought “their” country was being taken over by immigrants, by refugees, and even by Islam. Without the foreigners, they were told, there would be plentiful good jobs for all, without the newcomers, their children would get better schools, without immigrants there would be fewer on the hospital waiting lists, and best of all, we would all live in the house of our dreams, a home currently occupied by asylum seekers who have jumped the council housing queue. Those “non-British” have stolen “our birth-right” is the refrain. All this was said to distract people from looking at who was actually becoming much wealthier. If you spend days, weeks, months, years, telling people they are under threat, that their country has been stolen from them, that they have been betrayed and sold down the river, that their birthright has been pilfered, that their problem is they’re too slow to realise any of this is happening, then, at some point they are going to react. 

Whatever the reason or pretext, however, ruling classes throughout history have instigated or endorsed the oppression of different groups in order to maintain or create divisions amongst those over whom they rule. For the Socialist Party, our aim is to overcome the divisions. Opposing racism and nationalism ultimately means challenging the very foundations of capitalism itself. The idea of one person working for the personal enrichment of another, wage slavery, will be seen to be as odious and ‘unnatural’ as the notion of one person owning another, chattel slavery.

Nationalism is a dead-end remedy. We must empower, educate, organise and fight. This is the only way our lives will improve. There is no automatic socialist future, no guaranteed social progress and no final crisis of capitalism leading by itself to utopia. The choice between socialism and barbarism is still open, and its outcome depends on each one of us. We must create a solidarity without borders, inspired by a vision of change. Building solidarity that consciously connects struggles across borders will be a

formidable challenge, but we must face the future not with fear or despair, but with determination rooted in the socialist ideals which continue to motivate us. “Our“ nationalism is not presented as nationalism, “we” have patriotism. 

“National liberation” or “For Independence!” are  empty slogans which demagogues  fill with a false and even dangerous content.