Changing the System

Capitalism is running on overtime to hide the fact that time for humanity is running out. The destruction of the planet is driven by the rampant accumulation of capital which is inherent in the capitalist system thatdoes not simply exploit labour but exploits nature as well. The Socialist Party aims its arguments at the parties of compromise and conciliation with capitalism and it means unmasking the diversions and distortions of many reformists. There is no automatic socialist future, no guaranteed progress and no “final crisis” of capitalism leading by itself to the next step in social evolution. The choice between socialism and barbarism remains wide open, and its outcome depends on each one of us. Why, then, does socialism with its critique and condemnation of the destructive injustices of capitalism seem so irrelevant?

 Moreover, the exploitation of labour is intensifying. Equating environmental degradation with technology lets capitalism off the hook. The solution is not ending growth, but ending capitalism: ending production for profit and eliminating the exploitation of labour. However, most environmentalists have moved a long way from the struggle to end capitalism, and now rather advocate palliative policies for capitalist politicians to adopt. They can no longer think the future of humanity outside of capitalism by accepting and working within the system rather than transforming it. This is one of the more disturbing aspects of the ecology movement, the advocacy of a enlightened benevolence by capitalists and their politicians, preoccupied with a unending tug-of-war for government approval against the corprate lobbyists. The only alternative to capitalism's ceaseless growth for profit is a moralistic change of lifestyle choices and a reduction in consumption. Anything, in fact, except to radically intervene in the structures of exploitation of capitalism. 

For the Socialist Party, the State is no saviour but exercises power on behalf of the ruling class: "The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. " It is only through gaining control of the state that the workers will acquire the resources and apparatuses of power to enable them to control the means of production and end capitalism.

Sweep aside all confusion of the “experts”! What we are talking about is a series of separate crises, but, in fact, the general and world-wide crisis of the entire capitalist system. Socialists are full of hope and confidence. All the paths of the class war will be joined together on a single path: the road to socialism. The task of the Socialist Party is not be to tail-end the various workers' movement or to worship it, but to raise it to a more class-consciousness level.

It is important to realise that capitalists are not always looking for ways to increase the degree of exploitation of workers because they, the capitalists, are inherently greedy but that they do this because of the way in which the capitalist economy operates leaves them with no choice if they are to stay in business. Similarly, if workers are not to be worked to death and totally impoverished then they have no choice except to take a common stand together against capitalist employers so as to resist employers’ attempts to exploit them even more. This is done by forming trade unions to defend wage levels and working conditions. It is obvious that trade unions only have a very limited capacity to defend the living standards and working conditions of the working class. While trade unions are a necessary means of defence of the working class against the capitalist class it is also the case that they pose no fundamental challenge to the whole capitalist system. Trade unions do not challenge the right of capitalists to exploit workers but only the degree to which this takes place. Even the most militant trade union struggles, involving workplace occupations and clashes with the police, pose no fundamental challenge to the dominant position of the capitalist class. 

If the working class does not rise above the level of recognising the necessity to organise industrially, of a trade union consciousness, then it will be doomed to an eternity of struggle with the capitalist class. Capitalist society in its totality is structured so as to preserve the exploitative relationship between the capitalist class and the working class which lies at its heart. Nonetheless this same system contains within itself forces which periodically throw it into crisis and open up the possibility of its final overthrow arid replacement by a society where oppression and exploitation do not exist. Not only does capitalism deprive most people of the means of material wellbeing but it also means that they lose control over the process whereby they produce the means of material life; we are in a state of alienation. We need to abolish capitalism not simply to have a fatter pay packet but so as to gain control together over all aspects of our lives, to liberate the whole of humanity from alienation.

SOCIALIST CONSCIOUSNESS WILL GROW

Understanding our world

Briefly stated, the Socialist Party proposes that workers use their huge numbers at the polls to outlaw capitalist ownership and to make the means of social production the property of all the people collectively. For our fellow-workers who is troubled by the disintegration of society and the multiple perils of armed conflict, climate chaos and class conflict there is no higher contribution to the cause of social sanity than a serious study of the principles of the Socialist Party to understand the abolition of the outmoded capitalist system and the triumph of the class-free, democratic socialist commonwealth.

The Socialist Party tells the story of a robbery so colossal that it defies the imagination. Compared with it the loot taken by all the pirates of history are a mere bagatelle. The robbery is continuous and unremitting, wherever society is divided into classes, wherever one class owns the means of production and distribution to which another class, owning no tools of its own, must have access in order to live. There is nothing illegal about this robbery. Under the capitalist system, it is considered the normal "way of life." But it is robbery nonetheless. For the capitalist class uses its ownership and control of the factories and land, in the same way that a highwayman uses his gun -- to extract a tribute from its victims. It is an insidious form of legalised theft, this capitalist exploitation.

Workers labour under the illusion that the capitalist supports them, whereas we support the capitalist. What goes on inside the workplace that conceals the true state of affairs? What happens is simply this: In the first few hours on the job the worker produces in the form of new values as much as he is paid in wages for the entire working day. The worker has little way of knowing this. When the serf of feudal times was forced to yield part of what he produced to the feudal lord, he knew he was being robbed. But capitalist robbery is more subtle. The worker may perform but one minute operation in the production of a commodity requiring thousands of operations. Nevertheless, the labour has created new value equal to a day's wages in the first hour or two on the job. and this new value -- together with the value added by fellow workers -- is embodied in the finished product.

Marx gave a name to the part of the working day in which the worker reproduces his wages. He called it necessary labour time. During the rest of the working day the worker produces values for which he is not paid, or -- let us call a spade a spade -- values of which he is robbed! This part of the working day Marx called surplus labour time. For purposes of simplification, take the case of a worker who sells his labour power -- to be expended in eight hours -- for the price of $15. The first two hours of his working day are necessary labour time. In these two hours a worker produces as much as the boss pays for eight hours of labour. During the remaining six hours -- surplus labour time -- a workers produces three times as much, or $45 worth of new values. In the science of political economy we call the wealth that the worker produces, but of which he is robbed, surplus value.

What in the degree of robbery, or exploitation? It varies as conditions vary in the different countries. In a country where more advanced techniques and methods of production are applied (such as the United States), the degree of exploitation is greater than it is in less advanced countries. At first blush this may seem contradictory. Why, you may ask, should workers who are more productive receive less proportionately of what they produce than workers who are not so productive? 

The answer is simply that wages are not determined by what the worker produces. Leaving aside their temporary rise and fall due to fluctuations of supply and demand in the labour market, wages are determined by what it costs the worker to live and raise a new crop of wage slaves to take his place when he dies or is thrown on the scrap heap. 

Everyone is familiar with the expression a "living wage." Our grandfathers got a "living wage"; our fathers got a "living wage": and. normally, we get a "living wage." Thus, in terms of food, clothing, shelter, etc., we receive substantially what our grandfathers did. Yet we produce vastly more than our grandfathers and considerably more than our fathers. Why, then, haven't we advanced beyond the "living wage" concept? The answer is that we cannot advance beyond this concept, no matter how much our productivity increases, as long as capitalism lasts. And the reason is that, under capitalism, labour power is a commodity, an article of merchandise, whose price is governed by the same economic laws that govern the price of any other commodity. 

COMMODITY STATUS OF LABOUR 

Price may fluctuate according to the supply of a commodity and the demand for it in the market. Just as a pendulum swings back and forth, but is always drawn toward the centre by gravitation, price may go up or down -- but always it oscillates around its value in accord with the economic law of value.

In other words, price, in the long run, coincides with value. And the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce it. In the case of the commodity labour power this means that its value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce the food, clothing, shelter, etc., needed to keep the worker in working condition. He gets a 'living wage." 

THE TREND: INTENSIFIED EXPLOITATION 

But, note this: The more highly developed a nation is industrially, the less labour time is required to produce the workers' necessities. Hence, instead of the workers' share of their product increasing proportionately as their productivity rises, it is the other way around. As new methods and techniques -- such as automation -- are introduced, the articles workers consume are cheapened and wages fall accordingly. Thus the workers' relative wages (what they receive in relation to what they produce) tend to fall as productivity rises. In other words, as labour productivity rises, the necessary labour time grows shorter, thus lengthening that part of the working day when the worker produces surplus value. 

HOW THE CAPITALISTS DIVIDE THE LOOT 

For purposes of simplification we have used a single worker as an example but exploitation is not the act of any individual capitalist, or set of capitalists, perpetrated upon any individual workingman or set of workingmen. Exploitation is a class act -- the act of the whole capitalist class-perpetrated upon a class -- the whole working class.

Apologists for capitalism sometimes try to refute the Socialist Party's charges of high-degree exploitation by pointing to the net profits of corporations. But socialists have never contended that the corporations pocket all the surplus value their workers produce. On the contrary, socialists point out that before a capitalist can count his net profits he must pay off the landlord, tax collector, banker, advertising capitalist, insurance company, and all the other parasites on parasites. By the time taxes, interest, rent, etc., are deducted, net profits of the immediate capitalist exploiter may be only a fraction of the surplus value of which workers are robbed. But this in no way disputes the fact that the working class is robbed by the capitalist class of wealth so vast that it defies measurement. 

CAPITALIST HEADACHE: DISPOSING OF THE LOOT 

Now, let us examine this thievery from another angle. We measure surplus value in dollars. But the workers do not produce dollars, they produce commodities -- and a commodity, Marx tells us, is an article that will satisfy some human want and that is produced for sale. Hence, before the capitalists can enjoy their plunder, they must first find buyers for it. If they don't get rid of their commodity loot, it accumulates the warehouses and production stagnates. 

First of all, it is self-evident that the workers do not consume more than they can buy with their wages. And, as we have shown, this is just a fraction of what they produce. What happens to the remainder of labour's vast product? 

A part is consumed by the capitalists in prodigal living. Some capitalists -- the plutocracy -- live in opulence surpassing that of kings, and often maintain not one palace, but many. In every city the capitalists form a community of super-consumers. They are the patrons of the night clubs, the purchasers of costly luxuries, the members of expensive clubs. Yet. despite their prodigality, the capitalists can use up in personal consumption only a fraction of the immense wealth created by labour and appropriated by their exploiters. 

Another part of this wealth -- a much larger part -- is used up in running a huge, bureaucratic, capitalist political State.

Still another part of labour's surplus product goes into expansion of industry. But while this tends temporarily to relieve the glut, its ultimate effect is to increase the capacity to produce commodities, hence to produce surpluses. 

CAPITALISM NEEDS WASTE 

Waste is another outlet for the wealth labour produces but cannot buy back. Some of the waste is incidental to the operation of capitalism. Take real estate transactions, for example. From the standpoint of economy these are pure waste. So is insurance. And advertising. None of these activities creates a penny's worth of value. Then there is the wanton destruction of surplus crops, and the fantastic waste involved in building hydrogen bombs and other weapons. And the waste of economic anarchy and duplication of effort.

Indeed, capitalism thrives best when waste is greatest. Floods, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes and other natural disasters may ruin individual capitalists, but they are a veritable tonic to the capitalist system, for they help to use up surpluses. 

COMPETITION FOR WORLD TRADE 

However, such is the tremendous productivity of the modern working class that, despite prodigious consumption and waste, surpluses tend to accumulate, glutting the home market. The only outlet for this surplus is -- the world market. 

Foreign markets are to capitalism what a safety valve is to a steam boiler. Continue to pump steam into a steam boiler that has no safety valve to release the excess pressure and, sooner or later, something will break. Similarly with capitalist production. Under a system of production for sale and profit, the foreign markets must drain off the surplus or it will pile up, cause economic stagnation at home, and, ultimately result in capitalist collapse. 

All industrial countries are competing for a world market that, instead of growing larger, tends to shrink as economically backward countries industrialise and establish their own systems of exploitation. Inevitably the rivals in this economic war encroach upon each other's markets and sources of raw materials, creating international friction and hatred. For a time the weapons of trade -- tariffs, barter deals, import quotas, etc. -- are invoked. But ultimately such weapons are inadequate. The struggle that begins in commerce ends in -- WAR! 

SOCIALIST SANITY 

Capitalist rulers have no ears for the voice of Socialist sanity. For Socialism -- not the phony "Socialism" of Soviet Russia, which is really a system of bureaucratic despotism, but real Socialism -- would not only put an end to the periodic wars for capitalist survival -- it would also put an end to capitalist robbery of the working class. By raising the worker out of his commodity status to that of a free human being with a voice and vote in the administration of industry, by guaranteeing to every producer the full social value of the product, in abort, by replacing capitalist anarchy and exploitation with Socialist cooperation and harmony, the world could be made into a veritable paradise of peace and plenty. 

But capitalist rulers, blinded by their class and material interests, reject this. Whatever betides, they choose capitalism with its inevitable struggle for world trade and raw material sources, with its inevitable war. Not even the hydrogen bomb with its threat of human annihilation can prevent this ultimate outcome if capitalism is allowed to remain the ruling principle of society.

What the capitalist rulers and bureaucrats are incapable of learning, the toilers of the world must learn.

There can be no peace without Socialism 

The capitalist system is the first in which a surplus of useful things is looked upon, not as a blessing, but as a curse. Below are depicted the various methods whereby the capitalists dispose of the fantastic volume of commodities the modern wage-slave class produces. It is impossible, of course, to determine accurately the proportion of labour's product used up in waste, or through expensive living by the capitalists, or in other ways, and the drawing is intended to convey this only in general terms. It should also be noted that the workers are many, the capitalists few,, and, though the working class may consume more in living, its per capital consumption is but a fraction of that of its exploiters.

The capitalist class, as a class, robs the working class, as a class. The individual capitalist exploiter does not pocket the whole loot taken from the workers. Out of the wealth the workers produce come rent, interest, fees for insurance, advertising, etc., taxes and the "pay-off" for corrupt politicians and other hangers-on of capitalism who in one way or another serve capitalist interests. When workers read of the net profits of corporations, small or large, they should always bear in mind that these represent only a fraction of the total plunder. The "pie" above is suggestive and does not pretend to convey the real proportions in which labour's product is divided.

Everything is Possible

The Socialist Party differs from other political parties in that it completely wants to change the present society’s economical organisation for the social emancipation of the working class. This can only happen through abolishing the private capitalist monopoly on the means of production and their transformation to common ownership, to all society belonging property, and the replacement of the unplanned production of goods with a socialist society’s real needs production.

 The Socialist Party therefore wants also the political organisation of the working class, to take possession of the political power and transform to common property all means of production — the means of transportation, the forests, the mines, the land, the machines, the factories - the Earth. The interests of the working class are the same in every country. The emancipation of the working class is thus something which people across the world must take part.

Marx worked to demonstrate that to live humanly, in a manner ‘worthy of and appropriate to our human nature’ (Capital, Vol. 3), would mean a free association of human individuals, an association in which ‘the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’. He showed that a human way of life is incompatible with private property, wage-labour, money and the state, and in accord with nature.

Marx and Engels shared a belief in progress in mankind’s ability to build a better world. Men and women as free and socially integrated individuals were the focal point of their politics. Their dream – a socialist society – was a free association of completely free people, where no separation between ‘private and common interest’ existed: a society where ‘everyone could give himself a complete education in whatever domain he fancied’. For ‘man’s activity becomes an adverse force which subjugates him, instead of his being its master’ when there is ‘a division of labour’; everyone must then have a profession, that is a ‘determined, exclusive sphere of activity’ he has not chosen and in which ‘he is forced to remain if he does not want to lose his means of existence’. 

In socialism, on the contrary, a person would be given ‘the possibility to do this today and that tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to go fishing in the afternoon, to do cattle breeding in the evening, to criticise after dinner’, as he or she chose. Socialism will have no need of the irrational remnants of a past age, such as prices. Marx spoke of the ‘free association of real producers’. It is through such a free association, when labour in all its aspects becomes controlled by the workers themselves that production will rest not upon decisions of the planners, but of the freely determined wishes of the producers themselves. 

Commonsense for a commonwealth of common ownership

To a person new to the ideas the Socialist Party holds, much of what we advocate sounds strange and not easy to accept. Some of our views are objected to because they seem extreme which others dismiss as being a mere “pipe-dream” that will never come true. There inevitably remains, to greater or lesser degree, a certain amount of “show me” skepticism, if not outright suspicion. Everyone likes to pride oneself upon the fact that he or she “makes up their own mind.” But the views which the vast majority of people believe on social issues are thought out for them through a lifetime of absorbing ideas from education and the media. Our minds are submitted to a process of shaping, that makes them fit the pattern of thought that accepts things as they are as the best possible arrangement. Did each person sit down and think things out for themselves, decide what ideas are right or wrong? Far from it. The ideas shared by the average worker are compounded of misinformation, disinformation, prejudice and lack of political education. Just as in modern society there is an increasing tendency towards a productive specialisation in which each man merely does one operation, apparently meaningless and without satisfaction in itself; so too in the intellectual world of capitalist society there has taken place the same kind of destructive specialisation, the compartmentalisation of human knowledge into pigeon holes. So much so that our fellow-workers end up being opposed to their own best interests. Such an understanding of the interests of the class as a whole we call class consciousness.

We are living in times that require radical solutions to burning problems, problems really of life or death. Politicians tied to a faith in capitalism cannot give such solutions despite their superficial “progressiveness.” Their attitude of class collaboration, the bootlicking of capitalist politicians and of capitalist society is the curse of the working class. They do not have the confidence of the working class. The formula of the reformists is the belief that capitalist society and capitalist democracy are precisely what they are said to be by the defenders and benefactors of capitalism, that there can be no significant difference between the exploiters and the exploited, between the owners of property and the property less, between those who hire and those who are hired. To be sure there are “the poor” and “the rich” but the reformists always obscure the fact that such distinctions are not what is basic to an understanding of the main problem facing the working class. They obscure the fact that “the rich” are one class in capitalist society and “the poor” are another, that not only are “the poor” and “the rich” separate classes but, also, that those separate classes will remain so long as capitalism remains, that the interests of the two classes are in irreconcilable conflict, that there is an incessant class struggle between the two classes, that the toilers must press this struggle everlastingly under capitalism. They obscure the fact that this struggle between the workers and the owners of capital can only end successfully for the toilers when capitalism has been replaced.

Despite the best efforts of the media indoctrination to convince the working class that capitalism is the best of all systems and that socialism is bad for them, the workers are no longer swallowing the capitalist propaganda hook, line and sinker. They are beginning to free their minds from capitalist control. The Socialist Party is firmly convinced that even such a small party as it, with a principles and a case for socialism that coincides with historic development, can and will re-make the world.

Workers Unite

The Glasgow Mardi Gla Pride march has been organised by the LGBT Co-op.

The parade of walkers and decorated floats is set to leave Kelvingrove Park at 11:30 BST.

They will make their way from Kelvin Way to Sauchiehall Street, Blythswood Street and West George Street before ending up in George Square.

As they reach the central square, they will see the distinctive rainbow flag, adopted by the Pride movement, flying above the Glasgow City Council chambers.

The future is bright

Every day workers drip their sweat on to production lines and, in capitalist society, experience the life-killing exploitation on which the system is built. They take part in struggles, together with fellow workers and others, against the outrages of the capitalist system. For over 200 years the battle between the classes, the working class and the capitalist class, has raged. It has ebbed and flowed according to the strength, understanding and contradiction between these two classes. The working class never ceasing, never surrendering but neither remaining true to its revolutionary origin nor ever totally pursuing that aim without reservation.

 In order to become conscious of itself as a class, and to know and change the world in accordance with its interests, the working class must have its own socialist party consistently which points the way forward toward the goal of overthrowing the rule of capital and building socialism. The working class in each country needs only one socialist party. The capitalists usually have more than one party, because of their need to compete with each other and to deceive the people. 

Different sectors of capital seek to advance their own vested interests by competing both through and within these parties. The working class has no interest in competition among themselves – it is the rule of capital that pits worker against worker to compete for jobs and for survival. The working class has no need for masks but openly proclaims its intention to overthrow the exploiting minority. The working class needs a single party to unite it as a mighty fist, to build its understanding of the historical mission of ending all class society. The working class needs a socialist party to draw up a battle plan against the enemy. One socialist party, representing the interests of one class, and through these interests, the great majority of humanity.

Class struggle has always existed since there were classes to struggle. The interests of the classes – those who sell their labour power and those who exploit the labour of others – are so opposed as to make struggle inevitable. Instead of exposing the bosses, the media have put the blame for the crisis on foreign countries, foreign-born workers, women and minorities—anything that serves to divide the people and hide the real nature of the problem. The government is nothing but the tool of the bosses. 

The Socialist Party declares that the blame for the crisis lies exclusively with the capitalist system, and that the only real way out of the crisis is working class struggle and socialist revolution. No piecemeal reforms or partial solutions can bring an end to this state of things. Reformists stand exposed for their total inability to meet the people’s needs.

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class. It is a part of the working class against the ruling class. It has no interests apart from the interests of the working class. It is the very reason for its existence to bring to fellow-workers an understanding of the laws of capitalism and enables them to consciously change the world and make a socialist revolution. The working class are bound to overthrow the capitalist class, socialise the ownership of the means of production and remove all social chains on the development of the productive forces, by advancing to class-free society. Socialism promises peace because it offered a society with no cause for war, that is to say, in which capitalist contradictions and national rivalries are overcome.

Today, the people live under the capitalist class. The working class is the only class that stands diametrically opposed to the capitalists. The working class stands at the head and unites all those exploited by the capitalist system and has as its goal the emancipation of all humanity from wage-slavery. The working class can make no revolution without its own socialist party.

Capitalism's day of reckoning approaches

It gives members of the Socialist Party no pleasure in conceding that presently there is no organisation of the working class in this country that can bring revolutionary change. It is becoming increasingly evident that we are living in a world of conflict inseparable from the existing social order. The opponents of Socialism must shut out the thought that revolutionary change is necessary. The supporters of capitalism have nothing to offer mankind beyond the continuous existence of a system of society which totters from crisis to crisis inherent in that very system. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the emergence of the working people as the creative force in society. Socialism meets the desire for freedom innate in every human being. With the end of class oppression the state disappears. Parliament has lost much of its prestige but its control over the forces of law and order, the armed forces, education and a, number of other services means that it cannot be ignored. It is possible to forget the fact that the full picture of what is happening is concealed from the public, and even Members of Parliament.

Socialism is the first social system in the history of mankind to be introduced by the conscious action of its collective creators and not, so to speak, behind the backs of the actors in history’s drama. It is no accident that socialist thinkers failed to sketch out in any detail the new socialist society, as distinct from the many seekers of utopia down through the ages. Instead of blueprinting the new society, they study the society in which we now live — capitalist society — the society out of which the new is destined to come — seeking the laws governing its motion. They learned that the class struggle was the lever of social change. They recognised that the workers, out of painful experience, overcoming their divisions and out of necessity, need to take the power from the hands of the capitalist class who now possess it, abolishing the whole state structure that they have developed to serve their interests and forming organs of workers’ power. The many prejudices which are deeply rooted in the past have been fostered and whipped up by the ruling class to divide the workers and pit them against one another and away from their common enemy.

With the release of the capitalist fetters on the productive forces, the planned obsolescence, socialists see the availability of plenty for all. Not only will the revolution itself be profoundly democratic, but with its victory will come almost instantaneous benefits for all. Thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created across this land, we will be quickly able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of policing to supervise who gets what, and no bureaucrats acquiring special favours that would allow them to become a privileged elite. We would see our wealth as part of mankind’s common heritage, binging its unparalleled natural resources and productivity, to the well-being of humanity. Solidarity in the working class as a whole, coming from below, is an urgent necessity if we are to further the cause of socialism.

Subscribe to the Socialist Standard. Courage and determination is required, but it is also necessary that everything possible be done towards spreading education among as many workers as possible. The greater the knowledge and understanding we possess, the greater will be our confidence in victory over the class enemy.

Fake Solutions and False Signs

The Socialist Party differs from most anarchists with its insistence that the working class can only abolish the State by first capturing control of it. Therefore, the working class requires organisation on the political field and the Socialist Party engages in electoral activity and contests elections. The ballot box permits the possibility for the peaceful reconstruction of society. A socialist political party has but one thing to do upon winning control of the political machine, and that is to abolish all political forms of power, including abolition of the socialist political party itself, without delay. Our aim is truly a class-free society that must also be state-free with no coercive power that is distinct from and ruling over the population. What the alternative system self-management will vary in form and depend upon circumstances but will mainly consist of delegates elected by the people in their communities and their work-places. Socialism is possible only if the working class creates a structure through which it can wield the economy democratically.

Workers today face a host of challenges undreamed of by previous generations. Outsourcing, downsizing, buyouts, mass layoffs, job cuts. The list goes on and on. Workers have nowhere to turn when the chips are down. An organisation based on working-class principles, and organised, and administered by the workers themselves, is needed, will bring together all workers, men and women, young and old, across artificial racial and national boundaries, into one powerful and irresistible force. But organising is not be an end in itself but the beginning of a bigger plan which will one day bring forth a system that will benefit everyone, a system that will see the end of forced unemployment, an end to poverty and war, and all the other miseries that follow in the wake of the so-called "best of all possible systems." Capitalism today may pretend otherwise, but it, too, relies on terror, or the threat of it, to uphold the economic order. Workers cannot look to the capitalist class or its state to protect them from the social forces unleashed by capitalism.

An increase in exploitation on the job, whether in the form of lower real wages and in greater workloads, hurts workers immediately and directly. But the workers themselves aren't the only ones who feel the increased pressure. Their families are also affected. If we as workers controlled production and distribution of goods, the wealth we created with our labour could be used to meet all of our needs. We could allocate our resources to the areas we considered most important. We could surround our children with the love and attention of entire families, without fear of want. The profit motive, which defines capitalist values, are incompatible with human values. Creating the social environment for humans to live and behave as human beings is a task reserved for socialism.

The capitalist system is inherently nationalistic. Society has reached a point where capitalism is increasingly incompatible with freedom and democracy. To save capitalism, freedom and democracy must eventually be destroyed. To save freedom and democracy, capitalism must be destroyed. To reverse the trend toward repression, to defend our rights from attack and to make democracy a reality in every sphere of life, the working class must organise to end capitalist control over the means of life and with it the political supremacy of the capitalist class. The only cure for the authoritarian threat inherent in capitalist-class rule is the forging of a class conscious workers' movement for socialism that successfully establishes a socialist economic democracy -- a rational social system that can provide fulfilling economic opportunity for all and production for human needs and wants rather than for the profit of the minority capitalist class. Capitalism, with a pathological focus on profit before people, is fertile soil for human miseries. The brutal and reactionary response of the ruling class and their servants who shape social policy is to put people in cages.

Every class-conscious worker who can see what is at stake had best heed the alarm, rouse themselves and join the struggle to educate and organise our class for socialism -- while there is still time to do so. Only the Socialist Party can bring a society characterised by compassion. Socialism will free human beings from prisons, class rule, the profit motive, despair, alienation and addiction.

Socialism will change our way of life

Standing in the way of social progress and socialism is the capitalist class. The ruling class is composed of the owners and CEOs of the huge multinational corporations that control the economic life of the planet. They control the destinies of billions around the globe. The capitalist class is a powerful enemy and it will require protracted efforts to overthrow it. But there is a potentially much more powerful force opposing them: the unity of the vast majority of working people. 

The working class is the class that is most systematically and brutally exploited by capitalism, and is the most revolutionary class. The working class is composed of all wage earners – mental and manual, urban and rural – whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public, or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. The vast majority of people belong to the working class. The working class produces the wealth appropriated by the capitalists and its basic interest lies in the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. There is a lot of confusion about class. Politicians, academics, media pundits and even trade union leaders, have obscured the issue. As a result many think the main classes are the rich, poor and middle class. This view has problems. It pits the employed section of the working class against the unemployed sections of the working class, by suggesting that the working class is the middle class and has different interests from the unemployed sections of the working class. Another variant is to think that everyone who lives in the suburbs is "rich." The effect of this kind of analysis is to pit the working class against itself, confounding friends and enemies and deadening class consciousness.

 Marxists approach the matter differently. When socialists look at the issue of class we see that every kind of society, from ancient times until now, is organised around its tools - it means of producing things that satisfy people's needs and wants. Ownership of the means of production is basic. Classes are large groups of people, who have a defined relationship to the means of production, such as ownership. They also have a defined place in the social division of labour, for example some people are supervisors or managers. The result of the these differences in who owns what and where one fits into the social division of labour, means a difference in who gets how much wealth. For revolutionary change to take place our fellow-workers workers who are held down by the capitalists - need to arrive at the conclusion that they are unable to live in the old way, and need to be willing to fight to bring the old order to an end.

The government today serves the interests of the ruling monopoly capitalist class. The state suppresses and controls opposition to capitalism. It maintains social order to provide a stable environment for big business. It does this through the massive state apparatus, including the courts, police and army. In times of crisis the repressive functions of the state become more visible. The teeming millions face two choices – either accept misery and murder or set out to overturn this system. Our principles are based on the revolutionary potential of those who have to fight this system in order to live. The decisive step today is to broaden and intensify the activities and influence of our party educate and organise fellow-workers to wage class war on the capitalist system.

Our aim is to reorganise society and to put an end to poverty and injustice once and for all. To change society and end oppression, we need a plan to get from where we are now to liberation - a strategy that will work. We need to turn things upside down. This means revolution. Identifying our real friends and our real enemies is a first step.

The only way that the majority of people can survive is if the marvellous means of production belong to society, the resources of society are distributed by need, and the individual contributes to society whatever he or she is capable of. Reality demands that we take over the economy and run it in the interests of the people. It can no longer be done on the level of private property.

Glasgow Doldrums

Its annual “happiness index” asks thousands of Scots how happy or unhappy they are in their local communities, before assigning them a score between -100 and +100, with zero being neutral.

People living in Glasgow have the lowest levels of happiness in Scotland. The average happiness level in Glasgow was just 38.5, leaving the nation’s biggest city lagging a long way behind the Highlands and Islands, which topped the table on 55.6.

Scots with a household income of more than £60,000 were by far the most happy, with an average score over eight points higher than those on between £40,000 and £60,000.