Destitute in Scotland

The mass eviction of asylum seekers in Glasgow by the private housing provider Serco has begun. The action had been threatened for more than a year and is being challenged in the courts. Serco first announced the plan to evict 300 asylum seekers in Glasgow – all of whom have been told they cannot stay in the UK – last July, but put the action on hold following widespread condemnation.  Serco told BBC Scotland the firm would not budge from their timetable.

Glasgow City Council's leader Susan Aitken warned the move could lead to a "humanitarian crisis" 
Susan Aitken said: "I remain deeply concerned about the impact of lock changes and a UK government policy which both demands its contractors force people from their homes and simultaneously prevents local agencies from helping those facing destitution. We have, repeatedly, raised these concerns with the government and sought its support in averting the potential humanitarian crisis that will unfold if hundreds of people are made homeless on the streets of Glasgow with no right to even the most basic state assistance. Glasgow has benefited from immigration and its involvement in the dispersal program. However, these inhumane practices are against the express wishes and values not only of the council, but also the citizens and communities we serve."

A coalition of refugee and housing charities, including Shelter Scotland, urged Serco to halt the evictions until litigation was completed, describing the plan to remove hundreds of refused asylum seekers as “inhumane” and warning that it would lead to a homelessness crisis in the city. 

Shelter Scotland charity's director Graeme Browne added: "We're talking about a group of people who don't have access to homelessness services and who will become destitute if locked out of their homes.

The Scottish Refugee Council is concerned that Serco may be targeting isolated and vulnerable individuals: neither of the first two evictees were in contact with refugee services or aware of the possibility of obtaining a court order to halt their evictions.

Asylum seekers and case workers who describe the psychological toll of living with the threat of eviction on a daily basis for over a year. 

A spokesperson for the Scottish Refugee Council tweeted, "Stop spreading fear and anxiety in Glasgow. People have enough to cope with."

The hardships faced by the refugees facing eviction are “unfathomable”, says Lindsay Reid, a casework adviser at the Scottish Refugee Council. “They have lost their homes, families, culture and way of life, then they come here and there’s a second loss of their basic rights and no ability to establish a life for themselves.” Reid describes a “stagnant” existence in which individuals cannot provide for themselves and so must depend on charities or faith groups to access food, basic toiletries and clothes. “For people who had established lives, who have the skills, experience and intellect but no avenue to use them, the level of frustration is palpable. They feel less than human. We see a lot of suicidal ideation and attempts.”

“If I go back home now and the locks are changed, what can I do?” asked Ahmed, a 33-year-old Syrian who came by lorry to the UK in 2011 and has received a notice to quit letter from Serco. “I have no idea what I would do next. There are so many other people suffering like this too.”  Ahmed is in the bizarre situation of having been denied assistance to return to his home country after the refusal of his 2015 application for voluntary return, made in desperation at the length of time he was wasting in the UK asylum system – yet he is about to be made destitute in Scotland.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/26/glasgow-asylum-seeker-evictions-serco-homelessness-crisis

Capitalism — thy name is hypocrisy.

The world, we are told (by the propagandists), wants peace and the way to guarantee peace is through the maintenance of a strong standing army. A modern nation must be prepared to fight in order to meet its economic requirements — fight or go under in the fierce dog-eat-dog struggle of capitalism today. Modern war is the clash between nations (or groups of nations) over the protection of existing economic markets and the sources of raw materials.

All wars have economic causes. Without a single exception, all wars are wars for trade. They are caused by bankers, merchants and business men. As business is the cause of wars, it may be well to say that business is hell. Wars are caused by conflicting commercial interests. In all countries to-day, whatever may be the outward forms of their governments, whether supposedly ruled by President, Mullah, or King, the real rulers are those who control the industrial resources of the nations. The stand of the Socialist Party is when we are robbed and the robbers fight over the booty, that fight is none of our business. When nations fall foul over the spoils, or over the wealth taken from labour, the fight is none of labour’s business. This is a ruling class quarrel and there is no interest at stake requiring that the workers take sides. The duty of the working class is to line up in the Socialist Party for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Only then will wars and the prospect of wars be ended. The real cause of war cannot be found either in accident or in ideology. There is a much more basic reason both for war and for the weapons necessary to wage it and this reason can be summed up in two words, economic rivalry. It is the clash in the markets of the world, the mad scramble for cheaper sources of raw materials, the attempt to oust each other from spheres of influence, that is responsible for the mounted missiles of destruction. Only by getting rid of capitalism in all of its forms, with its need for markets and exploitation of labour can war be eliminated from the world. Whether "accidental" or not, the sole responsibility for the next war, as for all modern wars, is capitalism.

We can apply our understanding of the causes of struggle to an effort to change the world. Rather than attempting to adapt to conditions in the struggle for survival, the task is one of changing the conditions in order that the conflicts and strife which are an everyday feature of today shall be resolved. The question of nuclear weapons or chemical and biological weapons as opposed to "conventional" weapons is irrelevant. The only weapon required to save the world from obliteration is the weapon of knowledge, in the hands and heads of the majority. Search it out and obtain it, for with it we shall begin to live as human beings rather than as pawns in a life and death struggle for domination over the resources of the world. With the proper application and use of understanding, these resources will be restored to humanity as a whole. We, who are not consulted today, shall with our knowledge and our political action decree that the means of life shall be commonly owned by all mankind and that mankind shall finally be released from the horror of war and the horror of capitalism, in general. That's what we can do about it!

The way to genuine peace lies through an awakening by the working class of the world to its class interests. When enough working people realise there is nothing but death, mutilation, and destruction for them and their families in fighting their masters' wars, they will take steps to organise a sane system of society — a system of society based upon production for use rather than for sale on a market. The working class in each nation, on the other hand, owning nothing but its ability to produce and being forced to sell this ability to the capitalists or the capitalist state, has nothing tangible to gain from warfare. War is not in the interest of the working people. No war is. The social forces which cause war are an inexorable part of the economic competition associated with capitalism. For a world without war, we must change from a system of competition to a system of co-operation — socialism.

Know your enemy

Governments administers capitalism for the simple reason that it cannot do anything else. The Labour Party is an organisation which stands for the reform, and not the abolition, of capitalism (yes, even a Jeremy Corbyn government); it asks for votes to run capitalism and when it is in power it cannot exceed this mandate, even supposing that it had the knowledge and the desire to do so.

The Labour Party does not care about the consciousness—or the lack of it—which is behind the votes which sends it to power. Just like any other capitalist political party, it will accept any support as long as it can achieve its main object of becoming the government. Socialism will come only as the result of  a conscious action by the world working class. This action will be backed by the knowledge of what socialism is and how it must be established. The entire structure of capitalism exists only because the working class wills it so. It is the working class who man the forces of coercion and who regularly vote the representatives of capitalism into the seats of power. It is the working class who organise and administer the capitalist social system, from one end to the other. When they realise that they can run society in their own interests, when they decide to take away the power and privilege of the ruling class and to establish Socialism, there will be nothing which could stop them.

When the working class have this knowledge, they will elect socialist delegates with a mandate to take all necessary steps to end the capitalist social system and to replace it with socialism. Because of the knowledge of the people who have elected them, the delegates will have no power to do other than they have been instructed. This will be a massive, universal movement—it will not and cannot be confined to any one country or group of countries.

Socialism will mean the end of the private ownership of the means of wealth production. There will be no separate nations to compete against and to bargain with, each other. Society’s wealth will move freely over the world, from the places where it is produced to the places where it is needed. The entire operation will be in the interests of human needs.

What the Socialist Party offers is a vision of an alternative society, one which is based on the democratic control and common ownerships of the collective wealth of society. We reject the false solutions of the reformists to solve the problems that capitalism creates and also the left-wing proponents of state-capitalism. The Socialist Party rejects the belief that capitalism would inevitably and with scientific certainty lead to the socialist revolution. A revolution arises not simply from discontent and unrest about social injustice. But a revolution is coming. New ideas of reorganising society based on the new relations of production are being put forth to challenge those who believe capitalism is eternal, a revolution to end poverty and inequality once and for all. The coming social revolution must place the means of production in the hands of the people.

The foundation for a whole new world will be abundance, created by people working for the common good rather than the profit of the few to forever end poverty, exploitation, oppression and war. Either the system must change or the people will perish. For the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free from hunger, homelessness and back-breaking toil. The only thing standing in the way is this system of exploitation. The struggle today is for a revolution for a better world. We seek to excite our fellow-workers with a vision of a world of plenty with the resources to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the material, intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of all. We will inspire working people with an alternative, a society organised for the benefit of all, a society built on cooperation. 

The Socialist Party places well-being of its people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. When the class which has no place in the capitalist system takes control of all productive property and transforms it into common property, it can reorganise society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. We call on you to join us in this cause. A party such as ours is the deadly enemy of the ruling class, condemning capitalism as a system of exploitation.

To a socialist one thing is clear about Boris Johnson becoming prime minister. Whatever happens — workers will have nothing to gain.

The social revolution is our immediate goal

The Socialist Party shows not only that socialist society is possible, but also that it is necessary. We’re the class, the working class, that produces everything. We’re the class that represents the future. The Socialist Party is not a party that says it represents everybody, both capitalists and the workers, and preaches the idea of harmony between classes, because there can’t be harmony between the slaves and the slave-masters. We have shown the need in the future society for organisation among all men and women for all needs, and the necessity in current society for the workers to struggle against their exploiters. It would be absurd if we were to admit the need for organisation for everyone. There can’t be harmony between the exploited and the exploiters because the slave-master lives by exploiting the workers – the capitalist lives by exploiting, that’s his whole existence. And we live for the day when we can break those chains of exploitation. We are not a party of both the slave-master and the slave. We are a party of the wage-slave. We openly proclaim that we’re going to break those chains. We're talking about the working class, the great majority in this society, taking control of their destiny throughout the world for the first time in history. This system, this capitalist system of wage slavery, doesn’t allow us any real choice. Wealth will only truly be placed in common when production will have been organised in the common good. he workers have no need of chiefs: they are quite capable of charging one of their own with a particular task.

We have criticised reforms and ameliorations. Our ambition is neither official nor unofficial power, and this is our claim to the sympathy of the masses. But this isn’t enough. We must act. We must prove to the world that socialism isn’t an abstract concept or a distant vision, but a principle destined to renew the world and establishing it on the foundations of well-being and human fraternity. Socialists, beginning with Marx and Engels have always supported democracy as against any form of despotism. Thus they have supported republicanism against monarchism, capitalist democracy against capitalist dictatorship. But they always recognise the limitations of the above. SOCIALISM MEANS EXPANDING DEMOCRACY

In order for the society working people will create to be just, egalitarian and equitable, it must embody socialist ideology. Our fundamental change is not to preserve capitalism but to end it. Socialism, as it was understood by Marx and Engels, is the process of creating a society that would have no need for repression and oppression because it had overcome economic scarcity. Our compass for where we are heading should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end in mind not to lose our way. The planned allocation of resources and human labour, in such a future society, would also ensure that no one would have to degrade themselves by working for another human being in order to survive. Instead of work being something we all try to avoid, it would gradually be transformed into one of a wide range of creative activities people engage in to make their lives meaningful. A society in which human beings could enjoy the fullness of life without the need to make others their servants, or to be servants of others. Marx and Engels predicted that the development of the productive forces under industrial capitalism would for the first time in human history build the material basis for such a fundamental transformation of society. 

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.