By their deeds ye shall know them.

To find an explanation of present social conditions the Socialist Party analyses society and discovers therein two distinct social classes, separated from each other by clearly marked political and economic characteristics. One class, the capitalist class, own and control the means of wealth production, but take no part in the process of producing the wealth. The analysis of the Socialist Party shows that the capitalists, who own an enormous mass of wealth, are able to obtain this wealth by the robbery of the other class in society — the working class.

Having no property in the means of wealth production the members of the working class are compelled to sell their energy to those who own the various tools of production, in order to obtain the wherewithal to live. It is by means of the workers applying this energy to nature given material that the wealth necessary to human existence is produced. But the great bulk of this wealth is appropriated by the capitalists who have control of political power and consequently use that power to legalise their robbery of the working class.

There is little need to stress the fact that, contrary to the wealthy position of the capitalists, the position of the workers is one of poverty and insecurity of existence. In an earlier stage of social development man endured privation through his lack of knowledge of the forces of nature, but in modern society, with man having gained a greater control over natural forces, wealth can be produced in abundance. Starvation or a lack of the means of subsistence, although unavoidable in earlier times, is now quite avoidable. There are ample means at the disposal of modern society for all to live in economic security, free from the yoke of servitude and the exploitation and poverty it entails for the working class. The poverty and the general degradation within society we trace directly to the class ownership of the means of life.

Thus it is in the roots of society itself that the Socialist Party discovers the core of the "social problem”.It is this the method of explanation through natural causes which is striking about the Marxist Materialist Conception of History. Throughout the history of societies composed of classes the various ethical codes have been those best suited to the interest of the particular ruling class, and imposed upon the lower orders as a means of government. The Socialist Party takes our stand upon the firm basis of positive science explaining social conditions, and, in fact, all things within the scope of our knowledge, by purely natural causation. Thus, the materialistic movement of socialism is seen to be utterly opposed to the false idealism and the supernatural. We know that economic evolution and the self- interest of the working class are inevitably preparing the path for that great social change, when the workers of the world will enjoy the fruits of their labour in a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution by and in the interest of the whole community; a system of society known as socialism.

What is the difference between the Socialist Party and other political organisations seeking the support of the workers? It is the difference between reform and revolution: We have but one object, the establishment of socialism, to achieve which we work for the revolutionary political organisation of our class. Reforms are necessary to a rapidly developing society, but granted the carrying through of the whole of the programmes of the reform parties, the fundamental condition of the workers would not be improved. Generations of reforms have been accompanied with a relative worsening of their conditions.

Likewise, to make ridiculous and extravagant “demands” on behalf of the workers while they remain without understanding, merely shows the ignorance or treachery of their would-be “leaders.” Without power to enforce these demands they may save their breath, for when the workers have the power they need no longer formulate demands or claim "rights,” much less beg their oppressors to hear their woeful tale of want. Powerless in ignorance to-day, they will become mighty and formidable in intelligence tomorrow. While the majority are in the former condition they retain the belief inculcated by their rulers’ so-called education, that capitalism is the best and only system possible—hence, at election times they vote for that system and in war time fight for it. There can only be one correct conception of socialism.

Likewise, those accepting by understanding, the principles arising from this conception are the socialists, and all others consciously or otherwise enemies of that cause. What then is this scientific conception? It is briefly summarised in our principles. The present system of society is the result of the development of a previous system, a development in which was generated the conditions for the new society.

Are similar conditions present within the system of today? All the means for prolific wealth production are present to-day, but privately owned by the capitalist class, and socially operated by the working class alone; yet capable of being socially owned and democratically controlled for an output of wealth in whatever quantities required to satisfy the needs of the whole people. There is one obstacle; lack of understanding by a majority of the workers of socialism, the knowledge we seek to impart. To talk of ameliorations and palliatives, alliances and coalitions, demands and rights, is to knowingly or unknowingly play the masters’ game and divert the toilers from correct knowledge and understanding. Disillusioned of their glib eloquent “leaders,” and with disdain for the gradualist, workers will march on without need for "trust” or "belief” or “faith” in anyone other than themselves, knowing through understanding that the power of their principles and policies will realise their emancipation through the establishment of the socialist commonwealth.

Here We Stand

The Socialist Party says once more this is a class war. The capitalist class and the working class have no common interests. The survival of the capitalist class depends on its ability to drive the working class into deeper and deeper misery.

 The Socialist Party understand its role as one to assist the working class to fight the capitalist class to the end, for an end to wage slavery. The working class is not a small, narrow class. The working class constitutes the majority of the population. The working class is composed of unskilled and skilled employees, farm-workers, and non-production workers such as office staff including lower-middle management, transportation and service workers. It can be defined as all those who:

1. Do not own the means of production; 
2. Have to sell their labour-power to the capitalist class to make a living; 
3. Directly, or indirectly, create surplus value...which is then expropriated by the capitalist class.

This exploitation, or expropriation of surplus value, creates an irreconcilable, antagonistic class contradiction between the working class and the capitalists. Only the emancipation from wage labour itself can liberate the working class. Its purpose, therefore, is to overthrow the capitalist class and replace capitalism with socialism which is a class-free society

We mean to replace capitalism, and to substitute universal socialist organisation and co-operation. Our first principle as socialists is that all should be well-fed, well-housed, well-educated. The Socialist Party opposes the spreading the illusion of a class partnership, that there is an ever-expanding “pie” to be divided up and “shared” between workers and capitalists. Reformists constantly spread the view that the capitalist system is fine except for a few adjustments or ameliorations. The working class and capitalists, can get along with one another, they tell us and that there is no reason for conflict. The reformists claim the neutrality of the government mediation and the legal system. But the facts of the class struggle, of our declining standard of living, dwindling trade union rights, and the viciousness with which the capitalists attacks those on State benefits puts the lie to this class partnership fakery. 

The Socialist Party knows that in a capitalist society where class struggle is the rule, no institution is neutral. The State is in the hands of the capitalist class. Our goal is overthrowing capitalism as a system. Our struggle is against the system of wage slavery. Our object is the complete abolition of capitalism and reorganising the whole world on a socialist basis. We recognise that in this endeavour, we are up against a most ruthless brutal ruling class. It is necessary to add a word of caution. Some on the left think a socialist revolution can be done without winning over a majority of the people to revolutionary principles. We warn, here, it would be a dangerous game to play with the principles of revolutionary socialism, aye it would be a violation of them. It would cast suspicion on our revolutionary integrity, and for a certainty it will keep us from our goal.

There are a number of illusions preventing our fellow-workers from seeing the underlying cause of their problems and from looking toward a socialist solution. The Socialist Party dedicate itself to exposing the domination of our life by a class of capitalists who use their immense propaganda machine to promote ignorance and confusion. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness and is daily threatening mankind with destruction and devastation by either global war or global warming. We strive to establish a democratic socialist society. Our desire is to advance the cause of socialism worldwide. 

We, in the Socialist Party, believe in the entire transformation of the social system itself, and this remains at once our primary and immediate aim. The Socialist Party pledges itself to wrest all the means of production and distribution from the hands of the exploiters and bring these into common ownership under the management of the associated producers and to continue the struggle against the existing system of exploitation until this new society has come into being.

STAND WITH KARL MARX

Scots and Racism

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Scotland’s  national poet,Makar Jackie Kay, said the country had to “grow up” and take more responsibility for the treatment of black and ethnic minorities.

Kay, who was born to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother in Edinburgh, said Scottish culture and broadcasting had failed to reflect the changes in the country’s population or in its education system. She said more action was needed to ensure that Scotland’s modern-day diverse population was reflected in public attitudes about “what it means to be Scottish”.

She said it was unacceptable to ask black people where they were from in Scotland in 2019, when the same question would not be asked of someone in Liverpool, Birmingham or London. Kay revealed she had been verbally abused at a Burns Supper in the city two years ago and told to “get out” of the event, despite being a guest speaker. “As soon as I started up, one of the men who had actually invited me started heckling me and kept going throughout my address. He later told me: ‘This is our club. You don’t belong here. Get out.’ It was deeply shocking and upsetting.”

She suggested not enough was known in Scotland about its past links with the slave trade, which she said Glasgow, where she lives, was “founded on”.

“The average Scottish child won’t know that Glasgow was founded on money from the slave trade, that a slave owner put the Gallery of Modern Art building there, why Jamaica Street is called Jamaica Street and why Virginia Street is called Virginia Street. They won’t know any of these things in the way that Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester and London have all started to come to terms with their histories. We just don’t talk about it.

“We like to think of ourselves as a country that is hard done to by England, which we certainly are at the moment, but that’s not our only story. But if we’re going to grow up as a country, and we really need to, we’ve got to take some responsibility for our attitudes to race in this country.

“It seems acceptable to keep on asking people where they are from in the way that you just don’t do with a black Liverpudlian, a black Brummie or a black Londoner. You can’t accept that now, in 2019."

Kay said: “Scotland is different in so many ways to when I was growing up. It’s apparently the most gay-friendly country in Europe now. As far as race goes, there are many, many more people of different backgrounds living in Scotland than when I was growing up. But I don’t think Scotland has changed enough as far as race goes. I don’t think we reflect that in our culture, in our television or news programmes, how we think of ourselves and in what we teach about history in schools."

"I’m talking about cities and their identities being inter-woved and multi-layered, and people having a communal sense of identity. I think Scotland is behind. Any Scottish city is at least 30 or 40 years behind Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool and London. That’s just the truth. We need to find ways of changing that. It’s not just about people being there and a diverse population, it’s about how we actually change our image of ourselves when we think of what it means to be Scottish.”

https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/scotland-decades-behind-in-attitudes-to-race-warns-national-poet-1-4985812

Plenty for All

Deprivation and destitution in the midst of plenty, is the hallmark of the capitalist system of production. The tremendous power of social production produces goods far beyond the realms of our imagination. Wealth exists in this World in abundance. But the distribution of this wealth proceeds according to the social relations of society. These are capitalist relations, resting upon the capitalist ownership and control of the means of production. Ours is a class society and as such even under the plans of Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn these relations would remain, only the wealth would be redistributed by cutting the big fortunes and adding to the smaller ones or giving to those that have none. But this is impossible under capitalism since the ownership and control of the means of production determines the form of distribution of all wealth. So far this has meant and can only mean ever greater riches for the parasites and ever greater impoverishment for those who toil, who have nothing but their labour power to sell – and to sell only when the bosses see fit to buy.

What is the cause of inequality? It is the ownership and control of the means of production. This system secures the right to exploit labour by leaving in the hands of the capitalist class also the ownership of the surplus value produced by the labourer over and above what received as wages. This is how profits are acquired. Moreover, under the conditions of mass production, and in order to continue the process of production. In other words, sufficient only for their bare upkeep when they have jobs. Of course, the abundance of wealth available could easily guarantee to each family, as reformers proposes. But this is impossible under the profit system. Corbyn and Sanders grandly proclaim for the redistribution of wealth; but are equally vocal in the pronouncements for the maintenance of the present social order, the continuation of the right to exploitation so that returns to shareholders in the form of unearned incomes may continue; so that dividends on stocks may be paid of profits taken out of the exploitation of labour which they guarantee to proceed uninterrupted. This is but the attempted stabilisation of the system of exploitation. To stabilise capitalism means to stabilise the political and economic power of the class that owns and controls the means of production. They will not consent to any compulsory redistribution of their wealth. They do not even permit the workers to organise into unions so as to obtain a living wage without the most stubborn resistance. They will not yield their economic power, or surrender their accumulated wealth, nor give up their privilege to exploit labour. They'll use their power to determine who can be elected to the public offices and to dictate the policies and their its execution by the government, as well.

A real redistribution of wealth and a real program of social security can be carried out in no other way than by the overthrow of the system of capitalism. That is not at all the purpose of Corbyn or Sanders. Only the working class revolution can accomplish that.

Socialism, One World-One People.

The Scottish nationalists are once again marching through the streets, this time it is in Aberdeen. And once again the Socialist Party is obliged to make our views on the independence campaign very clear.

You say what you are going to say, say it, and then end by saying what you have just said. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

“One World. One People” is the slogan of the Socialist Party. It is meant to convey that we stand for a world solution and that we rejected nationalism and racism.

Workers have no country.

Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation states not only literally but ideologically. Today it is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to one extent or another—align themselves with their domestic ruling class. After all, the ideology of nationalism ultimately means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest. As with most myths there is an element of truth in this. 

Normally, a common language is shared and on a superficial level at least, a common "culture" can be defined, e.g. "the British way of life". However, if one probes slightly deeper such an analysis fails to stand up. Socialists argue that world society can be broken into two great classes of capitalists and workers. Despite many workers finding it difficult to communicate with and understand each other because of language or cultural barriers this does not alter the fact that they are all part of one globalised exploited mass with more in common with each other than with their indigenous bosses. The interests of the working class are diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the capitalist class including capitalists seeking their own nation states and independence. Workers have no country to fight for, we have a common interest in ending national boundaries and establishing world socialism. 

We argue against nationalists who co-opt the term ‘self-determination’ because it can only mean working people democratic controlling society and production. Self-determination concerns participatory democratic decision-making. 

The Socialist Party strives for a world without borders and without capital – a vision of a worldwide federation of free associations of peoples, class-free and state-free, of communities where production is based on need and more conducive to our environments.

The Socialist Party's case is not just against capitalism, but goes beyond capitalism to a post-capitalist society. It is not about another world that are possible, but is necessary. 

The Socialist Party argues that it would be pointless dismantling the British state only to replicate it as a sovereign Scottish state. An independent Scotland would not bring any fundamental change to the lives of most Scots, who would still be powerless, both economically and socially. Capitalism isn’t being threatened by the left-nationalists, rather they hope for greater state intervention, a larger welfare state, aspiring to the Scandinavian-type model and they present an image of a booming ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy to attract global corporate investment. Big Business will continue to rule Scotland.

Pride "Commercialised"

ONE PEOPLE ONE FAMILY

Unite trade union will not be taking part in Saturday's event after its Scottish LGBT+ committee said it did not agree with imposing charges on organisations to join in the demonstration. It also criticised companies using Pride to "enhance customer reach".

The parade will travel through the city centre to the Broomielaw from 11:30.

Tickets to enter the charity's march this year cost LGBT+ groups £120 for a walking group or £420 for commercial organisations, while it costs £600 to have a float at the event.

Describing Pride as a protest, Unite Scotland's LGBT+ committee wrote: "The Pride movement started as a riot 50 years ago this year at Stonewall Inn and as we remember this, we remember those we have lost and also celebrate the gains we have made.

"Yet, for some large commercial organisations, support for LGBT equality merely extends to paying a fee for a Pride March or temporary rainbow branding to enhance their customer reach. Once Pride season is over, there is no wider benefit to the LGBT community."

They added: "We hear nothing about what is happening in our communities, about rising intolerance and hate crime, and the violence being perpetrated against LGBT+ citizens of our country. When people are abused and beaten for being themselves, the response from Pride is deafening in its silence. The politics has been driven from Pride by over-commercialisation and greed of those involved in making it ever-more commercial for financial gain."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-49372559

Protect Glasgow's Asylum Seekers

Some 300 failed asylum seekers who live in flats - often several people to a room - in some of the most deprived areas of Glasgow are living under the threat of eviction, having been told by the Home Office that they cannot stay in the United Kingdom. In July last year, when Serco first announced its eviction policy

Serco, a private company contracted by the British government to provide social housing in Scotland, are changing the locks on the doors and have tried evicting residents. 50 Serco evictions were temporarily suspended by the Glasgow Sheriff Court.  On August 28, the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) will be granted the right to intervene in a legal appeal against the evictions, citing "serious human rights implications".

"These are people from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq," said Mohammad Asif, a member of the Scottish Afghan community, who settled in Glasgow after fleeing the Taliban in 2000. "They are living in limbo and are not allowed to work or do anything and have to rely on charity and handouts."https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/hundreds-refugees-live-threat-eviction-glasgow-190815074300235.html

Capitalist Ruination or Workers’ Revolution

Our goal is one of a world free from exploitation and poverty. The Socialist Party reaches out to our fellow-workers wherever they may be to engage in debate and discussion. We invite all who see that there is a problem and are ready to do something about it to join with us. The future is in our hands. We shall overthrow capitalism. We use the term socialism as though it were identical with the teachings of Marx and Engels.

If humanity is to be reborn we need to build a peaceful, prosperity world. Our fight is to reorganise society. Our vision is of a new, co operative society. The revolution we need is possible. A great optimism is beginning to sweep over the oppressed. We must guarantee the revolution achieves the common good through common ownership. If there is going to be production without wages, then there must be distribution without money. Political education is the cornerstone of the Socialist Party. Only by engaging in the most sustained and unflinching struggle for the hearts and minds of the people can we win this social revolution. We seek to challenge people to begin the process of transformation into conscious thinkers who, through the science of society, become aware of themselves as indispensable contributors to the liberation of humanity. No policy of patching up capitalism can avail. Capitalism maintains its profits solely on the basis of lowering and worsening the standards of the workers. 

Socialist society is the first society which no longer proceeds in chaos, but according to the fulfillment of genuine human needs. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated.

With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and intellectual labour will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will gradually have withered away.

Piecemeal social reform is useless against a structure sustained by competitive inequality. Ending poverty does not mean a redistribution of income through higher wages, nor a progressive tax regime or any other government welfare policy. As long as business is allowed to profit by there can be no sharing in the benefits to improve living standards. The poor will not always with us – provided we end capitalism. Workers have a common interest in fighting exploitation and breaking the system as a whole. Stupefied by brutal poverty, workers demand that they shall have some of the beauty, some of the comforts, some of the luxuries which they have produced. Slowly the people — the great "common herd" —are waking up to what is wrong with the social, political and economical structure of the system of which they are a part.

Things are as they are because the foundation of society is laid upon a basis exploitation for a small minority, with total disregard to the well-being of all the rest. Society built upon mercenary principles is bound to thwart the development of all men and women, even the most successful because it tends to divert energies into useless channels produce a depraved and degraded standard of values. Greed and self-interest are held to be the main objects of pursuit and conquest, the lowest instincts in human nature — love of gain, cunning and selfishness — are fostered.

The climate crisis is proof positive that capitalism has once more failed us all. However this system will not fall on its own accord. It requires to be tumbled and only the working class can give it its necessary push for only working people understand that our class interests are not merely the economic needs of working people but the universal interests of a healthy planet for all the people.

If the working class continue to accept capitalism as the as normal, then there is indeed no alternative but to campaign for improved management and better technical fixes to cope with capitalism's endless growth. Capitalism is a “grow or die” economy, it cannot consider place limits on its search for profits and capital accumulation even if it is contrary to our best science. Businessmen cannot stop themselves from investing for short-term advantage nor can they avoid the commercial quest for limitless profits and limitless growth. No capitalist enterprise can opt out of the system for long and survive. Capitalism's goals are power and profit. The oligarchs and plutocrats are organised class-consciousness, thinking globally and acting globally. They use all the means at their disposal.

How about us? We should be building a socialist opposition – the movement of movements. We have the vision of a new way of living but cannot continue to act in the old way and let the elite to rule us as they have. In the end, organising is about political action, all about “power to the people”. When millions of us begin to move, we will find the way forward together.

While we aspire to be “a class for itself”, we can also simultaneously become a class for all humanity and the whole planet. We can inherit the earth as our shared heritage without owning it. We can receive its bounty without wasting or destroying it. This way we can win. Let us all begin to act now.

“There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is alone of its kind, the first world- revolution in a world whose history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, limited only by the limits of the planet.” — Jack London

The rich live longer and healthier

A boy born in 2018 in one of the 10% most deprived areas of Scotland will live for 13 years less than a boy from the most affluent areas. Girls born between 2015 and 2017 in the 10% most deprived areas in Scotland can expect to live 9.6 years less than those who live in the 10% least deprived areas.

Women living in the 10% least deprived areas can expect to spend 23 more years in good health than those in the 10% most deprived areas. For men, the difference in healthy life expectancy is 22.5 years.

The figures are a stark reminder that deprivation has a significant effect on life expectancy, and an even greater one on healthy life expectancy

While Scotland continues to have the lowest life expectancy in the UK – as it has done since the early 1980s – the figures published on Wednesday suggest that recent improvements have stalled with soaring drug deaths and heart disease to blame.

The head of public health at NHS Scotland, Gerry McCartney, said, “The circumstances in which we live should not impact on health so much that the right to live a long and healthy life is compromised by how much money we have.

Registrar General for Scotland, Paul Lowe, said, “Life expectancy in Scotland has been increasing over the long term, but recent estimates indicate that it has stopped improving..."

While the mid-2018 population of Scotland had reached a new high – for the ninth consecutive year – of an estimated 5,438,100, the country’s birth rate is now the lowest of all UK countries and falling at the fastest rate.  Migration continues to be the main driver of Scotland’s population growth, although net migration has decreased over the past two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/14/scotland-boys-in-deprived-areas-face-13-year-life-expectancy-gap

Imagine a better future

There is great confusion in the world today over the question of what is socialism. When we read the books of the professors on the subject of socialism we are astonished to find how little the so-called experts understand. Our aim is to try to clear some of this up.

A planned socialist economy on a worldwide scale will put an end to environmental destruction and waste of productive resources. Socialism will also remove the enormous duplication of effort - the manufacture of numerous but essentially alike products on the supermarket shelves and in the showrooms. It will put an end to the massive advertising and production of superfluous luxuries for the rich and shoddy goods for the poor. The quality and productivity of labour will greatly increase because the producers will – for the first time – have a direct vested interest in production and be healthier and vastly better educated. socialism will bring about a phenomenal development of the productive forces which will rapidly eclipse all that has been achieved in this sphere in the whole of past history. It is this economic advance which will lay the material basis for a completely class-free society of abundance. Socialism will make it possible to provide sufficient food, decent shelter adequate education and efficient healthcare– the necessities of life – for everyone on the face of the planet. Never again will any person die of malnutrition or of easily preventable disease. This alone would be more than enough to justify socialism. Socialism will offer free distribution according to need and plenty for all. Socialism will unleash the productive forces hitherto constrained and confined by capitalism. Money can be dispensed with altogether. There is nothing unrealistic about it.

We are living in rapidly changing, dangerous times. From the right and from the left, the people are becoming more disgusted with and distrustful of the government. All the elements of a social upheaval are in place. The people are responding to, but do not yet understand the root of the problems they engulfs them. No reform is possible. There is no “golden age” to go back to. Every step the ruling class takes only makes the situation worse. The ruler’s aim is to guarantee that our class does not unite. They use every divisive ideology history has handed them. At the same time, the breadth of inequality and poverty is creating the basis for real class unity. Experiencing increasing misery and mounting despair and the refusal of the politicians to redress their grievances, workers are losing their faith in the government and beginning to distance themselves from the political process. Simply fighting back is no longer enough, and the workers are beginning to advocate policies in their interests. Race is a political not a scientific concept. Identity politics is being used in a manner that suits the political needs of the ruling class.

Working people cannot give up resistance and stay at home. They need jobs, housing, food, healthcare and many other basic necessities of life. Socialism is the people's movement to transfer capitalist property to themselves in order to feed, clothe, house and care for themselves. Fighting back means putting forward a vision of what is possible today. The Socialist Party fights for a cooperative commonwealth that is possible. We attack the system of private property. We point out the necessity of overthrowing private property and transferring these gigantic means of production into common property. The attack against private property cannot succeed without vision. The goal of all of our work today is to give people a vision of what is possible. It is a vision of a world where no one has to compete with another for the daily bread of existence. It is a vision where cooperation and fulfilling the needs of humanity are the guiding principles. It is a vision that satisfies the deepest yearnings of the people for peace and prosperity. The first step is that the American people have to be won over to the reality that private property can be brought to an end.

The workers do not understand they are slaves. The first thing in liberating the slaves is to make them understand wage-slavery. Proposing socialism is the practical solution to the problems the workers face. Socialism is the common ownership of the socially necessary means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. It an expression of the deepest strivings of the people: independence from the chains of exploitation, the guaranteed ability of every person to contribute to society, freedom from want and an expectation of a better life. Workers have fought for this vision, but have not achieved. Conditions have changed and workers are coming more and more to understand they have to end slavery. It is only through widespread education and persuasion that we can get this vision over. We must bring the message that capitalism can be brought to an end. We must show a cooperative commonwealth is not only possible, but is the only rational solution to the problems they face. What we do today is the basis for what happens tomorrow.

“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” - abolitionist Harriet Tubman

cancer and the poor

People living in Scotland’s most deprived communities are significantly less likely to have cancer detected early than their richer peers.

Only 22 per cent of breast, bowel and lung cancers among people living in the poorest parts of the country were diagnosed at the earliest point, known as stage one, the NHS figures show. By contrast, patients living in the richest areas were more likely to have the disease detected early on, with 29 per cent being diagnosed at stage one.

Cancer Research UK described the difference in detection rates between rich and poor areas as “unacceptable”