Slave in Scotland

In 1778, Joseph Knight successfully challenged his status as a slave in court in Edinburgh - not only defeating his master and winning his freedom, but ensuring that slavery was ruled illegal in Scotland.

Knight had been taken from Jamaica to Scotland as the personal servant of sugar plantation owner Sir John Wedderburn. It was, for the period, a more "nurturing" relationship than that experienced by most slaves, according to May Sumbwanyambe, who tells the story in the National Theatre of Scotland's play Enough of Him.

"This was a young black man who wanted his freedom but at the same time felt such a degree of loyalty towards his 'master and father' - somebody who had actually been very loving and caring towards him," the writer says.

"This was a master and slave owner who genuinely felt anguish and felt betrayed that this young man wanted to be free of him."

Sumbwanyambe was born in Edinburgh but grew up in Grimsby, working night shifts on the docks to earn money during the university holidays while studying for a law degree.

He wrote the play against the backdrop of debate about Brexit. "You kept hearing this thing - 'We want our country back.'

"And it was constantly linked to immigration. The thing that I struggled with is that it was based on this idea that, if only you could just go back 70 years, back to the glory days when Britain still just had an empire but was all completely white. I knew that was a myth."

The point that immigration was happening long before Windrush underpins his play.

Sumbwanyambe was surprised to learn that there were thought to have been between 10,000 and 20,000 black people in mid-18th Century London, out of a population of around 700,000.

"Black people have been here and we've been living side-by-side in this country with white people for a very long time," the playwright says. "For all those glory days that people want to go back to - we were there too."

Joseph Knight was among those who left a legacy. "The journey towards this noble idea of justice and dignity and respect that we think of [as British] was contributed to by that young black man's actions."

Enough of Him is at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 17 October, then at Perth Theatre and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51177299

Something for Nothing

A Manifesto of World Socialism

There may still be room for some reforms for betterment of some sections of the working people in the present social system, but this is of minor consequence compared to the need for social revolution and radical reorganisation of society. We must achieve the socialisation of the means of production and distribution. Private property and the ownership industry and production by a minority for individual profit is not compatible with social evolution and has ceased to be progress. Despite its marvellous technology and invention this poor world of ours has not yet learned how to feed itself. That is the problem of problems now confronting us more and more insistently and until that is solved the world is halted and it will either resume its march toward industrial and social democracy or it will degenerate into chaos. There is no longer any excuse for a hungry person. All the material forces are available for the production of all things needed to provide food and shelter for every man, woman and child, putting an end to the poverty and misery. But these have to set into operation for the common good of all instead of the private profit of the few. A capitalist world can never be a free world.

The education of the people, not only the few, but the everyone is the task of the people and it must be emphasised that task can be performed only by themselves. To stir the people, to inspire them to think for themselves, to advocate the idea of mutual kindness and good will, based upon mutual interests, is the Socialist Party’s contribution to the cause of humanity. Its declared principle is that workers have no interests in common with capitalists; that, in fact, their material interests are in conflict, and it is its declared purpose to abolish the wage-system, and supplant it by a system of co-operation in which the workers themselves shall have full control for their own benefit, and to this end they recognise the necessity of organising the political as well as the economic power of the working class to attain industrial democracy, by, for and of the workers, first, last and all the time.

Every useful and beautiful thing in the world, made by the hand and brain of man, is the creation of the men and the women who work. In a capitalist society, however, where all the lands and the natural resources of the earth, and all the instruments of production and distribution (transport, mines, factories, etc.) are already privately owned and controlled, Labour, the world’s true magic-maker, is shut off from the productive processes and from the power of producing a living, or of earning a living, except upon the terms laid down by the capitalist class.This is true in spite of the fact that all the capital in all the world is incapable of producing one loaf of bread, one pair of shoes, one house, one suit of clothes. Not one wheel would ever turn productively, not one machine would ever operate, not one train would ever move without the hands and brains of labour. Capital is utterly incapable of increasing itself. Unless he is able to filch the swag from some other capitalist who has exploited labour, the only way a capitalist may force his capital to multiply and bear the fruit of still more capital, is by the employment of labour. Without the hands and brains of labour, capital would remain forever stationary. A million dollar investment would remain one million dollars. The increase on this capital is the product of labour alone. We are not discussing a situation in which another capitalist comes along and invests another hundred thousand dollars in the first capitalist’s plant. What we are trying to explain is how the first capitalist, who possessed a one million dollar investment, finds himself at the end of the year, with this same one million dollars AND fifty thousand dollars additional capital (or profit).The only possible increase in capital, in this instance, comes through the exploitation of wage-labour.

A landlord may double the rents he demands of his tenants for his flats or his houses. But this merely doubles the income of the landlord. This does not increase the total commodity, money, or the total capital existing in the world. It merely transfers money from the pockets of your employer (who has to pay you. higher wages in order that you may pay increased rents) INTO the pockets of the landlord. One man will be five hundred dollars “out” and the other will be five hundred ahead in the game. You wage-workers only get a bare living (when you get that) anyway. In this transaction of rent-paying there is no increase in the total capital. the power of one capitalist landlord to raise the rents of shacks inhabited by the employees of other capitalists, for example, is his arbitrary monopolistic power to levy a tribute from the employing capitalists, because the landlord is able to force these employers to pay higher wages to their workers to enable them to pay his increased rents. No value and no capital is added to the total general capital. The landlord forces the corporation capitalists to divide the surplus value they have already extracted from their own workers, with him.

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class. The working class, the only class without which society could not exist and its emancipation, which will follow the abolition of the wage system, will mean the freedom of humanity, based upon cooperative industry; and it will also mean the end of the animal struggle for existence in human society and the beginning of the first real civilisation the world has ever known. A man or woman who wants his or her vote to count against the private ownership of the earth and the tyranny of class rule and for industrial democracy and the freedom of mankind will cast that vote for the Socialist Party. Any person who aspires to become free should join the Socialist Party, the only party that believes that the people have capacity for industrial as well as political self-government; the only party that proposes to make this in fact a government of and by and for the people.

The Socialist Party does not intend to “smash” those global corporations and the logistic networks of their worldwide supply chains. The Socialist Party, when it gets into power, will take control of the multinationals and have them owned and operated by all the people to produce wealth for all the people. In other words, the Socialist Party proposes to transfer the sources, means, and machinery of production and distribution from the private hands to the collective people, so that wealth may be produced in abundance, not to enrich a small class, but for the comfort and enjoyment of all. In every election campaign, this is the overshadowing issue, notwithstanding the capitalist attempts to obscure and to divert the attention of the people; and upon this great issue every first voter in the land who prefers freedom to slavery, peace to war, love to hate, plenty to poverty, happiness to wretchedness, man to mammon, should cast his or her vote for the Socialist Party. 

Whatever Does Happen Won't Be Good.

 On Dec.6 Stats-Canada informed us that the Canadian economy in

November had its biggest monthly job loss since the financial crisis. 71,200 jobs were lost, this was 38,400 full time jobs and 32,800 part time. Economists on average had predicted a gain of 10,000 jobs, according to the financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

This proves clearly that under a crazy, anarchistic system which capitalism is, nobody knows what will happen and even Warren Buffet has admitted neither does he. 
Of one thing we can be sure is that whatever does happen won’t be good, so why not abolish it?

for socialism 
 SPC Members.

Some People Who Build Dams. Don't Give a Damm.

When looking through the TV guide I came across this little goodie - River Silence – a Rogerio Soares award winning 2019 documentary which paints a painfully vivid portrait of the more than 40,000 Indigenous residents of the Amazon Basin whose lives have been shattered by construction of the controversial Belo Monte, one of the world's largest dams. As a result of the project, the displaced people who used to live along the banks of the Xingu River saw their homes flooded, forcing them to relocate to nearby cities that are overrun by unemployment and increasing violence.

 For centuries the capitalist class have been forcing people off land they have lived for generations when they see a chance to make a buck. This though, as bad as it is, doesn't mean that all capitalists and their political stooges are mean and cruel.

 Take Henry Kissinger for instance. When the Nixon administration were discussing nuclear testing in Micronesia and the affect it would have on the locals, he said, ''There are only 90,000 people out there; who gives a damn?'' Quote from, How To Hide An Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, N.Y.C. 2019.

for socialism 
SPC Members











think

Where are the jobs?

Students from Scotland's most disadvantaged areas are less likely to secure a professional job quickly, according to a new paper from the Commissioner for Fair Access to Universities. It suggests they may suffer "silent discrimination" in the jobs market.

One key point is that they are less likely to continue their studies on a postgraduate course such as a Master's course or a doctorate.

The paper says: "... even the students from more socially deprived backgrounds who do progress to postgraduate study are still significantly less likely to get professional jobs six months after leaving, which suggests that they continue to suffer perhaps silent but nevertheless powerful discrimination.

The commissioner Professor Sir Peter Scott said, "The gap is also explained, partly but again not wholly, by the fact that more socially deprived students are concentrated in universities with lower postgraduate progression rates - although, again, this begs the question of why they are under-represented in more prestigious institutions, notably the ancient universities, where many more students continue on to postgraduate courses."

As a general rule, Scotland's "ancient" universities and the institutions which became universities in the 1960s have fewer students from the most deprived parts of the country (SIMD 20 areas) than former polytechnics.

Only two institutions currently have met their long-term target for admissions from SIMD 20 areas - Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of the West of Scotland.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-51190188

It is tough being a girl

Dundee has been ranked as the worst city in Scotland, and one of the worst across the UK, for females to grow up in. The report’s analysis measured female rights and quality of life using indicators such as child poverty, life expectancy and their “neet” status — not in education, employment or training.

The Socialist Party is the Workers' Party

There is something more than a mere matter of wages. It is a question as to whether we have socialism or whether we living under an oligarchy or plutocracy. What we are aiming at, my friends, is to achieve economic freedom. What the Socialist Party is are aiming at is to achieve economic freedom. Under the present vicious system men have been robbed of the fruits of their toil. The Socialist Party proposes proposes absolute economic freedom for the individual and common ownership of all the means of production and distribution.  Every enterprise is to be carried out for the well-being of all and not for private profit.

The people must rid themselves of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and take  possession and control of the means of production so that they can ensure comfort and security. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the cooperative commonwealth.

The Socialist Party does not compromise. It has convictions and stands by them resolutely. We are on the eve of change. Men and women will soon free themselves from their industrial servitude. The day is dawning when humanity will unite in humanity’s interests, and when all shall work for the common good of all. There is but one way to relieve poverty and to free the people, and that is by making common property of all the machinery of the means of life. Socialism is  the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery, and every person with intelligence enough to understand their interests will once and for all time sever ties with the pro-capitalist parties; and cast his or her lot with the class-conscious, revolutionary Socialist Party, which is pledged not to compromise but remain committed to the principles and goal of economic freedom. It is a question of capitalism or socialism, of economic despotism or economic democracy, and those who are not with us are against us. 

If only all the working class could and would use their eyes and see; their ears and hear; their brains and think. How soon this Earth could be transformed into a place filled with beauty and joy. No sane person can be satisfied with the present system.

We live in the capitalist system, so-called because it is dominated by the capitalist class. In this system the capitalists are the rulers and the workers the subjects. The capitalists are in a decided minority and yet they rule because of the ignorance of the working class. So long as the workers are divided, economically and politically, they will remain in subjection, exploited of what they produce and treated with contempt by the parasites who live off their toil. So long as people are content with conditions as they are, so long as they are satisfied under the leadership of those who are far more interested in feathering their own nests than in the welfare of their followers, so long, in a word, as the workers are meek and submissive followers, mere sheep, they will be fleeced, and no one will hold them in greater contempt than the very grafters and parasites who get fat on the people’s misery. Working people must take the initiative in uniting for effective economic and political action; the self-appointed leaders will never do it for them. People should no longer be deceived by the  their betrayers, who blatantly boast of selling out the dupes who blindly follow them. Such “leaders” lead their victims into a shambles and deliver them over to the exploiters.

The struggle for more wages will ever continue while the wage system lasts, until a more enlightened conception of our relation to each other when we come to see that we are really brothers and sisters and live in harmonious unity.  People must not only make common cause with those of their own nationality and their colour, but with people of all lands and all colours. The interests of the millions of wage workers are identical, regardless of nationality, creed, or sex, and if they will only open their eyes to this simple, self-evident fact, the greatest obstacle will have been overcome and the day of victory will draw near.

The Socialist Party is the party of the workers, organised to express in political terms their determination to break their chains and rise to the dignity of free men and women. It is this party the workers will develop their political power to conquer and abolish the capitalist political state and clear the way for industrial and social democracy. The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of government or by violent revolution. No sane man prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence socialists rely upon the efficacy of a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish their end. The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party in the sense that its basic demand is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industry in the interest of all the people. This will mean an economic democracy which can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and common ownership there can be no compromise. One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaires and beggars, the other social equals. One gives us palaces and hovels, robes and rags, the other will secure to every man and woman comfort and luxury, abolish class rule, wipe out class distinction, secure the peace of society, and make of this Earth for the first time a habitable place.

It’s a crazy system

The economic basis of society is changing more rapidly today than ever before in human history, and as the character of society and all social institutions change correspondingly. Change follows upon change in the mode of production and distribution. Cheaper and cheaper production, more rapid and still more rapid methods of communication and transportation are demanded to supply the world’s elusive and shifting markets. Everything must be done on a gigantic scale to be done successfully, or even at all, for in the operation of the remorseless law of competition the weak, the aged, infirm, and all who lack the latest modern equipment are driven from the arena by the more powerful rivals with  little compunction.

Socialism is revolutionary in character and worldwide in scope.  Socialism will mean the end of the present capitalist competitive system and the introduction of its economic successor, the cooperative commonwealth. The socialist movement is international because it is born of and follows the development of the capitalist system, which in its operation is confined to no country, but by the stimulus of modern production, exchange, communication, and transportation, is no longer constrained by borders and frontiers. The whole world is now the theatre of its activities. By this process all the nations of the earth must finally be drawn into cooperation, as the economic basis of human brotherhood. This is the goal of modern socialism.

The only issue concerning the Socialist Party is the private ownership of the means of production. It involves the whole question of political equality, economic freedom, and social progress. The alleged issues of the other parties are all rooted in the existing economic system, a system which they are obliged to preserve and perpetuate, and a system which the Socialist Party is pledged to abolish.  Political parties, like individuals, act from motives of self-interest. The platform of a party is simply the political expression of the economic interests of the class it represents.  The Socialist Party platform is an indictment of the capitalist system by the exploited working class, and its declaration in favour of common ownership of the means of production is the clarion call of economic freedom.

You will find between two classes a conflict of interest; their interests are diametrically opposite. What is good for one is not good for the other and it is this conflict that finds expression in the strikes. the capitalist buys labour as cheap as he can buy it and the employee sells it as dearly as he can sell it. Society has been divided into two classes as a result of this and we are living today under the capitalist system. Under this system labour produces, not for its own benefit, but for the benefit of its employer. It has employment only so long as the employer can find a profitable market for the manufactured goods. The result is that when the capitalist has manufactured so many of his goods that there is no longer a profitable market in which to dispose of them, he closes down his shops and his mills and labouring men are left, often to suffer or starve in the very shadow of the wealth that his labour has created.  Throughout the centuries the few have ruled while the many have served. The few lived a privileged and luxurious life of leisure while the many have borne the burdens, lived in poverty, and died in destitution. Labour is the great power that made the world what it is. Labour it is that fashions the ore of the hills into blade and tool; labour it is that gathers the fleeces and transforms them into myriad of fabrics; labour it is that bids the forest to fall and in its place builds the home and factory. Everywhere labour has been responsible for the advancement of mankind in every direction. Shall it then not come into its own? Is it not time that labour should receive its just reward?

Socialism would establish cooperation instead of competition. Socialism is opposed today by the capitalist and the small merchant who has hopes of being someday himself a capitalist. They who oppose socialism believe that it would take from those who have and give to those who have not. Nothing is more untrue. But we do want the Earth. Socialism is not anarchy; it is diametrically opposed to anarchy. Socialism believes in all for all, not all for a few. Socialism finds no fault with the individual but rather with the system. The earth is or should be an equal heritage for all that inhabit it. A man ought not to be dependent on any other man for work and a livelihood. 

 Political liberty is of no great benefit without economic freedom, and so the workers of the world are organising themselves for the overthrow of capitalism.

  Under the capitalist system men and women must fight each other to survive, under such conditions we cannot respect one another. Our economic conditions must always determine our conduct toward each other. Slavery was legal while it was considered an economic necessity; when it was no longer a necessity it was made illegal. Under the present system a man can’t walk up to you on the street and rob or kill you, but he can rob and exploit you by more subtle means.

The capitalists like to make fun of us and call us “crazy” socialists but they are the ones who are operating this madhouse of capitalism. The more one examines the capitalist system – which is the one the peoples of the world are living under – the more crazy it appears. Reason dictates that the people of the world unite to create international socialism – the world organisation for peace. The natural resources of the earth and the new products made possible by science, all can be used and distributed according to human needs – with common sense international planning by the working people of the world.

THAT IS SANE. THAT IS SANITY.

Scotland's Dirty Air

Most polluted streets for nitrogen dioxide in 2019

Glasgow Kerbside (Hope Street) - 55.63

Edinburgh Nicolson Street - 48.81

Dundee Seagate - 43.90

Inverness Academy Street - 43.32

Dundee Lochee Road - 42.50

Edinburgh St John's Road -41.93

Figures in mcg/m3. The European Ambient Air Quality Directive set a limit for NO2 of 40 mcg/m3. The deadline for compliance was 1 January 2010.

In Inverness the data shows increases on 2018 levels of pollution and the Highland capital has now breached the legal limit for NO2. Significant increases in pollution were also recorded in Falkirk, Perth, Bearsden, Broughty Ferry and Byres Road, in Glasgow's west end.

FoE Scotland said the provisional data also indicates Salamander Street in Edinburgh has breached the legal limit for PM10, recording a figure of 19.44 mcg/m3. The Scottish annual statutory standard for PM10 is 18 mcg/m3. The deadline for this standard to have been met was 31 December 2010.