Sheku Bayoh - "I Can't Breathe"

Sheku Bayoh died in Kirkcaldy in 2015 after he was restrained by up to nine police officers using CS spray, pepper spray and batons. Medical evidence suggested he died of positional asphyxia - meaning he was unable to breath. Sheku died after being restrained by officers responding to a report of a man behaving erratically and carrying a knife. He was unarmed when police arrived. Sheku was under the influence of the drugs MDMA and Flakka, explaining his uncharacteristic behaviour. He was found to have suffered 25 separate injuries. Five years on, not one police officer has been prosecuted.

Collette Bell, his partner, said, “George Floyd was kneeled upon until he took his last breath. So was Sheku, only more weight and more officers kneeled upon him. George Floyd stated, ‘I can’t breathe’. So did Sheku.” She added: “It was police brutality and racism and it happened in Scotland." 

Collette is the mother of Sheku’s son Isaac, who was three months old when his father died. She said: “I don’t think racism will ever go away and I fear for Isaac.”

Sheku experienced racism “most days” in Scotland. Colette explained, “He would often come home and say he felt people stared at him as if he was an alien. He said people would see him and get out his way as if they feared him, yet Sheku was a gentle man.”

Sheku’s sister Kadi Johnston said we must remember black lives matter not only in the US but in the UK and Scotland.

She said: “Enough is enough. For how long are we going to suffer like this? Why do we have to be killed by the ones who are supposed to protect us. How long do we have to cry for our brothers, our partners, our loved ones? For how long do mothers have to cry for their sons? Change has to happen now. Our lives matter too.”

Aamer Anwar, the lawyer for the Bayoh family, said, “The reality for the Bayohs and Collette is that five days of protest in the US has delivered more than five years of waiting for the Scottish criminal justice system to act."

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/tragic-sheku-bayohs-partner-draws-22135189

The Nationalist Delusion

There is no practical effective internationalism except that which springs strong and self-reliant from the workers' community of interest, sweeping across national frontiers like a cleansing wind blowing away bestial hatreds and fears. The future of the human race demands the destruction of the national barriers which divide the peoples of the world. Not the defence of national independence but the destruction of capitalism must be the watchword of those who would build for the future of the human race and at the same time help to stem the fear of war in which capitalism threatens to engulf civilisation.

The doctrine that each group of workers should rally round their own ruling class in defence of the "national interest" only plays into the hands of the war-mongers in every country.

The brutal history of capitalism has often involved invasions from abroad as part of the process of its local development. Cromwell's occupation of Ireland, with all its savagery, was an early instance. In Marx's day, when capitalism was still young and insufficiently widespread in its establishment, it might have been valid to argue (and he did) that its further extension was a progressive necessity. Indeed at the time of the Crimean War Marx regarded the possibility of a Tsarist victory as such a retarding factor in historical development that he felt able to look favourably upon the opposing Anglo-French and Ottoman Turkish forces. By the twentieth century the world dominance of the capitalist system was no longer in the balance even if to this day large areas of the under-developed world have yet to undergo their own thoroughgoing changeover to commodity production and wage- slavery.

This means that the world-wide establishment of socialism no longer hinges upon the yet further spread of the iron heel of capital. But the state-capitalist bureaucrats of Peking have not let this inhibit them where the extension of their control over Tibet has been concerned. It is true that as the harbingers of industrial society the Chinese colonial administration in Lhassa represent modernising trends as did British and French imperialism in their day. But in recognising this and in our repugnance for the superstitious, women-oppressive and backward-looking old orders we must not ignore the harshness of imposed foreign ways and language by the latest conquerers.

 So whilst the notion of “national independence" is rightly shown as being, from the working-class point of view, merely a change of rulers imagine how any of us would feel if the purchase of a postage-stamp, the reading of a "news" paper or our kids' schooling required the use of Chinese!

Our rejection of nationalist delusions ought never to show insensitivity to the valid concerns of oppressed people. Moreover. it strengthens the appeal of socialism to show that in contrast to the imposed uniformity and centralisation of commodity production we aim for a way of life which, of its nature, fosters cultural freedom and diversity. Workers internationalism is not a utopia. The technology and digital revolution can help in realising the goals of workers internationalism guaranteeing peace and prosperity. The forward march of workers based on internationalism is the only way to realise the great goal of global citizenship.  

Edinburgh in Solidary with US Protests

Dozens of protesters have taken a knee for George Floyd during a socially-distant peaceful action in Edinburgh. 50-60 people gathered at 18:00 in Parliament Square outside St Giles' Cathedral. They observed distancing measures and wore masks.

Sabby Dhalu, Stand Up To Racism co-convenor, said: "We are outraged that yet another black person has been killed at the hands of the police in the US and instead of calling for justice for George Floyd, Donald Trump chooses to inflame racism by threatening military action on protesters. The events unfolding in the US are a product of hundreds of years of racism and oppression of black communities, which has led to countless lives lost."

Another rally is being planned on Sunday by another group, Edinburgh in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter. From 13:00 protesters will meet opposite the US Consulate before going into nearby Holyrood Park. 

THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE

It would appear to the casual observer that the capitalist system is rushing to its doom and as the system is torn asunder by its conflicts, a new social order is developing for a speedy and complete change. Can the day of change be hastened? Without a doubt. Every socialist who spreads the case for socialism helps the propaganda and encourages others to vote the socialist ticket, is doing his or her share to speed the day of the new commonwealth. It is impossible to contemplate the horrors of capitalism and remain neutral or passive unless, one be brain-dead to every sentiment of humanity. The word “politics” is to many members of society is a red flag to a bull. Politics, to them, means simply politicians trying to catch votes to elect them to some comfortable office, where they can comfortably forget all about the workers. This is using the word “politics” in too narrow a sense. Non-socialists believe that they can gradually gain political power by using the political machinery of the capitalist State to win reforms. This leads to politicians preaching all sorts of palliatives and ameliorations of the capitalist system, and draws political adventurers of all kinds, who make deals and compromises with the capitalist class. The real source of capitalist power lies in the control of the capitalist State for the purpose of protecting and extending thier ownership and control of production and distribution and it cannot therefore be used to destroy it.

Socialism will the ownership by working people in common of the instruments of production and that means a co-operative system of production and the extinction of the exploitation of the workers. The abolition of the present system of production means ending production for sale and instead substituting it with production for use, the social or co-operative production for the satisfaction of the wants of a commonwealth. Such co-operative production for use is nothing less than socialist production. Production for sale can be overcome only by such a system. Socialist production is the only system of production possible when production for sale has become redundant. The system of socialist production which has become necessary, owing to the impending bankruptcy of our present system of production for sale. Capitalism is making desperate efforts to repair its shattered world, however, the workers must reconstruct society in their own interests. To save the old system of exploitation the capitalists must strengthen the chains of wage slavery. Capitalists present a solid front against the workers. The evangelicals tells the worker to be contented; the media curses workers for being too militant. Our aim is  a commonwealth without State, without government, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all.

The Socialist Party knows the only way to solve the problems of to-day is to change the system of society. In order to abolish capitalism the workers must first wrest the State power out of the hands of the capitalist class. The capitalist State is built to serve capitalism, and that is all it can do, no matter who is running it. It does not matter whether you have a Labour, Lib-Dem, Conservative, or Nationalist government, they are all doing the same job.

When the majority understand these things they will organise to introduce a new system of society, based on common ownership and democratic control of the means and methods of production and distribution by, and in, the interests of the whole community, irrespective of race, sex, or colour. Goods will be made for use and not for sale. There will be no trade, no barter, no buying, no selling. For everything will be the common property of all. The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the SOCIAL property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of ALL IN COMMON and must be administered for the benefit of all.

The Future Cooperative Commonwealth

Socialism is a society where the wages system, under which labour has been reduced to a commodity is to be supplanted by the cooperative system under which all may engage in useful occupation and work together in harmonious cooperation for the emancipation of labour, the uplifting of humanity, and the advancement of our civilisation. In other words, socialism is the fraternal commonwealth. By uniting at the ballot box, political control of the state can be secured to permit the cooperative commonwealth to be established and workers emancipated from wage slavery. We shall unite all our energies to end the present capitalist system and establish the cooperative commonwealth. Under the former,  the world has been brought to the verge of ruin, and humanity has been degraded beyond the power of language to describe. The horror of our social life is sickening and shocking. The time has come for social regeneration, and this is only possible through a new and worldwide change of system, a type of society compared with which the present would appear like cannibalism.


The crisis of capitalism on a world scale gives rise to a growing radicalisation amongst all parts of the population. It has always clear to Marxists, who understand that in the present epoch of social revolution a political party not based upon revolutionary theory cannot withstand the test of events. Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution all the accumulated treasures in machines and technical appliances created by the genius of mankind, all that science and art had given to humanity over generations is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole, ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. The socialist commonwealth liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, providing the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

Under capitalism, with its wage slavery, the worker and his family are nominally free; but, as we have seen, the land, the tools and all the product of his labour belong to the employing class. The workers are at liberty to change their individual masters, if they can, that is all. There is a continuous class war between wage slaves and the capitalist class, with its parasites. So long as wages are paid by one class to another class, so long will men and women remain slaves to the employing class. “Free and independent” workers sell their labour power, which is the only commodity they possess, to the capitalists who own or control all the means of producing wealth, including the tools, raw material, land and money. Under the capitalist mode  of production the workers are controlled by their machines and technology, instead of being in control of them. Under the capitalist system of production for exchange the producers themselves have no control over their own products. Commodities, social goods, are produced, not directly for social purposes, but in order to create a profit for the capitalists. Production for profit and exchange by wage labour assumes working people are divorced from the land and possess no property of their own. Rent, profit and interest are all provided by the workers. They are the component parts of the labour value embodied in saleable commodities by the labour power of the workers, over and above the actual wages paid to the toiler, and the cost of raw materials, incidental materials, etc., needed by the capitalist for the conduct of his business. The wages paid by the employers to their hands represent the customary standard of life of the workers employed. These wages are, on the average, returned in saleable values to the capitalist in a portion of the working day, or week, for which the worker has sold his labour power to the capitalist. The goods produced during the rest of the time the wage-earner works for the capitalist are the result of this extra and unpaid labour, furnished by the toiler to the capitalist. It is the modern industrial expression of the corvée, enforced, not by the whip, but by pecuniary necessity and individual hunger. This is the surplus value, out of which all the parasite classes who do not directly produce are paid their share. Shareholders in capitalist companies rarely or never render any service to the company, or the community, as shareholders. In the vast majority of cases they have never visited the enterprises from which they draw their dividends.

Money disguises the whole process of the robbery of labour, as well as the truth about the creation of surplus value at home, and the booty and tributes, payments from abroad. Wage-earners are  thrown out of employment, not because they are clamouring for impossible wages, still less because they are unwilling to work, but because the employing class itself cannot produce at a loss, and therefore shuts down its factories or only runs them on short time. Wages paid in money seem to workers to come to them from above, instead of being only the value of a portion of the goods they themselves produce, paid to them in the form of money.

With political action, for which our forbears fought so stoutly, and for which at last we have secured the effective means, there is far less danger of armed conflict. Every year that passes, as events move to-day, tells more and more decisively in favour of the economic and social freedom of the workers.

The Socialist Party and its Ideas

The Socialist Party is held together, not by a superimposed machinery of discipline, but by community of purpose. There is no eulogising of any party leaders, and denunciation of others: for the Socialist Party has no leaders at all. Leaders cannot arise in a party whose members subscribe to the one straight issue of socialism, based on a clear declaration of principles. For as each knows what is aimed at and what must be done to get it, there is no one to be led. It is an organisation whose consistency of action flows from its singleness of aim. The democratic organisation of the Socialist Party is not accidental, but is the result of its unique singleness of object and clarity of principles. Only a militant organisation of revolutionary socialists, an organisation democratically controlled at all times and on all matters by the membership, can accomplish the revolutionary act which shall abolish the class ownership of the means of living and establish the common ownership and democratic control of those means, in the interest of the whole community.

What, for example, is the meaning we are expected to give to the term “revolutionary spirit"? If it means a sound understanding of the social problem plus a determination to achieve a social revolution by the only possible means, the capture of political power, then an acceleration of the revolutionary spirit, sudden or otherwise, will lead to a strengthening of the Socialist Party.

Any attempt by a minority at an armed revolt against those who control the political machinery and the armed forces would be foredoomed to failure. 

The Socialist Party would oppose it in its entirety any insurrection. The Socialist Party has no leaders and no followers, and would not therefore be offering to lead anyone anywhere. Being socialists and knowing that it can’t be done that way, it would naturally go on saying so. We can conceive of no better service to the workers than to tell them to beware of the silly sentimentalist or dangerous adventurists who advocates armed revolt and urges the workers to pit their unarmed defencelessness against the armed might of the capitalist State.

What can be done to abolish poverty? Is it possible to abolish it within the capitalist system? If the capitalist class give the unemployed an allowance sufficiently above starvation level to deter them from taking the risk of infringing capitalist laws, it might also deter them from taking the risk of working! Hence the tendency to limit unemployment payments. Wherever capitalism exists, the aim is to give the unemployed no more than is sufficient to keep them alive.

The poverty of the working class has its origin in the system of society itself. This system has its basis in the ownership by one class of the means of production—land, mines, and factories—and the production of goods solely for profit, the workers serving merely as instruments in the mode of production, to be cast on one side when they are no longer wanted. Therefore, to abolish poverty, the capitalist system itself must be abolished. It is to the interest of the workers to achieve this result. This they can only do by organisation within one party pledged to the overthrow of the capitalist system, and its replacement by a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Such is the Socialist Party , and we invite all those who agree with us to join with us in this cause.

The Marxian analysis of capitalist production lays bare the cause of all wars. The worker produces commodities of a far greater value than his wages enable him to buy back. Out of the struggle for this surplus comes the struggle for markets at home and abroad, and with the capitalist development of previously undeveloped countries. The struggle grows keener; finally the tension reaches breaking point, and war is declared.

War is, then, a quarrel between the various sections of the capitalist class over the disposal of the surplus wealth stolen from the workers in the course of their exploitation. It is, therefore, a quarrel in which the workers have no concern, and to end it they must remove the cause, i.e., the class ownership of the means of production. This they can do by organising to capture political power from the master class, and to establish a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production—in short, socialism. 

A message to the people of the planet Earth

The people of Earth have to put up with lives of slavery and the never-ending struggle against deprivation, yet a life of ease and freedom is within their reach if they will stretch oat their hands and grasp it. On our planet what is required for a healthy secure life is in abundance, and yet poverty, misery, and destitution are here in super-abundance.

All wealth that is produced, no matter what form it takes, is the result of the application of human labour power to nature-given material. This material and the finished product are owned by one group of the people—the international capitalists—those people whom we are told advance the money to carry on industry. The labour power is supplied by the miner, bricklayer, carpenter, manager, dustman, office clerk, and other members of the working class. The brains and brawn of the workers are utilised to produce articles that belong to the capitalists.

The notion that the capitalists, by advancing the money, have a right to the result, collapses as soon as the case is investigated. The particular function of the money as means of exchange has a tendency to confuse and cover the process of production with a mystical cloud. It is a matter of fact that it does not require money to dig for coal. It requires food, clothes, shelter, and the other things necessary to the maintenance of the miner while getting the coal. The capitalists have the monopoly of the necessaries of life, and they advance these necessaries of life to the workers with a view of obtaining a profit. The capitalists are the employing class and the workers the employed class. The interests of these two classes are directly opposite.

It is the interest of the employers to get work done as quickly and as cheaply as possible, for the cheaper the production the greater the profit. The energies of the employers are centred upon obtaining up-to-date machinery and instituting improved methods ; but this means less work for the employees— a greater number of unemployed to fight for the jobs that are going. Improved machinery and improved organisation displaces more workers and the competition for jobs keeps wages at the level of subsistence. Even the draughtsman, the mathematician, the chemist, the doctor, and similar "professional" men, who need long and careful training to render them efficient, can only command a wage that means toil from the earliest days of manhood to the end. The capitalist buys abilities as he buys potatoes and other merchandise. Numberless are the instances where those employed in these professions have chosen the suicide's grave in preference to the grim and forbidding prospect ahead of them.

Why does this state of affairs exist ? Why is work the all absorbing interest of the working class? It is because the workers do not own the product of their labour power. Yet all wealth is produced by the working class—even the very gold and paper that function as money are obtained by the workers.

The more the capitalists take from the total wealth produced the less there is left for the workers, and conversely, the more the workers take from it the less there is for the capitalists. This is the centre of the whole business. The interests of the capitalists are opposed to the interests of the workers, and consequently a struggle is always going on as to who shall get most out of the pile. This is what the Socialist Party calls the class war. Those who deny the class war and seek to harmonise master and worker are the enemies of the working class, whether their intentions be good or evil. By their attempt to cloud the issue they take sides with the masters and must be treated as enemies, no matter what particular garments they dress their arguments in.

Workers attempt to alleviate their lot by combining in unions to keep up wages and improve their conditions. By this act they recognise in a subconscious way the opposition of their interests to those of their masteis. Unfortunately the recognition is only subconscious, and the masters take every opportunity of blinding workers to their real interests and dangle before them illusive reforms on which workers employ their time and waste their energy. For years the workers have attempted to alleviate their lot by trade union action, but at the end of it all the sorry truth must be faced that to-day their position is more insecure and their poverty greater than ever. The claim that they might have been worse off had they not been organised is beside the point, and cannot explain away the fact that trade union action has been a failure as far as improving conditions is concerned. The general condition of the workers is growing steadily worse. At best, trade union action but slows the worsening process—it cannot stop it.

The fight between the possessing class and the working class has always resulted in the advantage going to the former. So long as one class owns the means and instruments for producing wealth,, the other class must in the long run be beaten by the pistol of starvation. This being the position of affairs, reform is useless—revolution is the only remedy.

The workers must first realise their identity of interests as wage workers, and the opposition of their interests as a class to those of the capitalists—the owners of wealth. In other words, they must become class conscious.

Having arrived at that knowledge they must understand that the capitalists keep their position through their control of the political machinery, and that in order to overthrow the capitalist class they must vote themselves, and not their masters, into power. They must organise into a political party which has for its sole object the conquest of political power in order to usher in the Socialist Commonwealth. That party is the Socialist Party.

Socialist Standard No. 1390 June 2020

 

June 2020 PDF
 
Introducing the Socialist Party

• Editorial: Socialism hasn’t failed – it’s never been tried
• Pathfinders: Locked up in lockdown
• One world or many states?
• Cooking the Books I: Will capitalism collapse?
• Wood For the Trees: Responsibility
• Material World: Guns before healthcare
• What is Economics?
• Who gets the surplus we produce?
• Economics: the Marginalist Fallacy
• Lesser evil or lose-lose situation?
• End of an Epoch?
• Cooking the Books II: Negative prices: how come?
• Party News – Discord in the Ranks
•  Proper Gander: At The Movies
• Reviews
• 50 Years Ago: What about Vietnam?
• Meetings
• Rear View
• Free Lunch

June 2020 PDF

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