Under crapitalism, the rich always do well

 

Tobias Lutke, Worth US$3 billion in March Now Worth US$8.5 billion. 

One thing about the plague is that in Canada, and probably elsewhere, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. According to Jim Stanford, a Vancouver based economist and director of The Center for Future Work: ''If you are a high income earner, even in the private sector, hardly any of them have lost work. So this recession is going to dramatically and directly exacerbate wealth inequality, there is no doubt about that.''

 A typical example is Canadian billionaire, Tobias Lutke, CEO of Ottawa based e-commerce company, Shopify Inc. This ''worthy'' beneficiary has seen his personal worth rise from US$3 billion in March to US$8.5 billion today. Lutke's company has flourished through the pandemic because so many people wouldn't go to stores. 

So there it is folks, whatever the situation might be under crapitalism, the rich will always do well and the poor won’t.

S.P.C. Members.

The dawn of socialism is rising

 

Under wage-slavery the workers are the property of their  master just as much as a chattel slave. Under capitalism the worker is free. No legal pressure compels anyone to sell their labour power. We can take a job where we likes and when we likes, or remain idle if it pleases us. Only the commodity market, to which we must live under, compels us to sell ourselves on the labour market. If we are unable to we are doomed to poverty and hunger. With little hope of a decent future, the millions have become migrants . The capitalists will use force and violence to control them. The construction of police states has been facilitated by the hysteria against “foreigners” is being fanned worldwide.

This is a crucial time for the working-class movement and a time at which it is necessary to make a sober assessment of the present situation and perspectives. It is the time when workers must express their solidarity with the struggles of their fellow-workers all over the world, and re-pledge themselves to the fight to end of the exploitation of man by man. The future of civilisation depends upon these great objectives being reached. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind. It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of weaker countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded system or it will devastate humanity.

 The hour is late and urgent action is necessary. Join with us in the struggle against capitalism and for revolution. Our  cause today is a vision of humanity crossing into a new world, free of exploitation, ignorance and strife,  a vision of human freedom, peace and fraternity. Our foremost task is to agitate for our vision of a world free forever from want, from race and national hatred, from sexual oppression and from human exploitation. Our vision is one of peace and social harmony. The technological level of the means of production makes realising this cause.  We no longer have to work long hours or rely upon the meagre state- welfare payment just to eke out a miserable existence for our families. The new technology makes a world of material abundance available to all. Today, with artificial intelligence and robotics production takes place with a minimum of human labour or no human labour at all through automation. The capitalists have reaped unprecedented profits from these changes. It is now time for the people to benefit.  Our ideas are generalisations from the past and from the present; we use them as weapons to create the future cooperative commonwealth. The next stage in human evolution must be socialism. The Socialist Party must win the war for the hearts and minds of our fellow-citizens and arm it with the understanding that the only thing standing between them and the wealth being generated by the new technology is a tiny, vampire-like class of billionaires. The decisive struggles to assure humanity of its socialist future, to abolish war and misery, are approaching. It is up to you to transform moribund capitalism into a society for the prosperity for all, ending forever all misery, dictatorship and war.  Our cause is to urge fellow-workers toward the new world that is now possible.

For many long years the Socialist Party pleaded with the workers to organise and take over the entire means of production and distribution. Books, pamphlets, leaflets and periodicals of all kinds were freely circulated, with scant success. The workers rebuffed revolution with their blank indifference. Now, they are aroused with a vengeance. The onus is on the Socialist Party to translate economic theories long expounded into a practical method of producing and distributing the wealth in such a way as to end for ever the exploitation of the many by the privileged few. World socialism is possible but getting there is the challenge, and to do so we  need to be able, as a movement, to voice our views in the most open, democratic ways we can find.

The Socialist Party brings the cause of human freedom, of peace and prosperity. They are few; we are many. 

Will The Landlords Find Ways Around The Laws To Prevent Rent Increases?

Steve Clark, Ontario's Minister for Housing, said on September 8 that this Fall his government is going to freeze increases for most tenants. This did not make either landlords or tenants happy. 

Tony Irwin, Prez. of the Federation of Rental Providers of Ontario, in words of the landlords union said, ''The government should be focusing on assisting those who can't pay their rent, whether its frozen or not.'' 

Bahar Shadpour, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, had another way of looking at the situation, stating: ''This does not address the root causes of unaffordable rents,'' and in this sense he is perfectly right. Though when he speaks of ''root causes'' he may not mean the same general capitalism we see, but only its crummy administration. 

Mr. Clark also said this year was different to others, meaning the virus, but nevertheless, for years we've seen landlords finding ways around laws to prevent rent increases, especially if there are loopholes. 

It will be interesting to see how the cookie crumbles, just don't spend your savings the working class tenants will come out alright.

S.P.C. Members.

It’s Not Just Fear Of The plague.

Reporters for the Toronto Star were able, by foul means or foul, to get a sneaky look at a report by Toronto's Shelter Support and Housing Administration which will recommend the city opening hotels, rooming houses and even office spaces for housing the homeless. As the first winter of the pandemic looms, something has got to be done for the benefit of the local capitalists. 

The report says, ''Since COVID-19 hit, the consequences of our system failure are evident''; now who would've guessed it? If this idea is accepted, which it probably will be, it won’t exactly be a case of any big-shot acting out of the goodness of his heart, nor will there be anything new about it. In the 1930's the homeless in Toronto were put in camps in Northern Ontario, because the owners of Eaton's and Simpson's were afraid they would smash in their windows and loot stuff. They were also cleared out of the downtown area in 1986 when there was a conference of world bankers there. 

So it’s not just fear of the plague which motivates them as fear of losing their ill-begotten wealth swindled from the wage slaves.

S.P.C. Members.

Establish the Socialist Cooperative Commonwelth

 Standing in the way of social progress and socialism in the world is the capitalist class. The ruling class is composed of the owners and administrators of the huge multinational banks and corporations that control the economic life of the planet today, as well as determining the destinies of millions around the globe. Crisis-ridden capitalism is showing its inability to solve the immense problems confronting humanity. Governments exist to serve the interests of the ruling monopoly capitalist class. The state suppresses and controls opposition to capitalism. It maintains social order and provides a stable environment for big business. We have a social system that stands self-condemned. Its usefulness of the past is now long outlived. If it is allowed to continue, the world will only plunge deeper into slavery and suffering. The capitalist mode of production which cannot be overcome except on the basis of a revolutionary socialist reconstruction of society. Great possibilities are urging forward progressive humanity. Today mankind is capable of planning the scientific control of production and distribution to provide abundance for all, as the basis of a class-free and peaceful society. We have to make the working class from which we and of which we are a part realise just how powerful they are. If they all blow together it is like a mighty hurricane. If they all stamp their feet it is an earthquake. The Socialist Party says that progress consists of taking away from the capitalists their ownership and control of the means of production and making them the property of the whole people, those who produce all the wealth of the world. Owned by the toiling people, by the workers, the poor, the dispossessed, these giant industries could produce plenty for all. That is the road to socialism, to a world system, of peace, security and freedom. 

 

What we need is to set rid of the selfish, profit-bloated greedy capitalists. Socialism will only be established when the vast majority of workers understand it, want it and democratically organise for it in a party which is not out to mend capitalism, but to end it. Socialism means the total abolition of capitalism. An end to private and state ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution, production would be solely for use, with all people having free access to the common store of goods and services, instead of production for sale on the market with a view to profit. To win workers to organise for socialism is a massive task and it is easy to be demoralised and deceive yourself that there is an easier way to initiate the new system. Our purpose is the establishment of the socialist commonwealth

The Socialist Party sets out to end and not mend the capitalist system. For the socialist there can be no such thing as humanised capitalism: the only good policy for capitalism is its abolition by the force of democratic, class-conscious action. Once workers get busy working for socialism, in larger and larger numbers, the owners and controllers of the Earth will shower us with piddling reforms. The capitalists will concede anything except their right to monopolise the resources of the Earth. It is this freedom which socialists, committed to common ownership, democratic control and free access to resources for all, will take away from the existing rulers.

 

The Socialist Party seeks to defeat the class enemy—and defeat can only mean total defeat, i.e. dispossession. The reformist seeks to leave the possession of class power in the enemy’s hands and then plead for a better deal. It is a futile and time-wasting policy, however sincere its many advocates undoubtedly are.

 

There is no alternative to the hard work being carried out by the Socialist Party–and the sooner those who want us to succeed join us, the sooner it will be done. The future for genuine socialists—libertarians not statists; democrats not vanguardists; Marxists not Leninists; clear thinkers not sloganising sheep—is a good one. Disillusionment will create an appetite for an alternative. Not a phoney alternative, as workers have so often fallen for but the genuine socialist article: common ownership and democratic control of all the resources of the planet by all the people of the planet.  No, it has yet to be tried. And when the recognition that common ownership is the answer dawns upon more and more workers, as surely it will.

The Ownership of the North Pole Again

 The melting Arctic ice cap is opening up a new passage into the Atlantic for the expanding Chinese Navy in a potential new challenge to the UK and the west, the chief of the Royal Navy has warned. 

Russia is also likely to assert itself even more in that part of the Atlantic, a strategic area for Europe and the US, said Tony Radakin, the First Sea Lord.

 Radakin continued: “As the ‘High North’ becomes more open and accessible it’s going to be more contested and competitive as well. We are already doing much more in the High North, we’ve been operating with our Norwegian friends, with our American friends and in the Barents Sea. 

A US Department of Defence report to Congress earlier this year claimed “China could use its civilian research presence in the Arctic to strengthen its military presence, including by deploying submarines to the region”. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/china-military-arctic-ice-caps-melt-uk-navy-russia-tony-radakin-b889695.html

No Palliatives, No Piecemeal Reforms

 

The entire capitalist world is currently in a period of great economic and social crises hurting the lives of millions while a small minority reaps super-profits. Piecemeal reforms cannot solve the problems our society faces.

To end crises, recessions, mass unemployment and poverty, to end wars and conflicts, to end exploitation of man by man, to end the present system which compels the many to work to produce wealth for a few, to end all racial, national and religious discrimination and persecution, to use planned production for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of our population, to release all productive forces throughout the world for the benefit of the vast majority of the earth’s population, to end the use of government power and its domination of working people, to build the democracy of socialism to replace the dictatorship of the capitalists,  to end the rule of the capitalist class and abolish the class struggle by abolishing capitalism, a system able to survive only by mass deception, tyranny, terror and war, to work for the common good and not the rule of wealth, to liberate working people from the rule of capitalism; to guarantee the rapid liberation of all mankind from the exploitation of Wall Street, to end capitalism by which the millions of the majority are compelled to sell their only commodity, labour power, for the profit of a small minority, to win the campaign for world socialism where every material resource for a socialist society exists and where all the technical productive forces are present, to develop the class-free society: “From each according to ability; to each according to needs.” These are the demands of the Socialist Party. To change society and end oppression, we need a plan to get from where we are now to liberation - a strategy that will work. Working people need political power. This power is the means to reorganise society in our own interests.

The misery and turmoil which exists throughout the world is caused by capitalism. The capitalist class, is a small class composed of those who own and control the financial institutions and means of production–the land, raw materials, machines, mines, mills, factories, farms. The working class, is made up of those who are deprived of the ownership of the means of production and therefore are forced to sell their labour power as a commodity to the capitalist class. The working class participates directly in production, transportation, communication, service, agriculture, and commerce. It is the class which creates the wealth of society and from which the capitalists extract surplus value. The ranks of the working class also encompass the reserve army of unemployed, including old and disabled workers and semi-permanently and permanently unemployed workers forced to live on the benefits system. 

Our ruling class have built an empire that spans the earth. Like vampires, they suck the blood of the workers. They live off the toil, land and natural resources of others. The capitalists have accumulated untold wealth based on the exploitation and robbery of working people. The  capitalist class own and control the big corporations. All of them are parasites. They control an empire that spans the globe. They control the political and cultural life. They finance a host of a host of business associations, institutions and think tanks that actively promote their strategic interests. They are puppet masters pulling the strings of their puppets - the Tories, the Labour Party, the Republicans and the Democrats - through a host of laws that ensure that the electoral process favours the rich, direct and indirect campaign contributions, outright bribery, cheating, and corruption, and by an army of lobbyists who are guardians of their interests. In order to safeguard the wealth they have robbed from us and insure more profits, it is in the interests of the capitalist class to have a divided working class A working class that is divided is one that is not capable of defending itself or fighting in its own interests. The capitalists have a vast array of tools of oppression to keep the working class divided, men are pitted against women, white people against non-white people, They continually promote discord among us to keep us weak, fighting among ourselves, fighting against our class brothers and sisters throughout the world. The ruling class attempts to keep us under their thumbs with their repressive state apparatus and ideological illusions.

The working class makes its living by selling its ability to work. The capitalists own the places and things that are used to create goods and services. They appropriate for themselves all that is produced by the collective labour of the working class. This gives rise to an irrepressible conflict, a clash of basic interests that can be solved by the working class taking all power into its own hands. Today the working class as a whole is characterised by a low level of class consciousness. While it's true that many workers are dissatisfied with the existing order of things, there is not a widespread understanding that the working class has a distinct set of interests that can only be addressed by the collective action of the class. In fact, while there is a widespread perception among working people that life for them and their children might well get harder, many workers, either do not view themselves as a part of the working class or have hopes of rising out of it altogether.

 

The Socialist Party seeks no power inside of capitalism. Our task is to work for the realization of socialism – the association of free and equal producers. We are an organisation that fights for class unity. We see that only with a united working class can an effective fight be waged against the ruling capitalist class. This unity must not be based on paper or words, but in actual facts – in deeds. Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism itself has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production, redirecting the productive capacity to meet human needs, the next rational step in the further development of social evolution. The main means of production will be the property of society, not a handful of capitalists