Blowing the whistle on freedom

BRADLEY MANNING

The Socialist Standard wrote:
"Your brain is the greatest weapon you possess; your ability to communicate is your tool of liberation; thinking, speaking and organising democratically and intelligently you are a force that cannot be defeated."

Falkirk - Labour Party Attacking the Unions

After all the headlines about the Falkirk MP-selection rigging by the Unite union have  Radio Scotland described the row as “much ado about nothing”, reflecting the view of the police who said they would not investigate the allegations due to lack of evidence.

Investigative reporter Hannah Barnes said: “There was, as far as we can see, no major vote rigging scandal in Falkirk. And there will be no police prosecutions. The selection debacle there was much ado about nothing. But it was the catalyst – some might say excuse – for a historic shift in Labour’s financial relationship with the unions. The battle for Falkirk will soon be forgotten but the consequences for Labour will be felt for many years to come.”

Apart from Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman (and a handful of senior party staff), almost no-one involved in the key decisions about Falkirk, have been allowed to read the full report of the party’s secret investigation that was conducted by one member of the party compliance unit and one “young Labour activist based in Scotland.”

Some of those who it was claimed did not know they were members are quoted as having “said they had been asked whether they wanted to join and said they did.” They were in any case not members of Unite, and their membership fees were not paid by Unite.

 Ed Miliband and his advisers specifically led an attack on Unite and Len McCluskey himself telling him to face up to “malpractice” and insisting the union should not be defending “machine politics“.

 Socialist Courier can only say that sooner the unions and the working class ditch their misplaced and misguided allegiance to the Labour Party, the better for us all. The Labour Party (and their leaders) have shown their loyalty is to the ruling class over and over again throughout its miserable existence and it is now time for every trade unionist to cease their political levy and call upon their union to dis-affiliate from the Labour Party forthwith..

The gravy train

Former Glasgow Govan Labour MP Mohammad Sarwar is to be appointed governor of Punjab, the largest state in Pakistan. Its governor is considered to the the third most senior figure in the government of Pakistan. 

Sarwar's son, Anas Sarwar, went on to win the Westminster seat vacated by his father in the May 2010 general election. He was appointed deputy leader of the Scottish Labour party in 2011.

Socialist Work

HOW IT IS AND HOW IT COULD BE

The basis of all societies is the production of goods necessary to life. In the present time, production is dominated by the capitalist, possessor of money, owner the factory and the machines, buyer of the raw materials, the hirer of the workers who  produce the goods which then can be sold and provide the capitalist with profit and privilege. Labour relations under capitalism is a system of squeezing, workers must be driven to the utmost exertion of their powers, either by punitive powers or by the more gentler arts of persuasion. So long as we have wage slavery it matters not in the least how debasing and degrading a task may be, it is easy to find people to perform it. Under capitalism the majority of human beings are not human beings at all, but simply machines of flesh for the creating of wealth for others.

Private property is the enemy of human happiness, for it creates inequality and established authority serves no other purpose than the sanctioning of property property. Socialists want to replace private property with common ownership. We stand for equality. When we say equality we don’t claim that all men will have the same brain, the same physical attributes: we know that there will always be diversity in intellectual and physical aptitudes.

There will be engineers and labourers: this is obvious but neither will be considered superior to the other, since the work of the engineer is useless without the collaboration of the labourer, and vice versa.

A question often asked is: “What about  the lazy? Those who do not want to work”

Today, the average person works a 8 hour day, 5 day week. Many workers are in jobs that are absolutely useless to society, in particular those in the armed forces and armament factories. Add to this a considerable number who produce nothing and are only necessary in capitalism: cashiers, bank and insurance staff, paper-pushers in the civil service, etc.

Much  useless work can be done by machines, used not as now to cut costs and grind out profit, but to save labour in unnecessary routine work to release people from the monotonous tasks.

We can thus say, without being accused of exaggeration, that when this pool of available workers is re-deployed and redirected away from  socially wasteful labour, the work-day and working week would decrease.  A society where all would work together would have to ask of each of its able-bodied members an effort of only two or three hours a day, a few days a week, perhaps less. Variety of life is as much an aim of socialism as equality of condition, and that nothing but an union of these two will bring about real freedom.
 As Marx wrote as early as 1845 “In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”


Who would then refuse to give such a small quantity of labour in return for consuming according to his needs, which is to say, as he wishes? Who would want to live with the shame of being held in contempt by all and being considered a parasite? Our system of artificial shortage has engendered a fear of an abundance, filling our minds  with the customs and norms of commercial and competitive society.

Work in itself is not unpleasant. Many will toil in their garden or allotments for leisure. Many will engage in all manner of DIY and handicrafts as a hobby. Many will volunteer their help to charities. Some will offer to risk their lives to serve on a lifeboat or in a mountain rescue team. So even in our sham society most men are not disinclined to work, so long as their work is not that which they are compelled to do. But work under capitalism is inhuman for the workers and is compelled by the threat of deprivation, and the labour is without genuine interest, in  monotonous, repetitive jobs, where men and women are often driven to the point of exhaustion that the body can barely sustain. Therefore it is not unnatural that we witness an aversion amongst workers for their work, and how experts conclude that productive work, by its very nature, is repulsive to people , and must be imposed upon the unwilling by threat and bribery, the stick and the carrot. Yet, saying all this about compulsory labour, the work-place can also become a centre of community and fellowship. Some socialist suggest that the ideal of the future does not point to the lessening of men's energy by the reduction of labour to a minimum, but rather to the reduction of pain in labour to a minimum, so small that it will cease to be a pain.

Socialists assert that the community should hold all wealth in common and that everyone should have free access but their needs are not necessarily determined by the kind or amount of work which each person does. The fact that they are human beings with a capacity for work is enough. It is to be understood that each member of a socialist society is absolutely free to use their share of the communal wealth as they please, without any interference. This will minimise the possibility  of the community falling into bureaucracy, with the multiplication of committees, and all the paraphernalia of official authority, which is a socially wasteful  burden, even when it is exercised by the delegation of the whole people and in accordance with their wishes.

The question then now arises how is it to be done? A political party of the working class is the how. The Socialist Party declares that political power should be in the hands of those who intend to employ it for the overthrow of the present system, understanding by political power not merely the power of voting, but the possession of the whole administrative state system – the complete control of all executive functions. This, then, is the immediate object to be striven for; not mere reforms. Workers shall come together in those countries where elections are permitted and vote the capitalists out and vote ourselves in and with that political power we will take the means of production away from the capitalists control. It may not be all that simple and straight forward a task in all circumstance and thre may indeed be defeats and set-backs but there exists no other  alternatives despite claims to the contrary.

“The Socialist movement is not the coinage of one man, of one body of men, or of one nation; it is the expression at once of a necessary phase of economic evolution, and of a yearning which fills the hearts of the people of all countries and nations throughout the civilised world to-day – a yearning which individuals may formulate, but which no individual can create.” - William Morris

Expoloitation In Action

Apple likes to portray itself as an ultra-modern progressive firm but its exploitation of workers can beat anything from the 19th century. It uses Pegatron factories in China to manufacture iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. 'An undercover investigation of three Pegatron factories employing 70,000 workers found 76 legal and ethical breaches, including poor conditions, withheld pay, forced illegal overtime and safety and environmental abuses, according to China Labor Watch, a leading workers' rights group.' (Times, 30 July) The report  goes on to say that the average hourly wage of Pegatron factory workers is 97p per hour and that Apple's weekly revenue at the end of last year was £2.7bn. RD

No American Dream

Social mobility in America is practically non-existent. The New York Times reveals that American children have very little chance of climbing out of the social and economic class that they’re born into.

According to the NYT study, a third of Americans studied who grew up in the top 1 percent made $100,000 by the age of 30. Only 1 out of every 25 Americans who grew up in the bottom half of America’s income distribution was making the same amount at the same age.

Income inequality has increased in nearly every state in the country over the past three decades.

The incomes for the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans are eight times greater than those at the bottom 20 percent.

Real wages have been falling for decades. What the corporations want is a surplus of labor supply. With surplus labor, wages generally do not rise and therefore all the gains from productivity increase will go to profit, not wages. With profit as the goal – workers and services will be reduced to increase profit.

We are the People

"The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority" - The Communist Manifesto

"The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves" - The First International

Socialism is not a reform, it is a revolution. Socialists say plainly that mere reform of existing society is impossible, or if possible, useless. The Socialist Party is not concerned whether this revolution  comes next year or next century that is not a question that matters to us. It is bound to come sometime and the party’s task is to do all it can to hasten its coming (although we all personally want to be there to celebrate its coming and its triumph)

For the first time since the beginning of human history, a great upheaval will have for its aim, not the substitution of one class for another, but the destruction of classes with the common good as its object. Let it be clearly understood that by revolution we do not mean violence or bloodshed.  A new socialist  system cannot be created by a minority. It can only function with the approval of an immense majority.  It is this majority that will create from capitalistic chaos, the social property, co-operative and communal. How, then, can a system based on the free collaboration of all be instituted against the will, or even without the will, of the greater number? It can only succeed by the general and almost unanimous desire of the community.  Precisely because socialism is precisely is not the regime of a minority that it cannot, therefore, and ought not, to be imposed by a minority.  The Socialist Revolution will be brought about by the will of all of the majority and by the power of a majority. Mass socialist consciousness and mass participation are essential.

The Socialist Party does not shy away from apportioning some fault with the working class. The capitalist class and the working-class stand openly opposed to each other. The class lines are clearly defined. There is no mistaking who is a capitalist and who is a workman, who is rich and who is poor. We all know that the capitalist class are the 1% and we are the 99%. That is to say, we are in  are in the clear majority yet we suffer the capitalist class to rule us. If that is what workers want, that is what workers will get and as long as they are satisfied with the capitalists’ domination they will have to continue to submit to it.

In this current crisis we in the Socialist Party must offer a wider perspective of their problems and articulate the workers anger into a wider view of how to transform society. Unless that is done, their anger can all too easily sink back into apathy. The Socialist Party appeals to our fellows in all lands to work for the interests of themselves and of others, in order to bring about, even in our own day, the Social Revolution which can alone give freedom and happiness to mankind. We appeal  to the working class to come together in one class-conscious solidarity. We present the politics of revolt. We are educating, we are agitating, we are organising, that is to way we are preparing for the revolution.

 As the workers anthem the International says no "saviours from on high" will free us

More pay restraint ahead

CBI Scotland has urged the Scottish Parliament not to support a living wage.

CBI Scotland's senior policy executive Lauren Paterson said: "Pay restraint has played an important role in supporting current levels of employment...Pay restraint is set to continue with containing labour costs cited as the second-highest workforce priority for businesses in the next 12 months...decisions on pay must be left at the discretion of the individual business, taking into account their wider business strategy, including affordability."

Dave Watson, Scottish organiser of Unison, said: "One of the primary causes of the longest and deepest recession for a generation has been the shift from wages into profits...It's the fat-cat pay of the CBI bosses that is out of control."

Britain's workers are suffering the most protracted squeeze on their incomes since the long depression of the 1870s and are now well into their fourth year of falling real wages. High inflation and stagnant pay for many workers mean that real wages have now fallen for 40 months, according to calculations by the TUC. It says that is the longest such stretch of financial pain since 1875 to 1878, when the world economy was mired in the so-called long depression.

Economists say there is little prospect of wages outstripping inflation any time soon. TUC senior economist Duncan Weldon said: "At the very, very best it will be mid-2014 and even then it will take lots of time to make up the lost ground."

money goes to money

The names of more than 19,000 landowners and farmers who annually receive public subsidies totalling more than £500 million are to be kept secret. It follows a ruling in November 2010 by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg that publishing the information breached people's rights to privacy.

The last time the subsidy information was released in 2010, four farmers in Scotland were given record handouts of more than £1m each. Other big landowners given hundreds of thousands of pounds included the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Morton, the Earl of Moray, the Earl of Rosebery and the Earl of Seafield.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/under-wraps-500m-of-public-cash-given-to-landowners.21721630

The Only Solution

Many people will say “socialism is a good idea but it cannot be realised in practice.”

No blueprint can be given but socialists must at least present various scenarios as well as what is possible and not possible. Socialism is the organization of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is the abolition of all classes and class differences.

Socialism offers a vision of a new society — a society of men and women living in mutual helpfulness and good will; a free, equal, and happy society of peace and abundance.  Socialism is the overthrow of the capitalist system, and the establishing in its place of a Co-operative Commonwealth.  Capitalism has only known how to cause humanity unhappiness; socialism will establish peace and happiness among men.

We cannot present what a socialist utopia would look like. This decision is not ours to make. All we can do is to help provide that spark that will help people to arrive at their own conclusions.

Being a socialist consists not in waiting for its actual realisation, but in striving, here and now for it.  Our theory is a guide to action. Only by deeds can socialism come about. Being a socialist is not merely in recognizing the trend of social evolution from capitalism to socialism endeavouring to help hasten its day. Being a socialist is not only holding a  vision that life will be better under socialism; that human nature, crippled and deformed in the class society, will assert itself and change for the better; and that people in the socialist society will be different and better but requires going beyond just words to achieve it.

Time and again the socialist struggle has been sidetracked by the appearance of a so-called radical leader who held out the promise of immediate victory and salvation. Time and again  people believed in the false prophet only to reap a heavy harvest of bitter disappointment.

The Socialist Party is not a party of patchwork reform, or a party of sham revolutionary phrases but, as a social democratic party, promoting within the working class movement a programme of education in the economic and political struggle. The goal of the Socialist Party is socialism, not  a reformed capitalism. Its tactics must be those that will bring about socialism. The Socialist  Party call on all socialists to fight the political fight on the straight ticket of revolutionary socialism. A reformist programme can be nothing but a reactionary capitalist programme to-day. We of the World Socialist Movement will fight this fight on the principle of the abolition of the private ownership of property. 

For a new future

No sane person  can be satisfied with the present system. It is a question of human freedom versus human slavery and it is only the rich and powerful who are happy by right.

Socialism is not some utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. Socialism will be won through the overthrow of capitalism and the capture of political power by the working class.  In socialism, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society.  Because the workers will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures.

 It is a question not of reform, the mask of fraud,  but of revolution that the propagandists and apologists for the status quo have falsely associated with “anarchy and bloodshed.” Electoral struggle will  be one tactic among many. It is the most reliable, the most probable, and, at the right moment, the most decisive weapon in the workers armoury. But the actual manner in which the revolutionary process will develop and progress cannot be predicted. It may well not be a straight line to the electoral capture of power.  It will be something that people will forge out of the concrete experiences of engaging in the class struggle.

Our vision of socialism see the means of production – the factories, mines, mills, big workshops, offices, agricultural fields, banks, transportation system, media, communications, medical facilities, big retailers, etc.,being  transformed into common property of all. Production  will not be geared to make  profit, but to serve human needs. Rational self-regulating planning will replace the present anarchistic system. The working class must get rid of the ruling class exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production. Workers will democratically run their own work places through workers’ councils and elected administrators. In this way workers will be able to make their work places safe and efficient places that can well serve their own interests as well as society’s. Although there will be no overnight miracles when socialism is first established,  the way will be cleared to achieve a decent, meaningful and productive life for all working people. Classes will disappear, the state will “wither” away, we will realise the object of “from each according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s need.”

 A new era of human freedom will arise. The world’s population will have free access to the wealth their labor produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families and friends and neighbors, the fruits of their industry in comfortable and happy homes, and share abundant and wholesome food, proper clothing and all other things necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” How quickly this Earth can be transformed and made to blossom with beauty.

 The Socialist party offers the only remedy to the problems of to-days world, which is socialism and we are pledged to abolish the capitalist system, class-rule and wage-slavery and establish in its place an industrial and social democracy in which the workers shall be in control of industry and the people shall rule. We are pledged not to compromise our objective nor enter into alliance with non-socialist parties. It is simply a question of capitalism or socialism and those who are not wholly with us are wholly against us.

in its place an industrial and social democracy in which the workers shall be in control of industry and the people shall rule.

Who owns the North Pole Part 61

The UK is "complacently standing by" as firms start drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic, a group of MPs has said. The Environmental Audit Committee said this was despite oil companies being unable to prove "they could clean up an oil spill in such harsh conditions".

It called for a halt to new drilling, saying it was risky for the climate and the environment. Exploring for new reserves in the Arctic is therefore "needlessly risky", the MPs argued.

"What happens in the Arctic will affect the UK, impacting our weather systems and biodiversity," committee chairwoman Joan Walley said. "Yet this government is complacently standing by and watching new oil and gas drilling in the region." She added: "The rapidly-disappearing Arctic sea ice should be a wake-up call for this government to tackle climate change, not pave the way for a corporate carve-up of the region's resources."

Greenpeace UK political director Ruth Davis said the present government stance on drilling for oil in the Arctic suggests "its real interests lie in promoting the irresponsible plans" of oil companies.

Blood Sports

Former Scotland internationalist Rory Lamont has lifted the lid on rugby players “cheating” concussion protocols and insisted many well-known figures are knowingly taking the field with head injuries. When Lamont started pro rugby concussion brought a mandatory three-week lay-off, but that was argued, largely by coaches, to be over-prescriptive in cases of minor concussion. Coaches flouted it in any case by pretending concussion had not occurred.

The 30-year-old retired last month after a succession of injuries, undergoing 16 operations and suffering “at least six or seven clean knock-outs” in games, and many more what he terms “minor concussions”. He explained “... there is a high risk of me developing neurological issues associated with the early stages of ‘Parkinson’s Disease’. But what’s done is done...Once you start losing your mind there’s no coming back from it. You can be an alcoholic and have cirrhosis of the liver, and get a new liver and come off the booze, but there’s no coming back from brain damage.”

 US experts have begun investigating  potential links between depression and suicide in former American Footballers who suffered from concussion, through the ‘Boston Brain Bank’ – the Centre for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University.  In the United States, former NFL players are now suing the league over the use of the powerful anti-inflammatory drug Toradol. They argue that the medication masked the pain of head injuries and led them to play on and suffer concussions as result. Lawsuits have been filed against the league in federal court alleging that the NFL failed to acknowledge and address neurological risks associated with the sport and then deliberately failed to tell players about the risks they faced. The players say that sometimes they were lined up in what they termed a 'cattle call' and injected with the drug whether they were injured or not. Similar concerns have been expressed in NHL, where hockey players are paid to inflict and to absorb pain and can become addicted to painkillers.

Dr Jiri Dvorak found that almost 40% of players at the 2010 World Cup were taking pain medication prior to every game. Experts say that painkilling medication can be particularly dangerous in professional sport. In high-intensity exercise like football, a player's kidneys are continuously working hard, making them more vulnerable to damage from strong drugs. And the risks of using nsaids are not just confined to the kidneys and liver. There are also worries over their impact on hearts. Dr Stuart Warden from the University of Indiana is an expert in the use of these drugs by athletes."There is an elevated risk of cardio vascular side-effects with almost all nsaids and the risk increases with duration of use."

A study published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that the risk of injury in football may have been played down, at least at the professional level. The Center for Hazard and Risk Management at Loughborough University found that players had a 12 percent risk of injury every game. More significantly, they reported that almost a third of professional players would suffer at least one injury this season.
''The injury rate, is about 1,000 times what you'd find in industry,'' said Dr. Colin Fuller, a lecturer of health and safety management at the center and director of the study. ''It works out to every employee having a reportable injury once every three weeks, which, of course, would be completely unacceptable.'' Only a third of the injuries resulted from fouls. The rest involved legal contact between opposing players.

"Soccer is not a sport. It is a knee killer" said Alwin Jaeger, MD, chairman of orthopedic surgery at the University of Frankfurt in Germany.

According to a 2006 report in the Florida paper St. Petersburg Times, for every season a player spends on an NFL roster, his life expectancy decreases by almost three years.The average American male lives to be almost 75. According to the Times report, an NFL player, whose career lasts roughly four years on average, lives to be 55.

Self-harm for the love of the sport or is it the sporting industry’s love of the profits and the players are only fodder?

The Ideas of the Socialist Party

An alternative to capitalism means ending production for profit and establishing a new non-state form of administration and decision-making and building free associations of producers.

Since the fall of state-capitalism in Russia that falsely called itself “socialism” advocating this  alternative to capitalism has become even more urgent. We oppose capitalism regardless of its particular property form and regardless of whether the economy is a “market” or “planned” one. We expose the misconception that state-capitalism is or can become socialism.

We have to give shape to what is possible in a new, post-capitalist society and provide the vision of a new society in which every man and woman control their own lives. The necessity for a new society is clear.  It falls upon socialists to prove that a libertarian alternative to capitalism exists and is possible by showing that socialism can be achieved.

We reject the concept of the elitist, vanguard party-form of organisation for fighting the class struggle or constructing a new society.  Our form of organisation may not be a model for all movements under all circumstances, but it reflects the democratic non-leadership principle that movements have continuously tried to embrace. We are not trying to lead workers, who will create their own mass organisations to transform society (of which we may the embryo or might simply be a contributory part) , The emancipation of the working class must be their own act.

 We have seen that spontaneous actions alone are insufficient to usher in a new society and that a permanent and structured political party is necessary to act. The entire membership of the Socialist Party is  the highest decision-making body of the organisation. All our policy decisions are made by a vote of the membership, based on the principle of majority rule. The interests of working people as a whole guide our thoughts and actions, as well as our structure and rules. We have no interests separate and apart from these.

Not all “alternatives” to capitalism are genuine alternatives and many of the proposed “solutions” offer a cure worse than the sickness. We must present a socialist future as the most viable option for the working class to choose. People everywhere, today, are looking for a new way of life under which they can be free to guide their own destiny: to determine their own way of living, own conditions of work, and own forms of association with each other. We believe that the working people are the only force in the world today capable of changing present-day society and of evolving the forms and the shape of future society.

Whose Scotland?

The Top 20 Landowners in Scotland:  www.highlandclearances.co.uk/clearances/postclearances_whoownsscotland.htm To put these figures into some perspective, the land area of the capital city (Edinburgh) is 64,500 acres. OWNER ACRES Forestry Commission 1,600,000 Duke of Buccleuch 270,000 Scottish Executive - Rural Affairs 260,000 National Trust for Scotland 175,000 Alcan Highlands 135,000 Blair Charitable Trust (Private Trust) 130,000 Captain Alwyn Farquharson 125,000 Duchess of Westminster 120,000 Earl of Seafield 105,000 Crown Estate Commission (MOD) 100,000 Edmund Vestey 100,000 South Uist Estate Ltd. 92,000 Sir Donald Cameron 90,000 Countess of Sutherland 90,000 RSPB (52 estates) 87,000 Paul van Vlissengen 87,000 Scottish Natural Heritage 84,000 Robin Fleming 80,000 Hon. Chas Pearson 77,000 Lord Margadale 73,000

Stealing candy from children

University of California’s Paul Piff led a series of experiments that delved into the behavior associated with inequality in the United States.

 In one experiment, Piff placed an individual in a room with a bowl of candy on the table. He said the candy was intended for a study being done with children later, but they were welcome to have a few pieces, but not very much. Wealthier participants took two times as much candy from children as the poorer participants.

Piff then tested honesty in reporting dice rolls, when a cash prize was on the line.  They found that people in the upper income brackets, that were making $150,000-$200,000 were four times more likely to cheat than people in lower income brackets just to win credits for a $50 cash prize.

Piff led another experiment where he simply made people feel rich in the office.  He did this through a simple game of monopoly, played with two people. One person begins the game more well off.  They get $2,000 to the poorer person’s $1,000.  They get to start the game with the Rolls-Royce, instead of an old boot-playing piece.  And finally, they get to roll two die, instead of just one. The game was rigged for the player who started out wealthier to win.

While the rich players are determined randomly, by the end of the game, when the richer players are asked whether they deserved to win the game, the answer was unanimously, yes.  They attributed success to themselves, even though it was simply a coin flip that got them on the rich side of the monopoly board.  In a game as simple as this, we see that the richer individual in the game, starts to attribute success more and more to their own character, and less and less to all of the other factors that influenced their success.

It is clear that inequality produces behaviors that rationalize where we fall on the economic ladder.

Those who were on the rich side of the board were more likely to eat from a bowl of pretzels positioned on the table. The talked with their mouths full so they were a little ruder.  But, the psychologically poor become way more generous, charitable, and much more likely to offer help to another person.

See here

To Dream Of A New World

The Socialist Party gives the people the shocking facts about capitalism and calls upon them to take action to abolish it. The Socialist Party describes the kind of world we are working for and show how it can be achieved. We sound the alarm at the new horrors, we denounce the latest outrages and expose the pervasive scandals.  And we wonder: Why don’t people listen? Perhaps because it is the same old song we sing, our lyrics might change but the music is still the usual old lament.

The world as we wish it to be is no mere fantasy. We have been offered science fiction-like descriptions of technology that can create a clean, sustainable environment for the whole biosphere that can satisfy the reasonable needs of all.  This isn’t simply a fantasy: the technology already exists.

 We won’t stop shouting from the rooftops about everything that’s is wrong.

"The weapon of criticism cannot, of course," Marx wrote in 1844, "replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." A revolution in thought must precede a revolution in deed.

We are now witnessing people around the world becoming more and more aware of their real needs.

"No class of civil society can play this role," Marx says, "without arousing a moment of enthusiasm in itself and in the masses, a moment in which it fraternizes and merges with society in general, becomes confused with it and is perceived and acknowledged as its general representative; a moment in which its demands and rights are truly the rights and demands of society itself; a moment in which it is truly the social head and social heart."

The new day of a full fledged socialist revolution, demanding the abolition of private property, freeing humanity from exploitation and oppression draws closer and we should be minded that it is always darkest before the dawn.

 Hearts of Glory 

I dreamt a dream of ancient times 
when hearts were filled with glory 
and everyone was living in sweeet simplicity 
Pray it's not a fable 
Pray the day will come 
When to live like this in Eden's bliss 
will be reality

 Chuck, the Cliff.

Fact of the Day

Today's Jungle

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, nearly one in three slaughterhouse workers suffers from illness or injury, compared to one in 10 workers in other manufacturing jobs. Slaughterhouse workers are also 35 times more likely to suffer from repetitive stress injuries than their counterparts in other manufacturing jobs.

The Socialist Challenge

We rebel against capitalism not in the name of an abstract principle of justice, but to displace the capitalist class, privileged minority. To put it another way, we stand for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie.

The social revolution we conceive of can only be made by and for the people, without any false representatives offering themselves up as leaders. We believe that socialist society will be organised from the bottom up and not from top down, by a central authority served by an army of functionaries. The workers have no need of chiefs and are quite capable of delegating  one of our own with a particular task. This being understood, the revolution obviously cannot be the work of a vanguard  it demands the participation of  the entire working class. Without that, it would be little more than a doomed coup d’etat or putsch, not a social revolution. We witnessed how the Lenin and the Bolshevik Party kill the revolution for its own domination.

We possess, even today, sufficient means of production to satisfy all reasonable needs, i.e., to provide a well-being to all. There will no longer be, as is the case today, men condemned to long days of toil and drudgery. Men and women will pass from one job to another, from manual labor to study and artistic recreation. But in working, in studying, in cultivating the fine arts, etc, their goal will always be to make themselves useful to their community.

We shouldn’t lose sight of the task of the socialist movement. We will have in the beginning  to work not only to produce what we consume today, but a hundred times more to remove the suffering and deprivation endured by others across the globe. We have not only to establish local organisations , but also regional and international ones to organise and administer our society. We need only think of situation of cities, whose provisioning depends on countless supply chains with surrounding area and further afield, while the countryside is dependent upon the cities for machinery. We need only think of the current distribution of industries, of the organization of exchange, of the great networks of communication, etc. Without a doubt all this must be changed, but this can’t be done overnight. There will be trial and error, possibly even conflicts before agreement can be reached. Just to determine what must be produced, which needs deserve preference, and what limitations individuals should impose on their desires a certain amount of time will be needed for decision making. We will not immediately fall upon a perfect system. There will be no heavenly inspiration, but experience and experimentation will determine what society has need of at a given moment.

We must prove to the world that socialism isn’t an abstract concept, a scientific dream, or a distant vision, but an immediate possibility and wanting the social revolution,  we will choose the means that seem most apt to bring it closer.

We are all made of a common substance and inhabit a common planet, facing a common threat, and that, as human beings, our individual interests and flourishing are deeply interdependent. In short, no one can be fully human alone. When we hurt another, we hurt ourselves. We are at root social and collective beings.

There are millions of people out there who in some way or another are looking out for something  beyond the present system, even if the words ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ do not cross their lips. The challenge, the need, then, is to find a way to catch their attention, and to hold it long enough to build something together out of our mutual recognition.

1)  Capitalism itself is a system based on increasingly socialized labor, one that brings people together in new ways and that unleashes productive (and destructive) forces of unprecedented power (and danger);
2) that this system remains fundamentally incapable of satisfying the needs and wants of the vast majority of humanity because of fatal flaws;
3) that human beings are capable of thinking, desiring, wanting, and wishing in ways that point beyond this system’s limits;
4) that among our needs is the need to satisfy the other’s need; that it is within our capacity, even perhaps integral to our nature, that we see in the other a being ultimately very much like ourselves, that we see ourselves reflected in the other.

These points, taken together, imply nothing less than the potential and necessity for a communist, cooperative organization of the world. Socialism can be understood not as with the achievement of some utopian end-state or with the toppling of the capitalist order, the seizing of factories, etc), but a conscious desire to bring about mutual aid.  

Bankrupt Scots

The recent downward trend in the number of individuals and companies going bankrupt in Scotland has reversed dramatically in recent months, official figures show.

In the first quarter of 2013-14 (April to June) personal insolvencies were up 14.7 per cent and corporate insolvencies were up 28.7 per cent.

Bryan Jackson, business restructuring partner with BDO LLP, said the rise in payday and short-term lenders points to "serious financial problems among thousands of Scots".

Mr Jackson said: "Following recent falls, the increase in the number of personal insolvencies in the second quarter suggests that the pent-up indebtedness of many individuals has burst through.There is little doubt that many individuals have been living from month to month, or week to week, simply feeding the interest on their debts rather than reducing the debt itself. Until now, this has delayed some from falling into insolvency, but this quarter's figures suggest that their financial situation has deteriorated beyond the point where they could cope and this has resulted in their bankruptcy. Unfortunately, I would not be surprised to see continued increases in personal insolvencies in the months to come. The increase in the number of payday and short-term lenders is indicative of serious financial problems among thousands of Scots whose circumstances will only be exacerbated by such loans."