Supporters of capitalism are always telling socialists that the buying and selling system of the profit system is the most efficient way to run society. This despite wars, world poverty and unemployment. 'Greece's unemployment rate hit another record high in May of 27.6%, according to the country's statistics body. The figure, from the Hellenic Statistics Authority, compares with a jobless rate of 23.8% in May last year. Among those in the labour market aged 15-24, the rate is 64.9%, as Greece sees its sixth year of recession.' (BBC News, 9 August) This is not peculiar to Greece. Last week, figures from the official Eurozone statistics agency reported that Greece's unemployment rate was 26.9% in June, compared with a Eurozone-wide figure of 12.1%, according to the same BBC report. Millions of workers throughout Europe are been debarred from producing wealth. Think what production could be inside a socialist society. RD
The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Friday, August 09, 2013
If You've Got It, Flaunt It
At a time when many workers are desperately trying to get together enough money for the deposit on a house the owning class are continuing in their usual spendthrift fashion. 'Britain's most expensive parking place has gone on the market for £300,000, almost twice the price of the average home. The open-air spot is 11ft by 21ft and is in Hyde Park Gardens, London, where many houses cost millions of pounds.' (Times, 8 August) If you think that was unusually expensive the same report mentions an underground parking space near Harrods that was priced at £200,000 in 2011. RD
No New Chains
While the banks may be part of the problem it is the capitalist system as a whole which is at fault. Socialism starts of with the basic truism that our present system divides society into two classes, the “have all” and the “have nothing” class, and that it is the great mass of the people that do all the useful work who belong to the “have nothing” class. In this system we have one set called capitalists, and another set called workers; and they are at war with each other over a division of the product. Therefore socialism is class conscious. This does not mean that socialists must hate every capitalist individually, that some should be picked out as “scapegoats” while the economic power and political encroachment of all the others should be silently submitted to. It means that while we understand that every individual capitalist is the result of the present system as much as the wage worker, we still must fight the capitalists as a class, because the producers cannot reasonably expect anything but exploitation from the exploiters as a class. In short, socialism recognizes that the development of capitalist society substitutes tyrannical monopoly by a minority for individual property of the many.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain in common with all political parties, is a class party. The Socialist Party did not create class lines or class distinctions and regardless of whoever or whatever is to blame for the situation, there is no denying the fact that society is divided into these two well defined groups. As a matter of fact, this condition was not brought about through the plans or cunningly devised schemes of any group in particular. The banker, industrialist and property speculator are just as truly products of this system as the impoverished worker. But we frankly admit that our own political organisation is but an expression of class interest. The party therefore exists for the sole purpose of representing the producers of the world , that is to say, the working class. Seeing clearly the age-long struggle between the producers of the world’s necessities and the parasites upon their backs, the Marxian philosophy of the historic “class struggle” is the foundation of its propaganda and organisation work.
We in the Socialist Party do not advocate a policy of partial remedies such as minimum wage laws, or stringent banking and financial regulations plus all the kinds of legislation that has marked the attempts of the ruling class to placate the workers. In the end, an enlightened and class-conscious proletariat will be satisfied with nothing less than the collective ownership and democratic management of the means and instruments of production and distribution. There will be no material change in the condition of the people until we have a new social system based upon the mutual economic interests of the people: until you and I and all of us own in common those things that we collectively need and use.
The Socialist Party therefore calls upon all workers to unite under its banner so that we may be ready to conquer capitalism by making use of our political power, so that we may put an end to the present barbaric system by the abolition of capitalism, the restoration of the land, and of all the means of production, transportation, and distribution, to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of unplanned production and social disorder — a commonwealth which, although it will not make every person equal physically or mentally, will give to every worker the free exercise and the full benefit of their faculties. We challenge those who are never tired of repeating that want, hunger, and necessity are imperative to make the bulk of people do any work at all, and declare that “human nature being always essentially lazy”. Don’t tell us that some people are too lazy to work which we deny but even so, what do you think of a social system that produces people too lazy to work? If a person is too lazy to work don’t treat him with contempt. Don’t look down upon him with scorn as if you were a superior being. If there is a person too lazy to work there is something the matter with him or her and have been corrupted by this system. You could not, if you tried, keep a normal person inactive, and if you did he or she would go stark mad. Our conduct is determined largely by our economic relations. If you and I must fight each other to exist, we will not love each other very hard. Business transactions are about competition and what is more natural than that we should try to get the better of our fellows and cheat them if we can? And if you succeed that makes you as a success to be admired and emulated by others. When we have stopped clutching each others’ throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers and sisters, and we will establish the greatest civilization the human race has ever known.
The Socialist Party will fight open and above board everywhere against all capitalist parties alike. They cannot and will not assist capitalist politicians of one colour in one country and of the
other hue in another country. In short, the Socialist Party will be simply socialists and nothing else. Nature has laid out a bountiful spread for all to enjoy. There is little you can think of that cannot be produced in abundance. There is a plate and a place at the table with food for all, and any system of society that denies people the right and the opportunity to freely help themselves to Nature’s fruits ought to be abolished.
What does the Socialist Party propose to do for the worker. Nothing! We simply want to awaken the workers to the fact that they are robbed every day in the week and if we can do that they will go to the polls on election day, and, instead of casting a vote to tighten the chains, they will vote for their emancipation. All the Socialist Party does is to show workers that they are victims of this system, that their interests are identical, that they constitute the millions and that the millions have the votes. The 1% have the money, but we, the 99%, have the votes; and when we, have sense enough to know how to use the votes we will have not only the votes but will take the world’s wealth to be shared by all. If the working class keep on voting in the same old way, then the capitalists will just keep on getting what they produce. Some trust in governments to save them but Parliament is made up with few exceptions of opportunists and careerists. Now, in this competitive system the lackey sells him or herself to the highest bidder, the same as the worker does. Who is the highest bidder? The corporations, of course.
From the narrow field of trade union struggle workers must enter the broad field of class struggle. But the workers themselves must take a wider view of the world. From their trade, from their work within the factory walls, their mind must widen to encompass society as a whole. They have to face the State; they enter the realm of politics. Effective unions will never exist till the workers are revolutionary socialists, just as effective political action can never come till the masses are thoroughly class-conscious and are fully determined to stop all thievery by the capitalist class and build instead the co-operative commonwealth. If ever there was a time for workers to unite to fight their battle against capitalism and end wage-slavery, that time is now.
Thursday, August 08, 2013
Food for thought
A fire in a factory in north-east China, where 119 people died, seems to have been eclipsed news-wise by the collapse of a building in Bangladesh, but is no less terrible in its blatant lack of preventative measures. Many of the deaths at the Baoyuan poultry plant were caused by blocked and inadequate exits. As one survivor said, " People were all rushing, pressing and crushing each other. I fell over and had to crawl forward using all my might." This is similar to the infamous fire at New York's Triangle Shirt Waist Factory in 1911 where 140 died because of a locked door. This clearly shows that nothing has changed in a hundred years of capitalism because the capital to fix it would have to come out of profits and that can't happen. To emphasize this point The New York Times of Sunday, July 28th . contained an article entitled, "Halfhearted Reform In Bangladesh". The world pressure has prompted the Bangladeshi government to make union forming to counteract the rapacious demands of capitalism. Unfortunately, the changes fall far short of what is needed and will be essentially ineffective. Surely, it's time to abolish a system that allows, no encourages, this monstrosity! John Ayers.
Poultry Plant Fire in China is Latest Tragedy for Dangerous Poultry Industry 2013-06-07 [UFCW]
Workers struggle with Chinese instructions 2013-06-07 [The Namibian]
Probe Into Poultry Plant Fire Amid Uproar Over Safety 2013-06-05 [Radio Free Asia]
Slaughterhouse blaze: Relatives demand answers over reports of locked exits 2013-06-05 [ABC]
Poultry Plant Fire in China is Latest Tragedy for Dangerous Poultry Industry 2013-06-07 [UFCW]
Workers struggle with Chinese instructions 2013-06-07 [The Namibian]
Probe Into Poultry Plant Fire Amid Uproar Over Safety 2013-06-05 [Radio Free Asia]
Slaughterhouse blaze: Relatives demand answers over reports of locked exits 2013-06-05 [ABC]
We are not alone
Socialist Courier came across this article by Richard Smith at “Capitalism and the destruction of life on Earth” on the Real World Economic Review. It is well worth reading in full but these are some pertinent extracts. We would, however, not accept some of what Smith suggests to address the environmental problems such as his advocacy of nationalization for the large key industries and the continuance of small businesses.
Extracts
Corporations aren’t necessarily evil, though plenty are diabolically evil, but they can’t help themselves. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do for the benefit of their shareholders. Shell Oil can’t help but loot Nigeria and the Arctic and cook the climate. That’s what shareholders demand. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and other mining giants can’t resist mining Australia’s abundant coal and exporting it to China and India. Mining accounts for 19% of Australia’s GDP and substantial employment even as coal combustion is the single worst driver of global warming. IKEA can’t help but level the forests of Siberia and Malaysia to feed the Chinese mills building its flimsy disposable furniture (IKEA is the third largest consumer of lumber in the world). Apple can’t help it if the cost of extracting the “rare earths” it needs to make millions of new iThings each year is the destruction of the eastern Congo – violence, rape, slavery, forced induction of child soldiers, along with poisoning local waterways. Monsanto and DuPont and Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science have no choice but to wipe out bees, butterflies, birds, small farmers and extinguish crop diversity to secure their grip on the world’s food supply while drenching the planet with their Roundups and Atrazines and neonicotinoids. This is how giant corporations are wiping out life on earth in the course of a routine business day. And the bigger the corporations grow, the worse the problems become.
In Adam Smith’s day, when the first factories and mills produced hat pins and iron tools and rolls of cloth by the thousands, capitalist freedom to make whatever they wanted didn’t much matter because they didn’t have much impact on the global environment. But today, when everything is produced in the millions and billions, then trashed today and reproduced all over again tomorrow, when the planet is looted and polluted to support all this frantic and senseless growth, it matters – a lot.
Extracts
Corporations aren’t necessarily evil, though plenty are diabolically evil, but they can’t help themselves. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do for the benefit of their shareholders. Shell Oil can’t help but loot Nigeria and the Arctic and cook the climate. That’s what shareholders demand. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and other mining giants can’t resist mining Australia’s abundant coal and exporting it to China and India. Mining accounts for 19% of Australia’s GDP and substantial employment even as coal combustion is the single worst driver of global warming. IKEA can’t help but level the forests of Siberia and Malaysia to feed the Chinese mills building its flimsy disposable furniture (IKEA is the third largest consumer of lumber in the world). Apple can’t help it if the cost of extracting the “rare earths” it needs to make millions of new iThings each year is the destruction of the eastern Congo – violence, rape, slavery, forced induction of child soldiers, along with poisoning local waterways. Monsanto and DuPont and Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science have no choice but to wipe out bees, butterflies, birds, small farmers and extinguish crop diversity to secure their grip on the world’s food supply while drenching the planet with their Roundups and Atrazines and neonicotinoids. This is how giant corporations are wiping out life on earth in the course of a routine business day. And the bigger the corporations grow, the worse the problems become.
In Adam Smith’s day, when the first factories and mills produced hat pins and iron tools and rolls of cloth by the thousands, capitalist freedom to make whatever they wanted didn’t much matter because they didn’t have much impact on the global environment. But today, when everything is produced in the millions and billions, then trashed today and reproduced all over again tomorrow, when the planet is looted and polluted to support all this frantic and senseless growth, it matters – a lot.
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Only human nature, ain't it?
.jpg)
Human nature is something that ordinary people have very badly – which is why we need tough laws. All the ills of present-day society are attributed to the imperfection of human nature. This is what we are taught.
Marx explained that "each new class which puts itself in the place of the one ruling before it, is compelled, simply in order to achieve its aims, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society i.e. ..to give its ideas the form of universality and to represent them as the only rational and universally valid ones". Ideas become presented as if they are universal, neutral, common sense. However, more subtly, we find concepts such as freedom, democracy, liberty or phrases such as "a fair days work for a fair days pay" being bandied around by opinion makers as if they were not contentious. They are, in Marxist terms, ideological constructs, in so far as they are ideas serving as weapons for social interests. They are put forward for people to accept in order to prop up the system. Ideas are not neutral. They are determined by the existing relations of production, by the economic structure of society. Ideas change according to the interests of the dominant class in society.
Food for thought
The Brazilian saviour of the poor, Lula de Silva, a mineworkers' leader, rose to become president of Brazil. Although he put in reforms to help the poor, not out of poverty, of course, and presided over a period of economic prosperity that made Brazil the new economic miracle for a while (surely a curse for developing
nations) people are demonstrating in massive crowds that overshadowed the event, the Confederations cup of soccer. This shows again that no matter who gets control of power, if you are going to run capitalism, you are going to do it in the interests of the capitalists. John Ayers.
nations) people are demonstrating in massive crowds that overshadowed the event, the Confederations cup of soccer. This shows again that no matter who gets control of power, if you are going to run capitalism, you are going to do it in the interests of the capitalists. John Ayers.
1937: The Clydeside apprentices’ strike
Another page in the Scottish workers history can be read here on the Libcom website.
http://libcom.org/history/articles/clydeside-apprentices-strike-1937
The 1937 apprentices strike transformed the status of apprentices from separate individuals with practically no employment rights, to unionised workers. The apprentices were not forced back to work on the employers’ terms; they succeeded in forcing major concessions on earnings and trade union rights from the employers.
http://libcom.org/history/articles/clydeside-apprentices-strike-1937
The 1937 apprentices strike transformed the status of apprentices from separate individuals with practically no employment rights, to unionised workers. The apprentices were not forced back to work on the employers’ terms; they succeeded in forcing major concessions on earnings and trade union rights from the employers.
The Dark Truths
The capitalist class have traded their soul for the accumulation of profit. The world is not ruled by justice or morality, it is ruled by power. Capitalists control presidents and parliaments. They disdain the opinions of the common peoples of the world. They ridicule the organisations that have been established to protect the Earth and promote peace. Their end determines their actions; their laws supersede all others.
Tadeusz Borowski was a Pole who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. In his writings Borowski painted a picture of the concentration camps where humankind was without benevolence, without compassion; lacking empathy, lacking mercy; inexorable, ruthless, and malevolent; a savage, brutal animal devoid of morals but obedient to laws. Borowski believed there was no crime a man would not commit to save himself:
“The world is ruled by neither justice nor morality; crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is ruled by power and power is obtained with money. To work is senseless, because money cannot be obtained through work, but through exploitation of others. And if we cannot exploit as much as we wish, at least let us work as little as we can. Moral duty? We believe neither in the morality of man nor in the morality of systems.”
For Borowski Auschwitz, in contrast to the myths that sprang up immediately in the war's aftermath, is not a place of martyrdom or heroism. It is a place where inmates higher up in the camp hierarchy, the Polish political prisoners and others with special privileges, jeer at the Jews and Gypsies lower on the totem pole; where even a minor offense will be brutally avenged; where a prisoner, wondering if his girlfriend might have been sent to the gas chamber, muses, `So what, what's gone is gone.’ The most terrifying thing in Borowski’s stories is the icy detachment.
Borowski explains “You know how much I used to like Plato. Today i realize he lied. For the things of this world are not a reflection of the ideal, but a product of human sweat, blood and hard labour. It is we who built the pyramids, hewed the marble for the temples and the rocks for the imperial roads, we who pulled the oars in the galleys and dragged wooden ploughs, while they wrote dialogues and dramas, rationalized their intrigues by appeals in the name of the Fatherland, made wars over boundaries and democracies. We were filthy and died real deaths. They were 'aesthetic' and carried on subtle debates. There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.”
Time to take control and make a change. The capitalists have the power to-day and the working class gives them that power at every election. When workers raise themselves to the position of ruling class, by capturing political power, with that power in their possession they will set about the task of building a new order of society which will conform to the interests of all.
Tadeusz Borowski was a Pole who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. In his writings Borowski painted a picture of the concentration camps where humankind was without benevolence, without compassion; lacking empathy, lacking mercy; inexorable, ruthless, and malevolent; a savage, brutal animal devoid of morals but obedient to laws. Borowski believed there was no crime a man would not commit to save himself:
“The world is ruled by neither justice nor morality; crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is ruled by power and power is obtained with money. To work is senseless, because money cannot be obtained through work, but through exploitation of others. And if we cannot exploit as much as we wish, at least let us work as little as we can. Moral duty? We believe neither in the morality of man nor in the morality of systems.”
For Borowski Auschwitz, in contrast to the myths that sprang up immediately in the war's aftermath, is not a place of martyrdom or heroism. It is a place where inmates higher up in the camp hierarchy, the Polish political prisoners and others with special privileges, jeer at the Jews and Gypsies lower on the totem pole; where even a minor offense will be brutally avenged; where a prisoner, wondering if his girlfriend might have been sent to the gas chamber, muses, `So what, what's gone is gone.’ The most terrifying thing in Borowski’s stories is the icy detachment.
Borowski explains “You know how much I used to like Plato. Today i realize he lied. For the things of this world are not a reflection of the ideal, but a product of human sweat, blood and hard labour. It is we who built the pyramids, hewed the marble for the temples and the rocks for the imperial roads, we who pulled the oars in the galleys and dragged wooden ploughs, while they wrote dialogues and dramas, rationalized their intrigues by appeals in the name of the Fatherland, made wars over boundaries and democracies. We were filthy and died real deaths. They were 'aesthetic' and carried on subtle debates. There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.”
Time to take control and make a change. The capitalists have the power to-day and the working class gives them that power at every election. When workers raise themselves to the position of ruling class, by capturing political power, with that power in their possession they will set about the task of building a new order of society which will conform to the interests of all.
The World Commune
Today we are in a global recession and governments everywhere are engaging in reducing spending and imposing austerity cuts. But why should it always be the workers, the actual producers, us poor wage-slaves, and never the real scroungers, those in the City of London and on Wall St, who are called upon to sacrifice themselves for the common good? The answer to this question is perfectly simple. It is because we are living in a capitalist world, a capitalist system, and the Government and all the political institutions of which it represents, exist to maintain, capitalist interests. To make profit is the sole object of all production. Investors and hedge-fund managers are not concerned with supplying human needs. All they are concerned about is making profit by the exploitation. It is truly absurd that a mere handful of plutocrats should be masters and owners of the wealth of the world. All misery, all injustice and disorder, results from the fact that one class monopolises the means of production and of life, and imposes its laws on another class and on society as a whole. We are seeing signs that the working class wakening up to the fact and is beginning to rouse from its long slumber. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always maintained that the working class should jealously guard the right and the power to strike; that they should refuse to be shackled by any sort of compulsory arbitration, or any other restriction on their right to withhold their labour; and we have always given support to workers who have been on strike. Victory will come to the working class only if it is conscious and willing to struggle.
Socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to struggle for socialism and that means that they have some idea of what it is. If the people who vote for a socialist do not do so because he or she is a socialist but because they do not know that he or she is a socialist, of what use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend upon the consciousness of the working class and not upon their lack of knowledge. The idea that we should first be elected to office and then teach socialism to the masses is so utterly absurd that it should not even be discussed. It can be stated with the greatest of assurance that a party described as a socialist which refrains from teaching socialism with the idea that they will do so after elected will forget all about socialism once in office.
The first condition of success for socialism is that its adherents should explain its aim and its essential characteristics clearly, so that they can be understood by every one. We must do away with many misunderstandings created by our adversaries. The work of the SPGB is to help to educate the people by every effective means; and the knowledge we have to help them to is threefold--to know their own, to know how to take their own, and to know how to use their own. Part of our function is to educate the people by criticizing all attempts at so-called reforms, whose aim is not the realisation of equality, but the hindering of it. State capitalism’s or nationalisation, or by whatever name it may be called, aim is to make concessions and administrative changes to the working class while leaving the present system of capital and wages still in operation. With state ownership exploitation will continue as in private enterprise. Class relations which leaves the working class as a subject class is not socialism.
Socialist society will be voluntary in the sense that all people will agree in its broad principles when it is fairly established. A world socialist society is the only solution for the contradictions in the present capitalist society. Only a socialist society can utilize rationally the natural resources and productive machinery of the earth in the interests of the peoples of the earth. A federation of socialist communities can alone solve the conflict between the efficient development of productive forces and the restrictions of artificial national boundaries. All differences of class must be abolished by transferring the ownership of the means of production and of life, which is to-day a power of exploitation and oppression in the hands of a single class, from that class to the whole community. The rule of the minority must be substituted the universal co-operation of everyone. And that is why the essential aim of socialism is to transform capitalist property into social property. The rights of all individuals are guaranteed to-day, to-morrow and for ever.
Socialism will be an emancipated world, a society of economic and social equals wherein class divisions, privileges and disabilities will for the first time in history be impossible; a system of social ownership of the means of production industrially administered by the workers on an organised and harmonious plan, ensuring from every man according to his capacity and to every man according to his needs, under the motto “All for each and each for All”. The social revolution is the essential objective of the World Socialist Movement when the class war has been for ended, when humanity shall no longer cower under an oppressor and when none shall be called master and none servant. Socialism makes possible a society where there are no national prejudices or racial antagonisms or religious persecutions. It removes the CAUSE of these poisons. It makes possible a free society of human beings.
The Invisible Unemployed
Unemployment may be falling in Scotland in recent months but there is an ongoing increase in the number of people in part-time work and in temporary jobs.
There were 652,000 part-time workers in Scotland in the year to March 2010, but this had risen by 36,000 by March this year. The number of temporary workers has jumped 10,000 since June last year and stood at 128,000 in the year to 20 March. That is near enough a third of all Scottish workers.
Some workers will choose to work fewer hours, it is estimated that about a 250,000 Scottish workers are “underemployed”.
National figures show that 330,000 more people are underemployed in the UK than in 2010, including 200,000 with dependent children.
Keith Dryburgh, policy manager at Citizens Advice Scotland, warned “Citizens Advice bureaux are increasingly seeing people who want to work longer hours but cannot find them in a difficult economic climate. These are people who are struggling to make ends meet, and yet are often ‘invisible’ in the government’s statistics about employment.”
There were 652,000 part-time workers in Scotland in the year to March 2010, but this had risen by 36,000 by March this year. The number of temporary workers has jumped 10,000 since June last year and stood at 128,000 in the year to 20 March. That is near enough a third of all Scottish workers.
Some workers will choose to work fewer hours, it is estimated that about a 250,000 Scottish workers are “underemployed”.
National figures show that 330,000 more people are underemployed in the UK than in 2010, including 200,000 with dependent children.
Keith Dryburgh, policy manager at Citizens Advice Scotland, warned “Citizens Advice bureaux are increasingly seeing people who want to work longer hours but cannot find them in a difficult economic climate. These are people who are struggling to make ends meet, and yet are often ‘invisible’ in the government’s statistics about employment.”
It's not all over yet
The eight-year programme of cuts to budgets for running Scottish public services is only 40% over.
The analysis, by the Centre for Public Policy for Regions (CPPR) in Glasgow shows 60% are still to be applied between this year and 2017-18. The deepest cuts in that will be towards the last two years of the spending period. A £2.7bn real terms projected cut in resource spending still to come will be increasingly hard to accommodate, especially given the £1.8bn already experienced since 2009-10.
Professor John McLaren, one of the authors of the study, said: "The day-to-day, or resource, budget cuts still to come include some of the harshest annual reductions seen over this period".
The analysis, by the Centre for Public Policy for Regions (CPPR) in Glasgow shows 60% are still to be applied between this year and 2017-18. The deepest cuts in that will be towards the last two years of the spending period. A £2.7bn real terms projected cut in resource spending still to come will be increasingly hard to accommodate, especially given the £1.8bn already experienced since 2009-10.
Professor John McLaren, one of the authors of the study, said: "The day-to-day, or resource, budget cuts still to come include some of the harshest annual reductions seen over this period".
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Food for thought
Thomas Walkom of The Toronto Star in writing about the current recession, quotes Bank of Canada governor, Stephen Poloz, referring to Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who famously called boom and bust capitalism a process of creative destruction, "We've certainly had the destruction. But the creative side of the equation has been delayed" Agreed, but whose destruction are we talking about? The same article gives us a clue, " Employment insurance has become
particularly irrelevant. A new study by the Canadian Labour Congress calculates that only 35% of the jobless now qualify for EI. In Ontario, the percentage is 25, in Toronto 20." (although everyone and their employers contribute!). John Ayers
particularly irrelevant. A new study by the Canadian Labour Congress calculates that only 35% of the jobless now qualify for EI. In Ontario, the percentage is 25, in Toronto 20." (although everyone and their employers contribute!). John Ayers
Begs belief
Glasgow and Aberdeen are pressing for new by-laws to tackle the perceived problem of street-begging. The two city councils hope to enlist support of others to persuade the Scottish Government that new measures are required.
A law already covers begging which is obstructive, or causes fear or alarm.
A Revolutionary Idea
There is no other social power equal to a revolutionary movement in modern society. Armies crumble under revolutionary pressure as soldiers refuse to fire on peaceful protesters; police repression is shown to be powerless, and long-standing status quo political parties are cast aside and made redundant. If successful, a revolutionary movement can fundamentally change society. The Socialist Party of Great Britain endeavours to instill into the minds of our fellow workers the hope of the speedy advent of the socialist revolution.
We are all permeated by an uneasy feeling that all is not quite right with the world. Humanity is divided into two classes — the employers and the employed. We are socialists, and our purpose as a political party is to advance the case for a socialist society, and by socialism we mean the common ownership of wealth production, and this involves the complete replacement of the capitalist system, and the conducting of all industrial relations on a co-operative basis. The interest of each is that of all. The capitalist class, who own most of the land and the tools of production, also own the government and rule the working class, not for the well-being of the working class but for the well-being and profit of the capitalists. It is only by using their political power that the capitalist class make their exploitation of the workers legal and the oppression of their system constitutional. And it is only by using their political power that the working class can make their own exploitation illegal and their own oppression unconstitutional. It is only by the use of their political power that the working class can abolish capitalist rule and privilege, and establish a form of society based on the collective ownership of all the land and the tools of production. Organized in the political party - the Socialist Party - workers can, through the ballot box, abolish the capitalist system of ownership with its accompanying class rule and class oppression, and establish in its place socialism.
The label “revolution” implies that the overwhelming majority of people have decided and are dedicated to a specific path for society. This means that the “masses” are passionately intervening to change society, overcoming fear and repression until their objectives are met. In this sense revolution is the highest form of democracy, since it’s the clearest expression of the people’s will, expressed through ongoing massive deliberate action. Revolution is a display of power by working people, who collectively choose to assert themselves into public life in order to change it. In non-revolutionary times working people do not actualise their power; they aren’t even aware that they have any, as they passively ignore any role in social life as individuals, silently delegating their political power to capitalist-bought politicians. The ultimate sign that a situation has entered a revolutionary period is that the masses directly intervene in social life as an independent, powerful force, through ongoing collective action. The people seek to actualise their power. There is no revolution unless people are massively asserting their power in the streets, workplaces, and neighborhoods. A revolutionary movement is also inevitably a battle for political power.
The revolution can only issue from the masses, and it is only through the masses that it is carried out. Workers cannot be driven, lured, or bulldozed into it. “The mass must learn to fight, to act in the struggle itself.” wrote Rosa Luxemburg. Socialism has come to build, not to destroy.
Monday, August 05, 2013
Food for thought
Eighty-two-year-old Alan Gosling died after being evicted from his Toronto Community Housing Corporation subsidized apartment in June, 2009. He failed to keep up with paper work verifying his low- income status. Locked out, Gosling lived in a stairwell until he was then taken to a shelter where he picked up an infection that killed him. A recent enquiry into the treatment of seniors at TCHC homes found, "The current strategy of sending tenants a constant stream of
letters, some of which use threatening language, needs to change." So it took four years to come up with that little goodie. Under capitalism if you ain't got the money (or you are useless to the production of surplus-value), you don't count. John Ayers
letters, some of which use threatening language, needs to change." So it took four years to come up with that little goodie. Under capitalism if you ain't got the money (or you are useless to the production of surplus-value), you don't count. John Ayers
The Task and Goal of the Socialist Party
.jpg)
It's a commonplace sentiment that politics is broken. Every week brings more evidence of disillusionment. The debased nature of politics, however, is only the most superficial symptom of our problems. It is clear that we face problems with the capitalist system and not simply political problems. These days, no matter how hard we work, how much we manage to save or how carefully we plan for the future, we are getting no-where.
Propaganda by the system’s apologists is an old proven means to modify the consciousness of population. It has been practiced under the disguise of “objectivity” - data are selected, articles are written and fed to the press, “balanced" TV programmes are delivered. In addition to mere skilled disinformation we are plain old lied to deceived.
The struggle for political supremacy is not between political parties , as it merely appears on the surface, but it is a struggle between two hostile economic classes, the capitalist and the working class. Deny it as they may or ignore itif they so choose, the struggle in which we are engaged today is a class struggle, and as more and more come to understand they will rally to the political standard of the workers’ party to find their true place in the conflict and strike a united blow against wage-slavery and achieve full and final emancipation. Nothing can stop the march of a popular socialist revolution. Our revolution will not be the fruit of a lucky chance but rather of bitter prolonged struggle. Our revolution will not be the work of a minority for one does not make the revolution for the masses; it is they who make it. The working class must be emancipated by the working class.
The ballot expresses the people’s will. The ballot means that workers have a voice to express its wishes. Centuries of struggle and sacrifice were required to acquire this freedom and we should use it wisely. The first step in this direction is to sever all relations with the capitalist parties. Labour, Tory, and the Nationalists alike, differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests. They however have the same principles under varying colors, and are equally corrupt united as one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to the working class. It is an ignorant worker who supports any of these parties for he forges his own chains and is the creator of his own misery. Workers who support the capitalist politician are guilty, consciously or unconsciously, of treason to their class. They are voting into power the enemies of labour.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is not a capitalist party. Its mission since its foundation in 1904 it is to conquer capitalism on the political battle-field, take control of the State and take possession of the means of wealth production, abolish wage-slavery and emancipate all workers and all humanity. In the world, today, reformism dominates the workers’ movement. The overthrow of capitalism is the object of the Socialist Party and on this principle we shall not compromise. The Socialist Party is honest, both in its statements about what socialism is, and in its desires to have within the Socialist Party only socialists. Reformists conceive of political action in terms of a modification of the political and economic regime of capitalism. The Socialist Party, on the other hand, regards political action to capture the state power in its entirety.
The working class constitutes the majority of the population, however, they are unable to marshal their strength because the class is divided and disunited. Nevertheless, the working class has a militant history of fighting for improved wages and working conditions, for union organisation, for recognition of political rights. Once again, we see an upsurge in the working class as the economic conditions worsen with the current crisis. But not only must we unite to defend our basic democracy, our wages and our working conditions we also have to struggle towards socialism. The working class has to organise itself as a united fighting force to achieve a decent living and working conditions and destroy the capitalist system of wage slavery and establishing socialism. At present, the objectives of the workers are on the economic and not on the political level. They seek to protect wages and working conditions rather than fighting for a better world.
The Socialist Party’s task is simply to help the workers march faster and without faltering toward the socialist goal. We decline to advocate palliatives or as Thomas Paine put it, “administering medicine to a corpse.” The Socialist Party defiantly challenges the capitalist class, relying upon the awakening working class to muster under its banner.
It is as Eugene Debs said:
"Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked and clubbed into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regulars, traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested by spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and sold out by leaders, but, notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as the setting of the sun.”
Remembrance
Sixteen million people died in the First World War. No fewer than one in 40 of the nine million British and Commonwealth troops came from the single city of Glasgow. 200,000 men from Glasgow fought, 17,695 were killed and many many more were wounded with lasting injuries and lost limbs. We should remember the futility of their deaths in “the war to end wars”
16,000 British men are recorded as being conscientious objectors. The Richmond Sixteen were 16 men taken from Richmond Castle in North Yorkshire where the Non-Combatant Corps was based, to an army camp in northern France, refused to unload supplies. They were court-martialled and, as an example to others, sentenced to death by Lord Kitchener. They were only saved from this fate by Kitchener’s own sudden death and the prime minister, Asquith, who their sentence to 10 years’ hard labour. We should remember the social stigma these heroes had to bear for the rest of their lives.
Sunday, August 04, 2013
Food for thought
A recent story on The Guardian website claimed the US Foreign Intelligence (?) Surveillance Court granted the FBI unlimited authority to access data on phone calls from April 25 to June 19. They are now collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon communication customers. In other words, privacy laws can be
subverted any time the powers-that-be want. Of course, nobody other than those giving the orders likes it. There is a solution to a world of snooping on each other but it won't be found in capitalism. John Ayers.
subverted any time the powers-that-be want. Of course, nobody other than those giving the orders likes it. There is a solution to a world of snooping on each other but it won't be found in capitalism. John Ayers.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
-
Paternalism is a common attitude among well-meaning social reformers. Stemming from the root pater, or father, paternalism implies a patria...
