A Cancerous System

A survey of 2,217 adults carried out by YouGov for the charity Macmillan Cancer Support has revealed the appalling state of treatment for NHS patients. Patients say their medical files have been lost, putting their health at serious risk. They add that they are "humiliated" by nurses and forced to wait to go to the toilet. 'A survey found that of the 170,000 cancer victims admitted to hospitals in England each year, around 18,000 - or 11 per cent - said their files were lost by a doctor or nurse. Some 15 per cent felt they were belittled by nurses while 14 per cent were forced to wait at least 30 minutes after asking for help to go to the toilet - one per cent waited for at least two hours.' (Daily Express, 9 August) Needless to say this treatment is for members of the working class. Members of the owning class can afford the best of medical treatment. RD

Politics And Poverty

Despite the Coalition government's claim to be a family-orientated organisation families are suffering at their hands. Food banks across Britain are being inundated with requests for emergency meals as families struggle to feed their children through the school holidays. The Trussell Trust, which runs the country's largest network of food banks, says this is the busiest summer it has ever experienced, with some of its branches seeing double the number of requests for emergency parcels since the start of the holidays. 'Parents whose children ordinarily receive free school lunches are among those struggling the most, as they now have to find an extra meal every day. The trust says the situation is worse than last summer because of rising food prices - which despite falling slightly in the latest Government figures are more than 4 per cent higher than last year - and the impact of the Coalition's welfare changes that were launched in  April.' (Independent, 9 August) RD

The War of the Classes

This war of the classes has raged throughout the ages and not always have the participants even been conscious of their parts in it. It is nevertheless universal and bitter. The class struggle will end when the causes that give rise to it are removed. The economic structure of society must be remodeled before the basis for a real civilization can be laid, formed with knowledge and power. The working class will change the economic basis of our life and establish equality where exploitation and misery now reign supreme. The workers are obliged to  fight for their own existence and for the future of all society.

According to our capitalist society the owners of the means of life are under no obligation to see that their fellow beings, who do not possess such means, are provided with the opportunity to make a living. When the capitalist cannot make profits out of the labour of the workers he turns them out, cuts off their source of bread without the least compunction. They may starve to death for all he cares. He is not their keeper except while they keep him in fat dividends. While differing in many respects from previous forms of exploitation, capitalism is no less cruel and merciless. The capitalists own the means by which we live and thus we are at their mercy in no less degree than were our ancestors in the days of chattel slavery. The kings of old ruled the world with an iron hand, but they had a much smaller world to command than the industrial monarchs of today. Modern capitalism leaves a trail behind it as bloody as that of its predecessors and a record of cruelty and injustice just as brutal.

The truth of the matter is that this is a rich man’s State and a rich man’s Government. The State is there to act on behalf of capital and to protect its interests against the people. The government is the executive committee of employing class. The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor. The government, its laws, its agencies: the military, the police, the courts, the jails— all are there to effect the exploitation and oppression of you and millions like you. The capitalist desires to squeeze more sweat and blood out of the workers, and there is the wish of the workers to fight back against their enemy, who feeds upon them. There is war, a class war. It is waged by one class, the oppressors, against the other class, the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the corporations. Every one who tries to persuade you that the State is a friend to defend you, that the State is neutral and impartial and only the honest broker and mediator offering fair regulatory legislation is lying.  Under capitalism you cannot protect both  the capitalists and  the workers.  When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labor”. When you protect labor you make it possible for labor to get more out of industry. Socialists  recognize the true nature of the capitalist State. The State may change its appearance and its appendages. It may use the parliamentary system, with a limited freedom of speech to opponents — as long as this opposition is not too dangerous. It tightens the screws and tries to silence the opposition when the situation becomes disturbing for businesses.  Under different circumstances it may do away with parliamentary procedure altogether and institute a dictatorship when a danger to capitalism becomes particularly acute.  The forms change and the language  differs according to time and place. But the essence remains. The essence being the capitalist State is in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism.

“Who are the Socialist Party of Great Britain ?” We would like to answer immediately, “It is the political organisation to be used as the means toward gaining socialism” But alas that is only our own aspiration and not yet the reality. Too often many look upon the party as the ultimate end we are striving for, and not the means to that end. We are accused that we are a  merely a theoretical propaganda party and this policy stands in the way of success. “Practical politics” is to-day in ascendance everywhere. Principles have naught to say on the matter. The point is to win, and to win at all costs. We have no monopoly on the use of the word socialism.  But in the end the cause will know its own. We will continue to say until we are proved wrong that democracy has prepared for the workers all the means necessary to achieve socialism. Let the workers use universal suffrage to send socialists into all the legislative assemblies. Let the socialists form a majority in these assemblies and when this is done, the way is open to abolish the capitalist system. To make socialism possible the workers must take hold of the State machinery of capitalism.

 There is no room for any collaboration or co-operation of any kind with the ruling class which must be dispossessed, both politically and economically. There can be no bond or union between  those in Government, and we, who wish to overthrow them. There can be nothing in common but the battlefield and the struggle. If this class war successfully carried out by the working class brings about a victory, then with an end of the class system it will enable us to attain true social peace. The SPGB, therefore, calls upon all the workers to mass round the banner of socialism. 

Morality And Money

The British government likes to portray itself as an organisation of the highest moral principles and absolutely opposed to brutality. Except of course when it threatens their master's profits. 'Britain is in talks to sell 12 Typhoon fighter jets to Bahrain, despite the Gulf state's controversial human rights record. The proposed deal with the Gulf monarchy rocked by protests in 2011 is thought to be worth more than £1 billion and is part of a concerted effort by Gulf countries to strengthen military ties with Britain. ........... Amnesty International claimed the arms negotiations showed human rights worries were once again playing second fiddle to British business deals.' (Daily Telegraph, 10 August) The highly political deal was one of the main agenda items in a recent Downing Street meeting between David Cameron and King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa. Bahrain's government faced condemnation and accusations of brutality for its repression of protests led by the island's Shia majority in early 2011. RD

Food for thought

The New York Times (July 7) provided yet another example of a 'tiger economy' leaving the people behind. The Philippines growth of 7.8% and the rising glass towers is evidence of lots of money but work is scarce, low-paid, and seventeen million have left to find work elsewhere. More than nine million cannot afford the $135/month needed to eat.
Meanwhile, research conducted by Equilar for the Times shows that the 200 top executives' average pay packet came in at $15.1 million, a leap of sixteen per cent from 2011. For example, Leslie Moonves, CBS pulled in $60.3 million, Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, $22.4 million, Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle, $96.2 million, Marissa A. Mayer, Yahoo 36.6 million. Nice work if you can get it, and get away with it. John Ayers

The Rich Housing List

Indeed a housing crisis exists, particularly for the rich - a crisis of which country estate to buy. The magazine for the lairds and the squires, Country Life,  has advertised a number of desirable rural residencies in Scotland.

10,143-acre Cluny estate at Laggan, Invernessshire,  ‘offers over £7.5 million'. The house has three main reception rooms along with seven main bedrooms and five bathrooms. Eleven estate houses and cottages are used to house staff or could be developed as holiday lets.

Hoscote estate at Roberton, in the Borthwick Water valley in upper Teviotdale, nine miles south-west of Hawick, little more than an hour's drive from the Scottish capital, for which ‘offers over £2.95 million' are sought. As well as the refurbished nine-bedroom main house surrounded by  formal gardens, the estate includes five modernised houses and cottages, an in-hand livestock farm. It also offers a pheasant shoot, roe-deer stalking, duck-shooting and trout fishing on Borthwick Water.

Culdaremore near Fortingall, in the heart of Highland Perthshire, another small estate with a  five-bedroom main house, gardens and a range of traditional stone buildings, surrounded by 375 acres of pasture, hill grazing and conifer plantations. Offers over £1.25m are sought. Also available is  red- and roe-deer stalking, fishing on the River Lyon, a tributary of the Tay, and the potential to create a low-ground pheasant shoot.

Offers over £1.25m for the picturesque, 194-acre Achara estate near the Highland village of Duror, near Loch Linnhe in coastal Argyll. The house was built in the Scots Baronial style.  In addition to the  eight-bedroom main house overlooking Loch Linnhe, the estate boasts a converted three-bedroom coach house and two cottages suitable for holiday lets.

 At offers over £950,000 Lessudden House on the eastern edge of pretty St Boswells village, 4-and-a-half miles from Melrose, Roxburghshire, and within a realistic commuting distance from both Edinburgh and Newcastle. Lessudden House sits in the midst of 19 acres of enchanting gardens and grounds, surrounded on three sides by parkland grazing. Accommodation includes reception and dining halls, two further main reception rooms, five main bedrooms and an attic bedroom. A range of stabling offers potential for development.

Wellfield House and Lodge at Duns, 15 miles from Berwick. Offers over £1.5m are sought for the five-bedroom house, and its two bedroom lodge. The main house is set in some eight acres of wooded gardens and grounds

Offers over £1.65m are sought for Leithen Lodge at Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, a refurbished the three-storey main house, with courtyard apartment and wing, and  20 acres of gardens, grounds and parkland.

The House of Aquahorthies near Inverurie, ‘offers over £1.3m', A nine-bedroom house, AND  some 38 acres of landscaped grounds, woodland and paddocks

Socialism - the Political Case

FOR A REVOLUTION FOR THE MAJORITY BY THE MAJORITY

Many of the arguments against the case for socialism are in reality criticisms of parliamentary action. The two spheres of activity must not be confused. Parliamentary action believes that by placing a series of reforms upon the Statute Book—  “one step at a time” — the economic position of the workers can be improved, and that they will be finally emancipated by such reform measures. Such a line of activity is the aim of the “reformers” or State-"Socialists". Many reformists pose as socialists with claims of helping the workers by nationalising or controlling the means of production through the State. They endeavour to argue that "evolutionary socialism” is superior to revolutionary action. Every advance in nationalisation is heralded as socialism in practice; every extension of State control greeted as a conquest by the workers. Thus a false conception of socialism becomes the means of misleading the working class. So eager have these State-"socialists" (or more accurately State-capitalists) been to bestow the label of "socialism" upon profit-making institutions that any Labour or Tory could say "we are all socialists nowadays." Any demands, such as the reduction of taxes or increased business regulation has been advocated as "socialistic" legislation.

Marx in his criticism of the French crisis of 1848 described how the capitalist class promoted  reforms under the title of socialism. He says: —
"Whether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, the theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged: Socialism! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic is national financial reform. It was socialistic to build a railroad where already a canal was; and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a stick when attacked with a sword."

It has been customary for people to be told that they must look to the State for salvation. For years Old Labour have assured us that the hope of the workers lay in State control. Nevertheless genuine socialists have consistently argued that State ownership takes all control away from the workers and leaves them at the mercy of unsympathetic and irresponsible ministers. It is impossible for State officials to understand the nature of the problems arising in the industries, or to appreciate the grievances of the workers.

The attempt of the State to control industry is therefore the attempt of the ruling class to dominate Labour.  It seeks to make socialism a term at once contradictory and confusing; and it accomplishes this by declaring the most essential things necessary to the development of capitalism as state intervention and nationalisation are all "steps" in the direction of socialism rather then the reality that they are merely the general centralisation and concentration of capital.

 Capitalism due to the ever increasing conflict for markets and the intense competition involved will tend to accelerate rivalries and lead to the need of the productive forces to be controlled with greater urgency. The desire to control national production, the fear of industrial unrest, and the wish to enforce discipline upon the workers may compel the capitalist class to extend State control. The extension of State control will bring with it armies of official bureaucrats, who will only be able to maintain their posts by tyrannising and limiting the freedom of the workers. And instead of having to overthrow a system buttressed by a handful of individual capitalists, the workers will be faced with a system reinforced by a gigantic army of State-subsidised officials, who will fight to maintain their status and power. Such indeed is the logical outcome of nationalisation. Socialists deny that State ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. Whenever a politician is appointed to control any industrial concern he has to select a technical expert and
permanent officials who know something about that industry. These officials are appointed by the State — i.e., from above; they are only answerable to the State minister who has to depend upon them for all his information regarding his department. The officials are conscious of their power, and they use it. There is no method whereby it is possible to have democratic State control. These officials, when appointed, simply act as rulers appointed above the heads of the people who do understand the industrial processes. State Control can never be democratic control; hence it becomes a bureaucratic autocracy. It is a social despotism organised from above.

By its victory at the ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the few members of the capitalist class are able to rule over the majority. State departments are in the hands of unsympathetic bureaucrats who are appointed by our masters. The bureaucrats have no organic connection with communities or industry and are unable to understand working-class problems. Being appointed by the master class, who control the State, the bureaucrats can only maintain their jobs by serving those who control them. Here, again, is another problem, the destruction of bureaucracy, which can be only solved if the revolutionary organised workers defeat their masters at the ballot box.

Capitalism cannot be controlled. But it can be destroyed and replaced by a workers' co-operative commonwealth, an association of producers.

Socialism will be fundamentally a system democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks into industrial administrative committees and those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central industrial councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. The transition from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all — it will be, therefore, a true democracy

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. The political State is not and cannot be a real democracy. It is not elected according to the social wants of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the mass media. By its money the capitalists can buy up large newspapers and these trump up false election issues. The electorate is not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the media, representing Capital, puts before the viewers and readers.

We cannot build towards socialism and leave political control in the hands of the ruling class. We have seen what power the control of the State gives to the employers in its struggle with employees. It is through its political strength that the capitalists can deprive us of civil liberty, the loss of which makes the peaceful agitation for the revolution impossible. The maintenance of what limited rights and feedoms we possess is part of the political struggle. Political action must be used to combat the capitalist class in any attempt to filch away the rights of industrial action and other civil liberties. And to be used as a precautionary measure for when the socialist movement grows more powerful and the capitalist chooses to resort to the use of force and other methods of suppression. The coercive control flows directly from Capital’s control of the State which it secures at the ballot box. Therefore, in order to achieve a peaceful revolution, the working class must capture the powers of the State at the ballot box and prevent the capitalist class from using the nation’s armed forces against the workers. This can be described as the destructive function of the  role of political action. But this pre-emptive destructive political function is necessary in order that the constructive element in the revolution may not be thwarted.

 Socialism will require no political State because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden propertyless class; there will be no social disorder as a result, because there will be no clash of economic interests; there will be no need to create a power to make "order." Thus, as Engels explains, the State will die out. With it will end the government of men and make way for the administration of things. The German social democrat August  Bebel declared: — "Along with the State die out its representatives — cabinet ministers, parliaments, standing armies, police and constables, courts, district attorneys, prison officials, tariff and tax collectors; in short, the whole political apparatus. Barracks, and such other military structures, palaces of law and of administration, prisons— all will now await better use. Ten thousand laws, decrees, and regulations become so much rubbish; they have only historic value. The great and yet the petty parliamentary struggles with which the men of tongue imagine they rule and guide the world are no more; they will have made room for administrative colleges and delegations, whose attention will be engaged in the best means of production and distribution, in ascertaining the volume of supplies needed, in introducing and applying effective improvements in art, in architecture, in intercourse, in the process of production, etc. These are all practical matters, visible and tangible, towards which everyone stands objectively, there being no personal interests hostile to society to affect their judgment."

The constructive element in the social revolution will be the action of the workers in the organs of their own making seizing the means of production in order to administer the wants of the community.

But, to repeat once more,  in order to tear the State out of the grasp of the ruling class the workers political organisation must capture the political machinery of capitalism. The work of the political weapon is purely destructive, to destroy the capitalist system. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is to believe in parliamentarism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary party. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of doing away with all the institutions which stand in the way of the industrial union owning and controlling the means of production. It is general elections which affords the workers the opportunity of overthrowing those political institutions standing in the way of their emancipation. The Socialist Party seeks to educate the workers in order that they may organise to combat capitalism in every field of its activity.

Our anti-political friends wish us to devote our energies solely to the industrial field of battle because they imagine that the workers are sold-out when they enter politics. But the workers can equally be betrayed industrially as well as politically. The history of the trade union leaders indicates this point. Until the working class is conscious of its own interests—until it clearly realises what it wants and how to get it—then they are the tools of the Labour Party careerists and other political charlatans. The moment that the wage-workers understand their class interests they will not be betrayed either industrially or politically. Because “leaders” are only able to act treacherously when workers are kept in ignorance and confusion. If the working class does not recognise and understand its own  interests, it will, indeed,  be betrayed in Parliament, just as they are often sold out in their place of work by conciliatory union leaders.

 Every argument against political action can be used against industrial (or syndicalist) action. They react upon each other. There is nothing inherently dangerous in political action. All the arguments brought against it prove only that the socialist movement has neglected its educational work; it has paid insufficient attention to the creation of a sympathetic media and revolutionary press; it has not sought to organise workers as a class but sectionally, by occupation and trade or through one-issue campaigns or even by lifestyle; and the result is that these weaknesses are glaringly reflected on the political field. When our anti-political friends contend that the political field makes for the confusion of workers they are unconsciously passing censure on every other field of socialist activity. The critics of political action, unable to perceive the law of causation, which links together the various weaknesses operating in the different channels of the labour movement, places all the blame on the political field. They therefore decides to ignore political faction and  by doing so they neglect the whole problem.

The Socialist Party takes the political field with one demand in its programme—socialism. It emphasises that only socialists must vote for its candidates even if it means our candidates will not be returned to Parliament. If we receive only a few votes from class-conscious socialists in any constituency, so be it , that must be the extent of its success. If we simply appealed for any votes regardless of understanding and entered into alliances, compromises, and electoral pacts arrangements with non-socialist parties this would mean the return of a candidate, perhaps, but most definitely not provided with a mandate for socialism. Our political object is the capture of the political machine in order to tear the State, with its armed force, out of the hands of the capitalist class, thus removing the murderous power which capitalism may looks to use in its final conflict with workers. Therefore, the only revolutionary value of political action lies in its being the instrument specially fashioned to destroy capitalism. Political action, too, brings the propaganda of socialism into the daylight and lifts the revolutionary movement beyond that of being a secret conspiracy. Political action, by insisting on free speech, prevents the capitalist class from forcing the movement underground—because once there the State would crush it. And, above all, the political method by bringing revolutionary socialism upon the political field places it on that ground of social action where all conflicts tend to be settled peacefully. If socialism is ushered in by violent means it will be because the capitalist class repudiated the civilised or political method.

Adapted from some of the writings of Glasgow-born William Paul, when he was still in the Socialist Labour Party, before he joined the Communist Party.

A Greek Tragedy

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

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.

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]

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.

Only human nature, ain't it?

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.

No. 1308 August 2013

Whole issue as print ready pdf: 

Socialist Standard August 2013.pdf

• Editorial: What Can the Unions Do?
• Pathfinders: Analogy Aversion
• Letters
• Election Statement
• Halo Halo!
• South Africa: Marikana Miners’ Massacre
• Cooking the Books: A History of Slumps
• Material World: I Wannabe a Plutocrat!
• Greasy Pole: A Dissatisfied Novice
• Unions Should End the Link With Labour
• Egypt: Why Did the Generals Depose Morsi?
• Debating: A Lost Art?
• Shipwreck!
• An Unlikely Story
• Bit Rich!
• Obituary: Eva Goodman
• Cooking the Books: The Decline of Manufacturing - Good or Bad?
• Mixed Media: The Shame Show
• Book Reviews:
• Film Review: The Condition of the Working Class
• Proper Gander: Hidden Cameraderie
• 50 Years Ago: Mr. Wilson on Class
• Action Replay: Entering the Straight
• Voice From the Back
• Cartoon: Free lunch

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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".