THE CLASS STRUGGLE TODAY

The notion that we live in a modern freedom loving society wherein the owning class and the the working class co-operate without nasty out-dated class conflicts has been shown as a complete nonsense. Britain's biggest construction companies finally admitted that they used  a secret industry blacklist to vet workers as they announced the creation of  a compensation scheme.  'Unions believe construction companies face paying hundreds of millions of pounds to the 3,213 workers whose details were kept on a database kept by a shadowy organisation called The Consulting Association.  The information was used by 44 companies to vet new recruits and keep out trade union activists or those who had raised concerns about health and safety.' (Times, 10 September) RD

A Taxing Problem

The bosses have tried every imaginable remedy for the crisis. To no avail. Now they hope to find a lever to raise their profits by lowering taxes. The campaign to lower taxes has swept the bourgeois world like wildfire. Through every avenue at their command the capitalists and the landlords are clamoring for economy in government. They want “cheap government” and the support of the working class to force a curtailment of expenses. We workers are robbed as producers, robbed of the surplus labor, of the surplus value which the capitalist divide among themselves as profits, rent, interest and to pay their office boys’ (government) and for the gangster racketeers who rob the robbers.

The government (the state) operates for the benefit of the capitalists,  owners of the basic means of production and circulation of all commodities and wealth. Government functions through an army of administrators and officials who must be supported. Taxation is the general method by which capitalists collect State revenues to keep the State going. Under the modern development of capitalism, however, the State has been impelled to undertake large economic tasks which private capitalists may not be able to do, such as the welfare  provisions for the young and old,  the sick and the infirm, and those unable to work, as well as construction of transport infrastructure and communications networks, research and development projects, and, of course, defence which all call for large expenditures to be met by taxation. The government is often placed under huge debts by the capitalists so that heavy interest rates have to be paid through taxation. Taxes can assume many forms and without taxes the State could not maintain itself. Modern capitalism has also requires adequate housing, sanitation, health, and educational facilities. For this the State must impose and collect tax.

But on whom can the tax be levied? It is clear that taxes can be paid only by those who have the wherewithal to pay them. Taxes, on the whole, must be paid by the propertied classes, by the big and the small bourgeoisie who are divided into many sub-sections each one trying to throw the weight of taxation onto the others. Hence a bitter fight arises over which sections of the capitalist class shall have the dominant voice in the taxation process. A myriad of ways are found to minimize the effects or to avoid taxation by the various groups, including: tricks of omissions evasion and avoidance, exceptions, exemptions, rebates, preferences, tariff arrangements, subsidies, etc.. One thing capitalism cannot do is kill the goose that lays the golden egg; it must not destroy by taxation the overall production or productive development of the country. Since capitalism is the structure of a country’s economic strength and power, the State must not hamper too greatly that growth by taxation.

The level and items of expenditure needed to pay for the consumption for the replenishment of lost labour power naturally can and does vary regionally and nationally and according to individual and family needs. Each people or group maintains an historic standard of living often differing markedly since a worker may replenish his labour power by consuming meat, fish, wheat, milk, beer, and vegetables, etc., or by consuming beans, bananas, and water. Within certain limits the workers’ living standards can be driven lower and lower and yet suffice to replenish the lost labour power expended in the production process. The worker must be eternally vigilant to defend his or her historic standards. Workers must continue to ensure the burden of taxation falls onto the wealthy classes and does not adversely affecting the workers’ cost of living. 

A poem - The Respectables

The Song of the Respectables

Respectables are we,
And we fain would have you see
Why we confidently claim to be respected;
In well-ordered homes we dwell,
And discharge our duties well—
Well dressed, well bred, well mannered, well connected.
We hate the common cant
About poverty and want,
And all that is distressing and unhealthy;
Certain cases may be sad,
But the system can't be bad,
If it gives such satisfaction to the wealthy.
As the Times each day we read,
We realize the need
Of more and more repression for the Masses;
And we muse with wondering awe
On the sanctity of Law,
As administered and construed by the Classes.
To us the breath of Change
Is ominous and strange,
And Reform is but a cloak for Revolution;
Our concern is not for self,
Not for property nor pelf,
Oh no, but for the British Constitution:
And our care transcends e'en that,
For in sable coat and hat
We never fail to flock to church each Sunday,
That with renovated zest,
And conscience lulled to rest,
We may yield our hearts to Mammon on the Monday.
So our wealth, which swells apace,
Is the outward sigh of grace,
As property goes step by step with piety:
In the present world we thrive,
Then save our souls alive,
And move for evermore in good society.
Thus on through life we march,
Stiff with decency and starch,
Well bred, well fed, well mannered, well connected—
For Respectables are we,
And you cannot fail to see
Why we confidently claim to be respected.

H. S. S.
The Commonweal,
 May 31, 1890

Food for thought

Once again, we can point out the futility of revolution without clear socialist understanding as the Arab Spring continues to run into problems. The New York Times reports, " It is clear that the region's old status quo, dominated by rulers who fixed elections and quashed dissent, has been fundamentally damaged, if not overthrown, since the outbreak of the Arab Spring uprisings. What is unclear is the replacement model. Most of the uprisings have developed into bitter struggles over the relationship between the military and the government, the role of religion, and what it means to be a citizen, not a subject." Well, actually we could help with that replacement model. John Ayers.

Fact of the Day

The survey, which is based on publicly available data, breaks down wealth to an average of $51,600 per adult around the globe, but in reality only a tiny sliver of the world’s population at the wealthiest end owns 86%  of the wealth.

Some 3.2 billion individuals—two thirds of the world’s population—have less than $10,000 each, the Swiss bank found. The top of the pyramid,  numbers just 32 million people who have $1  million or more, about 41% of global wealth. Nearly half of them live in the United States.

Increasing the world's food supply won't end hunger

An article by Jill Richardson of the Organic Consumers Association makes interesting reading and confirms much of the socialist case.

Some extracts  

Every October, world leaders and corporate executives gather in Iowa to present the World Food Prize to celebrate those who make the largest contributions to increasing the world’s food supply. The corporations that fund the World Food Prize may not entirely drive its agenda, but they certainly influence it. By focusing on the sheer volume of food in the world, they aim to reduce global hunger to a simple matter of science. Then they sell us on the idea that we need their products to increase the amount of food farmers harvest from each acre. But producing more food doesn’t always mean feeding more hungry mouths.  Ending hunger is not a simple matter of growing more food. It involves social science as well as physical science.

When a farmer produces an extra ten bushels of crops from each acre of land, perhaps more people will eat — or maybe not. Americans don’t have to travel around the world to see this, we must only ask our grandparents. During the Great Depression, farmers grew a great surplus of food, and food prices crashed. Both farmers and consumers suffered, as farmers went into bankruptcy while the urban poor starved. Today, we grow more food than we need — and then throw 40 percent of it away. Meanwhile, many Americans can afford to eat enough calories but only by buying cheap junk food that will ultimately make them sick. And that’s just in America, a wealthy nation. What about poor countries?

If we aim to make any real progress toward ending poverty and hunger, we must start by challenging the inequality in our world today.

Food for thought

The New York Times critiques a new book about Jeffrey Sachs entitled, "The Idealist – his quest to end poverty". Sachs started 'The Millenium Villages Project" in 2005, imposing interventions on seven sub-Saharan villages in agriculture, health, and education, to show how Africa could 'loosen the grip that extreme poverty had on so many of its people'. He spent $120 million but refused to compare 'his' villages with others outside the program. However, Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the center for Global Development did, saying, " There is zero evidence that the Millenium Villages Project is meeting its goals". If only he had subscribed to the Socialist Standard or Imagine or Socialist Review, he could have saved himself time and money and the futility! John Ayers.

Fact of the Day

Even ancient Rome was more egalitarian than the world today. Marcus Crassus, whose wealth was calculated as being roughly equal to that of the empire's entire government treasury, had an annual return on it equal to the average yearly income of 32,000 Romans. But that, to use Boris Johnson's description of a £250,000 paycheck, is chicken feed. If one measure of wealth, and there are many, is how many of your compatriots you can buy, then give a big hand for magnate Carlos Slim, the interest or return on whose stash is the equivalent of the average annual wage of 400,000 Mexicans.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/plutocrats-rise-new-global-super-rich-review

Food for thought

Thomas Walkom, writing in The Toronto Star details the failing 'faith and hope' in president Obama – he promised to close Guantanamo and didn't;he promised a short sharp war to defeat the Taliban, never happened; he authorized drone strikes; he permitted the National Security Agency to snoop on American citizens, among others; he promised openness but went after whistle blowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. As the Socialist Standard said at the time if his election, "Welcome to the New Boss, Same as the Old". John Ayers.

The Socialist Object

The Socialist Party of Great Britain’s primarily concern is analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating for the replacement of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of  people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. It is our work to clarify and educate the vast amount of vague, undeveloped socialistic sentiment existing today, and crystallise and organise it into something palpable and definite.

Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That puts the socialist alternative on the immediate agenda. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, shutdowns and neglect of health and safety. Unions, despite their courageous efforts, have encountered difficulties eliminating even the worst abuses of management power.

As socialists, we see that the only way for the working class to put an end to the increasingly vicious attacks on our working and living conditions is to overthrow the capitalist system that breeds them and build a new society of abundance. There is no fundamental solution to poverty, joblessness, homelessness, racism, sexism and all the other ills of this society short of socialism.

GROWING OLD DISGRACEFULLY

Capitalism is an uncaring and brutal society, but perhaps the worst suffers of its harshness are the old and the disabled. 'Short care visits to elderly and disabled people are "disgraceful" and on the rise, a charity has claimed. In England, 60% of councils use 15-minute visits, which are not long enough to provide adequate care Leonard Cheshire Disability says. The charity says such visits can "force disabled people to choose whether to go thirsty or to go to the toilet".' (BBC News, 7 October) Needless to say this awful dilemma only applies to the working class as the owning class can afford the best of  care.

Plenty for All

Perhaps it is true that we in the Socialist Party have become the naggers of the working class. Have you not worked hard all your life, since you were old  enough for your labour to be of use in the production of wealth?  Have you not toiled long, hard, and laboriously in producing  wealth? Whether it is the “good boss”  or the “bad boss” cuts no figure whatever. You are the  common prey of both, and that their mission is simply robbery.  Can you not see that it is the economic system and not the “boss” which must be changed? The capitalist theory is that workers  always have been, and always will be, merely “hands” ; that it needs a “head,” the head of a capitalist, to hire them, set them to work, boss them, drive them and exploit them, and that without the capitalist “head” workers would be unemployed, helpless, and starve; and, sad to say, a great majority of workers, in their ignorance, share that opinion. They use their hands only to produce wealth for the capitalist scarcely conscious that they have heads of their own and that if they only used their heads as well as their hands there would be no “bosses”  but free producers, employing themselves co-operatively, tsharing all the products of their labour and shortening the work day as machinery increased their productive capacity. Bosses “good” or “bad” would disappear. .Brains are wanted, but not bosses. All would be have fit houses to live in, plenty to eat and wear, and leisure time enough to enjoy life. That is what Socialists are striving for.  The servile puppets of the capitalist class insist that working men and women are “hands” to be worked by capitalists, that they can never be anything else and seek in a thousand other ways, secret and subtle, covert and treacherous, to thwart the efforts of the socialists to open the eyes of the workers. Our work, then, is of organising and educating the worker, to fight for wealth and freedom, and not for poverty and slavery; to fight their masters and not their fellow slaves, and to win that victory in the class war.

 The workers are in a great majority and without them every wheel would stop, industry would drop dead, and society would be paralysed. All they have to do is to unite, think together, act together, strike together, vote together and then the world is theirs. They have but to stretch out and take possession. But to reach this point requires education and organisation—these are the essentials to emancipation. The workers must organise their own emancipation to achieve it and to control its limitless opportunities and possibilities. We are living in a time when the comforts of life, and all the material wealth needed to bring happiness to every human being, can be produced in abundance. We have  material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their skills to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and if there are still vast numbers of  people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing drudgery all the way from youth to old age it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity.

There is no need whatever for one human being to go hungry or homeless. The ignorant worker instead of fighting the capitalist, with wealth and freedom as the prize at stake, fall to fighting each other; and the stakes in that conflict are: destitution or death to the loser; poverty, misery and wage-slavery to the winner.

 Socialists argue that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all.  Socialists are opposed to a social system in which it is possible for one person who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. We must reorganise society upon a mutual and cooperative basis. Let people everywhere take heart and hope at the coming dawn of the better day for humanity, the people are awakened. The darkness of capitalism is passing and the a new tomorrow is rising. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism. For the first time in history the working class
will be free and no class will be in subjection. We have outlived the usefulness of the wage and
property system

Unite the many to defeat the few

We are living in the capitalist system, and have to conform to, while working to transform it. We cannot get outside the capitalist system, with all its results and influences; we have to deal with things as they are, not as we would like them to be.  There are the worthy people who advocate universal peace and brotherly love. A desirable ideal, and one to which we in the Socialist Party look forward with hope in its speedy realisation, but one absolutely unattainable in the midst of the innumerable antagonisms of the capitalist system.

In order to destroy capitalism we have to act now, in and with the actual existing circumstances and means of to-day, and we have to consider how best those existing means and circumstances can be turned to our purpose. The system is no doubt dependent on the men who carry it on, but, on the other hand, these are dependent on the system, or they would cease to be capitalists. So long as they remain capitalists and wish to realise profits, or even are not prepared to face ruin as such, they will find themselves involved in the conflicts which are the inevitable results of capitalism. Wall St and the City of London has always been on the side of that policy made for war. Not perhaps that, they wished for war – but they were unwilling to make the sacrifice which would have prevented it. For the British capitalists they are able to persuade their fellow countrymen that they are fighting in defence of all that is good. They must get the latter to hate the foreigner.  The capitalist system defends its own interests by spreading confusing ideas on the real nature of the system.

Our chief aim must be to warn the workers against allowing themselves to be misled by the lies of the media and the mutual recriminations of capitalist groups, and to remember that the worker in all countries is just as much a victim of capitalist oppression as they are and that they are compelled by circumstance to help each other against the common foe – Capitalism.

 The capitalist class live in great splendour by exploiting the working class through the daily robbery of the enormous wealth the workers produce. In contrast to this, intense exploitation, oppression, poverty and misery characterise the lives of the working class. The working class, is made up of those who are deprived of the ownership of the means of production and therefore are forced to sell their labour power as a commodity to the capitalist class. The working class participates directly in production, transportation, communication, service, agriculture, and commerce. It is the class which creates the wealth of society and from which the capitalists extract surplus value. The working class also encompass the reserve army of unemployed, including old and disabled workers and semi-permanently and permanently unemployed workers forced to live on public assistance.

Why unity?  Only by uniting the forces of the workers on the basis of a class struggle policy can the workers hope to even defend themselves from the attacks of the capitalists. The current disunity of the trade union movement should be apparent to every worker.  Division within the  the trade union movement translates into defeats for the workers, because the bosses take advantage of them to lower the standard of living of the entire working class.

Humanity is threatened with complete annihilation and there is only one force able to save it and that is the working class. The old capitalist ‘order’ has ceased to function and its further existence is now in question. The final outcome of the capitalist mode of production is chaos. This chaos can only be overcome by the working class to establish real order. It must break the rule of capital, make wars impossible, abolish the frontiers between states, transform the whole world into a community where all work for the common good and realise the freedom and brotherhood of peoples.

The workers must use the capture of political power as a weapon against their class enemies and to effect the economic reconstruction of society for the beginning of the real history of human liberation. Socialism is the only way out of the historic crisis that faces humanity. Reformists  who put forward the utopian demand for the re-structuring of the capitalist economic system  only postpone the revolution. Despite popular theories of the working class “dying away,” or being “bought off,” or losing its revolutionary potential, members of the working class are suffering more than ever before from capitalist exploitation and oppression. Growing in size and strength the global working class has “nothing to lose but its chains and a world to win.” 

Who owns the North Pole part 65

The Russian military has been restoring a Soviet-era military base on the New Siberian Islands that was shut down after the Soviet collapse. He added that the facility is key for protecting shipping routes that link Europe with the Pacific region across the Arctic Ocean.

Last month, a Russian navy squadron led by the flagship of Russia’s Northern Fleet, nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, visited the archipelago, which occupies a strategic position on the Arctic shipping route. Putin said that the military has already re-established a permanent garrison there and will restore an airfield and other facilities.

Putin said the Arctic region is essential for Russia’s economic and security interests. He dismissed suggestions that the Arctic should be placed under the jurisdiction of the international community. “The Arctic is an unalienable part of the Russian Federation that has been under our sovereignty for a few centuries,” Putin said. “And it will be so for the time to come.”

In a signal that it won’t tolerate any attempts to put obstacles in the way of its plans to tap into Arctic resources, Russia has filed piracy charges against the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship who protested at a Russian oil platform in the Arctic.

Fact of the Day

Figures from the 2011 census released Monday (Sept. 30) show that 37 percent of Scottish people regard themselves as nonreligious, while 32 percent said they identified with the Church of Scotland, known as the Kirk. Some 16 percent said they were Roman Catholic.

The number of people saying they had no religion rose to 1.9 million people, up from 1.4 million in 2001.

An Appeal

ABOLISH WAGE-SLAVERY

No sane man can be satisfied with the present system. The capitalist system is based upon the production of commodities for profit — for the profit of a small group who own the means of production, and who do no useful work. This means exploitation, wage slavery, and misery for the masses who do all the useful and necessary work. The only way out is to introduce a system of society in which production is carried on for use, for the benefit of all. But clearly such a system can only be instituted by class conscious workers. The only fight that you as a worker should be interested in, the struggle between the capitalist class and the working class for political power and the ownership of the machinery of production. It is the age-long class war.

Unions are essential for the working class. Without them, workers would still be subject to the every whim and fancy of the employers and their foremen. But unions, while indispensable in the struggle of the workers against capital, have limits as well. the capitalist class and the working-class stand like contending armies, openly opposed to each other. The class lines are clearly defined. There is no mistaking who is a capitalist and who is a worker, who is rich and who is poor. The organisation of rich class is almost complete. The capitalists are banded together in their Chambers of Commerce, their manufacturers’ associations. The workers are organised in their trade unions.

The capitalist class is the most astute, the most cunning, the most resourceful ruling class in the world. It has been made so by centuries of experience of pillage and piracy in all parts of the world. Such a ruling class, naturally, knows well the art of protecting itself. How often have the working-class revolts been either cunningly betrayed and dispersed, or crushed and drenched in blood?

 Capitalism has played its part in the history of mankind. It is no longer workable. It must be uprooted and destroyed, and a new system of industry built in its place. This is the historic task of the working class. Make it a real fight against low wages, bad working conditions, but more important, against the capitalists and the whole capitalist system. You are fighting against the bosses who rob and oppress you and that wherever workers fight the bosses they are right. Whenever the owners of the world’s machinery of production and distribution fail for any reason to realize profit, it is in their power to cease production or distribution and the world’s workers may starve.

 We wish to make it quite clear as to our exact aim and object. We are socialists, wishful above all things to advance socialism, and by socialism we mean the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system. Capitalism is founded upon production for profit. Socialism is based upon production for use. The corporate wealth controls the capitalist government of all nations and will to the end of capitalism. Corporate wealth is the result of economic and industrial evolution. Until corporate wealth is supplanted by common wealth, it will continue to write our laws and to enforce them or not, as best pleases its owners. The Socialist Party declares  its object to be the abolition of wage slavery by the establishment of a system common ownership of the  means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members, and the complete emancipation of the socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism.

The longevity of the SPGB lies not in the personality of its members, nor in the ability of its propagandists; it lies in the fact that all the  teaching of this party has been, from the outset, based upon the class struggle – upon a recognition of the fact that the struggle between the Haves and the Have Nots is the main factor in politics, and that this fight can only be ended by the working class seizing hold of political power and using this power to transfer the ownership of the means of life from the hands of the capitalist to the community, from individual to social ownership. He who controls my bread controls my head, and so the contest between modern capitalism and socialism resolves itself into the age-old question of human slavery. Socialists  realizes that the issues which divide the capitalist political camps are merely quarrels between rival groups of capitalists over the division of the spoils which they have expropriated from the workers. He is no more interested in the outcome of these political quarrels than he would be in the result of a quarrel between two hold-up men who had robbed him of his purse and who had fallen out over a division of its contents.

The Socialist Party calls upon workers to join it in the overthrow of capitalism thru capturing the powers of government and  transferring the ownership of the world from capitalism to socialism.
It urges workers to join it in the struggle to usher in a better day. For the first time in the world’s history a subject class has it in its own power to accomplish its own emancipation without an appeal to brute force. The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production.  It is therefore a question not of “reform,’ the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the co-operative commonwealth. Every worker who understands the interest of class and the nature of the struggle in which it is involved, will once and for all time cast their lot with the Socialist Party, which is pledged to abolish the capitalist system, class-rule and wage-slavery—a party which does not compromise, but, preserving inviolate the principles which quickened it into life. It is simply a question of capitalism or socialism, of despotism or democracy, and they who are not wholly with us are wholly against us.

If only the working class would use their eyes and see; their ears and hear; their brains and think, how soon this Earth could be transformed. 

Definitely not The People

Former chief executive of Rangers Charles Green received a total of £933,000 in less than 12 months at Ibrox, mostly made up of salary, bonus and severance pay. He received a salary of £333,077, a £360,000 bonus and benefits which amounted to £22,449. He also received a severance payment of £217,850.

While many fans struggle to pay for their season ticket Green has bought the 18th Castle Marcei and 27 surrounding acres, near Argentan in Normandy for just over 400,000 euros. In an interview with Ouest France, he said: "I just wanted to buy a property in Normandy to live with my 30 horses.”

HOUSE HUNTING FOR THE RICH

Politicians and the mass media commenting on the present economic crisis like to use words like "we are all in this together" and "we must tighten our belts", but this doesn't apply to the owning class when it comes to buying houses. 'According to Gary Hersham, managing director of Beauchamps Estates, the top level of the market has risen sharply since the recession hit the rest of Britain. "Whereas two years ago, sales peaked at about £45m, there have been three sales above £100m in the past 12 months. What you have to understand about the extremely rich is that if they want to buy something, they just buy it." (Sunday Times, 29 September) RD

Together against the bosses

It is true that socialists are not indifferent to the nature of the capitalist state and must struggle constantly to democratise that state. We count every one against us who is not with us and opposed to the capitalist class, especially those “reformers” of chicken hearts who are for everybody, especially themselves, and against nobody.

In the Independence referendum it would be folly and utterly useless to conduct any kind of a campaign other than a revolutionary socialist one. And that means a campaign the fundamental purpose of which is to teach the necessity of the destruction of the capitalist system and the substitution therefore of a socialist society. Failing that there is no conceivable justification for the participation of our party in this campaign. To distinguish ourselves fundamentally from all reformist groups by carrying on a campaign for socialism is not only theoretically correct but in this case also coincides with the demands of “common sense.” It must be clearly recognised that if we don’t conduct such a campaign there is no use having one at all. The campaign affords us an opportunity to teach thousands and tens of thousands of workers the meaning of socialism. In spite of handicaps socialists are in a position to conduct a revolutionary campaign and thereby increase the prestige and membership of the party. The activities in the Socialist Party must see in this campaign an opportunity to increase our numbers and influence.

Some of the unions have put forward all sorts of dubious ideas dreamed up by various little bands of Trotskyists in a patriotic effort to persuade the working class that Scottish independence would mark a step forward towards its own liberation, a step towards socialism. Nothing could be further from the truth. With the conditions that prevail today in this country, the independence of Scotland would not mean a step forward towards socialism. it would be a step backwards. However, this is not obvious to everyone, and warrants some attention. The people who parade the banner of “independence and socialism” around, to catch the attention of Scottish workers, are hard at work perpetuating a number of falsehoods. The referendum is not about independence. If the Yes side wins, Scotland will not be independent. The Scottish capitalists, even the most nationalist among them, never held to the idea of separating from London and Brussels Wall St. The reason is quite simple: it goes against their interests. A “socialist” Scotland will still face the same enemies regardless of whether Scotland is part of the rest of the UK or not. The working class faces a powerful and aggressive enemy which is solidly united despite some contradictions within its ranks. The people are not going to win by dividing themselves. Working class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted to the austerity measures imposed by the capitalists. Unity is necessary to stand up against all the attacks on our democratic rights. Those who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class are the objective allies of the capitalists.

Supporting independence in the name of the light for socialism is a monumental hoax. It flows from the same kind of logic that leads others to preach the nationalization as the cure for all our ills.  It is up to the working class to show we will not be duped by  political nonsense and deceitful rhetoric.

Socialism now

We have just witnessed the annual political party jamboree, the annual conferences. Labour and Tory both have a record of backing oppression, and exploitation, and suppression by one means or another of the people’s struggles. They spend all their time attacking each other and blame one another for the conditions of the people. Between them they are covering up the fact that it is the capitalist system which is the real enemy. Both parties in their own way work to protect the system and the interests of the ruling class. The Labour Party claim to stand for “socialism” because they support nationalisation. Anyone who works in a nationalised industry knows what a farce that claim is! Nationalisation is nothing to do with socialism. At least nationalisation saves jobs we are told. Does it really!  In periods of crisis, capitalist competition and individual firms cannot raise the investment necessary. The state steps in feeds in the investment, combines the firms and closes large sections down to make the nationalised corporation more efficient and profitable. Thousands are thrown out on the scrap heap, while that section of capitalist industry is shored up ready for the next round.

The working class needs political power to build socialism. Socialists not only dream of the good day coming when the world shall know that men are brothers and that women are sisters to each other, but they are at work with all their hearts and all their heads and hands to make that dream come true. Think for just a moment of all the food there is in the world and all there might be and then tell me if socialists are wrong and foolish and wicked for saying that it is a terrible crime of which society is guilty that people go hungry and starve and for this there is no excuse on earth or in heaven.

We call on all workers, regardless of colour or sex, to organise politically and industrially, to win our emancipation from the chains of economic slavery that now bind us down and apart from one another. We, the people, have borne the burdensome yoke of our shameless oppressors too patiently and too long. Have we lost all power of protest? Have we been bent so low in servitude to the rulers of industry and commerce that we shall never again stand erect as free men and women? Millions dying of neglect, millions on the brink of starvation, millions on the hunger line, all help swell the increasing demand for liberation from the greatest evil of all ages — THE PROFIT SYSTEM.

The only hope of labour lies in the growing strength of the socialist movement. The social struggle is being waged the world over. But the duty of every worker is confined to his or her own neighbourhood. We can best win the world struggle by achieving victory in the voting constituency in which we live. Let the workers, wherever the right of the ballot is given them, shake the foundations of the capitalists’ thrones. The lesson is inescapable.The capitalist profit system itself remains the greatest obstacle and it stands in the way of satisfying the peoples’ needs.