Social Democracy

Democracy promotes the illusion that all the citizens have indeed equal rights, and that, therefore, it is impossible for a minority to tyrannise over a majority. If this does, it is exceptional and must be the fault of the majority themselves to have neglected their own interests. It is only a question of getting the right men in sufficient numbers on to the representative bodies, especially into Parliament, and that they, when there, should do the right thing, especially that they should only demand that which is in the interest of the majority of the people, and which the people will, therefore, support. Thus voting becomes not only the central point of all political life, it becomes the paramount interest; and from the point of view of bourgeois democracy, for whom the law is the result and expression of the popular will, and at the same time the determining force in social and political life.

 The Socialist Party is one of class-struggle, which is out to conquer the state-power in order to use it for the liberation of the proletariat, and has no holy reverence for the laws which regulate and protect private property. Nor does it believe that this system of private property ownership can be abolished from the world by merely exercising the vote. Where the political and economic associations of the working class are on a solid basis and well organised, filled with class-consciousness, there is no room for riot or insurrection.

 Violent action by individuals will find an echo and only flourish where the working class movement is weak and allows itself to be  controlled by passing incidents and circumstances. In such situations despair of the lack of power of organisation creeps in and individual activists begin to believe that they are only hindered by the majority, and could attain more by acting independently and autonomously. Such militancy is valueless.  Politically they are for the most part futile and mischievous. Often these tactics attract  unsocial elements who break the laws, not in order to serve the workers cause, but merely to cover their own crimes in the name of the revolution. If the revolutionary becomes a robber, the thief proclaims himself to be a revolutionary. Terrorism weakens the workers movement and it that of our enemy. Terrorism  unites the ruling class as they take refuge behind police and military absolutism. And this rule of brute force must always be injurious to the workers struggle as it is always the weaker party. A strong movement has no need for violent deeds on the part of individuals or minorities. The individualists who rushes ahead of the rest, or chooses “short cuts”, more often than not lose their way and become lost.

A dictatorship can only exist so long as it answers to the wish of the people. If that ceases to be the case, and if the will of the people expresses itself in a decided manner, it has to submit. If it does not do so, then the people possess the right to use force.  But this is not the case where the political process grants to all the citizens the same rights, where the expression of the popular will is not restricted by extra-legal forces. The Socialist Party is opposed to violence but if it ever becomes necessary for us to enlist such a strategy it will be to wipe out capitalism, the common enemy of the oppressed and downtrodden in all countries.

 The Socialist Party of Great Britain  is a democratic party to the highest degree, since it wants to organise the freedom of all and to give every individual the means to fully realise it. The socialist association of producers and the common property of the instruments of production have become the conditions for universal liberation. Social democracy, as its name implies, before its meaning was devalued by its adoption by various reformist liberal parties, is the application to the social life of the nation, of the fundamental principles of democracy. Social democracy must proceed from the bottom upward, whereas capitalist “bourgeois" democracy is organised from above downward. This conception of socialism answers all the fears of a bureaucratic state, ruling and ordering the lives of every individual , and thus gives assurance that the future will be an extension of the freedom of the individual, and not the suppression of it.  It is the fullest democratic control. Nation-states, territories, or provinces will exist only as geographical expressions, and have no existence as sources of governmental power, though they may be centres of some administrative bodies of resources.

Our present social system is altogether against the weak and certainly in favour of the strong. It is  a struggle in which a person possessing the least conscience wins the race. The weak are crushed down and on their prostrate bodies rise to eminence the unprincipled men, who crush them. The principles of socialism aim at giving exercise to the highest and very best qualities of human life. Times were when we could not advance the social system as we can do to-day. It was not clear that we could have a sufficient food supply without working a considerable more number of hours than we now find necessary. Now, we know no limit to nature’s productiveness. To-day the cry is advanced that we are over-produced. Too much food, while at the same time there are too many hungry people; too much clothes and an immense number going about in rags.

 Are we to be satisfied with this condition of things when it is in our power to alter it? Surely, we deserve  something better. How many young men and women have said that there is nothing for them worth living for, and that they would almost as soon die. How long is this condition of things to remain with us? What is a life worth, unless it has been doing something to add to the sum of happiness of the human family? This social system of ours is wrong in every aspect.  We have to make changes those changes to come quickly. The thoughts and actions of reformers  who let things run as they are retard progress by taking us in the wrong direction. There must be unity and co-operation if we are to take upon ourselves to take the responsibility of proving that we can accomplish what they are aiming at in all parts of the civilised world — to establish socialism. We think that we can do it. We can if we set our minds upon it.

“The best State-form is that in which the social antagonisms are not obscured, and are not forcibly or artificially covered up or restrained. The best State-form is that in which these conflicts can be fought out freely, thereby attaining their proper solution.” - Marx, “Neue Rheinische Zeitung”, June 1848.

Profits and Pollution before Penicuik

Proposals for a huge new opencast coal mine in Midlothian have been given the go-ahead. The plans will see 10 million tonnes of coal excavated over 10 years at the 500-acre Cauldhall site  which will cover an area the size of 1,000 football pitches, near Penicuik.

Nine councillors voted in favour of the mine, which planning officers recommended be approved because it is in the national interest.

An action group called Stop Cauldhall Opencast, said the decision was a "travesty of the planning process". Malcolm Spaven from the protest group said: "What's the point in Scottish and Local Planning Policy if it can all be torn to shreds at the whim of a planning committee?"

Green MSP for Lothian Alison Johnstone, who is a member of Holyrood's economy and energy committee, said: "The impacts on local communities from this proposal, such as noise, dust and heavy traffic, are completely unacceptable. It is utterly illogical to approve yet more coal mining given a whole host of factors. Cockenzie power station is switched off so there's nowhere local for this coal to go." She added: "Scotland has already failed its first two annual climate targets so more fossil fuel is the last thing we need, and we've seen landscapes across Scotland scarred by opencast being abandoned by companies that go bust. Hargreaves' plan is contrary to the local plan and the council's economic development strategy."

WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said it sent a "terrible signal about Scotland's commitment to tackling climate change".

ZILLIONAIRES AND NONSENSE

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has told people to stop bashing the super-rich. 'Mr Johnson accused "everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Nick Clegg" of bullying the group he defined as "zillionaires" and said the most rich of all should receive "automatic knighthoods". ........ Mr Johnson said the rich deserve our "humble and hearty thanks" for their contributions to charity and the exchequer - quoting figures that say the top 1 per cent pay 29.8 per cent of all UK income tax.' (Independent, 18 November) Since Mr Johnsons's zillionaires tend to get knighthoods anyway we wonder at his concern for them, especially when all their wealth has come from the exploitation of the impoverished minority. RD

“All for one and one for all”

Human nature is supposed to be such as to make socialism a mere utopia, a fantastic and unrealisable dream. Socialists explain that human ‘nature’ will reflect the character of the future society just as at present it assumes the competitive, selfish, grasping character of capitalist society. When you take into consideration the greed, the strife, the cheating and the violence that exist under the system of private property, you are amazed, not that the human animal is so bad but that, in spite of everything, man has not completely degenerated into a wild beast. Let no one imagine that we socialists assert that under socialism all men will be born with equal abilities. Just as at present there will be individuals with greater and lesser abilities, everyone will be educated to use his capacities to serve society and not to exploit others. For the person of greater talents, socialism, by doing away with the struggle for food and clothing, will mean a far greater opportunity for the exercise of those talents.

If the capitalists were to depend upon force alone to guarantee their privileged position, their situation would be precarious indeed. After all they represent only a small minority of the people. The overwhelming majority of the population would benefit by a change from the present system to socialism. Against such a decisive majority the instruments of force at the disposal of the capitalist class could not prevail. If the working masses would be aroused and determined to abolish capitalism, the police and the army would be helpless, even if we assume that all of the soldiers would be loyal to the capitalist class.

What the capitalist class must depend upon, more than on force, is deceit. All the force in the world would not avail the capitalists if they could not deceive and confuse the people. Even their police and their armies would not be reliable because the police and the army are composed of people who come from the working class and who permit themselves to be used against their class brothers simply because they do not know any better. The rulers of our present social order see to it that the workers are subjected to a system of schooling and training which succeeds in making them believe that the present system is the best possible system, and that if there is anything wrong with it, it is only of a minor character and can be easily cured by changing the people who are in control of things or implementing certain reforms. It is this deception, more than anything else, that assures the existence of a social order which brings so much misery and suffering to the vast majority of the people.

 What institutions exist for the purpose of deceiving the masses? There are quite a few, the most important being the church, the media, and the educational system. From early childhood every person is subjected to the influence of ideas which tend to make him or her respect authority, and to believe in things as they are. Obedience is the virtue stressed by religious teachers.

The members of the ruling class depend upon the schools, more perhaps than upon the churches, to instill into the minds of the working-class youth a proper respect for all the institutions and ideas which ensure the continuance of the present system. Above all, the educational system attempts to imbue the young people with an intense patriotism. To be ready to fight and die for one's country (which, of course, means the country owned by the capitalists) is pictured as the highest of all virtues. The average boy or girl is graduated from school firmly convinced that the economic, political and social ideas and ideals that they have been taught are correct and" necessary. They are prepared to fight, not in the interest of their class, but for things as they are, for the benefit of those who exploit them.

While the educational system, both religious and secular, molds the minds of the people in their earlier years, the   mass media is the chief instrument in the work of confusing and deceiving them in later life. Day in and day out the capitalist press TV and radio turns loose a veritable flood of lies and half-truths, the sum and substance of which is that capitalism is the best of all possible systems and that only people with vicious tendencies would want to change that
system. And there is very little that those of us, who want to establish a new social order, can do in order to counter-act the propaganda of the capitalism. To publish a paper,  to own a TV channel or radio station  requires tremendous capital. They are all owned by wealthy capitalists and depend for their advertisements on the big business people.  For every worker who has a
chance to read a paper advocating the ideas of socialism, there are tens of thousands who read nothing except the capitalist press. The cinema, too, subtly spreading the same poison that numbs the thinking workers.

Influenced by the false ideas propagated by the capitalist class the workers not only fail to struggle against their real enemies but actually permit themselves to be arrayed against one another. They allow themselves to be divided on racial, national and religious grounds. Prejudices are fostered amongst the workers and thereby the struggle against the common enemy is weakened. The best example of a prejudice that causes untold harm to the labor movement is the prejudice of the white and indigenous workers against the coloured and immigrant workers.

 Today the great majority of people imagine that in the last instance we can instill whatever ideas we may choose into a man's mind; that we can influence at our own discretion the development of ideas at any given time in any given people. But it is precisely this that is impossible. The fact is that we cannot and do not think what we please to think; we think what we must think. What obliges the individual to think in a certain way is the measure of his interests and opinions, which are in turn developed out of the social interests of a certain stratum or class in society. If our capitalist class stands opposed to Socialism, we socialists are the very last people to be astonished at it. No one can require a class to decide and act against its vital interests, nor do we in the least expect this.

It is only natural that people who sell their labour power and toil in servitude, who know that they are condemned without respite to this position which is anything but a pleasant one, for all their days that the thought must awaken in their minds: "Is this right? Is it reasonable? Is it to remain so for ever? Are we always to be the oppressed and expropriated, to the end that those who appropriate to themselves out of our labor all the wealth and enjoyment that this world can offer may live in opulence and ease?"

These, indeed, are very pertinent questions that produce the class consciousness of the worker and it is this  the socialist movement expand and develop. Not only must socialism be accepted as an ideal and the goal to aim for, it must also be understood as realisable, something that is feasible and achievable, as the practical solution of our social difficulties. Mankind can do all that it wills; but in order to will to do anything, we must first realise that it is necessary and possible.

It is not the object of the Socialist Party  to destroy civilisation. We do not desire to divide up and re-share out wealth as some  people suppose; we do not wish to throw humanity back into primitivism. Men and women should be free and equal without exception,and  they should be permitted to live their lives as civilised human beings. And in order to attain thisit is not just merely declaring it a  right but providing  the opportunity and furnishing the means of harmoniously developing and educating, in accordance with peoples needs, the physical and intellectual capacities which nature has given to them.

The socialist principle is “All for one and one for all”

Defend the Roma

When it comes to catch-all caveats "I'm not a racist" ranks alongside the most common.

No one's ever racist nowadays. But somehow racism still seems to exist and find its target. Few doubt that certain views pervade and practices persist but even fewer will own up to holding them or following them. A system of discrimination remains, yet no one, apparently, is running it. So while those who take responsibility for it are rare, those who suffer the consequences are many.

Nick Clegg, used his disclaimer. "I am a liberal,"and went on to describe the Roma as sometimes "intimidating" and "offensive".

The Guardian recently reported that South Yorkshire police say crime has not increased significantly since the Roma moved to town a few years ago.

After a chip-shop owner swore two teenagers tried to sell him a baby, the police scoured CCTV footage and records of babies born in the area and found nothing. A police spokesman said it "could have been a joke in poor taste". That didn't stop it making the front page of the Daily Express, however.

 The arrival of a large number of poor people does demand resources to facilitate their integration. Those challenges are most likely to fall on working-class communities that are least equipped to meet then, their capacity further diminished by the swingeing cuts of Clegg's government, including  the Migration Impact Fund. But the challenges are because the Roma are overwhelmingly poor, not because they're Roma.

The truth is the Roma have far more to fear from non-Roma than vice-versa. Gassed by the Nazis, forcibly sterilised by the Swedes, recently expelled by the French, they have long been persecuted. In the last six weeks, two Roma families in Ireland, accused of stealing children because they didn't sufficiently look like them, had their kids taken away from them by the state only to have them returned. In Serbia, skinheads tried to snatch a blond child from in front of his house for the same reason.

For decades the ‘Communists’ forced ‘integration’ on Roma people. They forced education on them. They forced them into guaranteed jobs. It failed. Indeed, the ‘Communists’ invented the crime of ‘Parasitism’ specifically for those Roma who refused to work under any circumstances.The plight of the Roma in eastern Europe was so bad that securing minority rights for the Roma was a precondition for countries from the region joining the EU. Polls show that 91% of Czechs had "negative views" towards them while a survey of Hungarian police officers revealed that 54% believed criminality to be a key element of the Roma identity. In the Czech Republic, 75% of Roma children were placed in schools for people with learning difficulties; in Hungary it was 44%. The mayor of Mendez, a small town in Slovakia, said: "I am no racist … but some Gypsies you would have to shoot."

Scapegoating foreigners proves easier than blaming the housing crisis on all those single mums getting purposefully pregnant to get a council house, because often than not a reader will actually have a single mother as a relation or a friend who is and they know very well it is not true. Blaming people you have little contact with is more fruitful a tactic for the divide and rule merchants. The Roma are powerless, they voiceless and  unrepresented,and now serve as our enemy within. They are defenceless against us, but we tell each other that they threaten us. The media frighten us with ancient fairy tales: they steal our children. Politicians join in, sanctioning prejudices with veiled threats of legal action and punitive restrictions. The racists have moved on from the “white pakis” - the Poles - to the Roma. Who lives here, belongs here.

The Slovak Spectator: In the UK you use the terms Roma, Gypsies and Travellers. What is the difference between them?

Arthur Ivatts: The difference is just in the name. The English Gypsies are Roma, they came from India in the 10th century in the same way as the Slovak Roma and they migrated further west to the Netherlands, Scotland and then travelled as nomadic groups in England, Ireland and Scotland since the 16th century. So they are Roma but they were called Egyptians because they said they had come from Egypt. But the word ‘Gypsy’ was seen as a bit derogatory in the UK, as here. So in the 1950s and 60s the Gypsies said they didn’t want to be called Gypsies, they said they were ‘Travellers’. But then in the 1970s the Irish travellers came to the UK in more significant numbers and many Gypsies didn’t want to be called the same, with some wanting to be called Roma, to follow the rest of Europe. Then we had Central-Eastern European (CEE) Roma coming to the UK, so the English Gypsies wanted to be distinguished from them and so now perhaps a majority say they would prefer to be known as Gypsies again. So we use the terms Roma, Gypsies and Travellers to attempt to satisfy everyone in terms of the justified sensitivities surrounding ethnic self-ascription... The Roma have been abused for over 500 years. They are the classic example of the whole continent’s racial abuse of a minority. And now, everybody stands back and says: ‘Just look at them, they are happy in their ghetto communities, they don’t want to work, they are not interested in education, they are just interested in the benefits’.

The non-Roma world is not accepting their responsibility for what they’ve done to this minority over five centuries. And when we come to pick up the pieces of this abuse, what do we do? We blame the victims. We don’t blame ourselves. This is the tragedy of Europe today. What we need is an apology to the Roma. We need an historic apology from the governments to say ‘We are sorry about what has happened to you in this society’. Because what European society has done to the Roma has included enslavement, banishment, discrimination, persecution and attempted genocide time and time again. Has any of that ever been apologised for or even publicly acknowledged? ... One well known British politician said that if they [Roma] start behaving properly we would treat them properly – such a comment shows a complete lack of understanding of the history, it blames the victims of racial abuse and suggests that human rights are a conditional commodity linked to the stereotypes of particular groups of people.

Capitalism is the Disease - Socialism is the Cure

"The emancipation of the workers must be achieved by the working class itself"

Things have turned out quite differently from what people had hoped. Instead of a future era of the positive achievements of social reforms, we are in a period of economic crisis, of rising prices and falling wages, the stagnation in all social legislation, of war and increased armaments spending, of nationalist and racial division and of the persistence of absolutist dictatorships. People had been hoping to be able to stem the tide by skilful tactics of our union movement supported by our protests in the streets but, alas, there, too, we have been disappointed. It has proved impossible to defend existing social reforms, much less, gain new ones. The faith and hope people held in their representatives in Parliament has proved mis-placed. But it is with discontent with the whole world of capitalism that our strength grows! It is not an era of social reforms that we now hope for, but the great epoch of social revolution!

There have always been comrades who warned against reformism, and who endeavoured to bring to the political debate the revolutionary way of thinking. But they were rarely listened to, and then only by the few. The Socialist Party has repeatedly stated that reformist illusions can only lead to disappointments and when it is done in the name of socialism then it is socialists who are made responsible. If the mass of the people are given exaggerated hopes and  when these promises of better things do not materialise, the people will no longer make capitalism responsible for their misery, but they will hold socialists culpable. No longer will they blame the governing classes, but their own representatives.

The Socialist Party’s propaganda and theory is based on the idea that in a socialist society production will be for need and not for profit. Devoting time, energy and resources to drawing up detailed plans for the reformation of  capitalist society will ultimately be disillusioning and demoralising at best or strengthen capitalism at worst.

Socialism is no cut-and-dried collection of dogmas, which are to be taken without investigation. If each successive generation considers itself bound to argue out over again all the principles of , so much the better. The process will, we believe, give them only a firmer grip of their entire soundness.

One topic where there exists a great confusion of thought is the relation between reform and revolution. If we fail to educate and to prepare the working class for a clear understanding of, and for the attainment of the revolutionary objective, any temporary concessions they may have gained can be turned into a stumbling block of the struggle. Socialists have no interest in supporting palliatives which only serve to make capitalism tolerable. There is nothing intrinsically socialist or even working class about reformism. Often, the granting of concessions acts as a lubricant, making the system run more smoothly. Reform can divert the threat of revolution.  It creates a political climate that is conducive to capitalism’s stability. It pays the capitalist state to appear to be generous since this conceals the true nature of its being. Reformism is a prop for capitalism that the revolution intends to kick it away.

One class—the capitalist class—owns and controls the economic resources of the world.  The workers must take over and operate all the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all.  Harmonious relations of mankind in all their material affairs will evolve out of the change in the control and ownership in the industrial resources of the world. That accomplished all members of society sharing in the enjoyment the good things and comforts of life, will be the arbiters of their own destinies in a free society. Freedom and equality will be no longer empty and cheap phrases, but will have a meaning; when all men and women are really free and equal they will honour and advance one another. Long enough a future state of bliss has been held out to suffering mankind, in which they would be rewarded for all the wants and sufferings and pains of this world, and now most people have lost confidence in such empty promises. They demand an amelioration: not words, not promises, but facts. They do not want to expect, with resignation, what may come after death; they demand a change of their unfortunate situation while living on earth.

The disenchantment with the political parties and in particular the Labour Party has so far manifested itself in abstentionism. Many have become disillusioned and dropped out of political activity and the electorate have voted with their feet – by refusing to leave the house on polling day. At each election, a smaller percentage go to vote. However, for the socialist this opting out of conventional political process offers a potential for a genuine socialist party, one that does not hold out the promise of quick cure-alls for the social ills but which traces social sickness and misery to their sources.

 If you think the aims of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are worthy, that the Socialist Party endeavours to promote the happiness and welfare of mankind, join us! Try to propagate their principles among your acquaintances, explaining them its truths, exposing the falsehoods. Tell them that the socialists form the only party of the working people.

"Workers of the World, Unite!"

Fair and Balanced?

Cameron has ordered an investigation into union tactics in the wake of the threatened closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery, that saw Unite members picketing the homes of INEOS directors.

The review will be led by QC Bruce Carr, who acted for  British Airways against the trade unions in court when it blocked plans for a Christmas strike by Unite members in 2009.

TUC head of employment rights Sarah Veale said the investigation was clearly “politically driven”.

Food for thought

Thanks to frozen hospital budgets, heart surgeons and eye doctors are among a growing number of specialized physicians who can't find work in Canada despite long waits for surgery, according to a report issued by The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. Sixteen per cent of those interviewed for the report said, although newly qualified, could not find work in their field. Thirty-one per cent said they were pursuing extra training to become more employable. Nearly a quarter of the new graduates said they were working part-time jobs. This shows that no matter what training one receives, either there is a market for your skills or there isn't, and if not, tough. But that's capitalism. John Ayers.

One Big Union

Unions were the first means of defence developed by the working class in its struggle against capitalist exploitation. They were the result of concerted efforts by workers to organise and fight collectively for better working conditions, wage increases and a shorter working day. The establishment and growth of unions was no gift from the capitalist class, but the result of workers’ struggles against their exploiters.

Working conditions were intolerable before unions were organised. The working day in factories had no limit other than the physical exhaustion of the workers, and would often exceed 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Children were frequently employed, deprived of any education, they did the same job as adults, but for barely one-half or one-quarter of the pay. Women fared no better, overworked and underpaid in the sweatshops of the time. Employers could pay workers when they pleased and cut wages whenever they wanted to.

For many years workers fought back in a sporadic, random manner, in an unorganised way. With the development of unions, the working class took a major step forward. The isolated conflicts between individual workers and capitalists now took on the character of conflicts between two classes. Now, not only were the capitalists organised with their industrial associations and the governments at their service, but the workers also had their own collective organisations – the trade unions. Strikes broke out and many were successful. Thus, the establishment of unions, a major step forward in uniting workers into a class, was the result of struggle against the capitalists, particularly political action against their state and its anti-worker laws. Instead of leaving workers isolated to face their bosses alone, labour unions do everything possible to strengthen and broaden the struggles. The main problem was that trade unionism accepts the capitalist system and tries only to get a bigger piece of the pie for themselves.

As an organisation of the working class, the unions cannot limit itself to the economic struggle for better working conditions and wages. As long as the capitalist system exists, the bosses will always try to take back what they have been forced to concede. They will continually try to step up the exploitation of the working class in order to boost their profits. Until the workers get rid of the capitalist system itself, the cause of all the injustices and suffering they face,  the source of their misery they will constantly have to take up their struggles over and over again.

A role of the socialist party is to educate and teach the members of trade unions their limitations and to show that every conflict between workers and management is part of the general struggle in society between the capitalist and its state on the one hand, and the working class on the other. We try to dispel the f illusions about the role of governments, the police or the law.We denounce all the bosses’ or the bureaucrats’ attempts to institutionalise class collaboration through joint employer/employee committees. Our guiding principle is that the interests of the bosses and the workers are irreconcilable. We reject any support, official or otherwise, on the part of the unions for any capitalist party even those that try to give themselves a friend-of-the-worker image

Karl Marx summed it up in Wages, Price and Profit:
“Trade unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

 Workers must transform the labour movement into a class-conscious political movement. Unions with this perspective defend the workers best. They are strong because they understand the nature and the objectives of the capitalist class, and they use every struggle to strengthen the labour movement as a whole.

We hold that unions should practice democracy and is fully controlled by its members. The union should ensure those members actively participate in union life, structures, general meetings or tasks. Decisions are made after thorough debates in which all opinions are expressed. They are not made by a  bureaucracy who tell us to leave everything to them. Union officials apply the decisions of their members and place themselves at their members’ service. They have no special privileges and if they fail to carry out the union’s decisions or fail to apply its wishes, means should exist for their recall  and remove them from their functions, if necessary. To reach important decisions members must have all the information they is required in order to take a position. Workers must participate in formulating their demands, and should have democratic control over all decisions to strike or to return to work, and on all other issues that affect them.Unions are essential for the working class and without them, workers would still be subject to the every whim and fancy of the employers and their foremen. What is as important as the growth of numbers is the development of the trade unions in the direction of class solidarity as opposed to sectional exclusiveness and antagonism.

However, the support of the Socialist Party for the trade unions is not necessarily all one-way. In  order to move the struggle for socialism forward, they must support a party that is fighting to do away with capitalism, a socialist party. As Marx wrote in a resolution of the International Workingmen’s Association on unions:
“Aside from their immediate work of reacting to the pestering manoeuvres of capital, they must become the organizing centres of the working class fighting towards that great goal, its total emancipation. They must help any political and social movement in favour of this aim.”

The unions’ indispensable support for a socialist party will not come about automatically. It must be won through education and persuasion, and by the union members own experience. The support is not imposed but is won democratically.  Our primary function is to organise a political party, independent, class-conscious, proletarian and socialist. The function of industrial organisation lies with the trade unions. These two functions are not absolutely distinct and separate, they are to some extent interdependent. Yet they are not identical. The trade unions can help us, we can help them. It is as much unreasonable to suggest that in politics the Socialist Party should be the subordinate partner as it would be to suggest that the Socialist Party should claim to dictate the policy of the trade union in conducting the strike, or should expect the union to abandon the immediate objects and demands of the strike simply in order to make socialist propaganda.

Reading Notes

When we think of World War I, we tend to think almost exclusively of the European theatre and certainly not about Africa. Niall Ferguson in his book, "Civilization : The West and the Rest", although a decidedly capitalist supporter, tells us, "The war that began in 1914 was not a war between a few quarrelling European states. It was a war between world empires (socialists would not disagree with that)…In no theatre were the problems of communication more severe than in Africa, and, in the absence of extensive railways and reliable beasts of burden, there was only one solution: men. Over 2 million Africans served in the First World War all of carriers of supplies, weapons and wounded, and although they were far from the fields of Flanders, these forgotten auxiliaries had as hellish a time as the most exposed front-line troops in Europe. Not only were they overworked and underfed; once removed from their usual locales they were every bit as susceptible to disease as their white masters. Roughly a fifth of all Africans employed as carriers died, many of them the victims of the dysentery that ravaged all colonial armies in the field." Ferguson also tells us that as recruits dwindled, the French turned to Africa for manpower in the trenches. The first African elected to the French Assembly, Blaise Diagne became a recruiting agent for the French army. Africans were often sent into enemy gunfire first, whites behind. One in five Africans died in the war, one fifth of those who joined up, compared to 17% for French soldiers.

Despite the establishment line of the book, Ferguson prints Thomas Carlyle's comment on capitalism in his essay, "Past and Present", "…the world has been rushing on with such fiery animation to get work and ever more work done, , it has had no time to think of dividing the wages; and has merely left them to be scrambled for by the Law of the Stronger, law of supply-and-demand, law of Laissez-faire, and other idle Laws and Un-Laws. We call it a society; and go about professing openly the totalise separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named 'fair competition' and so forth, it is a mutual hostility. We have forgotten everywhere that cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings…[it] is not the sole nexus of man with man, - how far from it! Deep, far deeper than Supply-and-demand, are Laws, Obligations sacred as Man's Life itself."

So there!

 

For socialism, John Ayers

Meet the new boss - Same as the old boss

FOR CLASS WAR

Our job is to overthrow the capitalist system and so socialists are always accused of setting class against class and trying to create ill feeling. Yet the real fact is, we only point out what already exists. They exist because some men live by owning the factories and mines and machines, and the most part have to go to work on these machines which they don’t own. The boss tries to squeeze as much profit out of the worker as he can. The worker tries to wring as close to a living wage out of the boss as he or she can. And if the workers stopped struggling, they’d just be squeezed more, that’s all. That’s why there’s a class struggle.

There are nice bosses and nasty bosses just as there were  kind slave-masters and cruel ones. Socialists want NO slave-masters and NO bosses. There are no small employers, no working capitalists, no friendly relations between masters and men. There is only one connecting link between the employers and the employees, and that link is to be found in the money the worker finds in his pay packet. We’re going to do it by getting rid of the profit system, which exists only because there is a class of exploiters and a class of the exploited.  Workers meet this class war everywhere, but do not always recognise it. It is our work to label its every manifestation, in order that workers may recognise it.

We have always said that in present times the worker is not class-conscious – that is, knowing and understanding his class subjection and its cause, and therefore knowing and understanding his class interest in overthrowing the institutions which keep him so. This is not the case with the capitalist. They are thoroughly class-conscious and never lose sight of the cardinal principle of the class struggle. While the average worker has little to do with politics, the other class know its value, not merely to their whole class, but for each sections of their class. All government is therefore class government.

These days the media  proclaim that employer and employee are partners in industry and decry "wasteful and futile" strikes, describing them as obsolete and unnecessary — it is interesting to understand what the bosses  really mean when they speak of harmony. Workers are not regarded by their masters as human beings – they are only reckoned as so many items in the balance-sheet, and troublesome items at that. The capitalist class hold no illusions. It looks upon the working class as its class enemy. It still employs every weapon at its disposal to keep its supremacy from anti-union legislation to secret black-lists of those “trouble-makers”. The press and TV will endeavour to soften or obliterate the divisions. There is no question of removing those divisions or their causes as those are inherent in a system which sharply divides society into two classes, the propertied and the propertyless, master and slave, owner and owned, employer and employed. But those divisions may eventually lead to revolt on the part of the subject class unless they can be softened or bridged over by a seeming identity of interest.

The Socialist Party stands alone as the standard bearer of socialism. The class war is our war and our only war.  It is time to line up in the class struggle regardless of race or nationality for the overthrow of class rule and for the emancipation of their class and humanity. A win at football is the result of many moves and counter-moves. We do not lie down and weep when our side loses a goal. No, we roll up our sleeves, pull up our socks, and carry on, determined to get two goals in return. So it is the same with the class war. 

Giving your right arm for the job

A sawmill firm has been fined £30,000 after a young worker was injured in a "wholly avoidable" accident. Damian Gawlowski, 20, lost full use of his arm after it was pulled into unguarded machinery at Tennants (Elgin) Ltd.

Health and Safety Executive principal inspector Niall Miller said: "This incident was wholly avoidable. HSE said its investigation revealed that the saw-blade guard was positioned incorrectly. Additionally, Mr Gawlowski was not trained to use the machine and was left unsupervised despite his inexperience.

"Mr Gawlowski was let down by the company's lack of proper training, inadequate assessment of risks and ineffective measures to stop access to dangerous parts of equipment." He added: "From Mr Gawlowski's point of view, his life has been destroyed. He is unable to go back to work, unable to use his hand and he relies on others for many of the tasks of daily living."

EMPTY SLOGANS

Politicians are wonderful at dreaming up meaningless vote-catching slogans. We have had Harold MacMillan's "You have never had it so good" and Margaret Thatcher's "A property owning democracy". The last one looks a little more empty today. 'Around 200,000 families in Britain are at risk of losing their homes after falling up to 12 months behind with their mortgage repayments, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said yesterday. The warning comes after the Bank of England governor said he would be "absolutely" prepared to raise interest rates before the next election in May 2015.' (Daily Mail, 15 November) Perhaps "You have never been had so often" would be more appropriate. RD

PROFIT AND GLOBAL WARMING

The majority of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions, believed to be one of the main causes of global warming, stem from deforestation. So all sorts of pious noises have been made by politicians about curbing this danger, but capitalism being capitalism what has been the result? 'Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and last July, after years of decline. ..... The provisional statistics from August 2012 to last July suggest that the area suffering deforestation was 5,843 sq km (2,255 sq miles), compared to 4,571 sq km (1,765 sq miles) in the previous 12 months.' (BBC News, 14 November) Despite the piety capitalism concentrates on profit above all else, so global concerns take a back seat. RD

SOCIALIST CLARITY

Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. The great only appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.

Society contains many contradictions which have arisen as a result of the fact that production has a social character under capitalism while ownership of the means of production is in private hands. The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is the principal contradiction. Socialists have always maintained that the change from capitalism to
socialism would be a fundamental change, that is, we would have a complete reorganisation of society, that this change would not be a question of reform; that the capitalist system of society would be completely changed and that that system would give way to a new system of society based on a new form of production.

Capitalism is that system of society in which the means of production and distribution are owned by a few individuals for their own profit. Yet all the capitalist institutions are based on labour-power of working people. The factories, the mines, the land, and all means of production. Labour power is essential to make them valuable and to provide profits for those that own and control
them. All of our institutions are based on the labour-power of the working man. Without that labour-power society could not exist. Not a wheel could turn. Capitalists today controls the creative power of labour for their own particular advantage.

We have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labour to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and yet there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue. It is not the fault of nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that must be abolished. The Socialist Party of Great Britain opposes a social order in which it is possible for one person who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune 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. Although we be still a small minority members of the Socialist Party have learned how to be patient and to bide our time. They  know, that the time is coming the minority will become the majority. When that  day arrives we shall have a harmonious  commonwealth, industrial freedom and social justice.

The  confusion and lack of clarity on the Left enables the the policies of the Labour Party to be labelled as socialist and to confuse the mass of workers about the real nature of capitalism and socialism. Thus the equation of nationalisation with socialism, the description of the Labour Party as a working class party and the demands for nationalisation as a means of making inroads into the capitalist state. The essence of capitalism is property relationships; ownership is merely a formal question, which can take MANY forms.  Hence nationalisation can never be a means of making ’inroads’ into capitalism. One of the battles for the Socialist Party, therefore, to combat nationalisation and argue that it diverts the fight for socialism to a fight for reformism and gradualism.

 Old Labour demand nationalisation as a means of making inroads into the capitalist system – as a form of creeping socialism. The Trotskyists of SPEW (Militant) say that they are making ’transitional’ demands, so their approach is different to that of the Labour ‘leftists’. The SWP claim that slogans for more nationalisation raises the question of state power and heighten the consciousness of the workers. Objectively all these organisations are serving the capitalist in that they are attempting to mobilise the working class in order to bring about the expansion of state-capitalism to rescue bankrupt private industries and enterprises.  In the long-term nationalisation cannot stem the tide of redundancies and indeed may accelerate it. These calls for nationalisation as a means of saving jobs is an aspect of the general reformist outlook of the British labour movement.

Scotland's 1%

Scotland's top earners have increased their income at a greater rate than the rest of the nation's workers in the past decade, according to a report. Scotland’s highest earners have pulled away from the rest of the country’s workforce, after increasing their share of total incomes by nearly 50 per cent in a decade. The top 1 per cent – made up of 25,000 people earning more than £120,000 a year – are estimated to earn a tenth of all income in Scotland,

It said those in the top 1% income bracket could expect to earn 20 times more than someone in the bottom 1%.  The richest 1% of earners contribute a fifth of income tax raised in Scotland.

It says the explosion in “superstar” wages – typically for company chiefs and financial executives – has led to an overall increase in wage inequality over the past 20 years, with wage growth among low and middle earners failing to keep pace. Much of the increase in wage inequality in Scotland has been driven by increased part-time working. This was particularly the case in lower-paying occupations, and although this has increased inequality, the authors noted that some workers may prefer shorter hours. The report also suggested that another important factor has been the changing job market. The share of higher-paying and lower-paying jobs increased between 2001 and 2010, while the share of middle-wage jobs fell, which was as a result of technological change and globalisation.

David Bell, professor of economics at Stirling University, said: "Though an independent Scotland would have more powers to address inequality, its room for manoeuvre would be constrained by these wider forces. Inequality in Scotland, like in many developed nations, is partly being driven by technology, by trade, and even by how we decide to form households. So, there are likely to be limits to the extent that a small open economy can reduce inequality. Scottish independence would provide opportunities, but the constraints that already exist would not go away."

The report lists 35 OECD countries, and it ranked the UK seventh in terms of income inequality, behind Chile, Mexico, Turkey, the United States, Israel and Portugal. Scotland was ranked 18th, below Ireland, Spain and Italy but ahead of France, Sweden and Norway. Iceland was ranked the most equal country of the 35. While the taxation system means the UK is not rising up the list, the report says income inequality is increasing and being driven almost entirely by the wages of the top earners. Those in the top 2 per cent were ranked as those earning more than £86,000, while those in the top 1 per cent were earning more than £119,000. The report found that, in 1997, the top 1 per cent earned 6.3 per cent of total pre-tax incomes. By 2009, that had increased to 9.4 per cent – a rise of 49 per cent.

Buying a nationality

Malta set a price tag for acquiring citizenship: 650,000 euros (£548,000)
Spain grants residence to foreigners who spend at least 500,000 euros on real estate or invest at least 2m euros in Spanish government bonds.
Hungary grants residence to foreigners who invest at least 250,000 euros in government bonds.
Cyprus cut the amount of investment required to be eligible for citizenship, from 10m euros to 3m, in its existing "citizenship by investment" programme.
The UK also offers a fast-track residence scheme for foreigners prepared to make a big investment.
Wealthy foreigners can settle permanently in the UK if they have been officially resident for at least two years. The continuous residence requirement is two years for individuals who have at least £10m in personal wealth in the UK; three years for those with at least £5m in the UK and five years for those with at least £1m.
Netherlands plans to give residence to foreigners with more than 1.25m euros in their bank account.

Rich people who want to get abroad and can 'buy' a residence permit for Canada, Singapore or the USA [and Thailand.]

What immigration problem?

From here

Food for thought

The Toronto Star published photographs of children working in Bangaldeshi garment factories. The captions read, " A young boy sleeps at his sewing machine after a long shift in an open-air garment factory…" and , " Twelve –year-old girls glue on sequins at the AT garment factory", and how about, " Shakil Khan, 10, has worked for four months as an unpaid trainee. When he finally gets a salary, it will be $4 a day." Capital doesn't care, the human race should! John Ayers.

THE MODERN CLASS STRUGGLE

Politicians like to portray themselves as modern and progressive in their political outlook unlike the harsh Victorian politicians of the 19th century. Modern and progressive are hardly the words to describe this statement however. 'Feckless fathers should be put in chains and made to work to pay back the costs of bringing up their children, David Davies, the Tory MP for Monmouth, said. (Times, 13 November) Davies views perfectly reflect how many of the owning class view the modern working class. RD

We Won't Be Fooled Again

Today, despite all the promises that the likes of the Depression of the 1930’s would never happen again, the world is in the grips of economic and political crisis. Mass unemployment is already a reality. Workers rights and a whole range of health and social services are under fierce attack. Never have we stood in greater need of fundamental solutions. As a result of this recession workers in the country are in fear of losing their jobs. Every self-employed sub-contractor is in fear of bankruptcy looming ahead. The way to win workers away from Tory, Labour and Liberal is to tell them the truth.  And the plain fact is that the continued existence of capitalism will bring unemployment, wage cuts, poverty and insecurity to most people. The productive capacity of the country, which could produce an decent  standard of living for all, is not being utilised. Industry is being run not for use, but for the profit of the big banks, financial tycoons, multi-national corporations and the big land and property owners.

In fact, from the point of view of some Big Businesses the economic recession such as this was not at all unwelcome, provided it did not turn into a political revolution. A crisis furnishes an excellent challenge in the game of competition in which Big Business can emerge the winner by an overwhelming margin through bull-dozing Little Business into the ground. These far-flung business empires, of a scope and size unimaginable to previous generations, treat the entire planet as their domain. They are a law unto themselves, free to roam the globe in search of cheaper labour, more exploitable resources, more pliant governments and greater profits.  Governments have put themselves at the service of these giant corporations. They now hold the power of life and death over every region and industry. Workers are their pawns in a global game of mergers, shutdowns, and relocations. Simply look at the examples of INEOS and BAE. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extentions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, shutdowns and purposeful neglect of health and safety. Unions, despite their brave efforts, have difficulty eliminating even the worst abuses of management power.

The recession and slump in company profits mean the capitalists can no longer make the old concessions and the fate of us all is now at stake, as the government continue to add their austerity cuts to our woes. The Conservatives and Labour offer nothing but wait-and-see-and-hope platitudes with policies that punish the population for the crimes of an economic system.

It is a law of capitalism that capital moves to wherever the profit is highest. Capitalism is a system of production for profit: for the accumulation of more capital. Companies therefore produce only the products that give them the greatest profit, and they try to set up their enterprises whenever the most favorable conditions for making maximum profits are to be found. The welfare of the people is simply trampled on by the profit-hungry monopolies: their search for profits is a ruthless rampage that leaves a trail of misery, ruin, hardship and poverty. This is how capitalism works. There is no way to preserve security of employment (let alone full employment) or decent living standards for the people under capitalism. The only way out is socialism. There can be no peace in the class war until the workers organise as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution and abolish the wage system. The needs of people, not profit, are the motivating force of a socialist society. We believe in the ability of working people to manage and control their own productive institutions democratically.

Socialism promises more than an ideal. It promises to be the only answer to the pressing challenges before us. The Socialist Party is dedicated to a cooperative commonwealth. We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social system from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede the anarchy of the capitalist market and its wasteful competition. Our goal is a socialist world, based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. A world where along with our friends and neighbours we work to create all that men and women may need. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. Only socialism is capable of turning technology and globalisation to the needs of people. Socialism is the only option. The flaws of capitalism are too basic, the power of the corporations too great, the chasm separating the compulsions of profit and the needs of people too wide, for anything less to succeed. The half-measures of the reformists cannot meet the challenge. Government intervention—tinkering with monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate investment and spending—has proven as bankrupt as the failed companies they have strived to protect. Regulatory reforms, aimed at the most blatant abuses of corporate power, have proved impotent. The Welfare State, won by hard struggles, is dismantled and emasculated.  Governments have passed vicious legislation, slashing social services and trampling the basic rights of workers.

Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That failure puts the campaign for the socialism once again on the immediate agenda.