Work for Socialism

Radicals  have been known to summarise the demands of reformists as “longer chains, bigger cages.” If you start by asking for crumbs, at best you’ll get small crumbs. Given the immensity of problems the world faces, including declining living standards, surely we deserve much more.

Economists, intellectuals and trade union leaders were once united in the belief that a shorter working day was fast approaching. The machines would shoulder more and more of the toil, they believed, leaving lots of time off for workers. A three- or four-day week would be ample to procure the necessities of life. The increase in leisure would be spent pursuing healthy recreations.

This was the view of John Maynard Keynes, who wrote in 1930 that by 2030 all economic problems would have been solved and the only issue left to deal with would be how to enjoy doing nothing without having a nervous breakdown. He was an opponent of the work ethic. “We have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy,” he wrote in “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, predicting that in 100 years’ time, “We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.”

Bertrand Russell shared this disdain for striving and argued for the four-hour day. Oscar Wilde had also predicted that the machine would be the saviour of man and would lead everyone to enjoy the life. His contemporary, Walt Whitman, wrote of the ideal he called “higher progress”, in other words the liberation of human beings from wage slavery. The second United States president, John Adams, forecast that his grandchildren would have the time to study “painting, poetry, music, architecture” and the other liberal arts, in short, that everyday life would be organised to allow the “pursuit of happiness”.

Things didn’t quite turn out like that. In the hands of a capitalist élite, supported by governments in most cases, the machine became an instrument for the creation of huge profits for a few, while the majority toiled long hours. Trades unions forgot about shorter hours and quality of life and instead concentrated on wages and conditions.  Long-hours culture has become the norm.

 The Jimmy Reid Foundation, named after the late trade union activist released a report titled “Time for Life”, recommending that Scotland reduce the working week. Work should be more evenly spread out, says the report.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF), also campaigns for a shorter workweek. In 2013 it published a pamphlet called Time on Our Side: Why We All Need a Shorter Working Week. The authors say that the UK has the longest working hours of any European country. They also claim that productivity does not suffer when the working week is shortened because work is carried out more efficiently (the three-day week in the 1970s, for example, led to a drop of only 6 per cent in productivity.)  In 2012, the NEF published a charming pamphlet also calling for a shorter working week. National Gardening Leave: Why Britain Would Be Better Off if We All Spent Less Time at the Office.

The city council at Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, has announced that it is to begin a year-long 30-hour week trial for city workers. “We hope to get the staff members taking fewer sick days and feeling better mentally and physically after they’ve worked shorter days,” said Mats Pilhem, the deputy mayor.

In the early 20th century, workers across the world campaigned for the eight-hour day. In the US Kellogg’s introduced a six-hour day on 1 December 1930 which lasted till 1985. The State of Utah introduced a four-day workweek in 2008.

The Socialist Party pursues a vision of a society ruled by use value rather than exchange value, a society beyond money, the market and prices, an actively democratic society of producer-citizens, a society that overcomes the dualism of leaders and the led. Parliamentary action is at times useful, but in proportion as it also makes for economic emancipation of the workers. Socialist men and women in Parliament can only do effective work there in proportion to economic and social organisation of the majority outside. The politicians of today attaches so much importance to ‘getting elected’ that their chief concern has become that of getting votes, thereby neglecting what used to be the main endeavour, the education of the worker. The purpose of socialism is to educate and organise the worker to the extent that he or she will see and feel the necessity for the fullest share of economic freedom.

The Socialist Party declines to prescribe the arrangements and institutions of the future society. This would actually constrain free movement and deny human agency. It is the reality of shaping their own practice by the proletariat, on the basis of actual relations and an actual class struggle which matters, not any abstract model of revolutionary organisation or future society. What matters is class movement. What we can – and do - is to provide a clear set of principles to orient action and organisation. Thus we  argue for proletarian self-emancipation, workers control of the production process, rational organisation and democratic planning for the common good, distribution according to need. The Socialist Party does not wish to direct the workers movement: it wants the workers  movement to relearn to direct itself.

Figures Don't Lie

Recent figures released by various bodies have amply illustrated the vast differences in ownership in Britain. 'Oxfam recently reported that five billionaire families controlled the same wealth as 20% of the population. Britain's richest 1% have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population put together, according to the latest official analysis of who owns the nation's £9.5tn of property, pensions and financial assets.' (Guardian 15 May)That last figure about the richest 1% came from the Office of National Statistics. Such statistics give the lie to the politicians claim that "we are all in this together." RD

What is Socialism?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is an organisation of convinced socialists who put forward the case that socialism can come only through the conscious and determined action of the working-class movement in this and other countries. More and more workers are questioning the whole capitalist set-up, and seeing more clearly that we have a common enemy–the ruling class of the bloodsucking rich, who live off the wealth we produce. Too many times the working class have been deceived that the abolition of the capitalist system can be postponed until tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.

Socialism is the name given to that form of society where there is no such thing as a propertyless class, but in which the whole community own the means of production, the land, factories, mills, mines, transport and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. Socialism stands for social or common property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class. The goal of Socialism is the classless society.  It is only by the abolition of the reign of capitalism and the establishment of socialism that humanity can come into the fulness of its heritage. Socialism alone can give its true meaning to the whole idea of human justice. We maintain that the means of production and wealth accumulated by humanity should be at the disposal of all.  According to us, every man and woman has a right to the means of development which society has created. Socialism is not an academic or utopian conception. To fight for socialism is consciously to struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the State.

Socialism

·         The planet earth and its resources are the common heritage of all humankind

·         society is capable of producing an abundance of all the things we need so we need not be restricted by the  size of our wages

·         Capitalism has brought us to the threshold of a permanent golden age for our species, where the individual needs of each and every one of us can be met by existing technology

·         We  have at our disposal the potential to live truly fulfilling lives according to our inclinations.

·         For the working class, in the present age of potential plenty, rationing by the money system is an outdated way of distributing goods.

·         In an age when we could produce for use without anyone going short, producing for sale and profit is an obstacle to the real satisfaction of human needs and desires.

·         Socialism would mean the earth and its resources owned in common by the entire global community.

·         With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs

·         Democracy in socialism will mean everybody having the right to participate in deciding what is produced and how global resources will be used.

·         Productive activity will be chosen and undertaken voluntary  by human being with a view to producing the things they need in order to live and enjoy life, without any concern for capital investment, profit, wages, stock market or share holders.

·         There will be no class of wage workers to produce profits for the minority

·         Everybody would have free access to the goods and services

·         Socialism will mean an end to buying, selling and money.

The world and its resources should not be owned and controlled by a tiny minority; they are the common heritage of all humankind

Cricket And Corruption

Anti-corruption forces are assessing evidence of widespread fixing obtained from the former New Zealand Test batsman Lou Vincent, including allegations relating to matches in the English domestic Twenty20 Cup and Pro40 competitions. 'Vincent, 35, who revealed in December he would co-operate with detectives and confessed to an International Cricket Council tribunal investigating fixing in Bangladesh earlier this year that he had been approached by an illegal bookmaker, has provided the names of players he claims were involved in spot-fixing and allegations over which matches were targeted, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.' (Guardian, 15 May) Capitalism corrupts everything it touches even the once thought of sacrosanct game of cricket. RD

The Profit Motive

The insanity of capitalism with its profits before people motivation is everywhere apparent. Millions spent on armaments while people die from lack of basic medical treatment, immense wealth accumulated by a tiny minority of parasites while millions die from lack of clean water and food, but the following news item probably sums up the madness best. 'In a wide-ranging interview with the India-based Economic Times, Cargill CEO David MacLennan talks about how the globe-spanning agribusiness giant managed to turn the 2008 economic crisis into a "record year of profits" a remarkable performance, given that that year's food-price spikes pushed 115 million people into hunger, as the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimated.' (Mother Jones, 2 April) RD

Time for social revolution

Capitalism is an exchange economy in which most wealth, from ordinary consumer goods to vast industrial plants and other producer goods, takes the form of commodities, or items of wealth that have been produced with a view to sale on a market.

Although states have intervened in capitalism ever since it came into existence, in so far as the aim was merely to interfere with the operation of world market forces, their intervention was only at the level of the division, not the production, of surplus value. However, over the past 100 or so years, there has been a definite trend in capitalism for states to go beyond merely trying to distort the world market, and to involve themselves in the actual production of wealth by establishing and operating state enterprises.

If state capitalism is not socialism, what is? In other words, if state ownership and government management of production does not amount to the abolition of capitalism but only to a change in the institutional framework within which it operates, what would be the essential features of a society in which capitalism had been abolished?

The feature of the present political situation is that the workers and exploited are beginning to take their determined steps in independent political action. The workers are being driven to this course by the ever-growing oppression of the employers and the increased use of the government powers against them in their struggles. The producers are being united in their fight against the common oppressor. This uprising of the workers is of tremendous significance in the development of the class struggle. This movement is an instinctive, elementary expression of their awakening class consciousness. It is not an artificial creation but on the contrary it is the natural, healthy reaction of the workers to the pressure of their condition.

 What can we learn from history about building an anti-capitalist coalition? With well over a hundred years of experience produces a  number of valuable lessons for our consideration. There have been no lack of attempts to assemble an alliance of forces strong enough to defeat the capitalists and the corporations.  The historic record is littered with the wreckage of the political parties patched together to do that job. None of them succeeded. Once more we are encouraged to organise a coalition and  the formation of a new third party movement opposed to the old parties. Not a particularly new initiative although they may seem so to inexperienced people unacquainted with left-wing politics.

The history of the traditional “Left” has been marked by oscillations between the alternatives of reforming the Labour Party  or challenging the two-party system with a “progressive” third party coalition but rarely on an anti-capitalist programme. Both trends confine themselves to the aim of reforming capitalism, not replacing it with a socialised  economy. Each election the Left has gyrated from one of these positions to the other backing the Labour Party candidates as the lesser evil or creating a Left alternative.

 Reformers offer a compromise, and forget that they will have to compromise that compromise.  Capitalism has produced a vast number of social sores and it is very tempting for the capitalist politician to deal with each of them separately and by itself. The more, however, we go on trying to remove theses evils by palliative remedies, the more does it become clear that they can only be abolished by the abolition of capitalism itself. Capitalists are not long before they have discovered means to compensate themselves, and the people enjoys the privilege of having won a meaningless principle.

Some on the left-wing argue the justification for ameliorative measures lies in the fact that they make it easier for the workers to organise themselves and enlighten themselves about the real meaning of capitalism and the part that they are forced to play under it, and show the thinking worker how futile it is to dream of reforming capitalism. They furnish besides that a rallying ground for those workers who cannot see beyond their own nose, and perhaps would not understand socialism, but do feel the need for a shorter working day. The great danger, however, arises when activists  try to persuade the workers as well as themselves that socialism only means the sum of a number of such regulations and legislations is also socialism. By that means socialists gets the credit for measures which are in all but the name measures for defending capitalism against socialism and all the disadvantages which arise from these acts are ascribed to and discredit socialism.  Has it not been repeatedly shown that it would be simpler and better to concentrate our efforts on the abolition of capitalist control of industry than on any attempts to reform it – that is not to say that we need reject any attempts from the capitalist side to reform capitalism, but we ought to regard them as what they are, as attempts to prolong the death agony of capitalism. The more cool we show ourselves about supporting reforms, the more keen will their capitalist champions become in promoting them. Our business should then be to show how inadequate all such reforms must be to remove the evils from which the workers were suffering. Above all is the need to demonstrate in our tactics that only with the abolition of production for profit, and the competition between the capitalists for sources of profitable investment which is an inevitable result of the capitalist system, can we get rid of the danger of poverty, want and war.

Workers overlook the fact that it is their will, the collective will of their class for which they are fighting. When we talk about the inevitability of socialism we assume that the workers will continue to struggle for their rights. Were they, on the other hand, to accept the word in a fatalist sense, and think that they could passively and tamely sit back and wait till socialism came to them, they would soon lose all the rights that they have now and become mere slaves.  It  has often been said that socialism can only come when the possibilities of capitalist production have been exhausted, but chief among these possibilities is the willingness of the workers to allow themselves to be exploited. Were the workers, both politically and economically, so class conscious and so organised as to make their exploitation impossible then capitalism would have reached the end of its tether. That is what we understand by social revolution, and our ideal – that of human cooperation – is revolutionary, because it is only to be realised by the social revolution.

Some Consolation

At one time Britain was the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world but these days are long gone. There is one economic category though where Britain still leads the world. 'The number of billionaires living in the UK has risen to more than 100 for the first time, according to the 2014 Sunday Times Rich List. There are now 104 billionaires based in the UK with a combined wealth of more than £301bn, the list says. That means the UK has more billionaires per head of population than any other country.' (BBC News, 11 May) This must be a wonderful boost to Britain's unemployed and homeless! RD

A Real Night Out

Newspapers and TV are fond of depicting the working class as dissolute spend-thrift boozers with stories of bottle-strewn  street battles in city centres, but a worker's night out is nothing compared to the antics of the owning class. 'How much can two Russian millionaires spend during a three-hour drinking spree in a Mayfair bar? The answer, according to one recent frenzy of bibulous willy-waving was £130,000, a figure that included 96 bottles of Dom Perignon, 30 magnums of Cristal, two magnums of Belvedere and, rather mundanely, several dozen cans of Red Bull.' (Sunday Times, 11 May) A £130,000 bar bill? Now that is a night out! RD

Towards Socialism

The capitalist class possess few in number yet the largest amount of wealth. Both the  Conservative and Labour Parties represent them.Political leaders are ready to make all kinds of wonderful promises for a beautiful future time when they shall be the government. But for the workers in their present troubles they have no help or guidance what to do. Capitalist politicians have often proclaimed a new world which would lead to a new Heaven on Earth. But the only road to salvation for the workers is the path of revolution.  Capitalism can only maintain itself by driving down the workers, by harder and harder exploitation. Longer hours, lower wages and more misery.  It is the same struggle of all the workers all over the world.  To demonstrate our strength and our unity we must stand together. No worker must stand against a worker to the advantage of the capitalists. Working people who try to find a way clear through the hardships of present-day conditions are faced with a hard task.

 The worker lives by selling the use of his body—the employer lives by buying that use. It lies in the nature of things that the buyer should on instinct struggle to buy cheap and the seller to sell dear. Hence it was a foregone conclusion that the history of the relations between employer and employee—between “capital” and “labour”—should be one of conflict between these two, a constant battle over the price of the commodity labour-power—over wages, hours, and working conditions. The working class is thus a commodity slave class, serving as a source of profit to the capitalists.

The capitalist text-book will tell us that when the worker wants more money, the boss refuses, the worker throws up his job and seeks another. There are still some who are foolish to still   believe that the relation between worker and boss is one of equality because if the worker doesn’t like his job he can resign and look for another. Even in the days when jobs were easy to find the “equality” existed mostly in the imagination.

The capitalists, not only own or control the chief means whereby we work and live, but, in fact, control the whole governing machine. They pull the strings. And they use their power to make themselves richer and richer—at our expense. They hire workers to make profit out of their labour; their capitalist production is for profit, not for use: and to get more profit they slash wages, carry through speed-up and worsen conditions. This mad race for profit ends in a crisis; and then they try to get out of the crisis—and we pay the price. Poverty, insecurity and now hunger are making inroads in the homes of millions: low wages, long hours, to the point of physical exhaustion, is the lot of the workers if they are “lucky”“ enough to even have a job. The result is increases in the number of industrial accidents or occupational illnesses, more sickness and a higher death-rate amongst the working-class . This is Britain to-day for working men, women and their families. But British workers are not blind to the fact that the British capitalist class is just as ruthless and savage as any other capitalist class. Workers are facing the fact that all capitalism has nothing to offer and that they nor their families have any hope or future under capitalism.

There is no need for a single worker to be overworked or in dread of losing his job; no reason why an unemployed worker should lack the necessaries of life. All over the world millions of workers are year by year coming to realise these facts and to see that nothing except the existence of capitalism prevents them building up for themselves a decent and secure world. Everywhere the workers are becoming less and less willing to put up with an entirely unnecessary state of semi-starvation. They are showing themselves more and more determined to insist upon their right to food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their families. But to get this, capitalism must be overthrow. How can the workers end Capitalism? Without breaking the power of the capitalists it is impossible to get rid of capitalism or to build socialism. It is a question of votes and of political power. The answer is revolution.  The workers have the power to overthrow capitalism. It is the capitalists who are powerless.  It is the workers who are strong from the very moment that they unite, organise and resist.

Socialism - a system of society in which production would be controlled and directed by the workers in the interest of the workers - is a conceivable alternative to the existing system. Apart from tolerating this existing system in the hope that by patching and mending, wangling and contriving it can later on be made somehow it will become less and less unbearable—apart from this option, socialism is the only alternative before people. The co-operative commonwealth that has been the aim of generations of working-class in this country will attain its full meaning and realisation only with the ending of capitalist rule. It will mean that the capitalists will be deprived of their ownership and control of the factories, mines, transport. All these means of production which they have used and misused only to make profits for the bosses and poverty for the workers will be taken from them and will end production for profit and instead will carry on production for use. The needs of all will be met, and new needs and pleasures now denied to the working class will be created and satisfied by a socialist organisation and extension of production.

True only a tiny minority of workers call themselves socialists. It matters little how people describe themselves. More important is that they do the things that they should and must do, or suffer defeat and hardship from refusing to take that course. The essential thing is the direction in which things are moving.  

The Gap Widens

The legal dispute over a divorce settlement between  Silvio Belusconi and his second wife shows the enormous gap between the millions who are trying to survive on $2 a day and the obscene wealth of the owning class.'Her demand for a one-off payment of 540 million euros (£440 million) caused talks to break down. Belusconi, who is worth an estimated 6.5 billion euros, is said to be willing to offer her 200 million euros.' (Times, 10 May) RD

Capitalism Must Be Abolished!

There are now whole libraries of books and reports that analyse what is wrong with capitalist society, the majority of which are trying to reach the impossible – which is to propose reforms and  government policies that will modify it into something benevolent.

The world today is in a constant state of upheaval, turmoil and conflict. After decades of new deals, fair deals, wars on poverty, civil rights legislation, government regulations, deregulations and a host of other reform efforts, capitalism remains fundamentally the same as before.  Millions who need and want jobs. Racism and discrimination is pervasive. Widespread pollution of our environment worsens. Crime and corruption are widespread at every level of capitalist society.

Socialism is not some utopia. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism in the world today and although there is social production social ownership islacking. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production.   In socialism, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. This will bring a qualitative improvement in the lives of the working people.

The socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialism will be won and built by the millions of people enslaved by wage-labour. The establishment of a socialist economy, based on the needs of the people, will mean the end to the chaos of capitalist production with its lack of planning and repeated crises.  The guiding principle will be “from each according to ability, to each according to needs”.

What, then, will socialism look like? Socialism will open the way for great changes in society.

Socialism will not mean government control.  Under capitalism the state serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Government involvement in the economy is a form of state capitalism. When the government intervenes in the economy, it does so to help, not hurt, capitalism.

The means of production – the factories, mines, mills, the fields, transportation system, media, communications, medical facilities, etc., will be transformed into public property. Private ownership of the  means of production will end. Workers will be able to manage democratically their own work places through workers’ councils and elected administrators. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximization. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible.  Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production will aim at building an economy that will benefit the people. Capitalism already has a developed and centralised economy, so socialism’s main task will be to reorient this structure towards social needs.  The protection of the environment would be ensured. There will be a process of amalgamation of peoples into one, making states themselves unnecessary. Classes will disappear, the state will “wither” away. A new era of human freedom and prosperity will arise.

The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising, politically and industrially, for socialism. Join us to put an end to this malignant cancer by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Against this insane system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in  protest and condemnation. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties

Workers Can Build a Better World

No compromise, No concessions

At the present time it is inconceivable that a reformist party can gain much in the way of reforms from the capitalist class. We are living in a period of recession for capitalism and not of its upswing. The class war is going on all the time: the enemy is still the enemy, even when, for his own ends, he gives way upon this or that point. “No compromise” must be our motto. Let us take all we can get, but never let us surrender our principles, for any consideration whatever.

Many cannot hope myself to live to witness the realisation of the a co-operative commonwealth, spreading throughout the world. But we know with a conviction that it is coming. Central to the capitalist economic system is the exploitation of workers by capitalists. In modern Britain, the chief means of production – raw materials, machinery, buildings, transport, etc. are owned and controlled by a small minority of capitalists. This determines that the great mass of people, the working class, have no choice except to work for capitalist employers so as to earn a money wage to buy the goods and services, the commodities, necessary for them to survive. On the face of things this relationship between capitalist and worker seems to be a fair and equal one: the worker agrees to do so many hours work for the capitalist and in return the capitalist agrees to pay a certain amount of money in wages. In reality this relationship is an unequal and exploitative one because the wages paid to the worker are less than the value of what he or she produces. The difference between the value of what workers produce and what they receive in wages constitutes the profits of the capitalist employer. Massive exploitation of the working class is an integral part of the capitalist economic system and will persist for as long as does capitalism.

Not only do capitalist exploit workers but the system operates in such a way that capitalists constantly have to try to exploit workers even more. Different capitalists producing the same kind of commodity are competing with one another in the market to sell their products. Failure to sell the commodities produced by his firm means bankruptcy and ruin for a capitalist and the main way of ensuring steady sales is to offer given commodities on the market at a price below that charged by other capitalists. If a capitalist is to reduce his prices without reducing his profits then one way is to increase the hours of work of his employees without paying them any more wages. Sometimes employers get away with this move in petty ways, for example, being paid for tea breaks and cleaning can be abolished, but where many workers are organised in trade unions, it is not easy for capitalists to force workers to accept an substantive increase in the degree to which they are exploited, such as the ploy is to speed up the rate of work, increase its intensity, and thus reduce the cost per item by forcing the workforce to produce more commodities in the same time as before. In the car industry this generally takes the form of speeding up the rate at which the production assembly line moves. Again, this does happen but in a given type of production there is usually a very definite limit to which the pace of work can be increased and anyway workers are likely to resist such a move.

 It is important to realise that capitalists are not always looking for ways to increase the degree of exploitation of workers because they, the capitalists, are inherently greedy but that they do this because of the way in which the capitalist economy operates leaves them with no choice if they are to stay in business. Similarly, if workers are not to be worked to death and totally impoverished then they have no choice except to take a common stand together against capitalist employers so as to resist employers’ attempts to exploit them even more. This is done by forming trade unions to defend wage levels and working conditions. In Britain a greater proportion of workers are in trade unions than in any of the other advanced capitalist countries. Even so it is obvious, especially with the onset of the present economic depression, that trade unions only have a very limited capacity to defend the living standards and working conditions of the working class.

While trade unions are a necessary means of defence of the working class against the capitalist class it is also the case that they pose no fundamental challenge to the whole capitalist system. Trade unions do not challenge the right of capitalists to exploit workers but only the degree to which this takes place. Even the most militant trade union struggles, involving workplace occupations and clashes with the police, pose no fundamental challenge to the dominant position of the capitalist class. If the working class does not rise above the level of recognising the necessity to organise industrially, of a trade union consciousness, then it will be doomed to an eternity of struggle with the capitalist class.

 The whole of capitalist society is organised around the capitalist economy. The modern family is structured to produce and discipline the workforce, labour power. The state passes laws and maintains the police and armed forces so as to keep the working class in line. Education and the mass media are powerful means of spreading the ideas and outlook of the capitalist class, bourgeois ideology, among the working class so as to get them to accept the capitalist system. Religions promise the good life in this world for those who knuckle under to oppression and exploitation in this one, and so on. Capitalist society in its totality is structured so as to preserve the exploitative relationship between the capitalist class and the working class which lies at its heart. Nonetheless this same system contains within itself forces which periodically throw it into crisis and open up the possibility of its final overthrow arid replacement by a society where oppression and exploitation do not exist.

 Another way, in fact the most important way in which capitalists try to gain an advantage over each other is by introducing new and more efficient means of production, technological innovation. The capitalist employer in a given field of production may be able to reduce his costs of production by introducing new production processes which enable output per worker to rise and thus cost per unit to fall. This allows the employer to sell his commodities at a price lower than that of his competitors while at the same time increasing his rate of profit on the capital he has invested. This advantage does not last long because the other employers will also quickly adopt the new production processes so as to be able to compete and stay in business. As the new production processes become introduced throughout an industry the proportion of total capital which is spent on raw materials, machinery, etc. rises while the proportion spent on employing labour power, on paying wages, falls. The consequence of this change is that since capitalists can only extract surplus value from those workers they employ directly and the number of these is falling, their rate of return on their capital falls as well. Paradoxically the greater efficiency in production brought about by developments in technology means a falling rate of profit for capitalists and redundancy for workers.

Such is the inbuilt unavoidable absurdity of the capitalist system of production: its enormous productive power brings it grinding to a halt. As the rate of profit falls, so capitalists become increasingly unable to find profitable ways in which they can reinvest their capital. As investment falls off so workers become unemployed. In Britain the rate of profit declined from around 1960 onwards and this structural feature of capitalism is the fundamental cause of the current world depression of capitalism. The last major world depression was in the 1930s. After World War II there was a world wide capitalist boom with a rapid rise of working class living standards in the imperialist countries. Capitalist politicians attributed this return to prosperity to the Keynesian economic policies being pursued by Western capitalist governments. The ruling class and their political and ideological mouthpieces proclaimed the advent of an everlasting economic boom with no return to major depression. Now it is all too clear that the periodic crises of capitalism have not been eliminated. The only way in which the working class can permanently rid itself of these cycles of boom and slump is to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism.

 The only way out of the present world-wide economic depression for the capitalist class is to do whatever is necessary to restore the profitability of capital. One way or another this means intensifying the exploitation of the working class by means of the methods mentioned earlier. If this is to be done then the trade unions have to be undermined and weakened so that workers are unable to resist intensified exploitation. As well as weakening the unions the capitalist state has an important role to play in restructuring industry and commerce so as to make them more profitable. It does this by providing all sorts of financial concessions and help to areas of production which seem to have profitable potential while ruthlessly withdrawing support from declining sectors of the economy such as mining. Another way of providing profitable investment opportunities for capitalists is by selling off the more lucrative state-owned enterprises.

 As the recession has deepened the state has tried to reduce its expenditures, especially on welfare services and social security. This has been done so as to try to keep down the degree to which the employers are taxed. The reason for that is that if the rate of taxation rises this cuts into already low profit levels. Savings in state expenditures have particularly hit those sections of the working class who are least able to cause much trouble for the capitalist class – the unemployed, the sick and the old. The state has pursued a deliberate policy of divide and rule by penalising the weakest sections of the working class rather than those who could offer some organised resistance.

 The current world-wide capitalist depression very clearly reveals the limitations of trade unionism and social democratic politics for the working class. With the re-emergence of mass unemployment the employers and their capitalist state ride roughshod over organised labour and vigorously set about undermining trade union organisation. The capitalist state cuts back upon welfare and social security benefits received by the working class with little effective opposition being forthcoming. Of course it is correct for workers, both employed and unemployed, to fight back as best they can against these attacks on their living standards and the Socialist Party encourages and supports such struggles. Even so these struggles are at best of a defensive nature and can only prevent the impact of the depression on the working class from being slightly less worse than it would otherwise be.  Genuine socialists must vigorously combat the propaganda of the reformists who seek to convince the working class that parliamentary reforms can make capitalism deliver the goods. We participate in these struggles in such a way as to help workers realise that only by the complete abolition of capitalism will they ever achieve freedom from material want and the security to enjoy it.

 A paradox of the capitalist system of production is that in the midst of plenty it also produces severe material deprivation. Capitalism has brought about the progressive development of the forces of production at a very rapid rate. Modern science and technology make it possible to provide material comfort and plenty for all. Yet in the world as a whole today the gap between the rich and the poor is actually widening, especially in the underdeveloped countries. The proportion of the world’s population who are underfed and starving is increasing. Even in the relatively prosperous countries such as Britain there are still millions of people who lack such basic necessities as a healthy diet and adequate housing. Clearly the problem for the great mass of humanity is not a lack of the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to bring about the material welfare of humankind. Rather the problem is one of abolishing the capitalist relations which prevent the forces of production being utilised in ways that meet the real human needs of everyone. From being in its earlier stages a force for the progressive development of humanity capitalism has now become a brake on further progress. The working class in all countries, including Britain, has a very real and urgent need to abolish the capitalist economic order.

 Not only does capitalism deprive most people of the means of material well-being but it also means that they lose control over the process whereby they produce the means of material life; we are in a state of alienation. What crucially distinguishes human beings from other animals is the very active relationship we have with our natural environment in the course of productive activity. We act on the world to satisfy our material needs and in the course of so doing change not only the world but ourselves as well; our relationships and consciousness. Man makes himself and he does this through work. Yet the worker does not possess the products of his labour, he does not have control over the productive process, capitalist economic relations throw workers into conflict with each other and work itself, that most human of our attributes, is experienced as a burdensome imposition. The loss of control, the alienation of the worker, is not confined to the sphere of production but extends out to all aspects of life in capitalist society. We need to abolish capitalism not simply to have a fatter pay packet but so as to gain control together over all aspects of our lives, to liberate the whole of humanity from alienation. Only revolution can achieve this objective.

Ethics And Business

The mass media loves nothing better than exposing some devious worker who has nicked a few bob out of the capitalist welfare state by engaging is some devious ploy. "Claimant who is an athlete cons NHS out of disability payments" screams the headline. A less publicised piece of chicanery occurred recently though. 'Shoppers have been urged to boycott Amazon's British business after it paid just £4.2m in tax last year, despite selling goods worth £4.3bn - more than the UK sales of Argos, Dixons or the non-food arm of Marks &Spencer. Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, said shoppers should find alternatives to the Seattle-headquartered retailer, after consumer action persuaded coffee chain Starbucks to resume UK tax payments last year.' (Guardian, 9 May) If the owning class can nick a couple of billion pounds out of the system it is good business practice if workers attempt to cheat the system it is a disgrace. RD

Glasgow Day School

Seize the Day, Seize the Hour

Cities and neighbourhoods decay while housing is both scarce and expensive. Social and economic crisis leads to millions of personal crises, and to increased crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, and violence. Times are hard, and are bound to get harder. Life is unfair. To the victims, day-time television offer self-help and motivation gurus to fix things. The slaves of each country remain unquestioningly loyal and blindly obedient to their masters and set their sights and their aspirations no higher than the miserable horizons imposed by the ruling class.

 The working class is badly divided and lack a collective purpose. Rather than uniting in resisting the crisis thrown different sectors of the working class into bitter competition with one another.  Unable to combine in a common goal, people struggle as much against each other as they do against the ruling class. Sometimes, the employers or the State’s  offensive has been resisted with success and has given hope. Some social movement have made important gains in its struggle against oppression. Environmentalists have made progress in combating the energy companies’ climate change denials. Today the whole system of legalised robbery and murder is once again caught in a desperate and deepening economic and political crisis.  Capitalism has subjected millions here and hundreds of millions around the world to agony and waged wars of plunder from one end of the globe to another.

However, the fact remains that many people only  express their anger against the system by calling for variants of capitalism and often incorporates a conservative with small c populism as witnessed by cranky currency and funny money proponents versus the orthodox banking and financial sector. The protest movements suffer from a lack of a coherent perspective for the self-emancipation of the masses from the oppressions of capitalist society.

Given the lack of an independent working class movement and the political isolation of the World Socialist Movement from the working class, our work towards our socialist goal will not be easy. But the whole history of humanity, as well as the present reality, shows that there is another path –  the path which the oppressed in every society sooner or later take, the path not backward but forward– the path of resistance against their oppressors. Revolution remains the only way the people can break free of the chains of exploitation and degradation of the capitalist system and its vicious cycle leading repeatedly to deeper crisis and more devastating war. Such a revolution will represent an unprecedented breakthrough. It will change the face of the world. This future must be wrested from the hands of those who, at the cost of unspeakable misery and destruction for the people of the world, are determined to chain humanity to the past.

The capitalist class well understands the significance of the vote. In elections, the ruling class only count as a few against we, the many. The force of the majority could, if properly used, ensure the triumph of the people.

Yet at the ballot box they elect the lackeys of the ruling class who loyally hold the reins of government for the bosses.  When will the workers learn that the political power they could wield as an organised body is the greatest weapon in their hands, that the field of politics is the only field upon which the workers can win emancipation from the domination of capital? In other words, when will the workers do as their masters do who, not content with their tremendous economic power, unceasingly strive to secure political power in order to entrench their class in its position of supremacy. The power which the present ruling class wields is through its domination of the State which it wins at the ballot box.

Let us organise to capture political power. Let us direct our energies toward the only object worth striving for; the end of the private ownership and take control of industry out of the hands of a robber class. The ballot box is no doubt a far safer weapon for emancipation than the rifle. If the advocacy of physical force failed to achieve success or even to effect an uprising when the majority did not possess the vote, how can it be expected to succeed now that the majority are in possession of voting power and the secret ballot safeguards the voter?

The vote may well was given to us by our rulers to advance their own interests but now let us use it for our own. Let us demonstrate at that polling station the strength and intelligence of the revolutionary idea; let us make the hustings a platform from which to promote our principles. Socialism will not come through force, but through education, and through the steady pressure of unpleasant economic facts. There is nothing which can be gained by the rifle which cannot be as effectively gained through the medium of the ballot box, if only the democracy knows what it wants and is determined to have it.

 We have the power, but are not conscious of it. This then is part of the election campaign of the Socialist Party - to make workers conscious of their power as a class, or in other words - class-conscious. The Socialist Party is to the worker politically what the trades-union is industrially; the former is the party of the entire class, while the latter is the union of his or her occupation.

The difference between them is that the union is limited to bettering conditions under the wage system, the Socialist Party is organised to conquer the political power and wipe out the wage system.  The union deals with employment issues and the party deals with politics. The union is educating its members in the administration of industry and fitting them for co-operative control and democratic regulation of production and distribution, while the Socialist Party is organising to conquer the capitalist forces on the political battlefield; and having control of the machinery of government, use it to transfer the industries from the capitalists to the workers, from the parasites to the people.  Trade unionism is by no means the solution of the workers’ problem, nor is it the goal of the labour struggle. It is merely a line of defence within the capitalist system. Its existence and its struggles are necessitated only by the existence and predatory nature of capitalism.

The workers of the world are bound up together in one common destiny to become a clearly defined socialist movement, standing for and moving toward the co-operative commonwealth. The Socialist Party points the way but we do not seek to commit trade-unions to the principles of socialism. Conference resolutions committing them to this sort accomplish little good. Nor do we  meddle with the procedures and processes of the trade-unions. But neither do we take a servile attitude towards the union movement. Not by trying to commit socialism to trade-unionism, nor trade unionism to socialism, will the social revolution be accomplished. It is better to have the trade-unions do their distinctive work, as the workers’ defense against the encroachments of capitalism, as the economic development of the worker against the economic development of the capitalist, giving unqualified support and sympathy to the struggles of the organised workers to sustain themselves in their economic sphere. But let the socialists also build up the character and harmony and strength of the socialist movement as a political force, that it shall command the respect and confidence of the worker.

It is important that we so keep in mind the difference between the two developments that neither shall cripple the other. The socialist movement, as a political development of the workers for their economic emancipation, is one thing; the trade-union development, as an economic defence of the workers within the capitalist system, is another thing. Let us not interfere with the internal affairs of the trade unions, or seek to have them become distinctively political bodies in themselves as syndicalists often advocate. But let us view the Socialist Party as the channel and power by which people are to achieve freedom. While taking advantage of every opportunity to secure concessions and enlarge their economic advantage, by the trade union struggle people at the same time must unite at elections to wrest the government from capitalist control.

In the local council elections and for the European Parliament vote for the Socialist Party/World Socialist Party. (or spoil your ballot paper)

Where there is repression, there is resistance

Beware Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster

In reporting this event the newspaper seems a trifle astonished. 'Pastafarians rejoice as Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is granted permission to register as a religion in Poland. A church that worships an invisible flying spaghetti monster can now apply to be registered as an official religion in Poland, after a 2013 court ruling was overturned on Tuesday.' (Independent, 9 April) Their astonishment is a little hard to fathom as we already have a religion that boasts a virgin birth, turning water into wine and a return from the dead. A Flying Spaghetti Monster seems a little mundane in comparison. RD

The Work-Shy Myth

This piece of research by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, an organisation for people who work in recruitment and human resources,seems to contradict the current notion of many supporter of capitalism who claim that the working class are lazy and avoid work. 'Young jobseekers are more likely to accept unpaid work to get on the career ladder the higher the level of qualifications they've achieved, according to research from recruitment firm Adecco. The research showed that 49 per cent of all young people are willing to work for free, contradicting accusations that they are an "entitled generation".  And almost half (47 per cent) of 16 to 24 year olds surveyed said they would do any job available with 95 per cent believing there is a stigma attached to being unemployed.' (CIPD editorial, 28 April) This stigma is a condition that the owning class exult in as they have never worked in their life. RD

Not Quite So Wonderful

New York City's share of poor people appears to have plateaued since the recession, at 21.4 per cent, with more people working in 2012 than the year before, but at lower wages, according to a new city study. 'As in 2011, 46 per cent, or nearly half of New Yorkers, were making less than 150 per cent of the poverty threshold, a figure that describes people who are struggling to get by. Even with fewer people unemployed, the poverty rate for working-age adults working full time reached 8 per cent, by the city's measure. Fully 17 per cent of families with a full-time worker lived in poverty, and even among families with two full-time workers, the rate was 5.2 per cent.' (New York Times, 30 April) So while vocalists may sing about "What a wonderful town" New York is, the reality like every other town in the capitalist world is one of poverty for many. RD

Something must be done

Discontent is mounting. Something is desperately wrong with the world; everyone knows it. Every day people are more and more disgusted by the present political, economic, and social order. The old claims about the virtues of capitalism don't convince any more; in fact, they're not really even made. For the first time in generations, we're not being sold even the imaginary vision of a better, but still capitalist, future. Instead we're offered the grim assertion that, however bad this might be, there's no alternative. And that, it seems, does convince. So people relapse into cynicism and disillusionment: no point joining a party, no point voting, no point demonstrating,  just keep your own head down and stay above water. Millions are turning away  from the political status quo –but, so far, only a tiny fraction of them are coming over to theside of revolutionary change. Most lapse into empty cynicism, or else they look for solutions from religious cults, conspiracy theories, the far Right, or identity politics.

Everybody knows there is going to be another Labour government sooner or later. But no one gets very worked up about it. No one seriously believes that it is going to mean any real important changes. Even their most loyal party activists do not expect great things when it is office. Such scepticism is hardly surprising when one looks at Labour’s past and read their future intentions. It has always been fashionable among frustrated leftists to attribute Labour’s failures to its leadership. But leaders reflect tendencies, even though they may distort them. If they did not reflect tendencies, they would cease to be leaders. Labour’s leadership is merely a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. The error is to see Labour as part of anattack on capitalism. In fact, the Labour Party was in no way designed to further the achievement of a socialist society, but represented the continuation of capitalism.

It would be quite wrong, however, to believe that most people are apathetic about politics. Certainly, people are bored by the narrow little side-issues and cults of the personality that pass for politics in Parliament and the media. But politics, in its full sense, embraces every part of life. Wherever you begin, global poverty or your own working conditions, art or civil liberties, jobs or the war, if you dig down to the roots of the matter you will find yourself dealing with the basic structure of society. We need to reach an understanding of every aspect of contemporary life and to analyse the experiences of the various popular movements. We need to educate ourselves and others. We need to engage with people who are already discontented, already looking for ways out, and convince them that socialism offers the only adequate explanation and the only real solution.

A social order isn't something natural, like a weather pattern; an economic crisis isn't something natural, like a hurricane. The current system is a set of relationships between people. It has historical origins, and it can be replaced. People on the left inevitably spend a lot of their time talking about single issues, and perhaps the core point doesn't come across clearly enough: capitalism has outlived its usefulness, but it won't just fade away of its own accord. It needs to be abolished.  Let us unashamedly make the case for a better social order.

 Capitalism, even in its liberal democratic forms, remains a system of domination and exploitation. It is a system which involves a formidable concentration of economic power, based on the private ownership and control of the means of production. There were no doubt important differences between countries. More was done by way of social welfare in the Nordic nations  than in Britain; and in Britain more than in the United States. But in all cases, social relationships based on domination, exploitation and competition continued to structure the everyday experiences of the populations of advanced capitalist countries; and the reforms which were then achieved by dint of pressure and struggle remained limited by the social relationships of capitalism.

With every day that goes by, the socialist  analysis of capitalism appears more convincing, not less. There is an increasing centralisation of production and finance into fewer and fewer hands. Competition governs the system ever more ruthlessly as global corporate giants and anonymous financial markets compete over rates of profits.  Old industries are abandoned or ‘rationalised’; and through constant mergers and speculation new areas of accumulation are fostered on a global scale. Militarism is ever more blatantly a necessary prop of accumulation and the evidence grows daily of the undemocratic lengths to which capitalist governments are prepared to go to protect business interests.  Weighed down by enormous national debts, leads to demands for ‘austerity’ measures and these measures naturally fall most heavily upon already desperately impoverished populations. It has meant a fierce offensive on the part of capital upon the working class advances of previous decades. A vast reserve army of the unemployed has emerged in every major capitalist countries. This has involved severe restrictions on the right to strike, to picket, more generally the curbing of ‘activist’ rights-the right to organise, demonstrate and protest.

Many people on the Left today who strongly feel the need of a party free of the various shortcomings which have burdened the workers' movement in the past. There is indeed a crying need for new organs of socialist transformation will sooner or later come to be seriously addressed. There is, however, a  loss of confidence and even belief that the socialist project is more than a utopian vision. Some new social movements that have arisen have enlarged the meaning of socialism. However, no such ‘new social movement’ can obviate the need for a socialist party (or parties). Nor can they replace organised labour as the main force on which a socialist movement must rely. The task of a socialist party is to afford a degree of coherence to a class which is inevitably fragmented and divided, and to do so without any pretension of achieving a necessarily artificial and imposed monolithic unity.

Our task critical and it is to persuade workers that capitalism is their enemy, that their interests and aspirations are bound up with the struggle against capitalism.

Quote of the Day

Neil Couling, work services director for the Department of Work and Pensions, told MSPs the growth of foodbanks was itself driving demand.

"My view, very clearly, is that this is supply-led growth going on, and it will continue to grow over the years ahead, whatever the path of welfare policies are, because we live in a society where there are poor people and rich people, and people will maximise their economic choices,” said Couling. “That's just how economies work.”

Couling added: "My experience is that many benefit recipients welcome the jolt that the sanctions can give to them. Some people will no doubt react very badly to being sanctioned, and we see some very strong reactions to that, but others recognise that it is the wake-up call they needed, and it helps them get back into work."

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/social-justice-and-poverty/news/people-welcome-sanctions-says-dwp#Br1eHca7yoyw0am4.99