Money Before Need

The Red Door, a vital 106 bed shelter for Toronto's homeless may be forced to close owing to a legal battle between Toronto diet doctor, Sidney Bernstein and his wealthy neighbours, co-owners of the facility. A court order put Red Door into receivership when an investigation found that $2.4 million in mortgage funds was diverted from the business partners without the knowledge of all partners. The dispute means the Red Door facility will remain closed and not service people in need while the money problem is sorted. In capitalism, money comes before need every time. John Ayers.

This Filth Is Being Created Now.

In contrast to the green image being pushed by the oil companies re the Alberta Tar Sands, Archbishop Desmond Tutu commented after a helicopter flight, "The fact that this filth is being created now, when the link between carbon emissions and global warming is so obvious, reflects negligence and greed. Oilsands development not only devastates our shared climate, it is also stripping away the rights of First Nations and affected communities to protect their children, land and water from being poisoned". Too right, Desmond. John Ayers.

Real Socialism

Workers are not bound by tradition to the Labour Party; political parties are not formed by traditions, but by interests.

Reformism is a deception for workers will always remain wage-slaves, as long as there is the domination of capital. The capitalist grant reforms with one hand, and with the other always take them back, reduce them to nought, use them to enslave the workers, to divide them into separate groups and perpetuate wage-slavery. Reformism, even when quite sincere, in practice becomes a weapon by means of which to corrupt and weaken the workers. The reformists try to divide and deceive the workers, to divert them from the class struggle by petty concessions. Reformism actually means abandoning socialism and replacing it by liberal “social policy”. The working people are not content to remain wage slaves of the capitalists. There are no solutions within the capitalist system.

Under capitalism the workers are wage slaves, slaves of the bosses. The bosses run the factories in order to maximise profits. This means that they pay workers as little as possible, that they do not hesitate to cut corners on safety to cut overheads, and poor quality products are purposely produced in order to increase profit margins. History has shown that these conditions are always present under capitalism, and cannot be eliminated as long as there is capitalism. A capitalist has to exploit his workers in order to survive as a capitalist. Under capitalism there is rule of the bosses. The opposing forces are always the same – the master class and the working class.

Socialism means democracy at every level of decision-making. The guiding principle of a socialist society would be “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. One of the important tasks of the Socialist Party is to rescue the whole concept of socialism from mistaken views on what it actually means and to point out that real socialism is worth fighting for. The term ‘socialism’ has been identified by large parts of the population with what emerged in Russia under Lenin and then Stalin. The right-wing attempt to prove that socialism is incompatible with democracy, that socialism cannot be but authoritarian.

We often meet with the argument that “there is no alternative to capitalism, look at the a mess communism made of the Soviet Union and now even that has failed”. Of course, it was capitalism in the Soviet Union which failed and not socialism. Real socialism is something all together different. Under capitalism, workers have no control over what is produced and how. All that is decided by how much profit some capitalist will gain.The capitalists’ ability to purchase and to sell labour power at will is a characteristic of capitalism. For the capitalist, the aim of production is not to produce goods to use, but instead it is a compulsory drive to accumulate capital through exploitation – simply put, to make more money. Once money becomes the aim of production, labour power has to become a commodity. In other words, a worker’s labour power can be bought and sold. Labour power as a commodity is the necessary complement of the private ownership of the means of production by the capitalists. Only by buying the worker’s labour power can the capitalist make profits. Workers produce more than what the capitalist pays them in wages and benefits. This is the basis of exploitation of the workers. What the workers produce over and beyond the socially necessary labour for keeping themselves and their families alive and working is surplus value. Surplus value is the only source of profits and it is what socialist mean when we say the workers is robbed of the fruit of his labour.

In the old Soviet Union workers remained wage-labourers. In the West they may have had more civil rights – to express themselves freely, to organize, demonstrate, strike, struggle for the improvement of wages and labour conditions,  more social rights – to employment, health service, retirement. But their social position is the same. Workers, East and West, had no say about the organisation and planning; they do not decide about the distribution of the results of their work. Their social emancipation requires, therefore, the abolition of both private and state ownership of the means of work; these must be socialised.

But real socialism enables the workers to decide how to organise itself and the resources of society to meet the needs of the people. As long as profit for the few whether they be private owners, shareholders or government officials is the basis of the economic system, that system is capitalism. Socialism is the fundamental opposite of capitalism, substituting social ownership of the means of production for  private ownership.  In socialism labour power is no longer a commodity, you no longer sell your labour power to the employing class.

Marx expressed what socialism is with great clarity. Production is performed in an associated, not competitive way; which means that production is under the worker’s control, instead of by some other power. This clearly excludes a bureaucracy, whether it be a corporate hierarchy or of a State ministry. Real socialism means that the individual participates actively in the planning and its implementation; it means political and industrial democracy. Socialism is a society which serves the needs of mankind. Socialism is the condition of human freedom and creativity. It is the end of alienation where humanity is no longer in conflict with nature, where individuals will no longer be strangers among strangers as in a foreign land, but the world will be his or her home.

Socialism is the transformation of private property into common social property. To be common social property means: to belong to the society as a whole without anybody’s right to sell it or exclude another to its access. The justification for the socialisation of the means of production is that those means were actually produced by the accumulated social work of producers over a long period of time. Socialism is a truly democratic act is the effective introduction of worker’s self-management. The general assemblies in small communities, or the councils composed of delegates in large ones becomes the highest authority, responsible for the basic making of decisions regarding all issues of production, distribution and communal life. It has the right of full control, involving responsibility for decision-making. We place our trust in the people and their understanding of the needs of their places of work and their communities.

Where do our interests lie? Let it be in the slogan of common ownership of the means of life.

Position Switching Says It All

Is there any difference between mainstream political parties? In Ontario's recent provincial election – forced when the minority centralist Liberals tabled the most progressive budget in years but was not supported by the leftist NDP. During the election campaign, the Liberals occupied the Left, the NDP the center, and the Conservatives veered far right and shot themselves in the foot by promising to fire 100, 000 public servants. The Liberals won a majority and promise to bring in the same budget. The position switching says it all – there are no real party policies or differences. John Ayers.

Food? ( For Thought )

Brazilian artist Paulo Ito captured the mood at the world cup when he drew a picture of a starving child sitting at a table with nothing on his plate but a soccer ball – kind of puts things in perspective! John Ayers.

Choice? What Choice?

Some supporters of capitalism praise its variety and the multitude of choices it gives its citizens, but George Grayson a professor of the College of William and Mary has a different tale to tell about Carlos Slim Helu the Mexican billionaire and his dominance in that country. 'Someone in Mexico will get up in the morning and eat breakfast in one of his restaurants while reading one of his newspapers. They will then make a phone call on one of his phone networks and buy insurance from him too,' said Mr Grayson.' (Times, 10 July) Helu is worth a staggering $75.4 billion and owns more than 220 companies and many Mexicans will be born in his hospitals, drive on his roads, live in homes built with his cement and smoke his tobacco. The truth is that capitalism is dominated by a handful of dominating billionaires. RD

No More Scotland - But the World

As the world economic crisis continues we can see the burden of the crisis being dumped on the shoulders of the working class. We can see government after government in the capitalist world enacting legislation with similar ends: to make the working class pay for the present crisis of capitalism. Throughout the world popular resistance is rising. The ruling class here and elsewhere are attempting to whip up chauvinism and nationalism. The working class is multi-national, composed of workers of many different nationalities. Their common identity is that they are all exploited by the capitalist class. All workers must strive to forge unity with their fellow workers of all nationalities in the common effort for full democracy and socialism. All sorts of “progressives” have been more and more resorting to the method of dividing the workers by advocating different doctrines designed to weaken the struggle of the working class. One such idea is nationalism, which advocates the division and splitting up of the working class on the specious pretext of protecting the interests of national culture or national independence.

Achieving “independence” under capitalism – private ownership, commodity production, the rule of the market, etc.– will not bring freedom and democracy for the working class. Instead, the working class will continue to be subjected to exploitation and wage slavery. That is why  nationalists of any stripe are charlatans, i.e., they are lying, when they claim that they are the champions of the democratic rights of the workers. They never have been and never will be because that is impossible. There cannot be a “Peoples Republic of Scotland”. Leftists who pick up the national flag has become accepted fare even in the Trotskyist ranks.

 The more wealth the predatory employing class amass, the greater becomes its greed and ambition to absorb and seize new wealth, and the more it intensifies its oppression of the people within its own country. Such domestic oppression will be all the more carried out under the cloak of nationalism. When it is to its own advantage does the ruling class use the slogan of nationalism to arouse the people. Nationalism means exclusiveness and isolation. Any nationalism finally implies that those people are better than all others. Is it not a deplorable mistake for the so-called revolutionary left to consider themselves allied in any way with the class that deceive workers for their own interests?

Class-conscious workers fight hard against every kind of nationalism. What class interest does nationalism serve? Would it aid the class struggle against capitalism or be a diversion from that struggle?  Class-conscious workers cannot rally under the national flag. Nationalism is always the tool of the bourgeoisie, historically. To speak of Scottish nationalism as a progressive force,  is to play the game of a section of the rich. No amount of secession can ever succeed in bringing freedom. The slogan of “independence then socialism” which claims to be progressive and revolutionary in no way constitutes a path towards socialism.

Socialists are internationalists and not nationalists. Even in the countries oppressed by foreign powers the goal of the struggle is not to try to repeat the process of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of nation-building but to develop the process of a socialist revolution.

The Socialist Party recognises these lies and this fakery. The solution cannot be a return to a romantic fictitious past. We must go forward to a really free, really classless society. Democracy can only be realised by a socialist revolution. Nationalism leads directly to a capitalist system  where the vast majority of the population still end up as exploited. The capitalist gangster clans will continue their class warfare over who will get to steal how much of Scotland’s resources. What’s needed is to organise class struggle against our rulers. If all workers joined in class struggle we could make short work of the bosses who accumulate billions off our labour, swearing devotion to the UK or to Scotland while stashing their wealth in off-shore banks and buying shares in foreign land-grabs, the modern equivalent of the Highland Clearances.

 The reality is that the enemy of the Scottish working class is capitalism. The friends of the Scottish workers are the English working class, who are exploited in common with them and live under the same economic system. It will be suicidal for the Scottish to fight in isolation. Hence it follows that it is the task of the Scottish workers is to stay united with their English counterparts

Unlike the deluded left nationalists, the Socialist Party will not tag along with, follow behind, or try to lead the nationalist movement. We will instead resolutely struggle against them by propagating socialism. We must constantly hammer home that the SNP and their ilk are nothing but tools of the ruling class. Deceived, as people will discover in the years to come, that they have been most cruelly misled and have been wasting their time fostering nationalist illusions.  Nationalism is divisive and destructive and ultimately only serves the bosses. Home rule does not eliminate class rule.

 A struggle for socialism is a struggle for democracy. Our struggle is to end exploitation – our own as well as everyone else’s. The destruction of capitalism is the collective workers struggle and the mobilising and uniting of the whole class, of workers of all lands, to take up the fight for the historic task of overthrowing capitalist rule and  building socialism is our mission. We cannot unite with those “socialists” who preach reformism and the accomplishment of their goals under capitalism. The Socialist Party position is a declaration of war for the end of the capitalist system and the establishment of the classless, communist society. A global cooperative community can only be built under the watchword, “Workers of the world unite!”

Reading Notes

- In a profit society, a dead soldier may well be worth more than a  live one. In "1493" by Charles C. Mann, he writes on the agrarian revolution taking place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the desperate need for fertilizer, " At the time, the best known soil additive was bone meal , made by pulverizing bones from slaughter houses. Bushels of bones went to grinding factories in Britain, France, and Germany. Demand ratcheted up, driven by fears of soil depletion. Bone dealers supplied the factories from increasingly untoward sources, including the recent battlefields of Waterloo and Austerlitz.'It is now ascertained beyond doubt, by actual experiment upon an extensive scale, that a dead soldier is a most valuable article of commerce,' remarked the London Observer in 1822." John Ayers.

Crime and Punishment!

The Metro News of May 5 claimed that, "Lawyers sanctioned for criminal like activity by The Law Society of Upper Canada in the last decade have stolen, defrauded, or diverted some $61 million held in trust funds for clients. They treat client trust accounts as personal piggy banks, facilitate multi-million dollar frauds, and drain retirement savings of the elderly. Fewer than one in five were charged criminally and most avoided jail. In one case, a lawyer took $75,000 in part because he wanted a Lexus. Of those sentenced criminally, the punishments were as lenient as house arrest and community service. Of forty-one who were tried, only twelve went to jail. The Law Society of Upper Canada does not, as a rule, report suspected criminal acts by lawyers to the police. Some will argue that there are honest lawyers but, nevertheless, crooked or honest, all exist to uphold the status quo and therefore enable the capitalist class to legally steal from the working class – better a society were there are no lawyers. John Ayers.

A Tipical Screwball Situation

On any day of the year tourists pay up to $100 a day to get into Florida's Theme parks. There, they will be waited on by homeless people who, in the case of Disney World, work for $8.03 per hour. Many live in cheap motels because they can't afford to rent anywhere else. As one mother said, " It's hard just trying to get our feet inside the door with the combined expenses of application fees, security deposits, and the first month's rent needed for a place of their own." Nor does the county have any shelters for the 1,216 households with children. Some motel owners who are strictly small time businessmen are suing the local sheriff to force him to evict guests who have not paid rent and are in violation of the policy of four people to a room. This is another typical screwball situation thrown up by a crazy economic situation that condemns many to a life of poverty. Abolition of that system is what is needed. John Ayers.

So Much For Loyalty

Yet another manufacturer has closed shop in Southern Ontario. The Heinz ketchup plant, in that town for 105 years, is pulling up stakes and leaving the usual mess and betrayed feelings. By the end of June, just 250 workers will be left to continue if they accede to one of the tricks of survival these days, - lower wages, as yet to be determined, and this says nothing about the farmers who supplied the tomatoes. One need not feel betrayed by capitalism because loyalty has never been in its vocabulary if a better chance comes along. John Ayers.

The Not So Great War

New Pamphlet

PUBLIC MEETING

'The Not So Great 1914-18 War' 

8.00pm Wednesday 20^th August 2014


Maryhill Community Central Halls, 
304 Maryhill Road,
 Glasgow G20 7YE

Red Is The Colour Of Our Flag

Very few people believe in the wisdom of any of the ideologists of capitalism any more. The bankers, employers, politicians and economists talk about the state of the economy but none of them know what to do. The fundamental reason why the world recovery is faltering now is because this recession did not provide capitalists with new opportunities for profitable investment. To bolster their profits, employers are making it even more difficult for workers.The failure of the recession to solve capitalists’ problems explains why they are demanding, in every major country, cuts in public spending. Employers are on an offensive to take back what workers have won in previous years. Workers face deteriorating conditions, declining income and diminishing benefits. More and more workers find that one income is insufficient to support their families and many workers now have to hold down two jobs. While people are facing steadily lowering of living conditions, the movement against these conditions is still relatively undeveloped. The unions are largely inactive. There are pockets of resistance but these are not yet strong. The coming months and years will be important for workers to develop a militant movement. Some of the key struggles will be around keeping wages up with the cost of living and maintaining  contracts and job security as well as the the problems of declining membership as a result of years of not organising unorganised workers.

We stand for socialism: a new system in which the people own and control the economy, through the widest democracy. We stand for a socialism which is completely opposed to the exploitation of man by man which now divides the world: capitalism which is an outlived system. Capitalism  is played-out, its constructive aspects long dead. Its life-blood is private profit and oppression, whether avowedly capitalist or whether administered by self-styled “socialists.” We stand for a socialism that is both democratic and revolutionary. Socialism is not the rule of bureaucrats over the people. The new, free society will have as its sole purpose the needs of humankind and in place of the present anarchy, waste and inefficiency, production will be planned. This planning, requires the common ownership. Thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created, we will be able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of policeman or bureaucrat to supervise who gets what and frustrate the democratic process. For the first time knowledge would be applied entirely for the benefit of mankind. Our wealth is part of humanity’s common heritage and the world’s natural resources would be used with no other thought than for the well-being of mankind.

To choose anything other than socialism is to opt for futility. The Socialist Party are  optimists. It is only the working class that is capable of wiping out all the misery and suffering in this world brought about by centuries of class society. But, while we understand why our future is bright, we are also materialists. We know that the road ahead is tortuous, full of twists and turns. Not all those who wave the red flag or claim to speak for the working class actually do so. Rather than overthrowing the capitalists, they argued that workers should make alliances among the capitalists and their politicians and support one faction against another as a lesser evil. Of course, the workers have made some gains through their struggles. The employers have had to make a considerable number of concessions. But what are these gains, really? To a certain extent, the gains won in struggle served to strengthen the unity and fighting capacity of the workers. But when you consider the wealth that the working people in this country have produced, when you consider the power and potential for abundance of the productive forces that the workers themselves have created, then these reforms are shown up for what they really are. They are nothing but crumbs, scraps left over on the table after the capitalists have had their feast. But today, it is the capitalists who are on the offensive and the working class that is in the position of the defensive. The capitalists following the path for their usual solution to their economic crises  in order to defend their profits. They want to tell people that revolution is impossible, and revolution can’t solve these problems, that the capitalist system is the best thing there is.

In the words of the Internationale, “The earth shall rise on new foundations, we have been naught, we shall be all.” The class that has borne untold sufferings and has nothing to lose but its chains. In the words of Eugene Victor Debs, “ I oppose all wars but one, the revolutionary class war to rid this earth of the evils of capitalism.”

We’re going to raise the red banner of revolution.

World War One and the SPGB

Haiti And International Promises

It's been four years since an earthquake devastated Haiti and still international promises remain unfulfilled. A recent audit found that the US government aid program had delivered only a quarter of the planned number of houses at nearly twice the estimated cost. 105,000 houses were destroyed in the quake that killed more than 200,000. Of the four thousand houses the US Agency for International development planned to build, only 906 were completed by December 2012. Of the 11,000 additional building sites the agency planned to prepare, only 6,220 were in deed done. Although immediate responses are generally good, the reality of cost often slows the process of rebuilding and efficiency. One would expect things to be quite different in a socialist society. John Ayers.

Cutting Corners Even If It Kills People

 Following up to the article on the Lac Megantic rail disaster last year (reported in Imagine, Fall, 2013), the Quebec government has arrested railway workers with criminal negligence. According to Greg Gormick (Toronto Star, May 18), they are charging the wrong parties. Instead, the government of Canada is responsible for decades if failed transportation policies. The railway's competitors, the trucking industry, has had their highways lavishly funded for little investment from the industry. On the railways, individual companies are expected to fund their own highways, the rail system, out of revenues. Light-density lines have been phased out and "On the remaining lines, the physical and human assets are constantly squeezed to wring out profits to maintain the infrastructure and service while keeping investors happy." This encapsulates the main problem of the capitalist system - that of doing anything, even if it kills people, to create a profit. "Under these conditions, should anyone be surprised if some railways – especially smaller, less profitable, short lines – wind up cutting corners to the point of negatively affecting safety?" Short answer – NO, we are not surprised one bit! John Ayers.

Totally Bonkers

There are many aspects of capitalism that show what a crazy society it is, but this news item takes a bit of beating for sheer madness. 'A garage in central London is on the market for an eye-watering half a million pounds but anyone buying it can rest assured that their Range Rover will fit in - just. ...... Measuring almost 9ft wide and 18ft long, if you rip out the cupboards, it also comes with a £280 a year service charge." (Independent, 9 July) Mariana Collett, an associate director of estate agents John D Wood & Co, described the lock-up as "substantial".  "Purely its location alone, moments from Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace, makes this garage a valuable asset",she said.  Ms Collett may imagine the lock-up is a bit of a bargain as it is situated amidst your fellow billionaires - but £500,000 for a parking site is surely totally nuts. RD

Meet the new boss...same as the old boss

The role of “the party,” “cadre” or “vanguard” plays a large part in contemporary Left discussion. Marxism teaches that the revolution against capitalism and the socialist reconstruction of the old world can be accomplished only through conscious, collective action by the workers themselves. Revolution is not a goal in itself. Revolution is an instrument. The goal is building a socialist classless society, the self-emancipation of the working class, and self-emancipation of all the exploited, by building a classless society without exploitation, without oppression.

For almost a century Leninist groups, have been trying to build vanguard parties that would “lead” the working class to power. For its part when the working class has moved to challenge capitalism it has steadfastly ignored its would-be leaders. Rather than relying on a 'revolutionary' party they knew it was task of working people, through the organisations they would themselves create, to open the gateway to a new and better society.

The so-called revolutionary left is in crisis. Their organisations are small and without connection with the class many genuinely wish to liberate. This situation appears unlikely to change in the near future. Yet class struggle continues to take place on both a global and a local scale.

Socialism can’t be created by decree or by force by a minority. It can only be implemented by the majority of the people taking over the economy (taking over their workplaces and communities) and reorganising them as they see fit. Without said process and everyday content, socialism has no meaning but empty slogans.

We are against leaders who have the power to compel simply because they are leaders - but quite happy to have people responsible for others if they are a) accountable to them, b) chosen by them, and c) and recallable at any time.

A leader may say “all that our organisation has gained is because of me”. But it is not so. Whenever a movement wins better houses, or cheaper water and electricity, or prevents an eviction, this is not because of leaders. It is because of the strength of our numbers – as the workers and the poor, the great majority of the people of the world. It is not because a leader persuades the government to be nice, but because the actions of our mass movements force the government to give back some of what the bosses have taken from us. It is not because the leader knows how to get houses or electricity, but because a mass movement is united .

Leaders, indeed, will sometimes pretend that they know best and that the movement depends on them. But they can do this only by holding knowledge and power for themselves, keeping them away from the masses. This is why it is important to try to make our organisations as democratic as possible. If we rely on one leader, or a group of leaders for our victories, we are putting ourselves in a vulnerable position because we can easily be betrayed which can have devastating consequences.

The workers and the poor have nothing to gain and everything to lose by relying on leaders and governments. And we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by relying on ourselves, collectively. We are all leaders.

 The Socialist Party is not Leninist, Trotskyist or Maoist, but plain simple revolutionaries. We do not intend to lead the masses towards a free and classless society because we are a part of the masses ourselves and adhere faithfully to the motto of the First International: “The emancipation of the workers is an act of the workers themselves.” If the masses wait for a revolutionary vanguard to lead them to the classless society or the free society, they will neither be free nor classless. There is enough evidence in support of the foregoing statement.

The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” was first employed by Marx in 1875 in a private document, and then popularised in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Many Marxists rightly think it a very unfortunate phrase, because no matter how many lengthy explanations are given concerning its true meaning, it lends itself to the interpretation that socialists stand for dictatorship. But that is not what Marx had in mind at all.

He was talking of the necessity for a victorious labor government during the transition period to resolutely destroy the old privileged positions and suppress all activities aimed at restoring the old order. In this sociological sense, he labelled the regime a “dictatorship”; not to signify minority rule in the manner of Robespierre’s Jacobin dictatorship in the eighteenth century French revolution, or Cromwell’s dictatorship in the seventeenth century English revolution, but only in the sense that it was still class rule.

 Rosa Luxemburg defined the proletarian dictatorship in her essays on the Russian Revolution:
“Socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. This dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination; in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of capitalist society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class—that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.”

Lenin assumed power in 1917 within a few years any libertarian content was discarded in Russia and the dictatorship became one not of a class but of a small group, with the Communist Party remaining the only one on the scene and all other parties suppressed and destroyed, and democracy eliminated from the inner councils of this one existing party as well.

 Everyone knows that throughout its history the capitalist class has been represented in most countries by two or more political organizations except in periods of dictatorial suppression. This is explained by the fact that the various subdivisions of the class have different and sometimes even conflicting interests that demand special political consideration and expression. In the United States, for example, some capitalist groups, in highly advanced or favoured industries, are free-traders. In France, Italy and Germany, the capitalists to this very day continue to be represented by anywhere from four to six different political parties, which voice either special group or sectional interests, or different programmatic solutions to meet the needs of the class.

It is irrelevant in this connection to point out, as some do, that the formal democracy under capitalism has very restricted meaning and is robbed of its essence by the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a privileged few who are able to manipulate the political mechanism in their own interests and corrupt the legislators to do their bidding. This is all very interesting and true. But socialists have traditionally insisted that the answer to the corruption and bowdlerization of democracy under capitalism is not to throw out democracy altogether and place their fate in the hands of a few saviors, but to eliminate the social parasitism of capitalism so as to be able to extend, to broaden, to ensure a genuine popular democracy, first for the working people, and eventually for all mankind.

Capitalism Without Austerity?

 The Toronto Globe, May 2, included a photograph of workers demonstrating against austerity in the May Day parade in Paris. They obviously want capitalism without austerity and that is impossible. Governments trying to balance a budget will make cuts in welfare, medicare, education, and other social programs because they are attempting to run capitalism and must save money wherever they can. If the workers must suffer, well, so be it as long as more money is not needed from profit to save the cuts. The only solution is a society without the constraints of profit and money and where people's needs are the priority. John Ayers.

Fracking Nonsense.

A report by the Canadian Council of Canadians on the impact of shale Gas development said, " There is not enough known about the environmental and health impacts of fracking to declare it safe. Key elements of the provinces' regulatory systems are not based on strong science and remain untested." Despite that, the federal government has refused to make amendments to those regulations. Contrary to what people say, you can, then, trust governments. You can trust them to do whatever suits the needs of big business and to hell with the problems. John Ayers.