A NHS For The Poverty-Stricken

A NHS FOR THE POVERTY-STRICKEN                                   

One of the many boasts of British politicians is that they have devised and operate a a wonderful National Health Service, but how wonderful is it in realty? 'More than 500 patients have waited for over a year for a routine operation. The NHS in England has been ordered to prioritise patients who have endured long waits for routine treatment. Ministers want to see more than 100,000 procedures carried out during the summer on those who have waited longer than 18 weeks - the official target. There are nearly 200,000 in that situation - 65,000 of which have been waiting for more than half a year and over 500 for more than a year.' (BBC News, 4 August) Needless to say anyone with a few bob would obviously ignore the NHS. RD

Soap-box to Ballot-box

Science, technology and invention are diverted from their humane purpose to the enslavement of men, women and children. We, the overwhelming majority are wage slaves. Human ingenuity and natural resources are wasted so that the capitalists may rule. Through the perversion of democracy to the ends of plutocracy, workers are robbed of the wealth which they alone produce. No matter who is elected to the driver's seat, capitalism will continue to prove that it cannot fulfill its endless and monotonous promises of a better tomorrow. Economic and social disintegration will grind on, and with it the process of mass disillusionment.

Socialism is not merely a new economic system as some think. It is also the rearrangement of human relationships. The present system of boss and worker is, in effect, a system of slavery. The vast majority of us sell ourselves, and are bought, on a labour market. So long as capitalism lasts, there is no escape for us from the need to sell ourselves. Our capacity to work is all we have to sell, and we must sell it to the capitalists. That's how the capitalists make a profit -- by exploiting the working class. That is, the working class produces all the wealth, from which the capitalist ruling class takes the largest portion, in this process of exploitation, and, in return, gives its slaves a wage.

Under these conditions, economic considerations must always be prior to human values and human values.  The establishment of a meaningful life instead of mankind as an economic thing, depends on just how quickly the majority organises to make the land and the productive tools the common property of society. The technical and human resources necessary to create an affluent society for all, not just the privileged few, are simply waiting to be claimed. If we want to stop the degradation, we must end exploitation. If we want to free ourselves from wage slavery, we must abolish the profit system. If we want to live decent lives of freedom and fulfillment, we must build a socialism

The Socialist Party call upon the people to organise to substitute the present state of disorder with the cooperative commonwealth. We call upon them to unite with us in a mighty effort to gain by all practicable means the political power. The idea of winning over the working class to the abandonment of political action and political propaganda is futile. The Socialist Party raises the banner of revolution and demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class.  the material foundation for the new society is already in existence, then its long overdue birth depends upon appearance of the proper motivation. This motivation must be on a mass enough scale that it cannot be 'vetoed" by the ruling class, no matter how desperate to preserve its privileges.

At present, the workers’ movement is divided. Each group pursues its own goal, guided by its own vision, each sure its way is the correct one. There are some who wish to concentrate on immediate issues refusing to resign themselves to suffer while they wait for socialism. Like workers on strike, all those who are being victimized by deprivation, economic and cultural, will struggle to wring from the present every concession they can get. Many people involved in political activity want to know what is  down the road, perhaps not all the way to the end , but a long ways down. They want to know what they are getting into, and what the chances are, and whether there is really anything positive in sight that is worth the commitment and risk. Without setting out a blueprint, the Socialist Party presents a reasonably clear picture of the requirements of a modern cooperative society and offers offers a plan of how we can all bring a socialist society into being.

To accomplish that revolution, we must organise on the political field. We will accomplish nothing but our own suicide by attempts at armed insurrection. Politically, we must use every forum open to us, from the soap-box to the ballot-box, to spread the idea of revolution. We must be conscious of what we are doing and where we're going, conscious to a degree never before seen in a revolution. Isn't it about time we let democracy work for us ? To do that, we have to stop watching and letting the politicians and the corporations do our thinking. Democracy is not a spectator sport. We have to do our own thing to live in the kind of society we desire. We have all the constitutional laws available for our use to change our necessary social institutions to work for us.so we can live in a peaceful and prosperous society. Let's learn how to use them. Let's for once give democracy a chance! We always told what has been done and what will be done, and the voting process is packaged in keeping with the party bosses plans. Fact is, as a majority..., we, the people, don’t need to be screwed. When it comes to having any measure of democracy in any real decision making, we have the  real say in what goes on.yet we never really get things done in our best interests. The point is that we have to take control of our own lives. Our revolution will be the first in history of, by and for the working class, with no elite "Party" leading us by the nose into a bureaucratic "Worker's State" so it can climb on our backs like any ruling class.

The corporation owners, the CEOs and the big investors don't care about people, only their profits. We have nothing in common with those people. They are of another class, not our's. The line supervisor are paid to manage us, but they're in our class, have no doubt about it. They can be fired any day, just like the rest of us. The different levels of income does not mean we are of a different class. That's how we have been divided. But the ones with the millions and billions, who you never see at your places of work, are in a class all by themselves!

Workers cannot sit around with folded arms hoping that if some individuals on the side-lines shout “Down with the capitalist system!” enough times, the system will disappear from the face of this earth. Capitalism calls for a radical cure, a revolutionary surgeon’s scalpel to excise class division, and not a reformist snake-oil potion to soothe the ulcer and retain the body of capitalism

THE SOCIALIST GOAL

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to replace capitalism with the economic and social democracy of socialism.

 Computers and technological advances in production have swept through and transformed many industries. There is no question that these changes in the means and methods of production have wiped out millions of jobs. Many of the factories and production plants that once littered the country have disappeared. Some have been torn down or abandoned. Some have been replaced by new facilities equipped with the labour-displacing computers and robotics that have left millions of workers unemployed and unlikely ever again to find work at their former trades. At the same time, however, millions of workers are still employed in the manufacturing and extractive industries dedicated to the production of commodities, whether raw materials such as coal, oil and steel, or to finished products such as cars, aircraft and apparel. They continue to turn out commodities meant to be sold for a profit. While this may be the "age of information," virtually all of that information is gathered and applied to facilitate the production and disposal of finished goods on the domestic and world markets.

In short, while technological advances have brought and will continue to bring changes into the industrial process, they are being used to increase the quantity of manufactured goods, but to do it by intensifying the exploitation of a dwindling number of workers. It is absolutely certain that capitalism will continue to introduce new and increasingly sophisticated technology into industry. It is a certainty that millions more workers will be forcibly evicted from the economy -- and not only workers in the manufacturing and extractive industries, but millions who now hold so-called "white-collar" jobs. Indeed, that process is already well underway. Promises that "post- industrial" capitalism would create new and "high-paying" jobs to replace those that have been eliminated have proven hollow. Instead we have low-paid service industry jobs.

An absolute certainty because of the economic laws on which capitalism is based -- laws which compel every capitalist concern to strive for the greatest possible profit at the lowest possible cost,  mean one thing. It can only mean that permanent joblessness is the only future that millions -- perhaps the majority -- of workers can look forward to as long as capitalism survives.

To put it another way: Unless the working class becomes conscious of what a capitalist future holds the time may well come when it will be reduced to a beggar state. A capitalist future is human misery.

At some stage in the mass displacement of workers by modern technology the fear that already touches millions of workers will mature into the realisation that they must act in their own defence. The realisation will grow that there is no solution to the problem within the capitalist system. Thought, discussion, enlightenment will produce action. The real question therefore is: At what stage will this occur? The answer will doubtless involve many other factors, not the least of which will be the economic distortions and political reaction resulting from capitalist economic anarchy.

It is, of course, possible that the workers may remain apathetic even while the ranks of chronically unemployed grow to massive proportions. We do not think that they will, and we shall do all in our power to insure that they won't. Nevertheless, it is possible. In this case, society would move into an era of industrial feudalism which, while it would not last forever, might keep the workers in a state of industrial serfdom for decades.

Socialism is no predestined inevitable development and depends, not upon material conditions alone; it depends on these-plus clearness of vision to assist the evolutionary process. Nor was the agency of intellect needed at any previous stage of social evolution in the class struggle to the extent that it is needful at this, the culminating one of all. Because socialism is not an automatic affair, workers as a class must play an active role in the socialist revolution. Capitalism will not vanish. It will remain until it is overthrown. And capitalism can be overthrown only as the result of class conscious mass struggle.

Promoting class conciousness, however, is no easy matter. Workers are bombarded daily with capitalist propaganda in the newspapers, on television and on th web. Politicians and economists obscure the capitalist roots of economic crisis and falsely predict a better future after a painful period of "adjustment." Political leaders tell workers that they need to make concessions to their exploiters instead of fighting back.

Even worse, many so-called socialists confuse workers by talking about myths such as "structural reforms" or by raising false hopes that workers can force the political state to solve the problems of unemployment and poverty. Such notions can only help convince workers that they have a future under capitalism and that capitalism is, at this late date, somehow capable of being reformed.

In truth, ending the effects of capitalism requires ending their cause -- the capitalist system.

As socialists become involved in workers' daily struggles, they must try to bridge the gap between the establishment of socialism and the present consciousness of the working class. It is important that workers come to recognise that there is an alternative to capitalism. For the sooner the working class realises that the misery imposed by capitalism need not be endured, the sooner will workers turn to socialism.

Yet even the most thoroughgoing class consciousness by itself is not enough for revolution. Above all else, organisation is required. Workers already hold in their collective hands the potential power capable of restructuring society. Workers need to transform that potential power into the active force - revolutionary organisation - that is needed to establish socialism.

On the political field, workers need to form a mass revolutionary socialist party to challenge and defeat the political state for the purpose of dismantling it. That will clear the way for the workers' organisation on the economic field to administer the classless socialist society by ousting the capitalist class from the seat of its economic power and by taking, holding and operating the economy in workers' interests.

Socialist revolution is a complex process. It will not occur overnight nor as the result of a heroic act of will. It is the result of the interaction of economic crisis, class consciousness and working-class organisation.

Capitalism can be counted on to produce economic crises. However, economic crisis is not a sufficient condition of revolution. Even if the economy should utterly collapse, the result would not necessarily be socialism. For in the absence of revolutionary working-class organization, the ruling class would readily impose its own totalitarian alternative. Yet economic crisis produces discontent,  social unrest and the objective need for change that provide opportunities for effective socialist agitation and education, for raising class consciousness and for creating the working-class organization required for a victorious ending of the class struggle.

It is up to us, the working class. Capitalism won't vanish. It must be overthrown.

The Independence Referendum

The Executive Committee of the Socialist Party on the 2nd August adopted the following as a statement on the Scottish Breakaway Referendum on 18 September:

Most of us don’t own a single square inch of Scotland.

It doesn’t belong to us: we just live here and work for the people who do own it. In or out of the Union, that won’t change.

In Scotland, society is run in the interests of those who own the wealth. They argue among each other over billions of barrels of oil, GDP rates, profits and exports, because where the borders lie matters to them. Every border is an opportunity to wring cash out of other property owners. Scotland will remain dependent upon their whims and interests whatever the outcome of the referendum.

They’ll try to sway us one way or another with crumbs (or the promises of crumbs) but we’ll only get what they feel they can spare to protect their privilege and wealth. We will remain dependent upon their investments making a profit for them before we can get our needs and interests seen to

The only way to stop this dependency would be for us to take ownership and control of the wealth of the world into our own hands. We could, together, use the wealth of the world to meet our mutual needs and grant the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in free and voluntary association of equals.

Though the outcome of this referendum is irrelevant, it is an opportunity for us to tell our fellow workers that this is what we want. We don’t have to suffer in silence, we can go to the ballot stations and write “NEITHER YES NOR NO BUT WORLD SOCIALISM” across the voting paper. Then, join The Socialist Party to fight for an independent world."

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!

In these turbulent times people are more and more beginning to discuss alternative, more rational, saner ways of living. Throughout the world people have been coming together calling for change – calls that are maybe vague and  undefined, but heartfelt in sincerity. A few years ago the Occupy Movement urged change and encouraged an exploration of new ways of organising society, hoping to establish an economic system with sharing and cooperation at its core. For change to be sustainable it needs to carry the support of the majority and the participation of the many.

Socialism is the collective ownership by all the people of the factories, mills, mines, railways, land and all other instruments of production and distribution. Socialism means production to satisfy human needs, not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Socialism means direct control and management of the industries and social services by the workers through democratic administration and economic organisation. Such a system would make possible the fullest democracy and freedom.

Socialism means a classless society. Unlike under capitalism, where a tiny minority owns the vast majority of wealth and the means of producing it, everyone would share equally in the ownership of all the means of production, and everyone able to do so would work. There wouldn't be separate classes of owners and workers. The economy would be administered by the workers themselves through industrially based, democratic "associations of free and equal producers," as Marx described it.

For individuals, socialism means an end to economic insecurity and exploitation. It means workers cease to be commodities bought and sold on the labor market and forced to work as appendages to tools owned by someone else. It means a chance to develop all individual capacities and potentials within a free community of free individuals. Socialism does not mean government or state ownership. It does not mean a state bureaucracy as in the former Soviet Union or China, with the working class oppressed by a new bureaucratic class. It does not mean a closed party-run system without democratic rights. It does not mean nationalisation, or regulatory boards, or state ownership of any kind. It means a complete end to all capitalist social relations. On the contrary, it would give power not to the state, but to the people themselves, allowing collective control of their own economic future. Far from being a state-controlled society, socialism would be a society WITHOUT A STATE. Marx once said that "the existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery." Consonant with this truth, socialism would have a GOVERNMENT, but not a separate, coercive body standing above society itself -- a state. The people themselves, through the democratic associations of workers, would BE the government. In a socialist revolution, the industrially organized workers take possession of the means of production, abolish capitalist- class rule and supplant the state with an industrial government formed by "associations of free and equal producers." In the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions, an elite "vanguard" party seized control of the state and used the state to control the means of production. Instead of establishing a classless society, the party-state bureaucracy became a new ruling class. Far from being a bureaucratically controlled system, socialism would bring democracy -- the rule of the people -- to the most vital part of our lives, the economy.

To win the struggle for socialist freedom requires enormous efforts of organisational and educational work. It requires building a political party of socialism to contest the power of the capitalist class on the political field and to educate the majority of workers about the need for socialism. As Engels once described it, socialism would be a system in "which every member of society will be enabled to participate not only in the production but also in the distribution of social wealth." A socialist political party is needed to educate the working class and to recruit workers to the socialist cause.

The workers collectively would decide what they want produced and how they want it produced. They would control their own workplaces and make the decisions governing their particular industry. With the abolition of the capitalist expropriation of the lion's share of workers' product, all workers would receive, directly or indirectly, the full value of the products they create, minus only the deductions needed to maintain and improve society's facilities of production and distribution. Socialism can only be built in a developed, industrialized society with a working-class majority. Though partly inspired by Marxism, the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions weren't socialist in character. They occurred in pre-industrial societies. Without a majority working class and the ability to eliminate scarcity of needed goods and services, creation of a classless society was impossible. Material conditions there bred conflict and made the continuation of the class struggle inevitable in such countries.

In every plant, every office and every workplace in socialist society, the workers themselves will meet in democratic assembly to determine their own workplace policies and elect committees to administer and supervise production. To administer production at higher levels, the workers will also elect representatives to local and national councils of their respective industry, and to a central congress representing all the industries and services. This all-industry congress will ascertain what goods and services are wanted and will determine the resources needed to supply them. It will draw up the necessary plans to carry out production and allocate the resources. The congress will also arrange a just distribution of the output with the workers receiving the full social equivalent of the labor they contributed. All persons elected to posts in this economic administration, at whatever level, will be subject to rank-and-file control, and to removal whenever a majority of those who elected them find it desirable. Instead of economic despotism, socialism means economic democracy. Instead of production for sale and the profit of a few, socialism means production to satisfy the human needs and wants of all.

Socialism will allow for us to carry on production for use in the most modern production laboratories we can possibly create, utilizing the safest and most productive methods. The more we collectively produce, the more we shall collectively enjoy. All of us will be useful producers, working but a fraction of the time we are forced to work today. But we shall not only be useful producers, we shall all share equitably in the wealth we produce, and our compensation will literally dwarf anything we can imagine today.

In socialist society there will be neither involuntary unemployment nor poverty. The young will be educated not only to prepare them to participate in social production but also to enable them to expand their interests and develop their individual interests and talents. The aged will be cared for, and not by any such demeaning methods as are used today. We shall provide all their material needs and create a social atmosphere in which they can live lives that are culturally and intellectually satisfying. It will not be charity, but their rightful share as former contributors to production.

Under capitalism, improved methods and machinery of production kick workers out of jobs. Under socialism, such improvements will be blessings for the simple reason that they will increase the amount of wealth producible and make possible ever higher standards of living, while providing us with greater and greater leisure in which to enjoy them.

In socialism, we shall produce everything we need and want in abundance under conditions best suited to our welfare, aiming for the highest quality. We shall constantly strive to improve our methods and equipment in order to reduce the hours of work. We shall provide ourselves with the best of everything: the finest educational facilities, the most modern and scientific health facilities and adequate and varied recreational facilities. We shall constantly seek to improve our socialist society. Purposeful research, expansion of the arts and culture, preservation and replacement of our natural resources, all will receive the most serious attention. It will be a society in which everyone will have the fullest opportunity to develop his or her individuality without sacrificing the blessings of cooperation.

Freed from the compulsions of competition and the profit motive that presently throw capitalist nations into war, socialism will also be a society of peace. In short, socialist society will be a society of secure human beings, living in peace, in harmony and human brotherhood.

This all may sound too good to be true. Yet the world has the productive capacity to provide a high standard of living for all, to provide security and comfort for all, to create safe workplaces and clean industries, and to help other nations reach these same goals. The only thing keeping us from reaching these goals is that the workers don't own and control that productive capacity; it is owned and controlled by a few who use it solely to profit themselves. Organising to bring the industries under the ownership of all the people, to build a socialist society of peace, plenty and freedom, is the only real alternative workers have.

The capitalist economic system lies at the root of all of modern society's major social and economic problems. Socialism was born in response to the grave social problems generated by capitalism's uses of technology. Socialism grew out of the disruption of society capitalism caused. It was the pitiless and inhumane uses to which capitalism put the technology at its disposal to exploit human labor that made the socialist movement necessary. Socialism is not an idea that fell from the skies, but a natural response to the material conditions and social relations that took shape as the capitalist system of production developed.

At the same time, however, the socialist movement has always recognized the tremendous material possibilities technological advances offer for eliminating the poverty, misery and suffering it has engendered -- not of its own accord, but as a direct result of the capitalist system of private ownership of the productive forces created by human labor and ingenuity. The whole purpose of the socialist movement, therefore, is to solve the grave social problems resulting from the march of technology monopolised by a numerically insignificant capitalist class so that the magnificent possibilities modern advances in technology hold out may benefit all of humanity. Accordingly, the socialist movement also sees in so-called post-industrial technology the productive instrument for the attainment of its goal.
Whatever good there is in modern methods of production, whatever their potential for making the world a better place, for eliminating arduous toil, hunger and poverty, that potential is wiped out by a single, dominating fact. The one fact that overwhelms and nullifies the promise of all progress is private ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Socialists don't deny that the world is changing. They were the first to point out that capitalism cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. But the nature, pace and purpose of such changes are not determined by society: they are governed by the whims and needs of that tiny minority that owns and controls the means of producing and distributing wealth. That is one of the two constants in capitalist society, no matter how many changes come along. The other is that the majority -- the working class -- has no say in the process. Capitalists hire and fire to suit their needs. As long as that division exists class divisions will continue. As long as class divisions continue the class struggle will exist.

The Usual Situation

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is foaming at the mouth at Ontario Premier Wynn's proposal for the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP). They object that the plan, in which workers and employers would each contribute 1.9% of their annual earnings up to $90,000, would cut into profits of small businesses, forcing some into bankruptcy. It would also cut into take-home pay of workers so everybody loses something – the usual situation under capitalism. John Ayers.

Service Lost Company Gain

It is clear that Canada Post is intent on stopping deliveries directly to homes and will deliver to community mailboxes instead. (Another service lost). However, some businesses will receive delivery – need we expect anything different? The company says email is taking over from letters yet online shopping leads to an increase in parcel delivery. The bottom line is that 8,000 people will lose their jobs from a company reporting huge profits. Profits before people yet again. John Ayers.

Poverty In The USA

The USA is the most developed capitalist country in the world yet recent figures released by the 2012 Census Data on Poverty reveal startling information about the plight of the poor in that country. 'US poverty (less than $19,090 for a family of three): 46.5 million people, 15 per cent. Children in poverty: 16.4 million, 23 per cent of all children, including 39.6 per cent of African-American children and 33.7 per cent of Latino children. Children are the poorest age group in the US. Deep poverty (less than $11,510 for a family of four): 20.4 million people, 1 in 15 Americans, including 7.1 million children.' (Moyes & Co, 24 July) These figures have been published by Greg Kaufmann, Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and the former poverty correspondent for The Nation. RD

Educate, Agitate, Organise

The class struggle does not have to exist. The organisation of society could take on a different form, without any class antagonisms. There is no reason for fighting. The fundamental obstacle we face is the capitalist system. Everything that is not of commercial use, or does not serve to facilitate the existence and perpetuation of capitalist power, does not interest the ruling class. Socialism is not a continual fighting with the boss. A socialist community, a co-operative commonwealth, needs socialists for its realisation. The idea of a socialist future has to be re-launched. Socialism is the organisation of production by people who work and are in charge of work.

“To escape its wretched lot,” wrote Bakunin (‘God, and the State,’), “the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are drink and the church, the third is the social revolution.” 

Bakunin spent a large part of his life in premature attempts to “make” revolutions but, in old age,he had glimpses of a sounder method, the educational. The people would make the revolution, but to help on the birth of the revolution we must “first spread among the masses thoughts that correspond to the instincts of the masses.” He asks, in the ‘Memoir of the Jurassic Federation’:
 “What keeps, the salvation-bringing thought from going through the labouring masses with a rush? Their ignorance, and particularly the political and religious prejudices which, thanks to the exertions of the ruling classes, to this day obscure the labourer’s natural thought and healthy feelings .... Hence we must aim at making the worker completely conscious of what he wants and evoking in him the thought that corresponds to his impulses. If once the thoughts of the labouring masses have mounted to the level of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their power irresistible.”

 In other words what is required is socialist education. Capitalism does not survive as a social system by its own strength, but by its influence over the workers. The socialist movement will not advance again significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism. It requires a clean break with all the perversions and distortions of the real meaning of socialism and a return to the original formulations and definitions, an authentic socialist movement, as it was previously conceived. We have to go back to what socialism is and what it is not. All our socialist pioneers defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even the mis-named “workers’ state”. Nothing short of this will do. Present day socialists can improve very little on the classic statement of the Communist Manifesto:
“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.”

The Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. Marx and Engels also later stated that:
 “The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves" 

This is just another way of saying that the socialist reorganisation of society requires a workers’ revolution. and such a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class, which is itself the big majority of the population.

 Capitalism, under any kind of government is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists. Workers have a right to vote. They can exercise the right of free speech and free press. To be sure, this formal right of free speech and free press is outweighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the big presses, and of television and radio, and of all other means of media. But outside of all these and other difficulties and restrictions,  a little democracy is better than none. We socialists have never denied that. Throughout the century-long history of our movement, socialists have defended bourgeois democratic rights, limited as they were; and have used them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether.

We are not a party like other parties. The Socialist Party values every democratic provision for the protection of human rights and human dignity and is committed to fight for more democracy, not less. The socialist task is to expand it and make it more complete. The Industrial Workers of the World defined socialism as “industrial democracy”, the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, with private ownership eliminated. The fight for workers’ democracy is inseparable from the fight for socialism, and is the condition for its victory. Socialist Party members, as workers ourselves, toil side by side with the workers on day-to-day problems, and stand against whoever and whatever will lessen the confidence of the working class in itself and in its own independent action.

The special conditions that made possible the 'golden age' of  capitalist ‘prosperity’ in the 1950s and 1960s have disappeared, forever a thing of the past. The disillusionment with old party politics has provided openings for new forms of struggle and the formation of new political identities. The significance is the prospects of a socialist renewal which speaks in terms of  ‘human emancipation’.  A socialist society does not aim at giving workers higher pay and a decent living wage for all. It does not aim at making the working day six hours or four hours, or giving the worker six weeks paid holidays instead of two. What socialists aims at above all is to get rid of the wearisome, dull, grinding labour day after day, year after year, crushing the humane personality, with no prospect of developing the human interests, needs and capacities of man as a human being with aspirations to live and develop a fully human life.

An allegiance to shared ideas and ideals unites the Socialist Party but we haven’t found a smooth road towards socialism as yet. What we need are new styles of work as socialists: new methods of organisation: new forms of socialist agitation; but how and in what ways the old techniques and organisational forms can be supplanted are not easy questions to answer. The likelihood of achieving socialism in the next two or three decades is remote; and many of us will have to accept that the fundamental changes we are working for will not come about in our lifetime. Nevertheless, we retain an unshakable confidence in the socialist future of humanity. The crucial question is the extent to which socialist consciousness can be created. What we need are new styles of work as socialists: new methods of organisation: new forms of socialist agitation; but how and in what ways the old techniques and organisational forms can be supplanted are not easy questions to answer. No one at this stage can offer a blue-print. It will be an exploration in practice. Workers will do what they see it is necessary for them to do. The Socialist Party bases its view of the future of society upon workers’ independent action, because such action will alter the material circumstances of life to such a degree that life and the labour process itself will assume a new purpose and will venture into new spheres and possibilities, working them out by trial and error as men have always done. The short-sighted babble about high wages, unemployment pay, pensions. A few intellectuals even pontificate about the nature of work, but they cannot see that this is a problem which only workers themselves can settle. It is a practical problem for practical people, who are not given to writing books. Marx's writings cannot be treated as Holy Scripture. (To do so is a gross insult to a thinker whose motto for his own work was "Doubt everything.")  Marx analysed the capitalist society he lived in and projected his vision of  socialism from the clues he found in capitalist society. He refused to engage in any elaborate pictures of the socialist future but kept to a minimum outline. New breakthroughs have to await the new experiences of revolutionary workers' societies.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” (Communist Manifesto)

Now is the time for Revolution

People want answers. More than ever before, people are questioning the ability of the capitalist system to provide even the most basic necessities of life. The question being asked by more and more is “Where am I going to find work?” or “How long is this job going to last?” The working class of the world have many problems, struggles and tasks in common. The ruling classes are stealing our labour power and robbing us of the fruits of our labour.

People increasingly realise that their children won’t live as well (and even in some cases, for as long) as they have. That part of the capitalist dream is gone forever. College education, the road out of the working class, is no longer the route to upward mobility. Today there is a whole stratum of jobless who will be permanently unemployed and who will never hold a productive job under capitalism. If they find another job it will not be comparable in pay, conditions or stability. While the capitalist system has created more long-term unemployment and driving more and more workers into its ranks, the capitalists are ruthlessly cutting off the benefits that sustain them. Under the guise of welfare reform and “getting the scroungers back to work ” the government departments are pruning people from eligibility. The implication is clear, jobless workers have to face the possibility of watching their families go hungry. Capitalism tears at and destroys the social fabric in which we live. The deepest and most extensive economic crisis is changing the very lives we lead, how we think and how we act.

In the process of capital accumulation by the capitalists, wealth is constantly accumulated at one end and poverty is accumulated at the other. “This is an absolute and general law of capitalist accumulation.” Marx said. The capitalist are taking bigger and bigger slices of the pie and workers were left to divide up a shrinking percentage of it. The illusory prosperity of the was built on a foundation of sand with the tremendous growth of consumer credit of all kinds. While giving the American people the illusion of owning their house and car, in reality it represented growing absolute impoverishment as debt mounted on debt. The capitalists cannot allow the credit boom to continue. Debt accelerates far ahead of the ability to repay it, leading toward a financial crisis. Since the banks and other creditors have also borrowed heavily to expand their lending and stimulate the economy, when they do not get paid a chain of defaults can ensue. Thus a credit squeeze brought the financial system to the brink of collapse. The consequences changed not only people’s lives, but the dreams they had for their children’s future. To list its effects on our lives is indeed to catalogue the living hell that is capitalism today.

The working class will never be able to launch a determined struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, and to establish a new, socialist society, without participating in all the important protest movements in society at large, i.e., outside the work places, opposing militarism and war, sexism and racism, police-state surveillance, pollution and waste, etc. all produce huge reservoirs of resentment and bitterness among the workers. The socialist revolution itself will be the outcome of the combination of all those important streams of discontent of all the oppressed: their merger into a raging torrent, a tidal wave of opposition.

Clearly, of course, the key question is not simply workers' participation, but precisely what kind of participation. Large-scale participation of the workers, not only just as marchers on demonstrations but organised as a class that is putting forward its own conscious revolutionary goals. Every new wave of workers and activists has to learn the lessons of struggle in their own way. But the work can go faster or slower. Without education and knowledge, the movement of the future will be left to the agony of learning everything from scratch, and it will suffer the pain of having to repeat again and again all sorts of avoidable mistakes. It will inherit nothing from the past but a mass of mistakes. Socialists want the working class to struggle and organise whereas the reformist Left don't want the working class to have its own voice, for this would spell the beginning of the end for them. They seek to keep the workers politically enslaved. They don't want truly mass working class participation in the political movement, because the workers would tend to go out of their control.

The struggle in which we are engaged today is a struggle of classes. The supremacy is now held by the capitalist class, who control the powers of government. The principle of all existing governments is continuity of the status quo. In this there is absolutely no difference between the parties. Continuity means the continuance of capitalism and of the traditional policy of capitalism in its essential features, notwithstanding minor modifications of detail.  Parties but express in political terms the economic interests of those who compose them. There is no fundamental difference between the Labour and Tory parties. Their principles are identical. They are both capitalist parties and both stand for the capitalist system, and such differences as there are between them involve no principle. These are the same, a capitalist party, by whatever name it may be known.Both reek with corruption in their servility to the capitalist class, and both are torn asunder in the mad scramble for the spoils of office. These parties have been in power all these years, why have they not ever fulfilled their platform pledges? These parties already have had the power to make good their promises. How many more years of power do they require to demonstrate that they are the parties of the capitalist class and that they never intend to legislate in the interest of the working class, or provide relief for the suffering people. Their policy speeches are filled with empty platitudes and meaningless phrases but they are discreetly silent about every vital question which is worthy of consideration by any intelligent person. They are without principles and without ideals.

The Socialist Party is the only party which honestly represents the interests of the working class.  It stands for the absolute overthrow of the existing capitalist system and for the reorganisation of society into an industrial and social democracy. The Socialist Party is the party of human emancipation, standing for a world-wide democracy, for the freedom of every man, woman and child, and for the welfare of the planet.

The Socialist Party is party of which the elected spokes-persons will remain the servants – not become the masters. People don’t want politicians impressed by the rigmarole of parliamentary procedure or awe-struck by the medieval pomp and pageantry to way-lay the unwary. We need men and women who will not waste time and energy chasing after the unattainable mirage of reforming capitalism out of existence or in trying to “make it work better.”  We need delegates who will use their position to challenge the fundamental social, economic and political basis of capitalist society and expose the condition of hunger, misery and war that are bred by it – one who will advance the fight for socialism. Our goal is socialism – everything we propose or do will be in the direction of that objective.

The abolition of the state is no empty slogan. It is an integral part of the social revolution. All socialists understand that once the aim of the proletarian movement, the abolition of classes, has been achieved, the state  disappears and its governmental functions are transformed into simple administrative functions, losing its political character, that is, its repressive and coercive elements, and becoming the administration of things, watching over the true interests of society.

Armed struggle is no answer. Not only would armed insurrection provoke a military response a hundred times more violent, it would also give the ruling class of this country the pretext and opportunity to drop the mask of democracy and adopt on the political field the despotism that prevails in capitalist industry. Armed insurrection is an open invitation to an authoritarian dictatorship.

A revolution means a complete change, and it need not be accompanied by violence. For a successful revolution there most be a constructive phase when new institutions are established to replace those that are dismantled. In an age of great technological and economic complexity such as the present one, when prolonged economic paralysis can have devastating consequences to great masses of people, especially to the masses crowded into the great urban centers, this constructive phase of the revolution must be carefully planned and prepared for.

A great social historian, Henry Thomas Buckle, has succinctly summed up the difference between insurrection and revolution. "Insurrections," he wrote over a 100 years ago, "are generally wrong; revolutions are always right. An insurrection is too often the mad and passionate effort of ignorant persons who are impatient under some immediate injury, and never stop to investigate its remote and general causes. But a revolution ... is a splendid and imposing spectacle, because to the moral quality of indignation produced by the presence of evil, it adds the intellectual qualities of foresight and combination; and uniting in the same act some of the highest properties of our nature it achieves a double purpose, not only punishing the oppressor but also relieving the oppressed." 

With all the sympathy that it is possible for a humane mankind to summon for the suffering, anguish and despair of the victims of capitalism, with enlightened understanding of their anger and bitterness and complete agreement that their anger and bitterness are justified, the Socialist Party nevertheless urges all who are inclined to listen to the advocates of violence to reflect, and to reflect soberly. No one should doubt that such a nationwide insurrection as often proposed by political opportunists and adventurers would cause enormous damage and bloodshed.  

A Suicidal Society

In its unrelenting search for ways to cut welfare spending the NHS is an easy target as reports of poor mental health care show. Family doctors have warned of the deteriorating state of mental healthcare in England, after a survey revealed that one in five had seen a patient come to harm because they could not get specialist help. 'GPs reported that some patients had committed suicide or been sectioned because of a lack of available community mental health services. More than eight in 10 GPs now believe that their local mental health teams cannot cope with caseloads, and nearly half said that the situation in their area had got even worse in the past 12 months.' (Independent, 31 July) RD

Capitalism Distorts Democracy

The United States of America never tires of telling the rest of the world what a perfect example of democracy the USA is, but the influence of corporate big business exposes that claim as nonsense.  An explosion of spending on political advertising on television - set to break $2 billion in congressional races, with overall spots up nearly 70 per cent since the 2010 midterm election - is accelerating the rise of moneyed interests and wresting control from the candidates' own efforts to reach voters. 'The top three outside groups alone - Americans for Prosperity, Senate Majority PAC, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - have already spent a combined more than $80 million in congressional races. Americans for Prosperity, backed by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, has spent $44 million on House and Senate races. Senate Majority PAC, which supports Democratic Senate candidates, has spent more than $22 million on Senate races, and the Chamber of Commerce has spent up to $17 million on House and Senate races.' (New York Times, 27 July RD

The Breadline Beckons

The scale of the pensions disaster is underlined in a survey which shows the average retiree will be living off just £15.95 a day in future. Just a quarter of people are saving enough for a "comfortable" retirement without work, it shows. 'The research, from financial services company True Potential, warns millions may never be able to give up employment if they do not want to live on the breadline. It found a toxic mix of high inflation, government cuts and low interest rates will also hit pensioners. True Potential's David Harrison said: "It is not a gap, but a chasm. Without an enormous change in behaviour, it will be simply impossible for millions of people to retire well into old-age. Indeed, many millions may never be able to retire".' (Daily Express, 28 July) So much then for many workers dream of a contented retirement - the breadline beckons! RD

End Capitalism - End War

Contrary to popular misconceptions, in the beginning of human society war was generally unknown. Life was too precarious, the means of subsistence too difficult to obtain, and the instruments at hand too puny for war possibly to have been carried on to any considerable degree. Militarism means masses. War is an act of society.

The  aim of pacifism is to bring about a state of affairs in which war will not exist. Pacifism would be satisfied where it would no longer be possible to compel a human being to kill or to be killed. The goal of pacifism is a warless society, but under exactly the same form of production,  as at present. The goal of socialism is the socialist society, that is, a society without exploitation, the society in which the demand for the complete abolition of private property in the means of production will be realised. Not only is pacifism powerless to prevent war it can actually facilitate war, harsh as this may seem to pacifists themselves, many of whom are personally sincere in their convictions.

 Pacifism instils illusions about the nature of war and the fight against war (advocating disarmament, treaties, the United Nations, etc., as solutions), and thus prevents a true understanding of the nature and causes of war. It takes advantage of the desire of the masses for peace and yet completely deludes people about the character of war.

Pacifists treat the struggle against war as a special struggle independent of the struggle for socialism. Above all, perhaps, confusions on the nature of the state as the political instrument of the class enemy. Thus any policy advocating “anti-war” actions (sanctions or the UN or what not) by capitalist governments means in effect to tie up the working class with the state, and through the state with the class enemy. Pacifists presented a two-stage view of struggle first reduce international tensions, then deal with domestic issues such as strikes, first unite with anybody and everybody against war, then when the war is over start to think about dealing with capitalism. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for instance argued: first get rid of the Bomb, then talk about socialism.

 Many genuine pacifists oppose war “in general”, but others pick and choose, finding this or that particular war to be justified because it is to make the world safe for democracy, to defeat terrorism or to end fascism, to uphold the UN to intervene for humanitarian reasons or for some other noble purpose. These pacifists , overnight, change from “anti-war” groups into fertile propaganda. They become, literally, the recruiting sergeants of the war-makers. The pacifist movement is impotent to solve the problem of militarism and war.

Their wars are not our war and the military of the capitalist state is not our military. We do not support the war and militarism of the capitalists any more than we support the capitalist exploitation of workers in the factories. We are against the war as a whole just as we are against the rule of the class which conducts it, and never under any circumstances vote to give them any confidence in their conduct of the war or preparation for it, not a man, not a penny, not a gun with our support. Our war is the class war of the working class against the capitalist order.

No normal person wishes to achieve his or her social goals through the use of violence. To reduce violence to the utmost in political life should be a common endeavor for all  socialists. Only profoundly sick persons – totally unable to contribute to the building of a real classless society – can actually enjoy advocating and practicing violence on a significant scale. Indeed, the increasing rejection of violence in a growing number of countries is a clear indicator that at least some progress has occurred. One has just to compare the wild and brazen justification of war by nearly all the leading Western intellectuals and politicians in the 1914-1918 period to the near universal revulsion towards war today

The Socialist Party is against the war although we are not pacifists on principle. We, of course , take sides in war, but it’s a third side. It’s the side of the workers, against the owning class that exploits them now, as well as against the owning class that WANTS to exploit them. Those who disclaim against the terrors of war, should  reflect upon the horrors of peace; food shortages, food insecurity, malnutrition,  hunger, famine, starvation. Capitalist peace is no less dreadful than capitalist war. Our anti-war activity is only part of the general struggle for emancipation of the working class. To expropriate the expropriators, to oppose their coercion by that of the workers, to destroy all the instruments of class coercion and exploitation is our task. The future lies, not with pacifism, but in a recognition by the working class of the world that it must prepare the organization of all its forces for class war, the struggle between the workers and the capitalists. under capitalism war is inevitable. If you, fellow-worker, desire to abolish war, we say: Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it  with a system of production for use and not for profit – all over the world.

NOT PATRIOTISM, NOT NATIONALISM, BUT WORKERS SOLIDARITY 

NOT PEOPLE AGAINST PEOPLE, BUT CLASS AGAINST CLASS. 
  

The Not So Great War

With the 100th anniversary of the day the first world war began, it is sobering to look back at the way that conflict was so badly reported. The catalogue of journalistic misdeeds is a matter of record: the willingness to publish propaganda as fact, the apparently tame acceptance of censorship and the failure to hold power to account. 'But a sweeping condemnation of the press coverage is unjust because journalists, as ever, were prevented from informing the public by three powerful forces - the government, the military and their own proprietors. It is undeniable that newspapers began by demonising the German enemy. They published fabricated stories of German barbarism, which were accepted as fact.' (Guardian, 27 July) It has taken 100 years for British newspapers to come clean about their misreporting so how much of that still goes on today? RD

A Sick Society

Capitalism is a completely inadequate society when it comes to dealing with social problems. From world hunger amidst a potential abundance to military violence both local and world-wide - the list goes on and on. Although the following might not seem as pressing as some of the more dramatic problems the following can prove fatal for many workers. 'One in nine people trying to see a GP cannot get an appointment, with doctors turning away their patients more than 40 million times this year.  Doctors' leaders said that the figures were a "shocking indictment" of a  failing system and warned that the early signs of cancer and other deadly  diseases could be missed when patients were shut out of surgeries.' (Times, 28 July) RD

Neither Separatism or Unionism

THE REFERENDUM

Down through the ages mankind has been fired with the great vision of a world free of war and strife, without national rivalries, without racial and religious strife. The ideal of the “Brotherhood of Man” has inspired all the struggles against inequality and oppression. As Burns wrote:
For a' that, an' a' that, 
It's coming yet for a' that, 
That Man to Man, the world o'er, 
Shall brothers be for a' that.

The common interests of wage workers transcends all national boundaries and differences. Our aim is the emancipation of all humanity from exploitation and oppression or as the Communist Manifesto puts it:
“in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

The capitalists have their own type of internationalism, they have a kind of "solidarity" among the capitalists of the world, with their network of international organisations aimed at dominating and grabbing the entire natural wealth of the world and at enslaving the working people of all lands. The working class is impelled to internationalism in outlook and strategy and as Marx explains in the Civil War in France:
 “class rule is no longer able to disguise itself in a national uniform; the national governments are ONE as against the proletariat.”

The socialist revolution, which will put an end to capitalism, must be international. Therefore, the workers must not think so much of their country as of their solidarity with the workers of all countries. Socialists should oppose all measures tending to perpetuate capitalism and be guided in these matters by considerations of tactics. The internationalism of the World Socialist Movement is the abolition of exploitation of man by man in all countries.

The interests of the working class are not tied to any particular country. The struggle of workers takes place on a world-wide scale to defeat the employer class on a world-wide scale. This means the simple solidarity of one worker with another, irrespective of nationality. Class conscious workers understand this and readily support the struggles of workers in other countries. It must look at the struggle in “its” own country in the light of the struggle world-wide. The most crucial aspect of internationalism is the unity of the working class.  There is no way forward for the people of the world without breaking the power of capital and no way of breaking it except through the class struggle and the triumph of socialism internationally.

The more the capitalist world changes, the more it remains the same. The employer buys our ability to work, and for a set period of time, we become theirs. The value of an employee is our wage--the amount of money we need to pay for food, clothes, rent, liquor, bus fare and whatever else we need to keep showing up to work. This is more or less depending on whether we are expected to wear nice clothes and be able to talk about wine and French history with the customers or whether we're just supposed to show up and not spit in the food. It also changes depending on how much food and housing cost in the particular city or country the restaurant is located in. Wages also reflect the balance of power between workers and employers. Where we are strong, we can force wages up. Where we are weak, wages can be lowered to a bare survival level.

All the political actions and judgments of a workers party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. The class struggle is the central principle of socialist politics. It is by carrying the class struggle to its necessary conclusion — that is, to the victory of the working class and the abolition of capitalism — that the socialist society will be realized. And every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliation, by collaborating with them, in peace or in war, has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers. Whenever socialists discuss the socialist path, they talk in terms of a worldwide struggle.

Can the socialist revolution come wrapped in the Saltire? The Communist Manifesto said:
 “In the national struggles of the proletarians of different countries, they [the communists] point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independent of all nationality.”

 It is the internationalist, not nationalist, outlook that must be brought to the fore. It is not the business of communists, nor anyone who wants liberation, to put their shoulder to the wheel of history and push backwards. This means that communists are internationalists, and not nationalists. The Socialist Party position on the independence referendum is that no fundamental problem facing working people can be solved, or even seriously alleviated, by tinkering with the state structure or the constitution. Those on the Left who argue for the right of self determination for all peoples and therefore you must support the Scottish national struggle are expressing a non-Marxist attitude. What role did the Scottish parliament play in the INEOS Grangemouth dispute? Very little. Business decisions are not made in parliaments. The policy being advanced by left nationalists that independence is a solution to workers’ problems, must be exposed as false and a diversion from the real task of  developing a united and class conscious movement of workers everywhere.

Global peace built on a foundation of nation-states is an oxymoron. As historian Michael Howard noted in his book The Lessons of History:
“From the very beginning, the principle of nationalism was almost indissolubly linked, both in theory and practice, with the idea of war. Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests.”

 National interests are business interests. We won’t begin creating global peace until we learn how to bypass nationalism. Against the mad chorus of national rivalries and ethnic hatreds we advance once more the old slogan of socialist internationalism: Workers of the World Unite!

Another NHS Scandal

There was an inquiry into a scandal at the Stafford Hospital where there was thought to have been 400 - 1,2000 avoidable deaths between 2005 and 2009, but patient mistreatment continues in the NHS. In a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) hearing about The  Ridgewood Centre in Surrey it was revealed that elderly dementia patients were "scalded" by their own urine after being left in their beds for days. 'The case comes amid mounting concern at the number of complaints about the treatment of elderly patients, including those with dementia and other mental health conditions, which have risen from 3,118 in 2011-12 to 3,701 last year.' (Sunday Times, 27 July) This treatment is reserved for the working class - the owning class can afford much better. RD

The Stupidity Of Leadership

The working class are brought up to believe in leadership and encouraged to imagine that in a complicated society like capitalism it is best to leave decisions to the intellectually superior minds of politicians and statesmen. The madness of that notion was well illustrated by a recent news item. 'The sick should turn to astrology for answers, a Tory MP has declared. David Tredinnick said astrology had a proven track at helping people recover from illness and should be incorporated into standard medical treatments. The MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire also admitted he had prepared astrological charts for fellow MPs - but refused to say who.' (Daily Mail, 26 July) Tredinnick is a member of two influential Commons committees, the health and science and technology committees, but it would be interesting to know if he suffers from some ill-health in the future whether he will consult an hospital or just look up his astrology chart. RD

Their World Or Ours?

The paper, “Policy Challenges for the Next 50 Years,” published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,  (OECD), a club of the the world’s most developed countries along with a few large developing countries, can be considered as an authoritative representation of elite thinking.

Economic stagnation is forecast. World economic growth, from an overall 3.6 percent (but only 1.2 percent for OECD countries) in the 2010-2020 decade to 2.4 percent (0.5 percent for OECD countries) in the 2050-2060 decade. The implications mean more unemployment and more inequality because capitalism is a system that requires growth. A system based on endless growth can’t function without it — slow growth (worse still,  no growth) means misery for working people as the recent years of so-called “recovery” from the 2008 economic collapse has demonstrated.

Among the remedies prescribed by the OECD:
“Worker mobility (e.g. pension portability” which is code for privatizing public-retirement systems. It also presupposes that working people have pensions connected to their jobs, but in the United States that is a relic of the past for the vast majority of employees. At best, a worker might have a “defined contribution” plan such as a 401(k) that mostly relies on the employee’s own contributions and shifts the risks from employer to employee. A public retirement system has no need for “portability”; only a privatized system free of employer responsibility and job security does.

“Enact social insurance reforms to maintain labour supply in the face of rising longevity and an ageing workforce.” means advocating people work more years before being eligible for retirement and receive less money on which to retire.

“Flexible” labor markets that are “pursued in a way that cushions their potentially negative impact on equality.” Another way of saying speedups and layoffs continually introduced by capitalists subject to relentless competitive pressures as more and more new technology is introduced. But just how are the falling wages and substitution of part-time work for full-time generated by labor “flexibility” not going to create a “negative impact” on equality?

Capitalism already fails to produce jobs. Professors John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney calculate that the “global reserve army” — workers who are underemployed, unemployed or “vulnerably employed” (including informal workers) totals 2.4 billion. In contrast, the world’s wage workers total only 1.4 billion!

The new view is that the working poor are not “deserving” because they are “too lazy” The majority of poor non-senior households in America have someone who works (62 percent). Further, roughly one in five poor households has a full-time, year-round worker. Eighty percent of families with children receiving means-tested assistance for food, housing or health insurance have a worker in the family. Or they did not put in the effort in school they should have – so they “deserve” low wages. Among families with children receiving means-tested assistance, 40 percent have some college coursework, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree – or more.

 Martin Luther King Jr:
 “In the simplistic thinking of [the early part of the 20th Century], the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We have come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands it does not eliminate all poverty.”

Martin Luther King then concludes:
“We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking. The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”

 To criticise capitalism and to suggest there an alternative and better way of life, more relevant to the times, is to be branded as a utopian dreamer.

A rational economic system designed to meet human needs, rather than profit, would have no need to keep growing. But capitalism is designed for profit, and requires continual growth to maintain itself. This calls for harsher austerity and the increased coercive force that will be necessary to implement it. This is what is on offer by the world’s elites. Together with profit, competition is the driving force in business and are behind a plethora of  conflicts and corruption, to the land-grabbing from indigenous people and the abuse of migrant workers.

“Competition good, it’s part of human nature; it’s the only means to motivate and regulate.” So say the fundamentalist believers in the profit system. “Without competition, mediocrity would prevail, apathy and indifference triumph.” argue the apologists for exploitation. All attention is focused on the end result – on winning, ignoring the means. ‘Succeeding’ is all that matters, no matter the impact or effect – human or environmental. The inevitable collateral damage is seen as an acceptable side effect of far-reaching division and separation, leading to conflict, suffering and violence. If, for example, driving costs down entails employing child labour to work in sweatshops, that’s fine as long as prices are competitive and sales increase. Politicians are ideologically driven to secure votes and climb the greasy pole. Their manipulative motives distorted and dishonest, their campaign promises hollow.

Humanity and the planet need to imagine new ideas and revolutionary ways of living.  We live in a world of abundance; there is food and water enough for everyone, there is no need for a single child to go hungry, or die of hunger related illnesses, as around 22,000 do today. All that is required is that we cooperate with one another instead of constantly competing. Cooperation and sharing unites, encourages trust and builds relationships; competition divides, it sets people against one another. Cooperation and sharing are key requirements in bringing about social harmony justice and peace.