One Change Can Do It All

I walked into the food bank where my wife works. Among the leaflets and brochures there was, "Are you homeless, are you almost homeless?…call the Region of Peel outreach team…we can help with Ontario Works, health care, food, clothing, mental health and addiction support, advocacy for housing, emergency shelter, employment, and so on. One thing that came to mind was the amount of time and resources spent that would not be necessary in a socialist system. One change can do it all. John Ayers.

Helpless Migrants

In a "get rich quick" scheme many would-be entrepreneurs are hiring old clapped-out boats renting them out to desperate would-be immigrants and then abandoning them crewless at sea. 'Police in Italy believe traffickers made some $3m (£1.9m ¬ 2.5m) from 359 illegal migrants found abandoned on a cargo ship in the Mediterranean. The Ezadeen was towed into the Italian port of Corigliano Calabro after being found by coast guards on Friday. ....... The police chief of Cosenza province, Luigi Liguori, said each migrant had paid between $4,000 and $8,000 to board the ship.' (BBC News, 4 January) Little thought is given to the scared, exploited and often  terrified victims, but then it never does inside capitalism.  RD

Benefits And Suicide

In July 2013, two weeks after his benefits were cut David Clapson, 59, was found dead in his flat in Stevenage from diabetic ketoacidosis, . And new information provided by the Disability News Service via a freedom of information request has uncovered that the Department for Work and Pensions has carried out 60 peer reviews following the deaths of customers. 'A peer review, according to the DWP guidance for employees, must be undertaken when suicide is associated with DWP activity to ensure that any DWP action or involvement with the person was appropriate and procedurally correct (Observer, 3 January) RD

Capitalism is the Disease, Revolution is the Cure

Do you want to abolish crime, disease and despair from the world? Then abolish poverty which is the cause. Would you like to abolish poverty? Then assist us in abolishing the wages system, the cause of poverty. A society that cannot hush the crying of hungry children or the weeping of women made widows by war isn't worth a damn. For every crime against the mother and the child, capitalism is to blame. It is the ulcer of privation. So long as society maintains the present system of wage slavery, there can be no relief. To rid the world of poverty, capitalism has to be abolished. The only one escape is through the united effort of the whole working class.

The whole working class has been under attack and resistance have been infrequent and limited. Like it or not, so far, the class struggle has been pretty much contained. But even if workers don’t recognize it working-class fight-backs are not only possible -- they are inevitable. Class conflict between the capitalists and the workers is at the very heart of the capitalist system. The capitalist class makes profits at the expense of the working class’s wages and living standards, so the two sides are inevitably driven to class war. When a capitalist pays a worker a wage, they are not paying for the value of a certain amount of completed labour, but for labour-power. The soaring inequality in contemporary society illustrates this--over the past decades, the wealth that workers create has increased, but this has not been reflected in wages, which remain stagnant. Instead, an increasing proportion of the wealth produced by workers swelled the pockets of the super-rich, who did not compensate the workers for their increased production on the job. It appears that the capitalist pays the worker for the value produced by their labour because workers only receive a paycheck after they have worked for a given amount of time. In reality, this amounts to an interest-free loan of labour-power by the worker to the capitalist. As Marx wrote, "In all cases, therefore, the worker advances the use-value of his labour-power to the capitalist. He lets the buyer consume it before he receives payment of the price. Everywhere, the worker allows credit to the capitalist." Socialists conclude that the only way for workers to control the wealth they create and use it to meet their needs was under a different system altogether. As he wrote in Value, Price and Profit, "Instead of the conservative motto 'A fair day's wages for a fair day's work!' they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: 'Abolition of the wages system!”

To re-iterate capitalism can be best defined as generalised commodity production where labour power itself has become a commodity. The workers—those who operate the means of production—are separated from them, or using legal language, don’t own them. Instead, a separate class of people—the capitalists—own the means of production. The capitalists purchase labour power from people who belong to the proletariat—people who own neither land nor capital. The proletarians sell their ability to work, or labour power, to the capitalists and get in return a definite sum of money—called a wage. Wages are therefore nothing but the price of labour power. In a socialist society there would be no wage system. In a socialist society we would have full and free access to the collective wealth of society.

Marx described the often mis-defined  first phase of communism thus.

“Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production,” Marx wrote, “the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labour.”

Remember, this is Marx describing the lower not the higher stage of communism. While under capitalism only the labour that is used to produce the money commodity is directly social, under communism, including its first stage, the labor that goes into the production of all products is directly social. Marx explained that the lower phase of communism is a co-operative society. It is a gigantic producers’ cooperative that embraces the entire economy. Its central feature is the common ownership of the means of production. Notice, not some means of production but all means of production of any significance. There is not only no private ownership of the means of production. There is also no group ownership of the means of production such as existed with the Russian state-capitalism. Therefore, there are no classes at all. We are already dealing with a classless society. As far as their relationship to the means of production—ownership in legal language—all people are equal.

Second, “the producers do not exchange their products.” This is not only true of the producers of the means of production but also is true of the producers of the means of consumption. Many so-called Marxists over the decades such as the well-known economist Ernest Mandel, imagined that this was true only of the higher stage of communism. But this was not Marx’s view. Even in its initial stage, according to Marx, commodity production has already completely disappeared. “Just as little,” Marx wrote, “does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products—since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labuor.”

Is there money during the lower phase of communist society? There is only one possible answer to this question. The answer is no. Without commodity production, there cannot be money relations. Therefore, money will not exist, if we follow Marx, in the lower phase of communism. If commodity production and money still exist, it is not or not yet the lower stage of communism but at best the transitional phase that lies between capitalism and the lower stage of communism. Marx wrote: “For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.”

Notice here Marx does not say the workers receive a certain sum of money for the labor they perform for society but rather certificates that they have furnished a certain amount of labor to society. Marx specifically avoids using the term money here. So there is no wage labor in the sense of a price of labor power in the first phase of communist society as foreseen by Marx. According to Marx’s definition of the first stage of communism as expressed in his “Critique of the Gotha Program,” all people able to work are required to do so. All the means of production are held in common by society. Therefore, there are no classes, and since there are no classes there is no class struggle. To talk about the class struggle under the lower phase of communism is therefore nonsense.

People could have everything they need to live well. But it’s impossible to achieve under the capitalist system, which is driven to pursue profits rather than human needs. Therefore, only a socialist revolution can bring about a society of abundance for all. Socialism envisions a society of abundance for all. In a socialist society every member of society is a co-owner of the means of production and collectively administer the means of production and control the distribution of their collective product. When the workers no longer have the vast majority of the value of their product stolen from them by a class of idle parasitical owners but enjoy the full fruit of their labour then the material incentive to be industrious will be far greater than it is today. So too will be the incentive to improve productivity through better machines and methods. In socialist society, when productivity is improved, no one loses the opportunity to work. Rather, each improvement in productivity lessens the amount of socially necessary labour time needed to acquire goods and services; the result is hours kicked out of the work-week, not workers being kicked out of jobs. In socialist society, with the workers in democratic control of the production process itself, ample labour and resources could be devoted to make workplaces safe and pleasant. With the emphasis placed on improving the machinery and methods of production, the pace of production itself could be regulated at a constructive, but not oppressive or unsafe, level. Jobs could be rotated or redefined to make them less repetitive or tedious. Of course, with exploitation eliminated, and, consequently, workers able to live well on something on the order of a 15-hour work-week, tedium would be less of a problem. Moreover, with education and job training freely accessible to all, people would be able to experience different occupations far more readily than is the case today. Furthermore, the opportunities for applying oneself creatively, both on the job and in one's expanded leisure time, would be greatly increased.

When all these things are considered, it is evident that the natural desire to contribute to society would be enhanced, for in contributing to society, the worker under socialism benefits himself or herself at the same time. Under capitalism, the worker is constantly tempted to think, "Why work hard? I get paid the same lousy wage anyway." In socialism, the worker realises, "If I work conscientiously, society benefits and I benefit."

With the capitalist no longer controlling the distribution of workers' product, and with the flourishing of a cooperative spirit emanating from cooperative production, workers would take unhindered pride and pleasure in their ability to fulfill the needs of others. As Marx put it: "In your joy or in your use of my product, I would have the direct joy from my good conscience of having, by my work, satisfied a human need ...”

The Failure of Reformism Admitted

The NHS cannot tackle the health gap between rich and poor by itself and can only provide a "sticking plaster" for such inequalities, according to the convener of Holyrood's Health Committee. MSPs on the Scottish Parliament's Health and Sport Committee found that while there had been "many well-intended initiatives" aimed at reducing the differences in health between affluent communities and those in deprived areas "none has made any significant difference". The committee concluded most causes of health inequalities are "rooted in wider social and income inequalities"

Committee convener Duncan McNeil said: "That your income, your education and where you live contribute to how healthy you are is an issue that as a society should bring us significant shame. Since devolution, successive governments have made this a political priority and invested significant amounts of public money in tackling this complex issue. But sadly none have made any significant difference." He added: "Our NHS can offer a sticking plaster, but without a new approach we will not tackle the root causes of inequality and improve the health outcomes of thousands of people across Scotland."

In their report MSPs said "Despite many well-intended initiatives, none has made any significant difference. Indeed, although health is improving, it is doing so less rapidly than in other European countries and although the latest figures are a little more encouraging, health inequalities remain persistently wide."

"Challenge to CND"

Letters to the Editors from the July 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrades,

Please find enclosed cutting from Motherwell Times, which contains a challenge to debate with the CND. A further challenge to debate has been issued to all the political parties engaged in the forthcoming general election, only in more general terms, and has been published in this week's issue of Hamilton and Motherwell People, a free drop paper issued every week under the auspices of the Hamilton Advertiser. So far we await reaction.

Comrade Murphy was a founder member of the old Hamilton Branch which functioned from 1935 to 1945, during which period I was secretary and then transferred to Glasgow Branch and continued membership. Motherwell and Hamilton—three miles apart and separated on the north and south banks of the River Clyde—lie right in the heart of the industrial belt of Scotland. Motherwell has more or less boxed the political compass and, with the exception of the SDP who are too recent, have chopped and changed for every reformist party over the years, and having the dubious honour of electing the first Communist Party member (Walton Newbold) and the first Scottish Nationalist (Dr. Robert McIntyre) to sit in Parliament. Labour have held the seat in 1946. Hamilton has been consistently Labour since 1918 with one exception, when the Scottish Nationalists won a by-election, but reverted to Labour at the following general election and has remained so ever since.

The industrial belt, traditionally dependent on shipbuilding and heavy engineering, has felt some of the worst effects of the present slump, as it did in the 1930s. Hamilton is no longer a coal town, and the only colliery left in Lanarkshire (Cardowan Stepps) is due for closure. Motherwell, so dependent on the Ravenscraig Steel Compound, is almost devastated by the cuts operating under the McGregor Plan for British Steel brought on by the world crisis dominating government policy no matter what reformist party governs.

It is not my intention to bore you with a particular description of capitalism as it is the world over, but only to give cheer in the knowledge that once our party principles and policy are understood and accepted, they stick. Although we are now reduced to three in number and would seem to have been quiescent over the years, our interest in the activities of Glasgow has always been keen and only the onslaught of age (we are all well in our seventies) prevents us from attending meetings regularly.

Yours for Socialism. Tommy Jones.

ex-secretary of the old Hamilton Branch.

"Challenge to CND"

Sir, — Today in the 1980s the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is expanding its membership at a rapid rate. It makes an emotional appeal to people's understandable fears of the effects of a nuclear war.

Since it was founded in 1958, CND has seen the number of nuclear weapons in the world multiply hundreds of times over, but it has consistently refused to discuss what actually causes wars.

When people really start to escape from the fears and prejudices that plague well-intentioned bodies such as CND, it will not just be just a matter of 'ban the bomb'; it will be the end of all wars and of the economic rivalries between national ruling classes that cause them.

I challenge the CND to debate with a representative of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the question, The Case Against CND. — Yours, etc., R. Murphy, 73 Calder Grove, Motherwell.

Frail And Elderly? Tough!

FRAIL AND ELDERLY? TOUGH!                              

Meals on wheels for frail and elderly people have sharply declined by more than 200,000. The number of meals-on-wheels provided by councils in England for vulnerable and elderly people has plummeted by 63% compared to five years ago, according to recent figures. 'A shortage in funds from central government run by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats meant that around 220,000 frail and vulnerable people who relied on sustenance being delivered to their doors were not receiving the care they deserved amid an adult social care "crisis", the Local Government Association said.' (Independent, 3 January) RD

Another Failure

One of the illusions that Mrs Thatcher nurtured was that Britain was becoming a "property-owning democracy" like much of her political promises it turned out to be nonsense. 'So, an Englishman's home is no more his castle. At least, not his personally owned castle. This year, the level of home ownership among Britons is set to   plunge below that of those famous renters, the French. According to EU figures, back in 2005, 70 per cent of us owned our own homes; the most recent figures stood at 64.6 per cent and falling.' (Daily Telegraph, 3 January) Capitalism promises much but so often it fails to deliver. RD

A Wasteful Society

According to recent studies, as of 2014 the army of the United States of America is one of the strongest armies in the world,- and that comes down to money. 'The yearly budget that the United States of America government has allocated to their army is more than six hundred and twelve BILLION dollars. Yup, you read that right: more than six hundred and twelve billion dollars. It is hard to match the global firepower of a country that spends that much on an army!' (Shockpedia, 2 January)This is  because, despite not having a  battle on their own soil for tens if not hundreds of years, American troops are currently deployed in nearly one hundred and fifty countries. RD

Unpredictable Capitalism

Capitalism is forever outfoxing the so-called economic experts. A few years ago it seemed that the North Sea was a potential bonzana of potential wealth, but the promised riches have proven to be an illusion.  'Oil and gas giants are planning to slash the wages of thousands of Scottish workers by about 15 per cent. With Brent Crude is at a five-year low, American giant Chevron has announced it is to cut rates paid to agency contractors by about 15 per cent. It follows similar moves by other firms. BP has agreed with recruitment agencies in Aberdeen to lower rates by up to 15 per cent for about 450 workers from this year.' (Herald, 1st January) RD

The Socialist Compass

Humanity is at one of the most important crossroads in its history, having spread across the globe and advanced through various stages of hunting and gathering to industrial capitalism. This evolution has seen an explosion of technological progress and economic output. But now our actual existence as a species is threaten by impending environmental catastrophe. Humanity is indeed at a crossroads — and capitalism is in the way.

If you don’t know where you want to go, no road will take you there. You need to know your destination and politically that means possessing an understanding of the goal. You need a vision for the future. Socialists hold a very clear vision in their hearts and minds, a vision of a society which would permit the full development of human beings – a society which allowed everyone to develop their potential - and that would not occur because decreed and bestowed from above but, rather, as a result of the conscious self-activity of people themselves. Common ownership of the means of production and distribution is the way to ensure that our communal, social productivity is directed to the free development of all rather than used to satisfy the private goals of capitalists, groups of producers, or state bureaucrats. Production for use organised by workers themselves permits workers to develop their own capacities by combining thinking and doing in the workplace and, thus, to produce not only things but also themselves as self-conscious associated producers. This is the vision of the society we want to build. This is where we want to go. And if we don’t know that, no road will take us there. But knowing where we want to go is not enough. There a relationship between our objective, and the road we choose to take us to it. We have to now agree how to get there.

Marx and Engels used the terms interchangeably. Years later, and especially under the influence of Lenin, socialism became an intermediate stage between capitalism and communism but there is no basis for that in Marx’s writings. Lenin conceived of socialism as the first stage of communism, but this is not in Marx who sought a society of free and associated producers — “an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force.” People who say “well, that’s communism (a utopian society), but socialism has a different principle—to each according to their contribution/work/deeds is a distortion of Marx. Marx didn’t have two stages: socialism and communism. Marx had one society which comes on to the scene defective initially because it inherits all these defects from the old society. But developing that new society cannot be carried on by building on those defects. That argument goes back to Lenin, who argued that until people are highly developed, we have to have the state control where they work, how much they get, and the “socialist principle” is to each according to his contribution. But the tendency to want an equivalent for everything you do is the defect inherited from the old world. That’s what you have to struggle against, not build upon. “Only in a revolution”, wrote Marx and Engels, can the working class “succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew”.

In a Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Engels stated:

“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers – proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.”

State ownership was only advocated to further develop productive forces to make way for socialism. But in the Communist Manifesto, it called for nationalisation of productive forces. However, this is now redundant because production is already built up. Social (common) ownership of the means of production is, of course, not the same thing as state ownership. Socialism, the creation of social wealth has only one objective – to further the interests of the people, by raising living standards, improving and extending social services and unleashing the cultural forces now stifled by the domination of capital. Socialism will not only alter the basic institutions of society in a radical way. Building upon the human capacity for practical intelligence and caring solidarity, which people have always shown themselves able to display in some measure, even under the most adverse conditions, socialism will in time change the whole tone of people’s day-to-day relations with one another. People will start to take increasingly direct charge over their affairs collectively. Labour itself will become, in Marx’s words, “not only a means of life, but life’s prime want.” People will tend to become less socially passive and competitive, and more critical-minded and co-operative. Creative labour for the good of society and the individual will be characteristic of the citizens of a socialist commonwealth, a classless society founded on an abundance of material and spiritual wealth in which the state will wither away and people will each contribute according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. By eliminating the tremendous waste caused by military production and wars, economic crises, overproduction, planned obsolescence of consumer goods, unemployment, cut-throat rivalry, and competitive advertising, the socialist state will place at the disposal of society huge amounts of previously wasted resources, production for use can be planned to meet the needs of our people without the profit-driven promotion of over-consumption and the socialist economy will create the conditions necessary to fully implement an ongoing prudent use of natural resources and ecologically minded management of the environment.

The working class is the social force in the struggle to replace capitalism with socialism. Because the system of private property is the source of its oppression, the working class can liberate itself only by abolishing this system and replacing it with a system based on social ownership of the means of production. This new system is the only one capable of doing away permanently with all of the abuses and injustices of capitalism. Unlike all previous social transformations, the socialist revolution demands conscious action by the working class. Socialism can only be achieved through the united action of millions of working men and women conscious of their social interests and the steps necessary to realise them. Because the socialist revolution seeks to substitute socially planned economic development for the existing system of exploitation of the producers, the new system cannot develop spontaneously once capitalism is abolished. It requires the conscious restructuring of social relations to eradicate the division of society into classes. Socialism can be self-sustaining because it can work. Capitalism, based on permanent expansion and accumulation of capital, can’t. Socialism is a flexible and adaptable system.

Socialism is a trinity – common ownership of the means of production, social production self-organised by workers, and production for use for all communities needs. While necessary, worker management on its own as often advocated by those who support co-operatives or syndicalism is not sufficient for the construction of socialism. The danger of sectional interests working for their own benefit rather than that of the common good remains a major problem. In a nutshell, what we mean by ‘socialism’ is a world economy controlled by workers and consumers and devoted to the needs of humanity rather than the narrow interests of business owners and their investors.  If you want to see socialism in action, simply visit your local public library. Anyone can use the public library for free. Anyone can go to the library, browse, use their computers, check out books, movies, CD’s, whatever, all for free. It is a community resource of many dimensions. The library is also somewhere to go when there’s nowhere else to go. Marx had nothing against public libraries having sat in reading room of the British Library doing his research. Even an avowed capitalist such as Andrew Carnegie couldn’t deny the social benefit of libraries and used his philanthropy to build them. Use of the public library is not means-tested. No one is making a profit.  It provides a social good that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. The same model can be applied to every aspect of society. The library shows people on a daily basis that there is another way to do things besides relying on the private-owned for-profit capitalist market. Libraries are a model that must scare those powerful men and women who cannot abide the idea of a common public good not built on a profit model. Libraries are highly subversive.

However the real issue is control of the means of production by the working class, not social services, no matter how beneficial. Otherwise, the founder of modern socialism would be Otto von Bismarck who set up the beginnings of a welfare system explicitly so as to ensure the loyalty of the working class

Ambulance Thieves

Capitalism is an awful society and by its very nature has ordinary people behaving in an outrageous fashion. 'In 2012/13, equipment was stolen from a special operations response division vehicle, while ambulances at the Scottish Ambulance Service academy in Glasgow were also targeted. Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: "The idea of thieves targeting ambulances while paramedics attempt to save lives is sickening. "People will be disgusted that this has occurred so many times across Scotland over the last three years.' (BBC News, 3 January) The thought of selfless paramedics being pilfered by petty thieves is enough to turn one's stomach. RD

Helpless Victims

In a "get rich quick" scheme many would-be entrepreneurs are hiring old clapped-out boats renting them out to desperate would-be immigrants and then abandoning them crewless at sea. 'Italian authorities have taken control of a ship carrying 450 migrants, thought to be Syrian, that was abandoned by its crew off Italy coast. The Italian coast guard said it was now heading to the port of Crotone after a rescue team managed to board the ship. The Ezadeen, sailing under the flag of Sierra Leone, lost power in rough seas overnight off the south-east of Italy. Almost 1,000 migrants were rescued from another ship found abandoned without any crew earlier in the week.' (BBC News, 2nd January) Little thought is given to the scared, exploited and often  terrified victims, but then it never does inside capitalism. RD

Fewer Teachers

The EIS teaching union has claimed that cuts in staff are making it harder to deal with bad behaviour in schools. 'The union blames falling teacher numbers, support staff cuts and falling numbers of educational psychologists. One particular concern is that pupils who might be better suited to special schools are remaining in mainstream schools without appropriate support.' (BBC News, 2nd January)  Just another example of what capitalism's priorities are when it comes to education budgets. RD

Human need, not capitalist greed

The benefits of a socialist system rests essentially on replacing profit as the primary motivator for production with mutual aid. Capitalism itself has provided the prerequisites that will bring this to the fore. It has laid the foundations of creating relative abundance for all and it has progressively eliminated the need for routine labour to produce this abundance. From the 19^th century onwards, capitalism has developed immense productive forces but it has done so at the cost of excluding the great majority of people from influence over production. It put the rights of private ownership before the collective rights of mankind. Although the world contains resources which could be made to provide a decent life for everyone, capitalism has been incapable of satisfying the elementary needs of the world’s population. It proved unable to function without devastating crises and mass unemployment. It produced social insecurity and glaring contrasts between rich and poor. Socialism was born as a movement of protest against the problems inherent in capitalist society. The capitalistic system of production, under the rule of which w live, is the production of commodities for profit instead of for use for the private gain of those who own and control the tools and means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit spring the problems of misery, want, and poverty that, as a deadly menace, now confronts civilisation. The essence of capitalism is the exploitation of workers and the orientation toward profit at the expense of every human being and every human need. We can never use the logic of capital to build new social relations.

One immediate problem for a post-capitalist society is that it has to emerge from conditions created by its capitalist predecessor, socialism grows directly out of capitalism, so the old division of labour cannot be magically eliminated overnight. Everyone understands that it is impossible to achieve the vision of socialism in one giant leap forward. It is not simply a matter of changing property ownership. This is the easiest part of building the new world. Far more difficult is changing productive relations, social relations in general, and attitudes and ideas. Certainly Marx saw the need for a "first phase" of socialism but only because of the low development of the productive forces of his time. This is further shown where he states: "The distribution of the means of consumption at any time is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves." And he also points out that "Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development thereby determined."

Obviously to satisfy everyone’s needs there must be the greatest of plenty of everything. In addition, there must have developed a change in the attitude of people toward work—instead of working because they have to, people will work because they want to, both out of a sense of responsibility to society and because work satisfies a real need within their own lives. Under capitalism, these private enterprises dominate the economy and operate for the purpose of generating wealth for their owners by extracting it from working people who are paid only a small fraction of what their labor produces. Socialism turns this around so that the class that produces the wealth can collectively decide how it will be used for the benefit of all. Socialism prioritises human needs and eliminates the profit motive that drives war, ecological destruction, and inequalities based on gender, race, or nationality. Like capitalism, socialism must be international so that global resources can be shared. No country can be truly independent of the global economy.

Socialism is, by definition, democratic hence an early alternative label for the socialist movement being social democracy. Without freedom there can be no socialism. Socialism can be achieved only through democracy. Democracy can be fully realised only through socialism. Since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Leninism and Trotskyism has distorted the socialist  tradition beyond recognition. It has built up a rigid theology which is incompatible with the critical spirit of Marxism. Lenin used Marx's philosophy to perform the socialist revolution but he completely removed Marx's notion of equality of people claiming that workers have not developed enough knowledge and consciousness, and therefore they must be guided. Socialists aim to achieve freedom and justice by removing the exploitation which divides men under capitalism, state-capitalists seek to sharpen those class divisions only in order to establish the dictatorship of a bureaucracy and of a one-party leadership. The Socialist Party supports the idea of a delegative form of democracy that calls upon the working class to decide their fate for themselves. Workers without any access to decision-making do not accept social ownership as their own, and thus may well choose to have no responsibility towards the same.

If socialism means more than state ownership or state intervention, then how should it be understood? A socialist economic system would consist of a system of production and distribution organised to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time in place of financial calculation. The characteristic of the new socialist society is that (a) control of production be fully vested in the producing individuals themselves and (b) that the social character of labour is asserted directly, not after the fact. In other words, productive activity in this socialism is social not because we produce for each other through a market but because we consciously produce for others. And, it is social not because we are directed to produce those things but because we ourselves as people within society choose to produce for those who need what we can provide. Our needs as members of society—both as producers and as consumers—are central. This is a society centred on a conscious exchange of activity for communal needs and communal purposes. It is a society of new, rich human beings who develop in the course of producing with others and for others.  The point of social ownership is to ensure that the social brain and the social brawn are devoted to the full development of human beings rather than used for private purposes.

Socialism is the science of human association reduced to a practical proposition, based upon a study of society. It is an interpretation of the past, a diagnosis of the present, and a forecast of the future. It recognizes that life is constantly passing through a process of evolution. It is therefore founded upon an enduring basis of fact against prejudice.

The common good is our fundamental purpose as a movement and as a party. Socialism aims to liberate the peoples from dependence on a minority which owns or controls the means of production. It aims to put economic power in the hands of the people as a whole, and to create a community in which free men and women work together as equals. Socialism can still continue to attract, inspire, and mobilise a social movement capable of ending capitalism’s rule. Socialism will establish a new social and economic system in which people will take responsibility for and control of their neighbourhoods and all the administrative organs, plus the production and distribution of all goods and services. The Socialist Party stands for a fundamental transformation of the economy, focusing on production for need not profit. The Cooperative Commonwealth is its goal. In the end, socialism will succeed or fail depending not on the activities of we in the Socialist Party but whether the growing anger against the injustices and failures of the present system can be channeled and linked together to create not just a call for change, but a challenge to the ruling order itself.

Fake Money Tragedy

Amidst festive celebrations  an awful tragedy struck when at least 36 people were killed in a stampede during the New Year's celebrations in Shanghai, which may have been caused by the crowd rushing to grab fake money thrown from a bar balcony. 'Another 47 injured people were hospitalised after the fatal crush in Chen Yi Square in the city's waterfront Bund area, which attracted 300,000 people last New Years Eve and is notorious for severe congestion at major events. The stampede just before midnight is the city's worst disaster since 58 died in an apartment building fire in 2010.' (Daily Mail, 31 December)  RD

Suffer In Silence

  Here is a very laid-back philosophical outlook on death from a medical man. 'Dying of cancer is the "best death" and Dr Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, said that cancer allowed people to say goodbye and prepare for death and was therefore preferable to sudden death from organ failure or "the long, slow death from dementia.' (Independent, 31 December)This outlook might appear to be a very calm scientific one but it is hard to imagine that the doctor concerned might not feel a twinge of regret if he had to suffer from the disease. RD

Unbearable

Mere statistics and catalogues of welfare cuts do not really capture the incompetence of the NHS. It takes a shocking example of the cruel behaviour suffered by an elderly worker to put in concrete terms the sheer criminality of the system. 'An elderly stroke patient was left lying in her own urine in a cold ward on Christmas Day, it was claimed today. Elsie Keirl, 84, was admitted to Musgrove Park Hospital - which has since launched an investigation - in Taunton, Somerset, a day after she had a stroke at her home in nearby Brigwater. Her son David Keirl, 58, stayed with her until Christmas morning before returning home for a few hours rest - but found on his return that his mother was "blue" because her room was so cold.' (Daily Mail, 31 December) RD

Ambulance Shortage

As more and more government cuts affect the NHS it is the ambulance service's turn to feel the pinch. 'Ambulance services in England are  close to breaking point with three of the country's 10  ambulance trusts declaring themselves under intense pressure . London and Yorkshire have been critical for more than two weeks. The head of the British Medical Association said patients were suffering as the NHS's emergency and urgent care system struggled to cope.' (BBC News, 31 December) The ambulance service is essential for the working class so of course it is badly curtailed to save expenditure. RD

Bust Scotland

About 1,000 companies will go bust and 12,000 Scots will be made bankrupt in the coming year, a report Business advisers BDO has predicted. Cooling consumer demand, geopolitical and financial uncertainty and potential interest rate rises were cited as causes for concern.

Bryan Jackson, business restructuring partner with BDO, said: "For many companies and individuals there is the prospect of another year of standing still as profits remain flat and incomes are static. The slightest change in any circumstances could have serious consequences… it is of concern that even six years after the start of the recession there are still so many firms going bust.”