A Depressing Society

Capitalism with its threat of unemployment, rent arrears or mortgage payments is a depressing society. How depressing is shown by the latest figures from the Health and Social Care Information Society about the use of antidepressants. 'Almost one in ten people in Britain is taking antidepressants with GP prescriptions for them almost doubling in ten years. Doctors last year issued 55 million prescriptions for pills such as Prozac, up from 50 million the year before and nearly twice the 2004 amount.' (Times, 6 January) Last year £280 million was spent on the drugs. RD       

Our Aim is Socialism

It is not enough for socialists to decry the reformists’ abandonment of any meaningful socialist meaningful policies. Is neither enough to speak in general terms of the need for radical and socialism. The Socialist Party must be more specific and it is high time to spell out concretely what should be done. It is not utopian of us to imagine what a socialist society would appear like. Obviously, a more detailed elaboration will be clearer closer to the time but we can still offer a vision of what socialism is.

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to achieve world socialism in which the social ownership of the means of production shall replace the existing capitalist system. Our world is rich in natural resources and is capable of producing everything necessary for a good life for all. Our planet could be truly a paradise for everybody but it is not a paradise for the people. Folk are starving while food rots. Wars are raging with a barbarity that shames our species. In Britain and elsewhere the social services being cut to the bone. Why is this? The fundamental reason of all this suffering is that the world is capitalist, ruled for and by capitalists for their profit and interests. It is divided into rich and poor—a tiny handful of rich (1 per cent of the population own more than half the nation’s wealth). It is a system of exploitation where a tiny handful of people own the “means of production” (the land, the mines, factories, the machines, etc.) and living off the sweat and toil of other people. The problems of capitalism - exploitation, anarchy of production, speculation and crisis, and the whole system of injustice - arise from the self-interest of this tiny group of capitalists.

The essence of exploitation under capitalism consists in this — that the workers, when set to work with raw materials and machinery, produce far more in values than what is paid out by the capitalists in wages. In short, they produce a surplus which is taken by the capitalists and for which they are not paid. Thus they are robbed of the values they produce. This is the source of capitalist profit. It is on this surplus, produced by the workers, that the capitalist lives in riches and luxury. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today the whole system of production is socially interdependent, but it is controlled by private hands. In place of private control of social production there must be social ownership if society's problems are to be addressed.

Only socialism can solve the problems facing the people of the world. No longer can some men (the capitalists) by virtue of the fact that they own the means of production, live off (exploit) the labour of others (the working class). No longer are the workers compelled to sell their labour power to the capitalists in order to live. The workers are no longer property-less proletarians. They now own the means of production and work them in their own interests and in the interests of society. For society is now composed or workers by hand and brain, i.e. of an associated body of wealth-producers.

Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of peoples' lives. Because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a resounding liberating and transforming force. The economy will be planned to serve human needs rather than simply profit and luxury consumption by the rich. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion in useful production and the wealth of society will become useful. Proper planning and cooperative coordination will replace the chaos of commerce. With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Workers will manage democratically their own work places through workers' councils and elected delegates, in place of the myriad of supervisors and overseers today. In this way workers will be able to make their work places safe and efficient places that can serve their own interests as well as society's with the way cleared to achieve a decent meaningful and productive life for all working people. Such a democratisation of industry would not work unless the mass of the working class itself was imbued with a consciousness of its necessity, prepared to struggle for it, and prepared to participate in its functioning. What will not be developed under socialism are the massive government bureaucracy and repressive state apparatus (police, prisons) which are used to control the people and defend the privileged position of the ruling class. Socialism will not mean government control. Today under capitalism the state serves the interests of the capitalist class. With socialism the state will "wither" away, and a new era of human freedom and prosperity will arise.

Single-issue campaigns and protest movements have played an important role in mobilising social activists and raising awareness about issues. But protest and campaigning can only take the class struggle so far. We can’t just keep on campaigning against things. We have to also campaign for things. If all the aroused and the enraged can see is an unresponsive brick wall of party bureaucracy misnamed ‘democratic centralism’ with leaders who make promises they don’t intend to carry out, they it can easily result in demoralisation and apathy. There is a democratic instinct among working people. They know that majority control is in their interests as opposed to domination by unrepresentative minorities or vanguards. The healthy rejection of leaders, opportunism and careerism should not mean a rejection of organisation. A mass movement of workers has to have a purpose. For sure it should defend and protect the exploited and oppressed, the targets and victims of capitalism. But these are only defensive struggles within the system and can only take us so far. Social movements should plan for replacing the existing system with something radically better and be committed to the democratic socialist transformation of society, a society where decision-making permeates its complete essence and where the majority collectively own and control the economy. We need peoples’ power that encourages debate and has nothing to fear from the open and free flow of ideas and information, but everything to gain. Working people clearly appreciate that unity is strength, especially in the face of capitalist wealth and power. That in division lies defeat. One united movement has a far greater chance of succeeding than one divided up into a series of competing groups but this cannot be based upon a ‘broad church’ of contradictory aims but has to be formed with a common goal yet providing ample forums in which all the different ideas and strategies for changing society can be debated and decided upon. Past experience has shown that the fight for reforms can all too easily become an end in itself, with the aim of the democratic socialist transformation of society relegated to celebratory speeches and pious resolutions. The system has demonstrated that it cannot deliver reforms and cannot even retain past gains.

Our political work now must be one of preparation, linking up with who want to fight back. We are merely making the road clearer and easier to travel down so that working people’s efforts to transform society have a better chance of success.

Andrew Kliman writes critically “On the anticapitalist left, the typical view of how to transcend capitalism can be summarized as follows. First, you change people’s consciousness, or their consciousness changes through their participation in new forms of organization. The change in consciousness allows us to increase our side’s political power, to the point where we take control, either through elections or by seizing power.  And once our side has political power, we can then change the nature of the economy and the state simply by deciding to put “people before profit” and implementing what we decide. We need the right political forms, forms of organization, to accomplish this—and there’s a whole lot of debate about what are the right forms of organization. But if we do have the right forms of organization, then overcoming capitalism is a simple matter. We decide, through these forms of organization, what should be produced and what shouldn’t, we decide how to distribute resources and goods fairly, we decide on other social priorities, and then we just put these decisions into effect. This picture of social change is in the minds of almost the whole of the anticapitalist left, from vanguardists to anarchists.” He goes on to say “despite your intentions–in order to compete effectively, there will be a continual stream of unintended consequences that you won’t be able to eliminate through experimentation. A country that tries to improve the standard of living of its workers too much will not be competitive. State-run banks that try to pursue public policy objectives instead of maximizing profit, and worker-run banks that try to enhance the workers’ well-being instead of maximizing profit, will lack the funds to do so. And so on. The problem here isn’t that you’ve made mistakes…The problem is rather that, despite your good intentions, and despite the new priorities, new forms of organization, new forms of ownership, new laws, and the new name you give your society, it remains capitalist. It remains capitalist because the economic laws that govern capitalism continue to govern your society. And they continue to govern your society because new priorities, new forms of organization, new forms of ownership and so forth are not enough––by themselves––to overcome the economic laws of capitalism.”

They would merely be capitalism in a different form or they would be unviable and lead back to capitalism.  And the reason why they wouldn’t work is that these supposed alternatives to capitalism all try to get rid of capitalism without getting rid of its mode of production. The proposals won’t work because it tries to change the capitalist system by eliminating its effects, but not the causes of these effects. Changes in political and legal forms, and changes in consciousness, are not themselves changes in the relations of production. If only they are changed, not the relations of production, the changes will not succeed in changing the character of the society. Capitalism is based on its mode of production; socialism is based on the socialist mode of production. If there is a third kind of society in between them, what is its mode of production?

We live in a world where technological achievements unimaginable in previous societies are within our grasp. For the first time in history we can produce enough to satisfy the needs of everyone on the planet. Yet millions of lives are stunted by poverty, destroyed by disease and military conflict devastate lives. New technology gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fulfilling human labour, offers unemployment or over-work. The domination of commodities in our society is so pervasive that it seems to be an inevitable, natural state of affairs. All our achievements, everything we produce, appear as commodities. The creation of exchange values and the circulation of commodities requires a commodity which can represent all other commodities, through which all other commodities can be compared and money is the universal pimp. Money can buy everything - it is the most powerful commodity in existence. The role of money in the circulation of commodities shapes the consciousness of human beings involved in that process. Money takes on the value of the objects it represents, it appears to be the force which can create value itself. Money twists our human potential, transforms our feelings into false feelings and manufactured needs, and changes us into different people, alienated, atomized  human beings who lives somebody else’s life — not our own life. In the capitalist system, the worker work for money, to survive and the accumulate things. The worker does not experience work as free life. It deeply effects the social relations of the worker to the husband/wife, lover, children, friends, and the worker’s well-being; the psychological damages from the stress of work can last for a life-time.

We say we human beings being social beings have the ability to determine and direct our own futures (within certain limits). When the workers own the means of production, William Morris explained, they will be able to concentrate on a beautiful artistic production. Similarly, with more leisure, they will have more desires and so a desire for beautiful things. We entered into a society of abundance many decades ago, but capitalists must invest seemingly forever to secure wealth, the fruit of that abundance, for themselves. Technology does benefit society by creating unprecedented material abundance. This abundance, while generated by greater productivity, has to be hidden in plain view from the people. This is the great capitalist scam: the owners of technology convince the workers that the machines, dead labor so to speak, not their living labor, produce wealth. The bosses have largely convinced us that we must service the machines at low wages, not the other way round. An abundant society is not defined by the size of your plasma television but by the quality of life that ensues when basic needs – food, shelter, health and conviviality – are satisfied. When the time that we devote to directly supplying those real needs reverts back to us, when our days are filled with the things we want to do and that immediately sustain us, and not the tasks of the paymaster, then we can begin to truly live.

A line of thinking like this is dismissed as fanciful, as utopian, in the sense of unattainable. But, to mention only one area, the accelerated pace of our current drive to despoil the environment in quest for oil and natural gas is praised as eminently practical. Where is the folly here? Is imagining a world free of exploitation more harebrained than the headlong pollution of our planet? What sort of society could evolve if everybody had free access to the world’s wealth to meet his or her basic needs of food, shelter and health?

It is necessary to persist in speaking about an abundant society and counter the popular confusions, because there is no other way to reverse the perspective of power – a perspective that demands sacrifice and scarcity to keep us all subservient.

Who watches the watchers?

Terrorist Attack

After the Charles Hebdo attack, the head of MI5 warns of a Paris-style atrocity on UK soil. 'Al-Qaeda is planning a Paris-style terrorist atrocity against Britain, according to the head of MI5. Andrew Parker, the Director General of the Security Service, warned that the threat of a "mass causualty attack" was growing and that intelligence pointed to the existence of specific plots.' (Daily Telegraph, 9 January) Security was stepped up on Wednesday at British ports , and armed police were put on patrol at the Eurostar terminal at London's St Pancras station. RD

Terrorist Plot

Politicians who want to maximise present day profits care little for future environment conditions but Al-Qaeda is planning a Paris-style terrorist atrocity against Britain, according to the head of MI5. Andrew Parker, the Director General of the Security Service, warned that the  threat of a "mass casualty attack" was growing and that intelligence pointed   to the existence of specific plots.  'Security was stepped up on Wednesday at British ports and armed police were  put on patrol at the Eurostar terminal at London's St Pancras station. Mr Parker warned that although three terrorist plots had been foiled in recent   months, it was almost inevitable that one would eventually succeed.' (Daily Telegraph, 9 January) RD

The Socialist and the Trade Unionist

It’s a great pity to have to admit that things have been so bad for the union movement for such a long time. So torpid and uninspiring has been its response to the austerity cuts, particularly the TUC symbolic protest marches. Membership continues to dwindle, workers’ power continues to be eroded, and employers continue to find new ways of out-maneuvering the unions. There were exceptions such as the fast food and Walmart workers strike actions in the US.

One generation after another in continuous effort, in great strikes, massive demonstrations, and political struggles, have fought to build the trade union movement. Long before there was a political party of the workers there were the trade unions. Their history is an amazing record of valiant workers who fought the law, who dared imprisonment, deportation, victimisation and persecution in order that their unions could become strong and powerful. Have you ever stopped to ask why and for what these organisations have been built? You know they defend the wages and conditions of the workers. But why was it necessary to fight for these? The answer to this question is important because it goes to the foundations of unions and socialism.  

The working class in society holds has no property. It is a propertyless class—dependent upon the class which owns property—the land, the factories, mills, mines, railways, transport. But the land cannot give forth its fullness unless workers plough and sow and reap. The earth cannot deliver its mineral wealth unless workers dig it. Factories, mills, mines, railways, etc., cannot work unless workers are employed to make them serve their purpose in the transformation of nature’s wealth into social wealth. It is this fact which compels the owners of the means of producing wealth to employ labour. They need that labour or their ownership ceases to be of value. That is why the withdrawal of labour by the workers can be so powerful a weapon when used on a large scale. Unions were formed by the workers because they possessed no means of production of their own, i.e. they were propertyless and their labour power which is inseparable from them could only be withdrawn from production in sufficient strength when it was organised.

Now we know why trade unions were formed, in what consists their power, and why the fight continues in a society where there is a class owning the means of production and a working class owning nothing but its power to labour. The roots of socialism lie in precisely those conditions which give rise to trade unions.

Socialism is the name given to that form of society in which there is no such thing as a propertyless class, but in which the whole community has become a working community owning the means of production—the land, factories, mills, mines, transport and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. Socialism is also the name given to a body of scientific and philosophic thought which explains why the socialist form of society is now a necessity, the forces upon which its achievement depends, the conditions under which and the methods whereby it can be achieved.

 It will be obvious at once that the basic principles of Socialist society are diametrically opposite to those of capitalist society in which we live. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class. We can easily understand, therefore, why the great majority of landlords, employers, financiers and the like are opposed to socialist ideas. Their very existence as the recipients of rent, interest and profit is at stake. They do not merely reject the theory of socialism, but actively and bitterly fight every movement which is in any way associated with the struggle for socialism. It is to the individual and social interest of the propertyless class to fight against the private property system and for socialism. They do it every day, though as yet only a minority do it consciously for socialism. When trade unionists fight the employers on wages questions and the conditions of labour they are really fighting against consequences of the private property system. The existence of the private ownership of the means of production means also the private ownership of the things produced and their sale as commodities in competition one with another. Labour also is a commodity and those who sell their labour power, the members of the working class, manual and brain-worker alike, also compete like other commodities.

Trade unionism really represents in one sense an attempt to organise monopolies of labour power in order to break down the competition between the workers who in the labour market are commodities for sale. The more trade unionism advances in this direction the more difficult it becomes for the capitalists to make profit. Hence the everlasting cry of the capitalists for “lower production costs” and their opposition to the workers’ struggle for higher wages and improved conditions. This is the fundamental contradiction of capitalist economy—a struggle between the two classes, the propertied and the propertyless—which is inevitable so long as the private ownership of the means of production exists.

From this the socialist draws the conclusion, therefore, that the class primarily interested in the change from private property to social property is the working class. The goal of socialism as the classless society has its starting point in the propertyless condition of the working class which is also precisely the starting point of trade unionism. The unions represent the first weapons of the working class in the struggle against employers’ interests; the socialist’s goal represents the consummation of the struggle of the working class—its emancipation from the system which gives rise to that struggle. Trade unionists and socialists have thus a common origin and the aim of socialism is only possible of achievement by the working class becoming victorious in the struggle against capitalism. Why then is it that trade unionists are not always socialists?

People do not start their lives with fully developed theories about systems of society. Nor were trade unions formed to fight for socialism. The workers formed them to defend and improve their immediate conditions of employment, their wages, their hours of labour and so on. This is clearly revealed by the way in which the unions have grown. An important hindrance to this development springs, however, from the limited character of the trade nions’ activities in relation to the occupations of the workers. The fact that the labour unions limited their industrial activities to measures on behalf of particular sections of workers meant that they adopted the method of striking bargains with particular groups of employers. To this has been given the name collective bargaining, the setting up of agreements between employers’ associations and groups of trade unions for limited objectives. There can, of course, be no complaint against such a procedure providing it does not become an end in itself but is regarded by the workers as a part of a continuous process in the developing of sufficient power and will to conquer the capitalists when the time is ripe. When, however, collective bargaining is accepted as a permanent procedure and becomes the first principle of action for the working class movement, then it involves the acceptance of capitalism as a permanent form of society; and the unions will have to take just what the capitalists can afford to give them.

The socialist declares that such a policy, especially in the present period, is disastrous for the unions and the workers. The socialist is not anti-trade union. On the contrary, he is the most ardent of trade unionists. Socialists want their fellow trade unionists to recognise the cause of the struggle their trade unions are compelled to wage. Recognising the cause as rooted in the private ownership of the means of production and the propertyless conditions of the working class, Socialists want all the struggles of the unions to be co-ordinated, so that behind every national or industry conflict there will be available the appropriate power of the working class. Socialists want sectionalism to be superseded by a united working class army of the unions led by a general staff which directs the struggles of the workers to one end—the securing of the victory of the working class over the capitalists. This means that the trade unions should recognise that all the efforts of the working class must be directed to the goal of the conquest of political power. Their fight in the industrial field must be linked with the fight to capture the state machine which, backed by the might of the working class, would transfer the ownership of the means of production and distribution from private hands to social ownership. It represents the merging of the many sectional interests into the common interests of all and the formation of the mass socialist party reflecting the growing consciousness of the working class of its independent interests and aims—in short, its approach to the socialist conclusions arising from a recognition of the class divisions in society and the conflict arising therefrom. What was in its first stage an unconscious class struggle of the workers becomes increasingly a conscious class struggle.

This is the path of working class emancipation and a society that will become a working community, owning and controlling the means of production, with no class conflict, no rival interests to divide and impede. As socialists, we need to articulate our distinctive vision now, not sometime in the vague, distant future.

Has the US changed that much since

Poor Air Quality

Boris Johnson is risking children's health by blocking action to clean up London's poor air quality, according to the city's former deputy mayor Nicky Gavron. He claimed that the mayor had failed to deliver on his promise of an electric car "revolution" and is not cleaning up buses quickly enough. 'London has been in breach of EU pollution limits since 2010, and is not expected to reach safe levels for another 15 years, despite the threat of fines from the EU. Until we have political leadership that takes this issue seriously we must face the reality that London's children will continue to be exposed to levels of pollution that will scar their health for the rest of their lives, Gavron, who was deputy mayor under Ken Livingston, writes in 'The Guardian'. (8 January) Future environment conditions mean little to politicians who want to maximise present day profits. RD

Another Shooting

In the second attack to hit Paris in less than 24 hours a female police officer has been shot dead and her colleague left injured. 'Both officers had been described by a police source as being in a 'very serious condition' after the shooting. It follows the massacre which claimed 12 lives including those of two police at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices on Wednesday.' (Daily Mail, 8 January) RD

Another Attack

In the second attack to hit Paris in less than 24 hours a female police officer has been shot dead and her colleague left injured The officer, died this morning following the shooting in Montrouge, in the south of the city. 'Her male colleague was also injured in the attack. Both officers had been described by a police source as being in a 'very serious condition' after the shooting. It follows the massacre which claimed 12 lives including those of two police at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices on Wednesday.' (Daily Mail, 8 January) RD

Inequality

The Scottish National Party claims that it is in favour of a more equitable society but in practice it has a completely unequal society. 'Holyrood's health and sport committee has completed an inquiry into health inequalities which mean that a boy born today in some affluent areas can expect to live 28 years longer than if he had been born eight miles away.' (Times, 5 January) Not only do the rich live more rewarding lives they even live longer. RD      

Workers Without Borders

Critics have dismissed the notion of open borders as utopian. Socialism has to be worldwide. It's impossible to create socialism in one country, surrounded by a global capitalist market. John Lennon wrote Imagine, which some people believe to be a beautiful political song:

imagine there’s no countries

it isn’t hard to do

nothing to kill or die for

and no religion too

imagine all the people

living life in peace…

Instead of division into artificial, competing, and necessarily adversarial nations, socialism will be a world of cooperation.  Instead of wars for the economic benefit of the capitalists, whether religion is used to incite the blood lust or not, we will live life in peace. In every war that has ever been, the poor have been the cannon fodder in the wars of the rulers. Working people were the cannon fodder for the birth of capitalism, and every war since. When the cause of war — economics — is eliminated with capitalism, it will no longer be able to cause war. Around the world, today, people are far more alike than they are different. But the differences are used to set us at eachothers throats. The only beneficiaries are the capitalists for whom we have built a paradise, and trick us to kill each other, in wars to maintain their parasitical paradise. Socialism will be a society of cooperation, not competition. The computer revolution and the internet have changed our lives, creating a world without borders and opening new opportunities every day.

When humanity has truly grown up, it will look back on the division of the world into national states, and the restriction of the right of humans to travel, live, and work where they wish, as a kind of world apartheid. We will wonder, I think, how we ever felt it was justified, or even meaningful, to speak of a human being's statehood. We will understand, of course, the material history and the social causes which lay behind nation states, in the same way that we understand the history of apartheid itself, or slavery. We will wonder how we ever managed to escape awareness of the obvious fact that there is but one, common humanity, and that all rights spring from it alone, and not accidents of race, sex, or geography. Countries are cages into which humanity is divided for the purpose of being ruled over and exploited by minorities. They exist to limit human freedom: money and goods travel the world freely, while humans are kept in check by passports and border controls. Humanity's freedom will not be won by building new states, but by destroying them all.

Frontier guards and worse confront most of the world's people whenever they contemplate changing their residence between countries. This situation is so widespread that many people accept it as a matter of course, without asking why governments should restrict international movements. National borders are made by and for the rich and powerful--to enforce or ignore at their will. As Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto, "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere."

We need a world without borders, not glorified bouncers for global capitalism patrolling them. National borders have separated humanity into distinct artificial communities, defining. While borders are permeable to some the privileged, they are impermeable to most others.

Corporations move across borders and conduct business however they please, but the same rules don't apply to workers. Immigration rules and penalties are set up to control--but not stop--the flow of workers. Considering that national boundaries only benefit our rulers, it stands to reason that a socialist society would dispense with these borders, a world without borders. People and produce would travel without restriction, from place to place. We recognise that borders are merely lines drawn on a map that wish nothing more than to divide the workers of the world. As socialists we unite to build a world without borders in which everyone will be able to freely visit and live wherever they choose.

Only the people themselves have the collective intelligence to know what they want and when and how they want it. Social democracy implies an educated, conscious and responsible citizenry made up of aware members of society. The main tenet of socialism is to create an integral society that allows its members to freely develop their highest human potential. Socialism is peaceful because violence goes against the meaning of life. Violence is a last resort. Democracy must defend itself and as a preventive formula must make clear that it has the capacity to do so. For this reason it is forcefully peaceful.

“Patriotism is being used today the way patriotism has always been used and that is to try to encircle everybody in the nation into a common cause, the cause being the support of war and the advance of national power. Patriotism is used to create the illusion of a common interest that everybody in the country has…to see society in class terms, to realize that we do not have a common interest in our society, that people have different interests.” Howard Zinn

Patriotism is not love of your country. Patriotism is love for someone else’s country. You see, the Earth and its resources are owned by a tiny minority. For example, 84 people - a mere bus full - owns more wealth than half the world's population put together. The UK and its resources are owned by a few families - it is their country and not ours.

 There are thousands of ex-military, some without limbs, that have come back from fighting for 'their' country and they are homeless and hungry. In fact most who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing. This is because they have been fighting and dying for a country they do not own.

The World Socialist Movement asks not for patriotism but instead we ask that workers of the world cease fighting each other and instead take the earth into common ownership. Without countries there will be no need for patriotism and war.

Religious Killers

In an apparent Islamist attack gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and injuring seven . 'At least two masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles in the office and exchanged shots with police in the street outside before escaping by car. The gunmen shouted "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad", witnesses say. President Francois Hollande said there was no doubt it had been a terrorist attack "of exceptional barbarity".' (BBC News, 7 January) These fanatical zealots are slaughtering journalists who are merely pursuing their abilities as journalists. RD

An Eleven Hour Wait

The volume of misery for NHS patients continues, but the suffering in some cases is difficult to comprehend. 'A frail 81-year-old woman lay on the floor for 11 hours overnight before an ambulance arrived. Her son David Cunningham said his sister called 999 at 9.07pm on Monday, then rang back several times for updates. He said the family were told it was going to be two hours, then four hours, then six hours. Mr Cunningham, 56, said he heard that ambulances carrying patients were "stacked up" at the hospital.' (Daily Express, 5 January) A spokesman for South Central Ambulance Service apologised and blamed "the sheer volume of calls". RD

Self Harming

Growing up in a capitalist society leads to all sort of anxieties and one of the worst problems is self-harming. 'The number of pupils hurting themselves is said to be at a high. NHS figures obtained by BBC Newsbeat show a 20% rise in the number of 10 to 19-years-olds admitted to hospital because of self harm injuries across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The government says it has asked experts to examine how to tackle self-harming and related issues in schools.' (BBC News, 7 January) The NHS figures show the number of hospital admissions rose from 22,978 in 2012-13 to 28,730 in the following year. In this crazy competitive society young people have a difficult time adjusting. RD

A Meaningless Pledge

The Conservatives and Lib Dems pledged to clamp down on funding or fossil fuel operations abroad, but like most of their pledges they are meaningless 'The UK government has provided well over a billion pounds in loans to fossil fuel projects around the world despite a pledge to withdraw financial support from such schemes, an analysis of loans made by the UK's export credit agency has revealed. Gazprom in Russia, Brazil's state-owned oil company and petrochemical companies in Saudi Arabia are among the companies benefiting from around £1.7bn in government funding over the course of the parliament, Greenpeace found.' (Guardian, 6 January) These UK Export Finance (UKEF) deals fly in the face of the previous coalition-government-agreements. RD

Fantasy and Fairy Tales

In a famous but misunderstood quotation, Marx wrote: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation." It is, he concluded, "the opium of the people." Opiates hide the pain of physical disease without curing it. Religion, which promises divine forgiveness and a better life in the next world, conceals the pain inflicted by poverty, hunger, and the other social diseases of this world. It consoles the exploited and oppressed and justifies exploitation and oppression here-and-now with the promise of retribution and justice for exploiters and oppressors hereafter. It justifies suffering on the basis of sin. The material roots of suffering are hidden behind a spiritual facade. Suffering is presented not as an alterable product of this world, but as unalterable punishment by God or karma for our moral transgressions.

Present-day society is wholly based on the exploitation of the vast masses of the working class by a tiny minority of the population, the class of the landowners and that of the capitalists. It is a slave society, since the "free" workers, who all their life work for the capitalists, are "entitled" only to such means of subsistence as are essential for the maintenance of slaves who produce profit, for the safeguarding and perpetuation of capitalist slavery. Rather than freeing us from want and widening and deepening democracy, as these advances can, it has instead brought us to the brink of environmental catastrophe, overseen the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands through the immiseration of billions.

Religion is one of the forms of oppression. Burdened by their perpetual toil for others, by want, the alienation, and their impotence in their struggle against the exploiters inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life. All their lives they are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth. The main cause of religion is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in the face of the blind forces of capitalism. To eliminate religion therefore ultimately requires pulling up this deep social root. Charity serves to ease suffering while leaving unaddressed the roots of suffering. It renders the condition of the exploited and oppressed slightly less intolerable, and eases the conscience of the ruling class. It gives the poor a few scraps from the tables of the rich to keep the poor from demanding a seat at the table. A few scraps do not make for socialism.

Both science and religion are attempts to explain the universe. Materialism holds that everything that exists comes from matter and its movements. For example, a material substance, the brain, is required to generate ideas — including ideas about supernatural beings! The physical world precedes the world of ideas, and the world still exists even if we stop thinking about it. Religious doctrines are idealist. They attribute the existence and workings of the stars, the earth, and living organisms to the intervention of a deity or spirit. Science, on the other hand, is materialist. It posits that these things exist and operate as they do not because of supernatural forces, but because of laws of nature that can be studied and understood.

Religion is of little use in explaining why society operates the way that it does, beyond "that's what God wants." In fact, since the rise of class society, the major religions of the world provide justification for what the ruling class wants: support for its privilege to exploit. While it finds religion useful, capitalism also undermines religion. Globalisation, modernisation, and urbanisation have brought previously isolated communities the world over into contact with one another. There has been an unprecedented intermingling of peoples, cultures, and religions. It is much easier for religion to keep a stranglehold on the minds of isolated, ignorant peasants (or suburbanites) living in largely homogenous communities than it is to do the same to the minds of the modern urban proletariat living in contact with a variety of ideas and people.

In the sense of seeking a return to some previous pious age religion thus serves to undermine the struggle for socialism—the struggle for emancipation—because it misidentifies the causes of our present problems. It sees sin as the cause of our suffering. Just as militant atheism will not deal religion its deathblows, neither will capitalism, for neither can abolish the conditions that give rise to religion. So long as capitalism persists, so too will religion. Religion persists in spite of the theoretical assaults against it because it continues to play a practical social function. Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples of all sorts, religious schools, “faith-based” charities: these institutions are the substance of religion. Nor will we abolish religion by prohibition, as the anti-religious campaigns of the past have taught us, as soon as the direct assault against religion subsides, religion creeps back into society. It is only by rendering the social function of religious institutions obsolete and unnecessary that we will abolish religion. How? By abolishing the conditions of poverty and ignorance to which religion is a response, to which it is a false panacea which only perpetuates the diseases for which it claims to be a cure. In other words, by abolishing capitalism. We must fight with workers to ameliorate their material condition so that they will have no need of spiritual solace, so that we may govern ourselves and never again bend the knee before bosses, kings, gods, priests, or presidents.

Religion is not a private affair. The Socialist Party is an association of class-conscious men and women for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of knowledge, ignorance or mysticism in the shape of religious beliefs. We are driving out mysticism through the use of materialism. Socialism is not a defense of the status quo but a critique of it, and a scientific one. Just as natural scientists seek to understand the laws that turn one form of matter or energy into another, so too do socialists seek to understand the laws that turn one form of society into another. Socialism is materialist because it proceeds from the basic observation that human social organisation is concerned first and foremost with satisfying the survival needs of its members. In the process, humans act on nature with continually expanding technical skills and knowledge. Over time, these advances in technology, broadly defined, force epic changes in social structure.

The division of society into classes was one such transformation, leading to an entrenched conflict of material interests between different groups. Socialists believe that just as the force holding down a volcano eventually succumbs to the greater force beneath it, these conflicting class interests engender struggles for power that lead periodically to social eruptions — to revolution. The Socialist Party understands that the answer is not to try to stamp out religion, but to make the revolutionary changes in society that will liberate and uplift humanity in the here and now. The Socialist Party strives to achieve a world where peace and freedom are not the rewards of life in heaven, but the reality of life on earth.

There is a type of “socialist” who seek a reconciliation with religion by declaring it to be a “private matter” and then there is another “socialist” who declares “If Mohammed will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed”; if the religious will not come to socialism, socialists must come to religion. Socialists who call for a rapprochement with religion are behind the times—they have overestimated the strength of religion. Religion is dying and has been for some time. Most people, including most of the proletariat in the advanced industrial countries, are de facto, if not outright, atheists. What matters isn’t what people say, but what they do, and what they don’t do. Increasingly they don’t identify with religion, they don’t know religious dogma, they don’t abide by religious commandments, they don’t attend church, they don’t listen to priests.

These two types of “socialists” have misjudged the nature of religion. While it provides consolation to the exploited and oppressed, it also justifies exploitation and oppression. It is a product of suffering, one which reinforces and reproduces suffering. For every fine-sounding phrase in scripture or out of the mouth of a priest, there are countless more vile words. Religiously inspired deeds of cruelty far outnumber acts of charity. Religion aids in the ruling class strategy of divide and rule. Behind its fine-sounding sermons of “universal brotherhood” and “love,” religion sows division and discord. It divides the world into saints and sinners, saved and damned, orthodox and heretic, adherents and infidels. Through such division it hinders the development of class consciousness. There cannot be a reconciliation of socialism and religion; to call for such a reconciliation is to call for a reconciliation of emancipation and slavery.

Food For Thought

On November 6, Arnold Abbot was arrested in Fort Lauderdale for violating a city ordinance – feeding the homeless in a public place. This law was passed and enforced because people with businesses do not want the homeless hanging around their area. This is not a new thing. In the 1930s in Canadian cities, Department stores such as Eaton's and Simpson's prevailed on Ottawa to open labour camps in the outback for the same reason. But, new or old, one thing is for sure, it's the same old system.

Engineering and construction giant, SNC-Lavalin plans to lay off four thousand workers next year, including one thousand in Canada. The Montreal based company claims this is to help the company grow. To quote CEO, Robert Card, "It may be ironic, but it's a growth move. We have a target to become a $15 billion company in the near future and that's going to generate jobs." Imagine how gratifying that must seem to those about to be laid off in the 'near future'.

Notes on a Florida vacation – we crossed the Ontario-Michigan border at Sarnia to avoid Detroit, a city that we bypassed on the way south. Even passing through the outer Western suburbs, the devastation of a system that simply abandons people and infrastructure when not wanted, was very evident. The amount of empty, abandoned, rotting buildings resembles the aftermath of a bombing and was enough to bring one to tears. John Ayers.

The Advance Of Capitalism

The advance of capitalism is inevitable and one of the most recent examples of this is the development of Ethiopia. 'It's government's controversial plan to take over vast swathes of ancestral land, home to around 100,000 indigenous pastoralists, and convert it into a major centre for commercial agriculture, where foreign agribusinesses and government plantations would raise cash crops such as sugar and palm oil.' (BBC News, 6 January) Here, where palaeontologists have discovered some of the oldest human remains on earth, some ancient ways of life cling on, but sentiment plays no part in capitalism ruthless drive for more and more profits. RD

Mental Stress

Recent figures reveal that thousands of Scottish NHS staff have been signed off work with mental health problems. 'A total of 8,540 staff were absent in 2013/14 - up 7% on the 7,975 signed off in 2012/13. .....The health board figures show that in 2013/14, 788 NHS staff were signed off for stress-related reasons for lengthy periods, of between three and six months.' (BBC News, 6 January) The badly under-funded NHS places a tremendous strain on the nerves of its workers and it leads to all sorts of mental stress. RD