Feasible Socialism (1)

Orthodox economics declare that the true state of the world is scarcity denies the potential for a state of abundance can exist. Our wants are essentially “infinite” and the resources to meet them, limited, claim the economists. However in the real world, abundance is not a situation where an infinite amount of every good could be produced. Similarly, scarcity is not the situation which exists in the absence of this impossible total or sheer abundance. Abundance is a situation where productive resources are sufficient to produce enough wealth to satisfy human needs, while scarcity is a situation where productive resources are insufficient for this purpose. Admitting this would mean the end, not only of the economy as a system of allocating scarce resources but also of goods having an economic value and price; goods would simply become useful things produced for human beings to take and use, while economics as the study of the most rational way to employ scarce resources would give way to the study of how best to use abundant resources to produce free goods in the amounts required to satisfy human needs. This is the purpose of the Socialist Party, to speed the day towards free access and the end of economics.

Conventional economists employ what is called the Economic Calculation Argument (developed by Ludwig Von Mises that a pricing mechanism for the well-being of society is necessary and it is presented as a fact, an economic law. Only prices and money can be used to rationally organise society because the professors’ text-books say that is so. Socialists offer an alternative model on how the practical allocation of resources does not require the intervention of a prices and how resources can be rationally allocated in a moneyless society.

A monetary economy gives rise to the illusion that the “cost” of producing something is merely financial. Money is the universal unit of measurement, the “general equivalent” that allows everything to be compared with everything else under all circumstances—but only in terms of their labour-time cost or the total time needed on average to produce them from start to finish. Such non-monetary calculation of course already happens, on the technical level, under capitalism. Once the choice of productive method has been made (according to expected profitability as revealed by monetary calculation) then the real calculations in kind of what is needed to produce a specific good commence so much raw materials, so much energy, so much labour. In socialism it is not the case that the choice of productive method will become a technical choice that can be left to engineers, as is sometimes misunderstood by critics, but that this choice too will be made in real terms, in terms of the real advantages and disadvantages of alternative methods and in terms of, on the one hand, the utility of some good or some project in a particular circumstance at a particular time and, on the other hand, of the real “costs” in the same circumstances and at the same time of the required materials, energy and productive effort.

By the replacement of exchange economy by common ownership basically what would happen is that wealth would cease to take the form of exchange value, so that all the expressions of this social relationship peculiar to an exchange economy, such as money and prices, would automatically disappear. In other words, goods would cease to have an economic value and would become simply physical objects which human beings could use to satisfy some want or other. The disappearance of economic value would mean the end of economic calculation in the sense of calculation in units of value whether measured by money or directly in some unit of labour-time. It would mean that there was no longer any common unit of calculation for making decisions regarding the production of goods. The contention is that without prices we cannot allocate resources. The Socialist Party, however, proposes that socialism, as a moneyless society in which use-values would be produced from other use-values, there would be no need to have a universal unit of account but could calculate exclusively in kind. The only calculations that would be necessary in socialism would be calculations in kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other side the amount of the good produced, together with any by-products. This, of course, is done under capitalism but it is doubled by an exchange value calculation: the exchange value of the resources used up is recorded as the cost of production while the exchange value of the output (after it has been realised on the market) is recorded as sales receipts. If the latter is greater than the former, then a profit has been made; if it is less, then a loss is recorded. Such profit-and-loss accounting has no place in socialism and would, once again, be quite meaningless.

Calculation in kind entails the counting or measurement of physical quantities of different kinds of factors of production. There is no general unit of accounting involved in this process such as money or labour hours or energy units. In fact, every conceivable kind of economic system has to rely on calculation in kind, including capitalism. Without it, the physical organisation of production (e.g. maintaining inventories) would be literally impossible. But where capitalism relies on monetary accounting as well as calculation in kind, socialism relies solely on the latter. One reason why socialism holds a decisive productive advantage over capitalism is by this elimination of the need to tie up vast quantities of resources and labour implicated in a system of monetary/pricing accounting.

Capitalist economists tell us that without the guidance of prices socialism would sink into inefficiency. “Socialism” or “communism” has for the Socialist Party always meant a society without markets, money, wage labour or a state. All wealth would be produced on a strictly voluntary basis. Goods and services would be provided directly for self-determined need and not for sale on a market; they would be made freely available for individuals to take without requiring these individuals to offer something in direct exchange. The sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would profoundly colour people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society. We may thus characterise such a society as being built around a moral economy and a system of generalised reciprocity.

Fact of the Day

According to EU figures, there were 672,000 EU asylum applications in 1992 (when there were only 15 members of the EU), compared to 626,000 last year (when the EU had grown to 28 members with a total population of 500 million). It is true, however, that numbers had dropped substantially in the interim.

How many actually apply for asylum in the UK? 

According to the latest government statistics: “There were 25,020 asylum applications in the year ending March 2015, an increase of 5% compared with the previous year (23,803). The number of applications remains low relative to the peak number of applications in 2002 (84,132).”

The 2002 figure works out at something like 0.13% of the UK’s population (or 66 refugees per town of 50,000 people).

Revolutionary Socialism - A New Day

The Socialist Party is an organisation committed to the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a socialist society. Certainly capitalism was preferable to the earlier feudal and mercantile economic systems in which nobles and kings owned most economic resources. Socialism was being created inside capitalism by the socialisation of production that is a natural part of capitalism. The Communist Manifesto is full of praise for the bourgeoisie because capitalism had developed the means of production. However, capitalism emphasised individual acquisitiveness and greed (the profit motive), relied on rankings (the class structure), continued traditions of violence (colonial conquests and wars). Socialism is the necessary outgrowth of advanced, developed capitalism. Throughout history ruling classes have been necessary, because human beings have lived in a world of scarcity. That is the root of the class struggle. Capitalism had created, or was in the process of creating, a situation where there was no need for the struggle of classes, no longer a need for some people to rise to the top and create some sort of civilisation on the basis of exploitation. Socialism came out of capitalism.

Capitalism, by its method of production, has brought isolated workers together and constituted them as a class in society. Capitalism has made the workers a class in themselves. That is, the workers are a distinct class in society, whether they recognize this fact or not. Unfortunately, the working class still follows the capitalist parties, still pursues capitalist politics. The workers must become a class for themselves. They must acquire a clear understanding of their real position under capitalism, of the nature of capitalist society as a whole. They must act consciously for their class interests. They must become conscious of the fact that these class interests lead to a socialist society. When this takes place, the workers are a class for themselves, a class with socialist consciousness.

Our world is comprehensively corrupt. It must depend on lies because it cannot deliver its promises. The slogan, "Workers of the world, unite" is still a meaningful one in the face of a capitalism which, if anything, has grown more rapacious and which tends more and more to place all workers in the same boat. Everyone sooner or later runs up against capitalism. Socialists stress that in every direction we see dazzling material achievements, with new ones springing up by the day. In anti-capitalist struggles, we emphasise how much thwarted human possibility is contained in the labour that created them. But we are certainly not the only ones to know that we stand on the shoulders of previous generations. Or to believe fervently that our goal is "a society in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."

 Revolution? "That means violence, bloodshed, killing, destruction! No, anything but revolution!" The capitalist class came to power in society and destroyed feudalism in a number of modern countries by means of a revolution, and not a very peaceful one. Nor could the capitalist class exist without the violence that it exercises. Its exploitation is based on the forcible maintenance of its property by the armed state machinery. Its exploitation of millions of people is maintained by the most gruesome violence. And periodically, it plunges innocent millions all over the world into the most violent wars.

What is a social revolution? It is the replacement of one ruling class by another. History is filled with such revolutions and in almost every case they made possible the progress of society. The socialist revolution is simply the overthrow of capitalist despotism and the establishment of workers’ rule. Will this revolution be accomplished by violence or can it be achieved peaceably? Socialists say that socialism can be established by the workers gaining a majority of the votes for their candidates to public office. Once they have been elected in sufficient number they will legislate capitalism out of existence. Socialists are not bloodthirsty maniacs, as the capitalist slanderers would have workers believe. When the time comes for the people to take power, it will be done with a minimum of violence, a minimum of bloodshed of disorder and destruction. A socialist would indeed be insane to want bloodshed and destruction when his aim is an orderly society. It does not follow that socialists are indifferent to democracy under capitalism. Nothing of the sort is true.

The struggle for socialism can best be conducted under conditions that are most favorable to the working class. The most favourable conditions are those in which the working class has the widest possible democratic rights. Hence, it is to the interests of socialism and of the working class to fight for the unrestricted right to organise, the right of free speech, free press and free assembly, the right to strike and the right to vote, the right of representative government, and against every attempt to curb or abolish these rights. The social position of the workers, and their class interests, make them the most democratic class in society. Socialists are the most consistent champions of democracy. The more extensive and less restricted the democratic rights, the greater the opportunities for socialists to speak, to write, to meet, to organize. The same applies, of course, to the working class as a whole. It is the capitalist class which is, by the very nature of its position in society, anti-democratic. Its monopoly of wealth and power denies the common people real equality in the exercise of the democratic rights. It rightly fears the consequences of the workers being able to meet freely, speak and write freely, organize, vote and demonstrate freely. To keep itself safely in power, it is compelled to reveal its fundamentally dictatorial rule more openly by cutting down political democracy and resorting to naked force.

The road to freedom is marked out by the principles of socialism, and no other road exists.

Seeking Democracy

The Socialist Party holds to the doctrine of the class struggle and the idea that the workers must accomplish their own emancipation through their own organised power. We campaign for the overthrow of capitalism by workers’ revolution, preferably through the ballot, and refuse to settle for anything less. We are determined to stick to the main issue and stay on the main track, no matter how alluring some of the by-ways may appear. The Socialist Party denounces capitalism and we bring a message of hope of the good times that could come if we wished it so.  The strength of capitalism is not in itself and its own institutions; it survives only because it has bases of support in the organisations of the workers. This is the primary purpose of our party – to disillusion our fellow workers from their blind faith in the capacity of capitalism to serve their interests if only it was reformed into an ‘improved’ version. Socialism signifies and requires the revolutionary transformation of society; anything less than that are mere palliatives. A socialist party deserves the name only to the extent that it acts as the conscious agency in preparing the workers for the necessary social revolution. An organisation such as the Labour Party that includes openly pro-capitalist reformists with genuine advocates of the working class in one political organisation simply introduces a form of the class struggle into its own ranks.

Marx explained that capitalism not only greatly advances the forces of production but, in developing the forces of production and proletarianising the great mass of the population, capitalist society prepares its own gravediggers in the person of the working class. Yet for the socialist transformation of society we all have to recognize there exists one of most conservative political climates and a weak labour movement, lacking radicalism and socialist consciousness.

 Despite all the experiences of the working people which should have come to our aid and eventually inevitably will—despite all the favourable developments for socialism on a world scale, the situation of socialist radicalism today, from the point of view of consciousness, organisation and even morale is worse than it ever was.  For sure, there are objective causes for this. They are well known, the unprecedented post-war boom. This ‘prosperity’ was interpreted by all kinds of learned people as the final solution of the contradictions of capitalism. Marx was out of date. His theory of the cycle of boom-and-bust had been overcome by the genius of Keynsian capitalism. We were going to have ever-rising standards of living from now on. We believed that all future generations would be better off. A great many workers believed that and radicalism lost its previous attraction. These days with a recession that has cost us to lose faith and trust in governments and to doubt that our children would be living better lives than ourselves we wonder why there has not been a corresponding intensification of class struggle much less an increase in general socialist consciousness. We all expect new epoch of independent class political action. But it isn’t happening. The discontent has not turned into an aggressive labour movement. In a time of social crisis, when the workers of many kinds see no prospect in capitalism, they want to hear the word of a radical social transformation and a new beginning. Yet all there is are the same old failed flawed ‘solutions’. From all quarters come the refrain “Socialism is not the issue!”  Instead it is ‘democracy’, the environment, minority rights. The Left campaigns in elections on the slogan of the lesser evil. “Beat **** at all costs!” which means, of course, “Elect #### at all costs!” That’s what such a slogan always means in reverse. But those who started out that way, thinking to outwit the class enemy by supporting him or her, eventually became victims of their own deception. They begin to play the capitalist party game in earnest. They believe in it. The mask has become the face. The dupers become the duped. Rather than capture the Labour Party (or Democratic), class collaborationist politics led to the capture the labour movement and the leftists, who go to work, running errands and ringing doorbells in order to beat some capitalist political faker at all costs in order to elect some other capitalist political shyster at all costs. They have continued to support the Labour Party long after Labour had no further need of them and gave them the boot. That’s the basic cause of the defeat, demoralisation of labour militancy. From independent class politics, to class collaboration, to support of capitalist politicians.

If we’re going to make a new start and prepare for the next wave of radicalism, there’s only one way to begin. We have to return to fundamentals. Outside the Socialist Party are those who remain faithful to the fundamental ideas of socialism even though it is a confused attachment to a vague ideal. They’re numerous and we see and hear these people more frequently, who have fallen out of the Labour Party and its left-wing camp-followers by the tens of thousands, who still want to consider themselves in their own way as socialists. They seek to have a discussion—providing you don’t bring up any fundamental questions. They can’t remember where they came from but have a nostalgia for mass action, but they’ve forgotten that that mass movement was produced by policies of the class struggle. The unions as organizations have survived. We see them in action every once in a while. And they remain a great potential power. Every now and then there is a sort of political uprising, a portent of things to come, that upset all the calculations of the capitalist politicians. What we are hearing from workers that if you speak the true and honest word of class struggle against class collaboration there is a resonance and a receptive understanding. There’s an immense reservoir for genuine militancy, especially within the trade unions. But without the ideas you can’t hope to build a consistent revolutionary movement. Class conscious workers will release a great power. That is the touchstone. That is ground for confidence. The living movement always appeals to the activists, and the mark of a living movement is its ability to attract fresh militants.

The working class cannot be written off until it has been definitively defeated on a worldwide scale. That hasn’t happened yet. It is impossible to stumble into socialism. It will have to be organised and directed by people and a party that have at their command all the theory, knowledge, resources, and lessons accumulated by the world working class. Its know-how and organisation in politics and action must match and surpass that of its enemies. The very physical existence of our species depends upon the realisation of our socialist goal.

The authors of the Communist Manifesto linked socialism and democracy together as end and means. The “self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority” cannot be anything else but democratic, if we understand by “democracy” the rule of the people, the majority. “The first step”, said the Manifesto, “in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” It is reiterated by statement of Marx and Engels that “the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves”. That is the language of Marx and Engels—“the task of the workers themselves”. That was just another way of saying—as they said explicitly many times—that the socialist reorganisation of society requires a workers’ revolution. Such a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class, which is itself the big majority of the population. Nothing could be more democratic than that. They never taught that the simple nationalisation of the forces of production signified the establishment of socialism. That’s not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. Still less could they have sanctioned, even if they had been able to imagine, the monstrous idea that socialism could be realised without freedom and without equality; that state-owned command economy, controlled by a ruthless police dictatorship, complete with prisons, torture chambers and forced-labour camps, could be designated as a “socialist” society. Marxists defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a democratic workers’ state, to say nothing of a state in the monstrous form of a bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority. We will not put the socialist movement on the right track and restore its rightful appeal to the best sentiments of the working class and above all to the young, until we begin to call socialism by its right name as the great teachers did and restate the thoughts and formulations of those authentic Marxist teachers. Capitalism, under any kind of government is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slave-owners of ancient times were the actual rulers and the real beneficiaries of Greek democracy.

Work for Revolution

For capitalists, workers are a necessary inconvenience. To make a profit in the productive sector, they must purchase our labour power. (They’d prefer to go robotic or concentrate upon the financial—moving money around rather than selling goods or services—and not have to deal with pesky workers. Sadly for them, robots aren’t everywhere yet. They still need us—without exploiting us, their whole economy falls apart.) For them, the employment rate is not determined by what society needs; it’s determined by how much money they can accumulate. If it’s not profitable to employ us, they throw us in the street. This is the framework within which capitalists conceive of the “employment rate.” They evaluate the numbers with certain questions on their minds, namely: “Should we employ more workers or can we get a higher rate of profit playing the market?” and “Is the masses’ discontent threatening social disorder, making it necessary to ease their pain a little bit?”

We working people, on the other hand, consider being employed as “making a living.” In our framework, everyone has the right to do so. We, who have to hawk our labor power and services on the open market, value our labor power differently than capitalists do. For us, its value is equal to whatever it takes to live. “Live” and “survive” are two different things—we’re not talking about the bare minimum that will keep us just alive enough to return to work tomorrow. At a bare minimum, “employment” should provide us and our families with certain basics: a comfortable home, a broad and stimulating education, quality clothing, restful vacations, high-quality food and medical care, convenient and cheap transportation. These are the basic human rights of everyone who lives in a functioning society, yet we’ve been so conditioned to deprivation that these simple necessities have become wild fantasies. We yearn for them when buying lottery tickets, dreaming of beating ridiculous odds in the hope of easing the intolerable stress of constant hassles and personal financial disasters. But in these days of austerity, part-time jobs and zero-hour contracts that capitalists count as “jobs”—part-time gigs that don’t even let us feed ourselves properly—are not worthy of that name. The same goes for day labor, temp work, being subcontracted out, coming out of retirement, freelancing, internships, and other forms of slave labor. We are working too hard, too much, and not enough. Well, we need better. We produce all the value in this damn economy—we deserve better.

Every day we’re being dragged deeper into the capitalist nightmare. The reformists decry capitalism’s “excesses” by defining the problem not a capitalism itself, but as errors within an otherwise acceptable economic system. They add qualifiers: crony capitalism, disaster capitalism, corporate capitalism and then they offer they offer reassuring-sounding it-won’t-be-that-bad schemes like “ethical capitalism,” “conscious capitalism,” “social entrepreneurship,” and “green capitalism.” These reformists build careers as intellectuals by offering the comforting thought that if we could simply eliminate its worst elements, the system might yet be saved. But the worst aspects of capitalism aren’t a mistake. They’re inherent to it. Fortunately, faced with looming demise as global warming makes itself felt, increasing number of progressive thinkers  are acknowledging that capitalism itself is the problem. But are they pointing out the solution to the madness? Let’s see what remedies many of them point to: “collaborative commons,” “workplace democracy,” “workers’ co-ops,” “mutual aid,” the “sharing economy.” These sound good, and indeed some of them may be positive and necessary steps toward a non-capitalist mode of production. But they are just that—steps—and it’s a mistake to confuse them with the path as a whole. Unless the framework of capitalism is broken entirely, they circle back to the beginning every time. Capitalism is not damaged simply because we engage in activity that is cooperative, non-hierarchical, collaborative or “socialistic.” It can and often does assimilate this activity, monetize it to generate new revenue streams. At the same time it helps manage and manipulate our discontent. This is not post-capitalism. Exploitation in the process of production is still at the heart of the global economy. And as long as the value produced by workers is being appropriated and accumulated by capitalists, then we are still in capitalism.

So deep down, they are reformists even if they sound radical and don’t really want to eliminate capitalism completely, but rather to mitigate its worst effects. Because their hearts aren’t fully committed, they want an easy way out. They seek administrative measures and decrees like establishing “democracy in the workplace” and “guaranteed income.” They hope they can wait for the economy to evolve to some improved state through co-operatives or Worker Self-Directed Enterprises, even the return of sewer socialism in the form of municipalisation of local utilities. That these academic hucksters of stupid ideas are able to get a wide hearing is amazing.

To get beyond capitalism, we cannot wait or hope or engineer an upgrade. There is no easy way out. We need to emancipate ourselves from it through struggle; we need to destroy it. The good news is that it is possible to destroy it. It is the producers of material value—the working class—who are in a position to lead all of us out of capitalism. Their hands are on the means of production—factories and land and infrastructure. By taking it out of the hands of capitalists, they free it so it can be used by all to meet the needs of all, for a real common good. The proliferation of these fake anti-capitalist schemes should serve as a wake-up call—a loud and clear sign that we need to organize and build a real mass movement led by the working class against capitalism. We need to become a strong social force, so we can fight our exploiters and win. We gain nothing unless we fight for it. If we’re going to be strong enough to win our rights, then we need to organize. If unions hold us back or sell us out then we need to organize on our own, into a new labor movement that workers control. Let’s band together.  

For capitalists, workers are a necessary inconvenience. To make a profit in the productive sector, they must purchase our labor power. (They’d prefer go robotic or full-financial—moving money around rather than selling goods or services—and not have to deal with pesky workers. Sadly for them, robots aren’t everywhere yet. They still need us—without exploiting us, their whole economy falls apart.) For them, the employment rate is not determined by what society needs; it’s determined by how much money they can accumulate. If it’s not profitable to employ us, they throw us in the street. This is the framework within which capitalists conceive of the “employment rate.” They evaluate the numbers with certain questions on their minds, namely: “Should we employ more workers or can we get a higher rate of profit playing the market?” and “Is the masses’ discontent threatening social disorder, making it necessary to ease their paina little bit?”

We working people, on the other hand, consider being employed as “making a living.” In our framework, everyone has the right to do so. We, who have to hawk our labor power and services on the open market, value our labor power differently than capitalists do. For us, its value is equal to whatever it takes to live. “Live” and “survive” are two different things—we’re not talking about the bare minimum that will keep us just alive enough to return to work tomorrow. At a bare minimum, “employment” should provide us and our families with certain basics: a comfortable home, a broad and stimulating education, quality clothing, restful vacations, high-quality food and medical care, convenient and cheap transportation. These are the basic human rights of everyone who lives in a functioning society, yet we’ve been so conditioned to deprivation that these simple necessities have become wild fantasies. We yearn for them when buying lottery tickets, dreaming of beating ridiculous odds in the hope of easing the intolerable stress of constant hassles and personal financial disasters. But in these days of austerity, part-time jobs and zero-hour contracts that capitalists count as “jobs”—part-time gigs that don’t even let us feed ourselves properly—are not worthy of that name. The same goes for day labor, temp work, being subcontracted out, coming out of retirement, freelancing, internships, and other forms of slave labor. We are working too hard, too much, and not enough. Well, we need better. We produce all the value in this damn economy—we deserve better.

Every day we’re being dragged deeper into the capitalist nightmare. The reformists decry capitalism’s “excesses” by defining the problem not a capitalism itself, but as errors within an otherwise acceptable economic system. They add qualifiers: crony capitalism, disaster capitalism, corporate capitalism and then they offer they offer reassuring-sounding it-won’t-be-that-bad schemes like “ethical capitalism,” “conscious capitalism,” “social entrepreneurship,” and “green capitalism.” These reformists build careers as intellectuals by offering the comforting thought that if we could simply eliminate its worst elements, the system might yet be saved. But the worst aspects of capitalism aren’t a mistake. They’re inherent to it. Fortunately, faced with looming demise as global warming makes itself felt, increasing number of progressive thinkers  are acknowledging that capitalism itself is the problem. But are they pointing out the solution to the madness? Let’s see what remedies many of them point to: “collaborative commons,” “workplace democracy,” “workers’ co-ops,” “mutual aid,” the “sharing economy.” These sound good, and indeed some of them may be positive and necessary steps toward a non-capitalist mode of production. But they are just that—steps—and it’s a mistake to confuse them with the path as a whole. Unless the framework of capitalism is broken entirely, they circle back to the beginning every time. Capitalism is not damaged simply because we engage in activity that is cooperative, non-hierarchical, collaborative or “socialistic.” It can and often does assimilate this activity, monetize it to generate new revenue streams. At the same time it helps manage and manipulate our discontent. This is not post-capitalism. Exploitation in the process of production is still at the heart of the global economy. And as long as the value produced by workers is being appropriated and accumulated by capitalists, then we are still in capitalism.

So deep down, they are reformists even if they sound radical and don’t really want to eliminate capitalism completely, but rather to mitigate its worst effects. Because their hearts aren’t fully committed, they want an easy way out. They seek administrative measures and decrees like establishing “democracy in the workplace” and “guaranteed income.” They hope they can wait for the economy to evolve to some improved state through co-operatives or Worker Self-Directed Enterprises, even the return of sewer socialism in the form of municipalisation of local utilities. That these academic hucksters of stupid ideas are able to get a wide hearing is amazing.

To get beyond capitalism, we cannot wait or hope or engineer an upgrade. There is no easy way out. We need to emancipate ourselves from it through struggle; we need to destroy it. The good news is that it is possible to destroy it. It is the producers of material value—the working class—who are in a position to lead all of us out of capitalism. Their hands are on the means of production—factories and land and infrastructure. By taking it out of the hands of capitalists, they free it so it can be used by all to meet the needs of all, for a real common good. The proliferation of these fake anti-capitalist schemes should serve as a wake-up call—a loud and clear sign that we need to organize and build a real mass movement led by the working class against capitalism. We need to become a strong social force, so we can fight our exploiters and win. We gain nothing unless we fight for it. If we’re going to be strong enough to win our rights, then we need to organize. If unions hold us back or sell us out then we need to organize on our own, into a new labor movement that workers control. Let’s band together.  

Piper Alpha (1988)

Piper Alpha (1988)

From the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

"We now go over to the ITN studios for a newsflash . . . ", "An emergency telephone number has been issued for anxious relatives . . . "

The explosion and fire aboard the Piper Alpha platform on 6 July was waiting to happen. The revelations and admissions that followed within a few days of the disaster make that clear. The only surprise should be that it hadn't happened sooner.

Speaking in the House of Commons in the immediate aftermath of the fire the Energy Secretary, Cecil Parkinson, said, "Safety is the first priority of the Government and the operators." This is not true. Certainly safety is the a very high priority, for accidents cause lost production and in the case of Piper Alpha this was on a massive scale. But safety is not top priority. What stops a company from ceasing trading - a poor health and safety record alone or simply a lack of profit? What the House of Commons should have heard from Parkinson is that safety takes second place - to production.

The unavoidable fact about capitalism is that profit ultimately dictates. This is as true for the very first days of the North sea oil boom as it is for the last days of Piper Alpha.

To relieve pressure on the balance of payments and raise tax revenues as quickly as possible, British governments of the 1960s and 1970s - both Labour and Tory - went out of their way to ensure that offshore oil reserves were exploited at the earliest opportunity, particularly following the oil crisis of 1973. In planning their exploitation and production schedules, the oil companies were therefore presented with few government restrictions. Just as capitalism forced companies to maximise productions and profits, so the state too, is required to put safety to one side when convenient. As the professor of Marine Technology at Strathclyde University put it, "the number one priority after the 1973 oil crisis was to get oil quickly, and you don't get a Rolls-Royce for the price of a Mini".

Like other platforms, the Piper Alpha was built at a fraction of the value that would be created once production started. It cost £530m and was in production for 12 years, during which it pimped approximately 1,000 million barrels of oil ashore. At the current (depressed) price that is the equivalent to some £10,000m. The cost of the platform and wages bill (about £20m per annum) over the period amounts to just a few per cent of the wealth created. In the UK sector of the North Sea some 1,500 million pounds worth of oil is pumped out per month, with the government making £300m in export revenue.

These figures give some indication of the vast fortunes to be made in the North Sea -not, needless to say, from working there but just by owning. It is in the context of the disaster appeal - £1m from both the Government and petty cash box of Occidental Petroleum - should be viewed.

Much is made of how well-paid the average offshore worker is. The average pay is between £200 and £600 a week for a very exhausting, anti-social and stressful lifestyle. If that is high pay, what can be said of Dr Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum and one of the richest men in North America? The present writer was offshore on 6 July, on a platform from which the Piper Alpha was just a faint glow fifty miles to the north. Talking with some of the oil-workers as increasingly alarming reports were coming in, the impression gained was far from the usual macho image of oil-workers. It's not bravery or stupidity that makes them work offshore, but simple necessity. As one man put it to me, "You don't like to think about it. You can't afford to think about it".

Workers have regularly had to die for oil. When "their" countries go to war over ownership of natural resources, workers are required to do the dirty work of killing and dying for companies like Texaco, ELF or Esso. It's much the same in "peacetime": the war to defend profitability, the battle to advance the share of the oil market, is fought on the front line oil platforms by members of the working class.

So we shouldn't be shocked at the latest casualty figures. Within 48 hours of the disaster, grieving Occidental accountants recovered their composure long enough to calculate the cost to the company would be about $25m, reducing the estimated profit for this financial year to $200m. Shareholders would have to bite the bullet and suffer the tragic loss of 5-10 cents a share.

It's not all black armbands in the City though. The fire which devastated the platform and did much the same to 170 families, prompted some ferocious trading in New York and London while still smoldering: "Crude prices jump on news of disaster". (Headline, Guardian 8 July). North sea oil prices, previously depressed by a production "glut" (how many OAP's died of hypothermia last winter?), immediately rose by 25 cents a barrel.

The public inquiry which starts next month is likely to call for changes in the organisation of offshore safety. In 1980 responsibility for North Sea safety was transferred to the Department of Energy, whose function it also is to maximise production. At present, a variety of regulatory agencies and inspectorates have this responsibility but are insufficiently strict because they compete with each other for business. What is needed, according to experts, journalists and politicians, is an "independent" body such as the Health and Safety Executive, who presently enforce (if that is the right word) health and safety on the mainland.

The HSE is, however, a separate arm of the same body. As a watchdog it may be on a longer leash but it has little bark and fewer teeth. Its independence is as genuine as the Energy Department's and divorce from the overriding motive for capitalist production is, in any case, impossible.

It is likely that the inquiry will recommend improved designs of platforms and that most of these will be ignored or disputed by the oil companies on grounds of cost. Even the measures that can be introduced may only be effected if required across the board, of all operators; otherwise, companies will claim that new safety measures would make them uncompetitive. Many improvements could be made: larger platforms would allow the accommodation areas (where so many died on Piper Alpha) to be sited further away from production units; adjacent accommodation rigs would be safer still; fully automated systems are technologically feasible.

The immensely impressive technology used to extract oil from the sea-bed is not, it appears, available for ensuring worker safety. Technology under capitalism is redundant until it finds a market:

• On the Australian barrier reef a vast floating hotel and leisure complex is being built, designed to withstand typhoons.
• A shipping tycoon recently unveiled plans for the largest luxury liner ever. Complete with gardens, theatres, a couple of gymnasiums and dozens of restaurants it will cater for thousands of the Dr Hammers of the world.

Capitalism has made this level of technology possible, but available only to the minority who can afford it. A sane society will not need to rely on governments, companies or authorities to enforce safety. Socialism will rip the price tags from everything and liberate the productive potential of the world. It's a point to consider the next time your programme is interrupted by a newsflash and pictures of Mrs. Thatcher on another ward round.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Branch

The idea of socialism

Have you ever wondered about socialism? What it is? We live in a world where technological achievements are now almost beyond imagination. Yet never before have the fruits of our labour threatened our very existence with the looming ecological threats. Our society is dominated by insecurity and our lives are characterised by isolation and loneliness. Socialism is not "workers' ownership". There is no ownership at all in socialist society, because it's based on classless production relations and the expropriation of private property over the means of production, where control, distribution and management are shifted from individuals to the working collective.

Our world is filled with poverty, war, hunger, racism, and so many other injustices. So what are we going to do about it? We can pretend we are removing the worst of it by fighting for reforms. We can look inward and focus upon ourselves and ignore the suffering of others. Or we can be the catalysts for change in the world. To build a society organized to meet human needs, capitalism must be abolished. Socialism should extend democracy and self-organization at all levels. Socialist society is based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Socialism can be created only by ending world scarcity. We must organise labour and resources and develop production on a world scale, not within a single country. The working class can and must take power within existing state boundaries. It must extend the revolution by offering political and material solidarity with workers’ struggles abroad. In the advanced capitalist countries, we must expropriate and disarm our own ruling class. Our loyalty is not with our ruling class but with fellow workers around the world. As socialists, we urge our brothers and sisters to break with the capitalist parties and to fight for their own independent class interests. We are fighting for a world fit for human beings. We know what has to be done to stop climate change. We also know why the ruling class refuses to take decisive action. We need a total break from the ideology of the capitalist market. We need a vision of a world of human solidarity.

We agree that class struggles can change society. But forming a socialist political party will help build a more powerful movement, to defend ourselves, they have the mass media, the courts, the police, and other instruments of repression. In order to be successful, we need to challenge this power in every arena we can. We need a political party that is democratically controlled by its members. We need a political party that is able to challenge the corporate domination of the mass media with its own working-class message. We need a political party that can organize and bring into its fold the tens of millions of workers who are fed up with corporate-dominated politics. We don’t agree with the anarchists that contesting elections is a distraction from that class struggle. In fact, we believe that if it is done correctly it can help build those struggles. Running socialist candidates is all about exposing the agenda of the capitalist class. Some people argue that if we participate in elections, we will sell out our movement. There believe that the elections were created as a trap to ensnare our movements. In reality, the ruling class have systematically tried to deny anyone the right to vote except themselves. The working class fought and died for universal suffrage. This has been resisted at every step by the rulers, who have used every means at their disposal to divide us and keep us from the polls. If we limit our struggles just to the workplace, schools, and the streets, then that allows the 1% to dominate the other arenas available in society. They already control the courts, the police, and the mass media. But we can challenge them in the political arena. The ruling elite spend billions of dollars to get the public to vote for one of their two parties in power to legitimate their rule. Otherwise, we would effectively live in a dictatorship of the 1%.

Corporations spend billions of dollars to promote its agenda and through their election campaigns, they have a direct route into every home. The idea that boycotting or abstaining from the election is the best way to challenge the 1% neglects this fact. That’s why we need to challenge them in the elections as well as in every other arena. The ruling class uses the rigged electoral system to channel the frustration and struggles of the 99% into “proper channels,” We can and should use electoral politics as an opportunity to raise our criticism of capitalism and fight back. Capitalism has failed and should be abolished and we mean to establish a cooperative commonwealth.

Socialism will undoubtedly bring about a revolutionary transformation of human activity and association in all fields previously conditioned by the division of society into classes—in work, in education, in sports and amusements, in manners and morals, and in incentives and rewards. In attempting an approximate estimate of what life will be like under socialism, we run up against the inadequacy of present-day society as a measuring rod or basis of comparison with the future. One must project himself into a different world, where the main incentives and compulsions of present-day society will no longer be operative; where in time they will be completely forgotten, and have merely a puzzling interest to students of an outlived age. The necessary amount of productive labour time which will be required of each individual in the new society cannot be calculated on the basis of the present stage of industrial development. The advances in science and technology which can be anticipated, plus the elimination of waste caused by competition, parasitism, etc., will render any such calculation obsolete. Our thought about the future must be fitted into the frame of the future.

Even at the present stage of economic development, if everybody worked and there was no waste, a universal four-hour day would undoubtedly be enough to provide abundance for all in the advanced countries. And once the whole thought and energy of society is concentrated on the problem of increasing productivity, it is easily conceivable that a new scientific-technological-industrial revolution would soon render a compulsory productive working day of four hours, throughout the normal lifetime of an individual, so absurdly unnecessary that it would be recognised as an impossibility. The labour necessary to produce food, clothing, shelter, and all the conveniences and refinements of material life in the new society will be operative, social labour—with an ever-increasing emphasis on labour-saving and automatic, labour-eliminating machinery, inventions and scientific discoveries, designed to increase the rate of productivity. This labour will be highly organised and therefore disciplined in the interests of efficiency in production. There can be no anarchy in the cooperative labour process; but only freedom from labour, to an ever-increasing extent as science and technology advance productivity and automatically reduce the amount of labour time required from the individual.

The progressive reduction of this labour time required of each individual will, in my opinion, soon render it impractical to compute this labour time on a daily, weekly, or even yearly basis. It is reasonable to assume - but only an opinion - that the amount of labour time required of the individual by society during his whole life expectancy, will be approximately computed, and that he will be allowed to elect when to make this contribution. We can speculate to the idea that the great majority will elect to get their required labour time over with in their early youth, working a full day for a year or two. Thereafter, they would be free for the rest of their lives to devote themselves, with freedom in their labour, to any scientific pursuit, to any creative work or play or study which might interest them. The necessary productive labour they have contributed in a few years of their youth will pay for their entire lifetime maintenance, on the same principle that the workers today pay for their own paltry “national insurance” for a miserly “social security” in advance.

When people will have no further use for money there will not even be any bookkeeping transactions or coupons to regulate how much one works and how much he gets. When labour has ceased to be a mere means of life and becomes life’s prime necessity, people will work without any compulsion and take what they need. So said Marx. For in the socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one’s share. Does that sound “visionary”? When you visualise society in which there is plenty for all, what purpose would be served in keeping accounts of what each one gets to eat and to wear? There would be no need for compulsion or forcible allotment of material means. “Wages” will become a term of obsolete significance, which only students of ancient history will know about. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that anything contrary to capitalist rules and ethics is utopian, or visionary. No, what’s absurd is to think that this insane madhouse is permanent and for all time. The ethic of capitalism is: “From each whatever you can pillage—to each whatever you can grab.” The socialist society of universal abundance will be regulated by a different standard. It will “inscribe on its banners”—said Marx—“From each according to his ability—to each according to his needs.”

In socialism there will be no more private property, except for personal use. Consequently there can be no more crimes against private property—which are 90% or more of all the crimes committed today—and no need of all this huge apparatus for the prevention, detection, prosecution, and punishment of crimes against property. No need of jails and prisons, policemen, judges, probation officers, lawyers, bureaucrats; no need for guards, bailiffs, wardens, prosecutors. No need for this whole mass of parasitical human flotsam which represents the present-day state and which devours so much of the substance of the people.

In the present society people are haunted by insecurity Their mental health is undermined by fear for their future and the future of their children. They are never free from fear that if something happens, if they have a sickness or an accident for which they are not responsible, the punishment will be visited upon their children; that their children will be deprived of an education and proper food and clothing. Under such conditions “human nature”, which we hear so much about, is like a plant trying to flower in a dark cellar; it really doesn’t get much chance to show its true nature, its boundless potentialities. In the socialist society of shared abundance, this nightmare will be lifted from the minds of the people. They will be secure and free from fear; and this will work a revolution in their attitude toward life and their enjoyment of it. Human nature will get a chance to show what it is really made of. The present division of society into classes, under which the few have all the privileges and the many are condemned to poverty and insecurity, carries with it a number of artificial and unnatural divisions which deform the individual and prevent the all-around development of his personality and his harmonious association with his kind. There is the division between men’s work and women’s work, to say nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights. There is the division of race prejudice between the black and white, which is cruelly unjust to the former and degrading to the latter. The socialist society based on human solidarity will have no use for such unscientific and degrading inhuman notions as the idea that one man is superior to another because, many thousands of years ago, the ancestors of the first lived in an environment that produced in the course of time a lighter skin colour than was produced by the environment of the ancestors of the second. Race prejudice will vanish with the ending of the social system that produced and nourished it. Then the human family will live together in peace and harmony, each of its sons and daughters free at last to make the full contribution of his or her talents to the benefit of all. There is the division between manual and intellectual labour, which produces half-men on each side. There is the division between the city and the country, which is harmful to the inhabitants of both. These divisions are not ordained for all time, as some people may think. They are the artificial product of class society and will fall with it.

Homes will not be designed by real-estate developers and speculators building for profit—which is what the great bulk of “home building” amounts to today. The people will have what they want. Your house will have as the things it is proudest of, certain things specially made for you by people who like you. This easy chair made to your own measure by your friend so-and-so. This hand-crafted bookcase made for you by a cabinetmaker, as a gift and its books and your important and most treasured books, which came well-bound from the print shops of the socialist society, have been rebound in fancy leather, by an old-fashioned bookbinder, a real craftsman.  And those pictures and decorations on the walls—they were not machine stamped at the factory, but hand painted especially for you by an artist friend. He does this outside his general contribution to the cooperative labour process, as a form of creative self-expression and as an act of friendship. Great joy and satisfaction to be an expert craftsman in the coming time.

A new science and new art will flower—the science and art of city planning. There is such a profession today, but the private ownership of industry and real estate deprives it of any real scope. With socialism the universities will take up the study of city planning, not for the profitable juxtaposition of slums and factories, but for the construction of cities fit to live in. Art in the new society will undoubtedly be more cooperative, more social. The city planners will organise landscapers, architects, sculptors, and mural painters to work as a team in the construction of new cities which will be a delight to live in and a joy to behold. Communal centres of all kinds will arise to serve the people’s interests and needs. Centres of art and centres of science, cities designed for beauty, for ease of living, for attractiveness to the eye and to the whole being. Where the factory farm is already in existence, tens of thousands of acres operated with modern machine methods and scientific utilisation of the soil, for the private profit of absentee owners, these factory farms will not be broken up. They will be taken over and developed on a vaster scale.

The people will have ambition to explore the great universe and to unlock its secrets, and to extract from their knowledge new resources for the betterment of all the people. They will organise an all-out war against sickness and disease and there will be a flowering of the great science of medicine. They will look back with indignation, when they read in their history books that at one time people had to live in a society where there was a shortage of doctors, artificially maintained. It can be said with certainty that among the heroes of the new society, whom the youth will venerate, will be the doctors of all kinds who will really be at the service of man in the struggle for the conquest of those diseases which lay him low. Man’s health will be a major concern, and sickness and disease a disgrace, not to the victim, but to the society which permits it. Everybody will be to live comfortably and to travel freely, without passports, and the idea will grow up amongst the people: “Why shouldn’t we, with all our abundance—we have plenty—why shouldn’t we travel around and enjoy climate with the seasons—just like the birds.” Leisure is the condition for all cultural development. Machines and science will be the slaves, and they will be far more productive, a thousand, 10,000 times more productive. With socialism, all will share in the benefits of abundance, not merely a favoured few at the top. All the people will have time and be secure for an ever higher development. All will be artists. All will be workers and students, builders and creators. All will be free and equal. Human solidarity will encircle the globe.

With the end of classes and their conflicting interests there will be no more “politics”, because politics is essentially an expression of the class struggle; and no more parties, as they are now known, for parties are the political representatives of classes. That is not to say there won’t be differences and heated debates. Groupings, we must assume, will arise in the course of these disputes. But they will not be based on separate class interests. They will be “parties” based on differences of opinion as to what kind of an economic plan we should have; what great scheme of highways should be developed; what system of education; what type of architecture for the wonder cities. Differences on these, and numerous other questions of public interest and general concern, will give the competitive instincts of the people all kinds of room for free expression. Groups will be formed and contend with each other for popular support without “politics” or parties in the old sense of class struggle and the conflict of material interest. In the classless society of the future there will be no state which will wither away and die out, for the state is the most concentrated expression of violence. Where there is violence, there is no freedom. The society of the free and equal will have no need and no room for violence and will not tolerate it in any form. It is difficult for us to comprehend such a possibility, living in a society where even the smallest children are taught that they have to fight and scramble to protect themselves in a hostile world. We can hardly visualise a world without violence. But that’s what socialism means. The people will turn their attention then to that most important problem of all—the problem of the free development of the human personality. Then human nature will begin to change, or rather, to assert its real self. People will recover some of the virtues of primitive society, which was based on solidarity and cooperation, and improve them and develop them to a higher degree.

It may well be that ourselves will not fortunate to live in the socialist society of the future. Perhaps it is our destiny to live under capitalism but it will our task and our mission mission is to clear it away it filth and misery. That is our struggle, our reason for life. We possibly cannot be citizens of the socialist future, except by anticipation yet it is precisely this anticipation, this vision of the future which makes us cry out for socialist revolution and the liberation of humanity. And that is the highest privilege today and most worthy of a human being. No matter whether we personally see the dawn of socialism or not, no matter what our personal fate may be, the cause for which we fight has social evolution and right on its side. It will bring humanity a new day.

The Myth of Red Clydeside

 "We will support the officials just so long
 as they represent the workers,
 but we will act independently immediately
 they misrepresent them"

 From the April/June 1976 issues of the Socialist Standard

The "Red Clydeside" first put itself on the map in the agitated years of the First World War. Since then, it has received plenty of examination. It has been portrayed as a possible revolution in the making; one that could have formed a link with the Bolsheviks and the Spartacists. The Clyde Workers' Committee was the main body in the agitation of the period. It was an unofficial industrial organization of the type that is today favoured by various claimants to the Bolshevik title.

When Britain entered the war in August 1914, the Clyde area joined in the nationwide enthusiasm. Yet soon after, it proved to be an area that would tolerate opponents of the war who were elsewhere reviled. John MacLean, in particular, soon became noted for his pugnacious attitude. A member of the British Socialist Party,[1] the local members shared his stand along with Independent Labour Party and Socialist Labour Party members. All three groups were relatively strong in the area although only the ILP had any significant strength.

 At first the recalcitrance of part of the population was not strong enough to warrant any special attention. More important was the production of munitions from the local engineering works. The government had soon realized that success in the war depended as much on the armaments as the bodies that could thrown into the fray. Clydeside as an engineering centre was thus under heavy scrutiny on the home front.

Trouble first arose over the negotiation of a wage agreement by the local engineers. The skilled craftsmen who had lost out on the last deal, put in a pace-setting claim for 2d an hour which the employers rejected. Early in 1915, an overtime ban and then a strike in support of the claim brought patriotic wrath down on them. The executive of the men's union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, had already pledged its support for the war effort and condemned the strike. With no official support, the strike was organized by the shop stewards — a growing influence in the Union. A ballot conducted by the ASE showed a 10-1 majority against the acceptance of an offer by the employers. However, with no strike money and in an atmosphere of slander and government threats, the strike folded after two weeks. In the end they half of their original claim.

The gulf between the Clyde militants and their union widened during the year. The ASE executive signed the Treasury Agreement and a referendum endorsed this.[2] Then the passing of the Munitions Act in July established the ground on which the CWC was to form. The Act, to be applied to munitions work, outlawed strikes, abolished restrictive practices and limited the right to leave a job. Prosecutions and convictions followed and the weak response of union officials to this prompted the establishment of the Clyde Workers' Committee in November.

The CWC was based on the organization that had developed during the second strike. Their manifesto proclaimed the Committee's aim as the defence of the trade union rights summarily abolished by the Munitions Act. It claimed to be " . . . composed of Delegates from every shop . . . untrammelled by obsolete rule or law . . . We can act immediately according to the merits of the case and the desire of the rank and file." This was a challenge to the government and was soon recognised as such. Government officials began discussing the best way to dispose of this obstacle to their plans.

Unrelated to the activities of the CWC, the 1915 rent strike was coming to a conclusion at about the same time. The war had brought an influx of workers into an area already infamous for its housing and the landlords had been raising rents to an extent that earned them the title — "the Huns at home". A rent strike had been in progress and in November some men were taken to court to get unpaid rent stopped from their wages. On the day of the case a number of sporadic strikes took place and a demonstration outside the courtroom threatened a wider strike unless the rises were stopped. The cases were dismissed and soon after rents were frozen. This was done seemingly on demand in order to avoid what would have been, in the government's eyes, unnecessary trouble (and, even more important, more wage disputes).

Meanwhile the CWC was more concerned with the looming threat of dilution. In recent years, the development of new techniques had been making the skills of the engineering craftsman increasingly redundant. The ASE, in which most of them were organized, had resisted this threat to their livelihoods by a closed-shop policy designed to keep semi-skilled workers and their lower wages out of the craftsman's traditional preserves. In this they had a measure of success with the results that their skills were often under-used and the employers reluctant to introduce new methods. This was an obvious obstacle to the government's demand for the maximum output of armaments and they were determined that it should go. A greater division of labour was to be brought in and dilutees, mainly women, were to be put on much of the work. In the short term this would have no effect on the engineers as there was an overwhelming demand for them. However, when the war was over it was likely that ASE members would find a restricted market for their abilities in a modernized industry.

The CWC was now operating regularly with 250-300 delegates attending their weekly meetings. The most representative delegations came from the heavy engineering works and this was reflected in the composition of the small working committee. This included men from the ILP, BSP and SLP with the latter having the most coherent influence.

The CWC was not an anti-war organization and this was shown by the policy adopted to meet dilution. This, in contradiction to the ASE, accepted the inevitability of dilution but wanted nationalization and workers' participation in management in return. This led to the expulsion from the CWC of two of MacLean's associates who wanted opposition to the war effort, not workers' participation in the management of it.

It was wishful thinking to believe that any great opportunity was missed by the consequent split between the CWC and MacLean. Quite simply, when it came to the crunch they were concerned with industrial matters where he was concerned to oppose the war. After this, he and a small band of supporters, interrupted by jail sentences, continued with tenacious opposition gaining much sympathy but no real support. Despite his principled stand, MacLean's optimistic illusions about the development of the Irish nationalist and Bolshevik movements show that he did not understand Socialism and what was required to achieve it.

The CWC ignored political reality in pursuing their dilution policy. Regardless of the implications of their demands, they made no provision to back them up. On a visit to Glasgow in December, Lloyd George, the Minister of Munitions, contemptuously dismissed the proposals. Later, after the Minister's stormy meeting with 3,000 workers, and ILP and a BSP paper were suppressed for printing truthful accounts of the proceedings.

Con Friel

[1] The BSP was basically the Social Democratic Federation under a new name. Statements in some publications that the BSP was a breakaway from SDF are wrong.

[2] Of 190,000 eligible to vote, 18,000 were for and 4,000 against. (Quoted in "The First Shop Stewards Movement" by James Hinton.)

Part 2

The Clyde Workers' Committee resistance was broken after government intervention in Glasgow. In January 1916, workers at Beardmore's (whose strong representation in the CWC proved to be a maverick one) accepted a dilution scheme contrary to the CWC policy. Next month, the suppression of the CWC's paper, three associated arrests, a dispute at Beardmore's over the working of the dilution agreement, and subsequent strikes on these issues provided the opportunity for the removal of those identified as the trouble-makers. Eventually, seven were jailed and a further ten deported to other parts of Britain.

The Government's attack revealed disunity and a lack of resolve within the CWC and they went down without much of a fight. It was basically a weak organization. Like all so-called "rank-and-file" groups, the most significant thing about them was that they embraced less of the rank and file than the parent unions. Unable to gain any support from them, the place where their particular concerns were most relevant, they were never likely to do anything more substantial. Mindless of this, they challenged a government with dictatorial powers and were slapped down.

Till late 1917 the truncated CWC was subdued, taking no part in the engineers' struggle as it developed in England. In the same year, the political climate on Clydeside began to change. The liberation of the prisoners and deportees, the turmoil in Russia and the growing war-weariness all combined to raise the temperature. The CWC revived and in January 1918 stated opposition to the war. However, no action was ever taken to support this. Possibly, they had realized by this time that David only beats Goliath in fairy tales.

After the war's end, unemployment began to grow. The idea had also been developing that the time was ripe for cutting the working week. Inevitably, the two issues became linked with the aim of cutting hours to reduce unemployment. Early in 1919, local union officials and shop stewards met with Glasgow Trades Council and eventually resolved to issue a call for a general strike in support of a 40-hour week.

The strike began on January 27th with mixed success. There was a wide response from shipbuilding and engineering but power and transport, two prime targets, continued. After a few days, 100,000 were claimed to be out. Contact with the authorities began on the 29th when a deputation asked the Lord Provost of Glasgow to put the strikers' demands to the government. This he did, but not in the way that the strikers intended. He wired to London representing the strike as an unconstitutional threat and indicated that the strikers' request was an ultimatum. This was partly true, as the mass picket had been introduced to "induce" recalcitrant workers to come out. The government decided to hold fire in the absence of a more obvious challenge but to make the preparations to enable quick military intervention if necessary. Mindful of similar discontent in Belfast and recent events in Russia and Germany, they were prepared to take no chances.

Oblivious to these developments, the strikers returned on the 31st to hear the reply to the Provost's telegram. While a deputation went to see the Provost, trouble broke out among the thousands outside in George Square. A tramcar trying to pass through the throng was stopped and police drew batons to try to clear a way. Violence then spread throughout the Square and the Riot Act was read. Although there were allegations of plots by both sides no proof of any premeditation was produced.

By morning, troops were on guard in the city and six tanks were being held in reserve. Attempts were now made to spread the strike but the most hopeful effort was averted by the government. Power workers in London threatened to black-out the city but after the wartime Defence of the Realm Act was invoked to make the strike illegal, the Electrical Trades Union backed down. Within another week the strike was over.

The strike failed to go outside the West of Scotland and had failed to become general within that area. The need for mass pickets was proof of the lack of support from many workers, and any "induced" to strike were hardly likely to be reliable.

The end of the strike was claimed to be a tactical retreat to organize a better effort, but the movement died. The most significant political outcome of the period was the election to parliament in 1923 of 10 ILP members from the 15 Glasgow constituencies. The Labour Party has dominated politics in the area ever since. Others joined the new Communist Party, and that has also remained relatively strong in the area. From then on, energies were concentrated on the mainstream of British politics, and the idea of Clydeside as a maverick area within the nation was largely dead. Against this trend was MacLean. He formed the nationalist Scottish Workers' Republican Party which withered away after his death in 1923.

The most notable thing about the period was the parochialism of the activities. They were always centred on Clydeside and mainly in the engineering industry. However, they faced a capitalist class organized nationally and proved no match. This lesson seems to have been realized by the end of the 40-hours strike.

As a possible revolutionary movement, the Clydesiders were non-starters. Apart from the occasional pronouncement, nearly all their actions were in support of purely industrial aims. The exception was the rent strike. As the government had no real opposition to their aims, however, the achievement was not great.

The events of early 1916 and early 1919 show that the power of the state must be treated very seriously. Capitalist democracy, paltry though it may be by Socialist standards, is well enough organized to defeat any minority. Just as important, on the same basis it is possible for a revolutionary majority to gain control of political power. However, this is not enough. Capitalism is organized on a world scale operating through national units and, thus, any serious challenge to this order of society must follow the same pattern. This is an enormous task but it is the only one that fits the measure of the Socialist aim.

Con Friel

Glasgow Branch

Racism, Nationalism, Patriotism, Xenophobia and Bigotry

Working class people are tired of living in poverty, tired of living payslip to payslip, tired of seeing the products of their hard efforts evaporate before their very eyes. The times are tough for many of us, where we don't know how we're going to survive. Politician after politician makes empty promises, and still there's no relief for us workers. So we start to look around at who to blame, and it's easy enough... we blame black people, brown people, immigrants. It's simple enough. We're in competition with these people for jobs and resources, so it seems like a logical enough conclusion to come to. Historically, we've always been at odds with foreigners. We can better relate to others born here, no matter how poor or rich. They're more like us, and that's something we can identify with, come to terms with. So, obviously, our natural enemies become those not from here. 

The only problem with this idea is that we've had it wrong for centuries. The lynch-mob approach, the ganging-up on victims defined as of lesser importance, appeals to bullies, whose humanity is stunted and who lack any notion of fair play. We've been kept blind to the true nature of what is really going on. Look around. Who fills council estates and inner city slums with us? Who works in the factories or fast food restaurants with us? Who is beside us working in the fields, picking produce that we'll never really be able to afford? Is it rich people? Hell no, it isn't. It's brown people, black people, yellow people. It's people with different accents than us. They are the people that are in similar situations to us, living paycheck to paycheck, suffering like we do. So why then would we view them as our enemy? When you walk into your workplace tomorrow, where are the majority of the blacks? Or brown-skinned people? Or migrants? Are they in positions of power over us? Sure, a few might be. But where are the majority of those that are at our workplace? That's right: side by side with us, experiencing the same drudgery and wage slavery as us. So, logic might tell us that they should also be side by side with us in our fight for liberty and an end to oppression. Wouldn't that make more sense than working side by side with the same people that rob our paychecks and swindle us out of the products of our labor?

The true interests of workers lie with other workers, no matter what their race or natuonality. Other workers, of all races, are exploited. We are exploited. We work to barely meet our needs, while bosses and the people in charge profit from that labor. We are born and we die in squalor or relative poverty while the rich and the politicians live in the lap of luxury. Who are these rich people? Who are these politicians? Tonight when we go to bed in our overcrowded apartments, our small damp houses they are the ones who will go to bed in luxury, in comfort, with no worries at all.

The blunt reality is that working class people have been used by rich people to colonise for, kill for, work for, and then better the living standards of those same white rich people, all the while sacrificing our own needs, wants, aspirations, and even lives. It really is as simple as that. No one denies the history of what has happened at working people's expenses. Wars, poverty, homelessness, wage slavery... these are all ills created by someone, and perpetuated by us... the same workers who suffer these ills. For centuries we've been used by the rich among our own country to promote their agenda and suffered because of it. Yet, somehow, we've still been convinced that our allegiance is to our nation, to these same rich elite that would just as soon see us die as they would be to help us as fellow citizens. Let's get real, how often do the rich actually give handouts to us poor kin-folk? Do you really think they care at all about our well-being? Where's the allegiance from them, the people that put us in the worst situations we face and spew out the racist, xenophobic speeches?

The heart of the matter is that we've been too busy fighting the people who should naturally be our allies against these injustices. The rich have used our skin colour against us, have blinded us with their nationalism and patriotism into fighting other working people of other nationalities while they sit on the sideline and reap the benefits. For far too long, the ignorant stooges of the wealthy within our own class used words like "red" and "commie" at folk that may have finally started to awaken to the truth of what's really happening. Real socialists hate Lenin, hate Stalin, hate Mao. But we also hate Cameron, Merkel and Obama. These people, all of them, are the ruling elites that we despise, who live in relative luxury while the rest of us work away our very existence to barely eat.

The time is now actually better our lives. It's time to see who our friends must be. For starters, we have to reject the ridiculous notion that immigrants from other countries are our enemy, that they are somehow stealing our jobs, that they somehow really threaten us. Let's get real. Who's really stealing our jobs? Who closes the factories, relocate the offices, off-shore the jobs. Who's really stealing our jobs? Poverty stricken Eastern Europeans or rich CEOs? We're fed ridiculous ideas of the "invading" foreigners. If we're busy fighting asylum seekers at the border, and busy trying to round up all the "illegals" working in restaurants then we're too busy to fight that real enemy, that one that keeps eluding us, the ruling class we keep talking about. If we want to defend our families and our communities, then fight our real enemy, the "enemy within" , our employers and landlords but in reality, we're weakening ourselves even more by attacking fellow workers. The rich people have us so confused that we'd rather be on the border hunting for foreigners than actually fighting those people that create the social conditions that we all collectively suffer in. Our blind hatred of non-native people will continue to be the nails in our coffins (Other nails will be the attitudes we show toward women, the old and the young, people with different sexual and gender identities, people with disabilities, and people of different religions.)

The rich have been very keen on dividing us up as much as they can, by distorting and magnifying existing divisions and differences among those of us that suffer at their hands. We would rather vote for somebody that stands against giving sanctuary to the suffering even though he will still steal our money and exploit us economically.  We consistently get used just to expand the power of those already above us. We'd rather fight against the newcomers than actually organise for higher pay and better conditions.

Deep down, we all know that no matter who we vote for, we're still going to be screwed, and we're still going to be ranting about our jobs being stolen or  the Roma being too ‘criminal’while ignoring the rich that rake in the profits and power. Wake up! We've fallen for this deceit for far too long! No Farage or UKIP is going to save us. Only we can do it... together, as people of all lands and backgrounds that are sick of living like this!

This is an open call to ignore the baiting of the right-wing EDL/BNP, to ignore the racist allegiances that the rich try to get us to buy into, to ignore the illogical and ridiculous calls among the ignorant among us. This is a call to reject the idea that our allegiance is somehow determined by what skin pigment we have or the place of our birth, no matter whether our real life situations are so different. Our enemy is the capitalist class. Our friends are those people who are forced to work for a living. Until we get these simple ideas into our head, then we're doomed. Doomed to repeat everything that's happened for the last centuries. We'll still be here trying to climb out of the squalor we find ourselves in, and our children will inherit that destiny as well, and their children after them, and so on... until finally, a generation of working people realises that we've been tricked. That we've been used by our masters. To meet other working people who really want a life worth living, you can join the Socialist Party.  Hurry. There's no time to lose. We've been losing for too long.

Greatly adapted from here