Towards the Socialist Commonwealth

Socialism is rule by the people. They will decide how socialism is to work. The task of the Socialist Party therefore is to help and guide the transfer of power from capitalists to working people. To use the word “socialism” for anything but people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation is not socialism, nor does this constitutes the socialist sector of a mixed economy. Such nationalisation is simply state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. Nor is the “Welfare State” socialist. Socialism will certainly give high priority to health, education, art, science, and the social well-being of all its members, that is the purpose of its economy. But “welfare” in a capitalist state, to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, is not socialism but another form of state capitalism. It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. Anyone who attempts to convince a group of workers that socialism offers the only solution for the problems of the working class suffers under a severe handicap. For he or she is immediately confronted with the task of explaining conditions under the old Soviet Union. Most people are under the false impression that socialism existed in the Soviet Union, and knowing what they do of the dreadful oppression which workers suffer in that country, they tend to be prejudiced against any speaker urging socialism as the solution for the ills of society. In spite of conditions in the Soviet Union we in the Socialist Party are convinced that a real socialist society is practicable and will actually solve the problems of mankind.

Workers are, and have been, in a position to take over state power, on the one condition that they themselves wish to do so, i.e. that they understand that this is both necessary and possible. However, almost the whole working people today in our country are capitalist-minded. Why is this? Because they have been capitalist-educated in a capitalist society.  The world about us is falling to pieces. The need for revolution is increasingly widely realised. Technically there is no major problem. The difficulty is a social one. Who are the one class that no society can do without? Those who work. Today it is those who work who have the responsibility together with the opportunity, to reorganise our world. It is going to be difficult, but it is essential. Therefore it must be done. Capitalism is maintained by class power and will only be displaced by other class power. If the working people want power they will have to take it. It will not be given to them. We have to remember that all politics is about power. The socialist calls for power to the people. The reformist is a hypocrite prepared to exercise power on behalf of the exploiting class while claiming to do a bit of good on the side.

Another 2.3 billion people are expected to be added to the planet in just 35 years. By 2050, new systems for food, water, energy, education, health, economics, and global governance will be needed to prevent massive and complex human and environmental disasters. Even if all CO2 emissions are stopped, most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries. Hence, the world has to take adaptation far more seriously. The Millennium Project’s futures research shows that most of these problems are preventable and that a far better future than today is possible. The interactions among future artificial intelligences, countless new life-forms from synthetic biology, proliferation of nanomolecular assemblies, and robotics could produce a future barely recognizable to science fiction today.

The future can be much better than most pessimists understand, but it could also be far worse than most optimists are willing to admit. It is increasingly clear that humanity has the resources to address its global challenges, but it is not clear that an integrated set of global and local strategies will be implemented together and on the scale necessary to build a better future. As Pope Francis said in His Encyclical Letter, “Halfway measures simply delay the inevitable disaster.” Our challenges are transnational in nature, requiring transnational strategies. Doing everything right to address climate change or counter organized crime in one country will not make enough of a difference if others do not act as well. We need coordinated transnational implementation. Humanity needs a global, multifaceted, general long-term view of the future with bold long-range goals to excite the imagination and inspire international collaboration and the World Socialist Movement argues that this can only be accomplished by the establishment of a socialist society – a cooperative commonwealth.

Concentration of wealth is increasing. Income gaps are widening. Jobless economic growth seems the new norm with future technologies replacing much of human labor. Long-term structural unemployment is a business-as-usual forecast. The nature of work and the economic system will have to change or else there could be massive long-term unemployment. Future artificial intelligence that can autonomously create, edit, and implement software simultaneously around the world based on feedback from global sensor networks is a unique historical factor in job displacement. It will affect the whole world, just as the Internet has, however more so. It might be possible that more jobs will be created than eliminated, as in the past, but the speed and integration of technological change and population growth is so much greater this time that long-term structural unemployment is the much more plausible future.

An additional 2.3 billion people received access to safe drinking water since 1990— an extraordinary achievement—but this still leaves 748 million without this access. Water tables are falling on all continents, and nearly half of humanity gets its water from sources controlled by two or more countries.

According to the latest analysis from the UN’s population division, the planet is on course for a population greater than 11 billion by the end of this century

In a simple sense, population is the root cause of all sustainability issues. Clearly if there were no humans there would be no human impacts. The issue is whether there is an optimal number of humans on the planet.

Discussions on population growth often start with the work of Thomas Robert Malthus whose ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’ published at the end of the 18th century is one of the seminal works of demography. Populations change in response to three driving factors: fertility – how many people are born; mortality – how many people die; and migration – how many people leave or enter the population.

Malthus’ first error was he was unable to appreciate that the process of industrialisation and development that decreased mortality rates would, in time, decrease fertility rates too. Higher living standards associated with better education, in particular female education and empowerment, seem to lead to smaller family sizes – a demographic transition that has played out with some variations across most of the countries around the world. This may explain how populations can overcome unsustainable growth, but it still seems remarkable that the Earth can provide for a 700% increase in the numbers of humans over the span of less than a few centuries. This was Malthus’s second error. He simply couldn’t conceive of the tremendous increases in yields that industrialisation produced - the “green revolution” that produced a four-fold increase in global food productivity since the middle of the 20th century relied on irrigation, pesticides and fertilisers.

If industrialised agriculture can now feed seven billion, then why can’t we figure out how to feed 11 billion by the end of this century?

First, some research suggests global food production is stagnating. The green revolution hasn’t run out of steam just yet but innovations such as GM crops, more efficient irrigation and subterranean farming aren’t going to have a big enough impact. The low-hanging fruits of yield improvements have already been gobbled up.

Second, the current high yields assume plentiful and cheap supplies of phosphorus, nitrogen and fossil fuels – mainly oil and gas. Mineral phosphorus isn’t going to run out anytime soon, nor will oil, but both are becoming increasingly harder to obtain. All things being equal this will make them more expensive. The chaos in the world food systems in 2007-8 gives some indication of the impact of higher food prices.

Third, soil is running out. Or rather it is running away. Intensive agriculture which plants crops on fields without respite leads to soil erosion. This can be offset by using more fertiliser, but there comes a point where the soil is so eroded that farming there becomes very limited, and it will take many years for such soils to recover.

Fourth, it is not even certain we will be able to maintain yields in a world that is facing potentially significant environmental change. We are on course towards 2℃ of warming by the end of this century. Just when we have the greatest numbers of people to feed, floods, storms, droughts and other extreme weather will cause significant disruption to food production. In order to avoid dangerous climate change, we must keep the majority of the Earth’s fossil fuel deposits in the ground – the same fossil fuels that our food production system has become effectively addicted to.

But to be reminded 50% of food is lost before market or after purchase. So there’s an opportunity to hugely increase food “production” (or the amount that can be consumed). If the world is feeding 7 billion now and will need to feed 11 billion, this requires a 58% increase. The target is closer with such a simple remedy. Changing diets from a predominantly meat one to a much more vegetable and grain diet is perhaps just as important as growing more food. So there are two simple ways of finding the food to feed an extra four million,

a) by cutting food waste to a bare minimum and

b) humans eating crops directly instead of feeding them to livestock

The immigration threat did not appear out of nowhere and nor is it one only popularised by the far right. One fact is that the migrants are enduring or have endured lives that the majority of Europeans would find it difficult to imagine, except perhaps by those who suffered in the series of Balkan Civil Wars.

All of the talk of preventing Mafia-like trafficking of migrants, and sending aid to countries to support their own populations is nothing but political propaganda. It has often been Western involvement in many of these nations acts which have been the destabilising factor creating the refugees, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria - all places that have been victim to Western intervention. Not to mention those fleeing from the chaos of many African nations, and the long-lasting implications of colonialism by the French and the British.

Isolationism has been the expressed policy for many on the Right and reflected in the strength of even anti-EU movements everywhere. And for the more “internationalist” pro-EU supporter, this is replaced by the doctrine of “Fortress Europe” such as British foreign secretary Philip Hammond labelling displaced human beings as "marauding" people potentially hammering Europe's living standards, ignoring his own part in the austerity policies that have lowering welfare benefits, affordable housing, living wages and working conditions, a much stronger influence on native workers than the effect of newcomers on the standard of living. They equally neglect to cite the obvious detrimental role of the ECB’s economic sanctions upon the Greek people. No migrant movement has possessed the similar power of the Troika in creating poverty. It isn’t the migrant who is raising the rents of houses, leading to the gentrification and the social cleansing of our cities.

Political leaders in Hungary and the UK are simply exploiting popular opinion and giving voices to the nationalists most active in their parties. General Secretary of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, warned against "a handful of cheap peddlers willing to say extraordinarily inane things just to get a vote". In France a supposedly “socialist” government are often unable to offer policies that provide alternatives to those of the right and are busy deporting migrants back to Italy. Such anti-immigrant sentiments is appeasement and an appeal to the nationalism. Right-wing politicians have, for years, been influencing mainstream parties regarding immigration and discussions on citizenship and belonging.

“From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs”

It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism. The words socialist and communist are changing their meaning just as the word christian did. The Socialist Party has always visualised socialism as the highest stage of human society, economically and socially. All technological power created by the genius of mankind, all that science and art had given to the human race in generations is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new economic system is to be built, ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the collective good. This socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind. 

No piecemeal reforms or partial solutions can bring an end to this state of things. We must resist the efforts reformists to sow illusions about offering palliatives, and instead build our movement with the perspective of overthrowing it. If you want to fight the only battle worth fighting, for the socialist revolution – join us.

A Better Use Than War.

The costs of war are enormous. The US led war on Afghanistan, for example, still not over, recorded 149,000 deaths in that country and Pakistan, 26,270 of whom were civilians, including 298 aid workers. 73% of deaths by drone bombs were civilian. And 2014 was the worst year for civilian deaths with 3,669.

Staying on war, global military expenditures have reached $1.7 trillion (US). The Toronto Star asks 'what could you do with the money – pull every country out of poverty, cure infectious diseases? Not a thought in capitalism where everyone else is a potential enemy – you have to be prepared, as the Boy Scouts taught us. Last year the US spent $610 billion. It would cost about $5 billion to control malaria for one year, $9.1 billion to support those displaced by climate change for one year, and $32.76 trillion to convert the world's energy to solar, less than twenty years of military spending. Unfortunately the priority in this system will always be profit for the owning class. John Ayers.

Why Class Struggle

“A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls.” Marx, Wage, Labour and Capital

It is true that the standards of living have improved considerably since the days of Marx and Engels. Karl Marx never said that the workers under capitalism would all end up as “paupers”.

In Capital, Vol. 1, Marx wrote:

‘The lowest sediment of relative surplus population [unemployed] finally dwells in the sphere of pauperism. Exclusive of vagabonds, criminals, prostitutes, in a word, the ‘dangerous’ classes, this layer of society consists of three categories. First, those able to work. One need only to glance superficially at the statistics of English pauperism to find that the quantity of paupers increases with every crisis, and diminishes with every revival of trade.’

Marx continued,

‘the demoralised and ragged, and those unable to work, chiefly people who succumb to their incapacity for adaptation, due to the division of labour; people who have passed the normal age of the labourer, the victims of industry, the mutilated, the sickly and the widows, and so on.’

And is this the reality we see with the present austerity policies of the ruling class. So Marx was correct when he said “misery” would increase in the course of capitalist growthand will  fluctuate along with the ups and downs, with “booms” and “slumps”. Marx pointed out, firstly, unlike the peasant or artisan, members of the working class are devoid of any means of production, they must work for one or another capitalist, or starve. With the growth of capitalism and technology their livelihood becomes ever more precarious. In the “depressions” millions of them are forced into the ranks of the unemployed. All methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought, about at the cost of the labourer.

Marx goes on to explain:

‘All means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producer ... degrade him into the appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil . . . they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness.... It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.’

One might think that Marx still lived with such an insightful description of today’s economic malaise. Marx said of the worker “be his payment high or low”, his labour is still drudgery, the job speeded-up and intensified.

Many think that Marx meant that “increasing misery” simply spelled reduced wages, with the workers reduced to the status of “paupers”, as do many other “critics” of Marx. As you see, nothing is further from the truth. It is but an aspect of it. The gloomy predictions of Marx that the rich would become richer while the poor would suffer ever greater hardship has unfortunately been vindicated on an international scale.

American commentators have increasingly been vocal in the disappearance of their ‘middle class’. Yet they pay no heed to the Communist Manifesto prediction:

‘In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty-bourgeoisie has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie  and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society.The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced, in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen.’

In each “recession” tens of thousands of small enterprises are ruined. In each ‘boom’ period, large numbers of small enterprises, have sprung up again, the middle-class “renewing itself.”

Presently, the renewal process is ever more difficult. Whole sections of independent proprietors have already disappeared. Where today is the independent hotel-keeper? Everyone knows that the hotels are owned largely by corporate chains and the independent owners are indeed a vanishing race.  The managers, “overseers, shopmen and bailiffs” have, taken over, as Marx said; the so-called “managerial revolution.” The so-called ‘managerial revolution’ in the shape of the oligarchy of CEOs has resulted in a more ruthless efficiency in the exploitation of people, in maximum profits.The class of small entrepreneurs has shrunk, while the number of those who work for wage or salary has grown. Small businesses are going into bankruptcy. That is the process of expropriation of small capitalist by the cartels.

The change from capitalism to socialism, from capitalist dictatorship to rule of the working class, is a revolution, the most far-reaching revolution in human history. What tactical methods are used, whether by majority vote or by the General Strike or by insurrection, cannot alter that fact. As genuine socialists we do not consider that socialisation is a piecemeal process as visualised by the reformists.

Our aim is the unity of the working class movement, and, ultimately political unification in one party based on socialist principles. While capitalism lasts, so too will the inevitable class struggle proceed.

'The Referendum and Its Aftermath' - Public Meeting

A talk by Vic Vanni

Wednesday, 19th August - 7:00pm

Venue: Maryhill Community Central Halls,

304 Maryhill Road,

Glasgow G20 7YE

The ten months since the referendum has provided the opportunity to consider the results and its implications for the future.  The most striking outcome of the referendum has been the collapse of the Labour Party in Scotland.

The SNP's biggest problem was its inability to break Labour's grip on the heavily populated central belt.  It has now achieved this as Labour voters appear to have decided that the Labour Party is no defence against the Tories.

Are Scottish voter so desperate to be rid of the Tories that they will at some point opt for independence?  And could an SNP government enable Scotland to avoid the inevitable problems which capitalism brings?  These and other views concerning the outcome of the referendum will no doubt be discussed.

Digging the grave of wage slavery

We live in a world rife with misery and oppression in many various forms. Hunger, poverty, unemployment, racial and sexual discrimination, and political repression are still the lot of the majority of the people of the world. Ever since the earliest class-divided societies, the exploited have aspired to a better life. They have yearned for a society where all injustice would be banished forever. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future. Socialist revolution is the only way that working people can ensure the abolition of all exploitation.

Socialism will mean the rule of the working class. It will put an end to the exploitation of man by man. It will bring freedom to all those oppressed by capital and open up a new period of history for people. The enormous waste of capitalism will end. Socialism is the future of humanity, a radically new society where classes and the state will have been completely eliminated.

In the end it is possible to do away with classes and the state since these only exist during a specific period of society’s development. Humanity has not always been divided into classes. In the primitive communal societies all the members cooperated together to assure their survival. But as mankind progressed, as the productive forces – the way in which man made his living – developed and it became possible to accumulate wealth, society was split into antagonistic classes. Since that time all of human history has been the history of class struggle; the struggle between slave and slave owner, between serf and feudal lord, between worker and capitalist. Each of these major periods in the development of society – slavery, feudalism and capitalism – corresponds to a particular level of development of the productive forces. Each of these societies is marked by a sharp division between the masses of toilers on the one hand, and a small handful of exploiters who live in luxury on the other.

Socialism means tremendous progress. In all the former societies, the state was an instrument for the domination of a minority of exploiters over the vast majority of working people. Under socialism, the state serves the vast majority allowing it to keep its hold over a minority of capitalists. In socialist society all social inequalities will have been banished; there will be no rich and no poor, and all members of society will contribute to the common good. With socialism, the immense advance of the productive forces and the tremendous abundance of social wealth will allow for the application of the principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Each person will contribute to society according to his or her ability, while society in turn provides for his or her needs. The differences between workers and farmers, town and country, and manual and intellectual work will have disappeared. In socialist society, each individual will develop to his full potential. Socialism is not an end to human development but just the beginning – the beginning of a further development of production, the people’s well-being and all facets of human society. But before we arrive at this goal we must take the first steps forward. We must take power from the ruling class. Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more. Reformism advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration. We must draw a clear line of distinction between ourselves and the enemy, i.e. the bosses and their bureaucrats.

For Marx, the wage-system is not a feature of socialism but of quite a different system, capitalism. Marx spoke of the ‘free association of real producers’. It is through such a free association, when labour in all its aspects becomes controlled by the workers themselves that production will rest not upon decisions of the planners, but of the freely determined wishes of the producers themselves. Socialism will have no need of the irrational remnants of a past age, such as money and prices. The Marxists strive for the free association of completely free men, where no separation between ‘private and common interest’ existed: a society where ‘everyone could give himself a complete education in whatever domain he fancied’. For ‘man’s activity becomes an adverse force which subjugates him, instead of his being its master’ when there is ‘a division of labour’; everyone must then have a profession, that is a ‘determined, exclusive sphere of activity’ he has not chosen and in which ‘he is forced to remain if he does not want to lose his means of existence’. In a socialist society, on the contrary, a man would be given ‘the possibility to do this today and that tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to go fishing in the afternoon, to do cattle breeding in the evening, to criticise after dinner’, as he chose’ (The German Ideology).

Marx designated the working class the ’grave-diggers of capitalism’ – the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class itself. The working class is not the gravedigger of capitalism by virtue of any intrinsic merit it possesses as a class qualifying it for that role, but because of the objective role it plays in the production process of capitalism. Thus it can be, and indeed has always been, that the very class which alone is capable of destroying capitalism and with it all class society, is itself deeply imbued with the ideology of the ruling class it is historically destined to overthrow. The contradiction between the objective role of the working class as an agent of social revolution, and its own lack of consciousness of that role, makes necessary a battlefield of ideas so that workers are conscious of their role as the agent of social revolution.  

According to socialist theory, the development of capitalism implies the polarisation of society into a small minority of capital owners and a large majority of wage-workers. This concentration of productive property and general wealth into always fewer hands appears as an incarnation of ‘feudalism’ in the garb of modern industrial society. Small ruling classes determine the life and death of all of society by owning and controlling the productive resources and therewith the governments. That their decisions are controlled, in turn, by impersonal market forces and the compulsive quest for capital does not alter the fact that these reactions to uncontrollable economic events are also their exclusive privilege. The producers have no direct control over production and the products it brings forth. At times, they may exert a kind of indirect control by way of wage struggles, which may alter the wage-profit ratio and therewith the course or tempo of the capital expansion process, but generally, it is the capitalist who determines the conditions of production. Unless the worker accepts the exploitative conditions of capitalist production, he is ‘free’ only in the sense that he is free to starve. This was recognised long before there was a socialist movement. As early as 1767, Simon Linguet declared that wage-labour is merely a form of slave labour:

“It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him ... What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him? ... He is free, you say. Ah. That is his misfortune. The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. But the handicraftsman costs nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him ... These men, it is said, have no master – they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence.”

Almost three hundred years later, this is essentially still the same. Although it is no longer outright misery which forces the workers in the advanced capitalist nations to submit to the rule of capital and to the wiles of capitalists, their lack of control over the means of production, their position as wage-workers, still marks them as a ruled class unable to determine its own destiny.

The goal of socialists is the abolition of the wage system, which implies the end of capitalism. Social development will no longer be determined by the uncontrollable fetishistic expansion and contraction of capital but by the collective conscious decisions of the producers in a classless society.

The cooperative movement came into being as a medium of escape from wage-abour and as a futile opposition to the ruling principle of general competition.  Producers’ cooperatives were voluntary groupings for self-employment and self-government with respect to their own activities. Some of these cooperatives developed independently, others in conjunction with the working class movements. By pooling their resources, workers were able to establish their own workshops and produce without the intervention of capitalists. But their opportunities were from the very beginning circumscribed by the general conditions of capitalist society and its developmental tendencies, which granted them a mere marginal existence. Capitalist development implies the competitive concentration and centralisation of capital. The larger capital destroys the smaller. The cooperative workshops were restricted to special small-scale industries requiring little capital. If they became a threat, the better resourced capitalist companies drove them out of business.

Consumers’ cooperatives proved to be a little more successful and some of them absorbed producers’ cooperatives as sources of supply. But consumers’ cooperatives can hardly be considered as attempts at working class control, even where they were the creation of working class aspirations. At best, they may secure a measure of control in the disposal of wages, for labourers can be robbed twice – at the point of production and at the market place. The costs of commodity circulation are an unavoidable faux frais of capital production [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faux_frais_of_production], dividing the capitalists into merchants and entrepreneurs. Since each tries for the profit maximum in its own sphere of operation, their economic interests are not identical. Entrepreneurs thus have no reason to object to consumers’ cooperatives. Currently, they are themselves engaged in dissolving the division of productive and merchant capital by combining the functions of both in the single production and marketing corporation.

The cooperative movement was easily integrated into the capitalist system and, in fact, was to a large extent an element of capitalist development. Even in bourgeois economic theory it was considered an instrument of social conservatism by fostering the savings propensities of the lower layers of society, by increasing economic activities through credit unions, by improving agriculture through cooperative production and marketing organisations, and by shifting working class attention from the sphere of production to that of consumption. As a capitalistically-oriented institution the cooperative movement flourished, finally to become one form of capitalist enterprise among others, bent on the exploitation of the workers in its employ, and facing the latter as their opponents in strikes for higher wages and better working conditions. The general support of consumers’ cooperatives by the official labour movement – in sharp distinction to an earlier scepticism and even outright rejection – was merely an additional sign of the increasing ‘capitalisation’ of the reformist labour movement.  The division of ‘collectivism’ into producers’ and consumers cooperatives reflected, in a sense, the opposition of the syndicalist to the socialist movement. Consumers’ cooperatives incorporated members of all classes and were seeking access to all markets. They were not opposed to centralisation on a national and even international scale. The market of producers’ cooperatives, however, was as limited as their production and they could not combine into larger units without losing the self-control which was the rationale for their existence.

 It was the problem of workers’ control over their production and products which differentiated the syndicalists from the socialist movement. In so far as the problem still existed for the latter, it solved it for itself with the concept of nationalisation, which made the socialist state the guardian of society’s productive resources and the regulator of its economic life with respect to both production and distribution. Only at a later stage of development would this arrangement make room for a free association of socialised producers and the withering away of the state. The syndicalists feared, however, that the state with its centralised controls would merely perpetuate itself and prevent the working population’s self-determination. The syndicalists envisioned a society in which each industry is managed by its own workers. All the syndicates together would form national federations which would not have the characteristics of government but would merely serve statistical and administrative functions for the realisation of a truly collectivist production and distribution system. To speak of workers’ control within the framework of capitalist production can mean only control of their own organisations, for capitalism implies that the workers are deprived of all effective social control. But with the ‘capitalisation’ of their organisations, when they become the ‘property’ of a bureaucracy and the vehicle of its existence and reproduction, it follows that the only possible form of direct workers’ control vanishes. It is true that even then workers fight for higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions, but these struggles do not affect their lack of power within their own organisations. To call these activities a form of workers’ control is a misnomer in any case, for these struggles are not concerned with the self-determination of the working class but with the improvement of conditions within the confines of capitalism. This is, of course, possible so long as it is possible to increase the productivity of labour at a rate faster than that by which the workers’ living standards are raised.

The basic control over the conditions of work and the surplus-yields of production remain always in the hands of the capitalists. When workers succeed in reducing the hours of their working day, they will not succeed in cutting the quantity of surplus labour extracted by the capitalists. For there are two ways of extracting surplus-labour prolonging the working day and shortening the working time required to produce the wage-equivalent by way of technical and organisational innovations. Because capital must yield a definite rate of profit, capitalists will stop producing when this rate is threatened. The compulsion to accumulate capital controls the capitalist and forces him to control his workers to get that amount of surplus-labour necessary to consummate the accumulation process. He will try for the profit maximum and may only get the minimum for reasons beyond his control, one of which may be the resistance of the workers to the conditions of exploitation bound up with the profit maximum. But that is as far as working class exertions can reach within the capitalist system.

The workers’ loss of control over their own organisations was, of course, a consequence of their acquiescence in the capitalist system. Organised and unorganised workers alike accommodated themselves to the market economy because it was able to ameliorate their conditions and promised further improvements in the course of its own development. Types of organisations effective in such a non-revolutionary situation were precisely reformist socialist parties and centrally-controlled business unions. Capitalists no longer confronted the workers but their representatives, whose existence was based on the existence of the capital-labour market, that is, on the continued existence of capitalism. The workers’ satisfaction with their organisations reflected their own loss of interest in social change. While it may still be necessary to fight for immediate demands, such struggles no longer bring the entire order into radical question. In the fight for socialism more stress must be laid upon the qualitative rather than the quantitative needs of the workers. While there cannot be socialism without workers’ control, neither can there be real workers’ control without socialism. To assert that gradual increase of workers’ control in capitalism is an actual possibility merely plays into the hands of the widespread demagoguery of the ruling classes to hide their absolute class-rule by false social reforms dressed in terms such as co-management, participation or determination. Workers’ control excludes class-collaboration; it cannot partake in but instead abolishes the system of capital production. Neither socialism nor workers’ control has anywhere become a reality. State-capitalism and market-socialism, or the combination of both, still find the working class in the position of wage workers without effective control over their production and its distribution. Their social position does not differ from that of workers in the mixed or unmixed capitalist economy. Everywhere, the struggle for working class emancipation has still to begin and will not end short of the socialisation of production and the abolition of classes through the elimination of wage labour.

Reforms presuppose a reformable capitalism. Improved conditions have become the customary conditions, and continued acquiescence of the workers requires the maintenance of these conditions. Should they deteriorate, it will arouse working class opposition. Even though the ‘value’ of labour power must always be smaller than the ‘value’ of the products it creates, the ‘value’ of labour-power may imply different living conditions. It may be expressed in a eight-hour day, in good or in bad housing, in more or less consumer goods. At any particular time, however, the given wages and their buying power determine the conditions of the labouring population as well as their complaints and aspirations. When capitalism is forced by economic developments that brings the conditions which lead to the formation of class consciousness, it will also bring back the revolutionary demand for socialism.

'Not Socialist enough' (1965)

DICK DONNELLY at The Mound
A FREQUENT SPEAKER IN EDINBURGH IN THE 60s

Letter to the Editors from the September 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard Dear Sirs, Today I listened to a SPGB speaker at the Mound, Edinburgh's centre of informal political discussion. This speaker criticised and denounced the whole British Labour Party in politics as well as its whole organisation. Why? Because it is not Socialist enough, he argued. Now, I gather from your aims, published in the Socialist Standard that you are for political as well as economic democracy. The only means of political democracy is an elective, representative house, and this means "politics" in its most common meaning. This is the stumbling block—temporary though it is—to the progression of Socialism from the direction of the Labour Party. It is all very well for the SPGB to criticise the Labour Party but in our political democracy, Socialism must at times be suspended for reasons of political expediency. Otherwise Socialism in politics is crippled, and the day for which we struggle no nearer. This is the reason for the Labour Party's slow, actual movement leftwards. In theory it is as Socialist as your Party, but for the fulfilment of and the progress towards the Socialist aim through the machinery of politics, its progression must be necessarily slow. The SPGB does a great job. It must be constantly winning supporters if not members, of the Socialist cause. But it would be mistaken of you, I think, to challenge the Labour Party in politics. We must have a united British Socialist movement, for this is the quickest way to success. The SPGB's purpose should be to won members and supporters, and to influence the Labour Party policy in all its aspects. Political rivalry is the quickest, surest way to Socialist disunity—rather the quicker path of Socialist unity to our common goal. Of course one can criticise Labour short term  and current policy, but your speaker implied that he and you disagreed with Labour's long term, overall plan. What are your views? Fraser Grigor Edinburgh,  REPLY: Of course our speaker "criticised and denounced the whole British Labour Party". Why should he do otherwise? The Labour Party is more a Socialist organisation than the Conservatives or Liberals. It seeks votes on a programme (long term and otherwise) of administering and reforming capitalism and must therefore earn our condemnation as much as the others—including those leaning "leftwards" like the so-called "communists". If our critic thinks we are being unjust, it is up to him to produce evidence that the Labour Party is Socialist; all we can say is that we have studied the Labour Party for the well-nigh sixty years of its existence, and it is obvious that the membership have not the foggiest idea of what the word Socialism means. Mr. Grigor thinks that Socialism must be suspended at times for reasons of political expediency, which is condemnation enough of the Labour Party's activities when it is remembered what over half a century of "suspension" has meant in terms of working class misery and the horror of two enormous wars (both Labour supported). Incidentally, it amazes us how, even after only a short dose of the present Labour administration, our correspondent can think that they have the slightest interest in a classless, moneyless world of common ownership and democratic control. Imports and exports, wages and prices, god and dollar reserves, etc.—these are their obsessions. They are in fact up to their necks in the mire of capitalism. We are told—and how many times have we heard it—that we should not challenge the Labour Party, but try to influence its policy instead. Presumably this means we should act as a ginger group, either boring from within or nibbling from without, but for what earthly purpose? As members, we would run the risk of expulsion and either way we would earn the hostility of the Labour rank and file. Certainly we would stand no chance of swinging the organisation over to Socialism—we might just as well try our luck with The Primrose League. Our party learned this lesson from its inception, when some of our founder members were expelled from the old Social Democratic Federation for trying to preach Socialist ideas. We saw then that a Socialist Party must be completely independent of and hostile to all other parties, and must have Socialism as its sole aim. Only in this way have we been able to keep the idea alive—not an easy task and one which has not been made any lighter by the confusion and misunderstanding caused by the Labour Party. Socialism is the only answer to the problems of the world today and we work ceaselessly for the time when the working class of the world will unite to achieve it. Far from agreeing that it should be shelved for any reason, the need for it grows more urgent with every passing day. Editorial Committee.

Goodbye to the Future

Climate change and global warming are the most pressing threats facing the world today. Hardly a day goes by without some mention in the media of climate change. We cannot build a green capitalism and even if we could we cannot build it in time. The two degrees increase in global warming signals the point at which ‘dangerous’ climate change is unleashed. Given the amount of devastation by extreme weather events that is already taking place around us, it is sobering to think what ‘dangerous’ climate change might actually look like. Most scientists predict that unless drastic action is taken the speed of global warming is set to accelerate and the consequences will become irreversible. All the available evidence points to a simple conclusion; even if green capitalism is possible, it cannot be adopted in time to stave off increasingly severe eco-system collapses. Paris agreements for implementation tomorrow is too late. Let us pledge ourselves not to a far-off future but system change right now. Technology that previously worked people must be turned into the means of emancipation. The current system of production poses an existential threat. The answer to this terrible threat is to build on the spirit of the revolts against capitalism but to go beyond protest to a social revolution that ends the threat of human and environmental disaster. The future of society and the environment depends upon the global working class wresting control of society and production from those who control it now. If we do not succeed in doing that then the future is going to very bleak indeed. If we do succeed it will mean we have the chance to reorganise production, using the fruits of a scientific understanding to re-build a world whose beauty we can safeguard for future generations. It is not less human intervention we need, but more – intervention that enables human beings consciously to control their own social labour on a world scale, instead of leaving it to the blind workings of the capitalist market. The ceaseless drive for profit leading to the neglect of everything that stands in the way of this has created ecological havoc from one end of the planet to the other.

Too often socialists have been accused for only opposing and not proposing. That has never been a valid criticism. Today’s need is not another centralised global institution, but the deconcentration and decentralisation of decision-making power, and the creation of a pluralistic system of organisations interacting with one another, guided by broad and flexible agreements and understandings. We are not talking about something completely new. Workers since the 19^th C have called for the international organisation of the working class and raised the need for collaborative international workers’ struggles to raise wages, reduce hours and alleviate the nationalist-induced rivalries within our class. Socialists have tried to show that workers everywhere have an underlying common interest around which to unite and it is the capitalists who cannot overcome their divisions. An enormous hatred is growing against the many horrors of capitalism. Industrial pollution and ecological damage have provoked resistance in various countries. That hatred has to be turned into dedication to overthrow the entire capitalist system.

The threat to the environment, a direct result of capital’s uncontrolled expansion, can be answered only by the collective action of humanity as a whole. The “Greens” have done vital work in drawing attention to environmental issues. However, they only too often offer the wrong answers to the very questions they ask. For example, technology is not the enemy, but its perversion by the power of capital. The crisis of the ecological situation is a global problem. Its solution lies in the plane of rational and humane, that is to say, wise organisation, both of production itself and care for nature, not just by individuals, enterprises or countries, but by all humanity, linked with a clear awareness of our planetary responsibility for the ecological consequences of civilisation. Politicians and corporations of all hues now declare their commitment to do something about climate change and believe it or not but some of those who run world capitalism actually understand that the environment on which their system depends is in danger of disintegrating within a generation or two. There is no longer much dispute about what is happening.

Governments and businesses have a genuine interest in slowing down climate change, much the same as their predecessors had a genuine interest in eliminating the smog from the slums. But they cannot achieve their goal without slowing down the momentum of capital accumulation, the very basis of their system. The factory chimney stack smoke that were causing bronchitis in working class tenements have now become greenhouses gases threatening to devastate the whole of humanity. It is precisely because this is a global problem that those who support the system find it difficult to deal with. Capitalism is in the process of destroying all our futures. The environmental activists within the Green movement see climate change as the issue that overshadows all others. Everything else has to be subordinated to building a campaign such as has never been seen before in an effort to force governments and firms to take the necessary action. They are raising much-needed awareness of what is happening. But campaigns focused purely on climate change will not be the answer to the problem for deep-seated change is required. Fossil fuel industries are intertwined with every aspect of the system’s functioning, including the lives of those of us living within it. Recognition of this leads many environmental activists to the conclusion that the only solution is for people to change their individual lifestyles as we all seem to be part of the problem. Yet, it is not just a question of people individually being selfish. For the great mass of people there are no other ways to fulfil our basic needs at present.  Recognition of this reality then leads some people who once looked upon individual life-style choices as the solution to now look to the state for action. The counsel us that we can compel the governments of the world’s most polluting states to implement mitigating measures. But these reformist Green activists end up tailoring their demands to what they think can be achieved without too great a disturbance to the present system. So they lobby for countries to sign up to various ‘practical’ agreements such as carbon taxes on the grounds that ‘at least it is a start’. But let’s be honest, corporations that are expert at cheating taxes by use of tax havens, will easily find ways to fiddle their emissions by carbon trading.

The capitalist system depends for its existence on continued expansion and accumulation, and any serious and effective solution to climate change is going to open enormous fissures within the system. Are we to imagine the ruling class will sacrifice their interests for the rest of us? There have been previous instances of civilisations collapsing due to ecological devastation as did the Maya civilization. Capitalists and states will react to the need to do something about global warming by price and tax measures that will inevitably hit the living standards of the poor.

The only sure protection against climate change is the replacement of a society based on accumulation for profit with one based on production for need. There is but one way to reverse climate change. That is through challenging and ending capitalism as a whole.

Act Today to Save Tomorrow

A World to Win, a Planet to Save

One World, One People - For World Socialism

The Tory prime minister declared he has no regrets about his recent use of the “swarms” to characterize migrants trying to reach the UK. David Ca-moron goes on to criminalise them further by alleging that they are trying to “break-in” to the UK although as refugees many have a legitimate and legal right to seek asylum in the UK without going through the proper channels and by any means possible. The government is purposefully trying to create an atmosphere of fear by stigmatizing vulnerable people as a threat to the UK’S security and sovereignty.

In a corner-shop near the Scottish Home Office, the Unity centre has been fighting for several years to protect refugees and asylum seekers who have made their home in Glasgow. Asylum seekers come in and report to Unity before signing in at the Home Office building nearby. If they are detained during their visit to the Home Office, activists can swing into action to try and get them released. It’s a system that has helped hundreds stay in Scotland since asylum seekers started arriving in Glasgow at the end of the 1990s.

“Glasgow has stood against the Home Office in lots of ways,” said one Unity activist. “We help anyone in their struggle for papers, it’s about emotional solidarity as well as practical.” He talks about a flight full of migrants that has only this morning left Heathrow for Nigeria, stopping en route in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “Charter flights are a way of expelling people en masse, where nobody can hear you scream. We know several of the people who have been sent out on this flight and many of them have legal processes open, they have families and children here. The Home Office just grab as many people as they can,” the activist added.

The Unity centre is only one part of a vibrant network of support for migrants and refugees across Glasgow, rooted in local communities and bringing together people from around the world with their Scottish neighbours. When the Home Office decided to start sending asylum seekers out of London to cities around the UK, Glasgow city council was the first to sign up.

The asylum seekers were placed in empty flats in long neglected high-rise estates. Neighbours appointed by the council to welcome the new families took the job seriously, bringing the new arrivals from Kosovo, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, into their communities, holding parties, bringing families from across the world together. When families were told they would not be given asylum their Scottish neighbours refused to let the Home Office remove them from the UK. Immigration officials who arrived in the early hours for “dawn raids” on families were met by enraged Glaswegians who refused to let the Home Office take their new friends away.

The demonstrations became widespread and saw the end of the dawn raids. Many thousands of people who had been threatened with removal, including many families, were allowed to stay in Scotland.

Remzije Sherifi runs the Maryhill Integration Network where people from around the world come together in award winning dance and music projects.

“We have established great links between new arrivals and local people. This grows organically from the heart if people can understand why someone would have to flee their country. It’s still hard, there are still people struggling, but there are always doors open where they can get a cup of tea.”

The world is on the move. Tens of millions are displaced. Around the world much the same question is being posed: “How are we going to absorb all those hordes of immigrants?” All across the globe nationalist, xenophobic groups and movements are busy attacking and intimidating defenseless refugees. George Orwell defined un-Christian, un-white and un-Western people simply as “un-people”, in the eyes of the West.

The overwhelming majority of the refugees are forced to leave their homelands because of political and economic consequences of capitalism. Only a few Europeans or North Americans are capable of detecting connection between their continents’ wealth, those hundreds of millions of ruined lives all over the world, and the latest wave of immigrants. Glasgow's commercial wealth was built upon the slave trade, for example. Great Britain, responsible for the loss of millions of lives worldwide through its colonial genocides and triggered/orchestrated famines, is now pretending that it is facing a serious “refugee crises”.  While tiny Lebanon is now a host of over 2 million Syrian refugees, one of the main global bullies, the UK, has lesser than 25,000 registered asylum applicants on its territory. Immigrants are being portrayed as some menace, or pest, not as a group of desperate human beings – victims of the British Empire and the neo-colonialism that followed it. Much of the blame can be placed on the politicians and the toadying media. Even the liberal voices only offer concessions out of charity and not recognise solidarity as an obligation and so they do little to throw open the gates or knock down the walls of Fortress Europe.

As long as capitalism reigns supreme, as long as profit-seeking rules over the planet, the refugees will be crossing dangerous seas to seek safety and security. Many will die in the process but some will make it to be defined as “illegal” and persecuted and where victims will have to lie, in order to just survive. The Socialist Party as part of the World Socialist Movement stands with the exploited and the oppressed of all parts of the globe.

. 

Closing the Door (2/2)

Many believe that immigrant labour is scab labour, since the bosses had a long tradition of importing foreign workers to break strikes or cut wages. It was one of the reasons to stop scab trade that the International Working Men’s Association (the First International), was formed in 1864. Some on the Left today declare ‘Let’s have a debate on immigration’. And bewail the high numbers of immigrants, and that the ruling class use this increased supply of labour to cut wages in several unskilled and low-skilled job sectors, hitting the indigenous working class. They claim extra demand for housing has forced prices and rents higher, and in many cities local children cannot get into local schools and that the waiting time at the hospital has grown because of foreigners in the line for treatment. These claims are drip-fed daily to workers in order to divide them along the lines of colour and/or nationality/race (and religion), i.e., workers from ‘outside’ lower your wages, take your jobs, put up your rents, deny your children a decent education, etc., etc. Capitalism has always been an international system with capital going to where it will realise the highest returns rather than maintaining loyalty to a nation-state. Even Thomas Jefferson had to admit that ‘merchants have no country’. 

But is an increase in the supply of labour to be explained solely by citing immigration figures and playing with the figures? What of new technology? While not increasing the number of workers it can reduce the number jobs. Are we to become machine-wreckers once again? Then, of course, there is the export of capital to abroad, where it will be used to manufacture commodities cheaply and compete with home products. The point is quite simple for those who choose to see it: it is the owner of the means of production who will decide who will work, with what technology, for what wages, where the work will be sited and what level of unemployment (surplus labour, indigenous or foreign) will be best for his maximum profit. That is not always an easy thing to explain in a country where the working class movement is so pitifully weak ideologically, yet that is what socialists must do. It is the height of treachery to our class (remembering that the working class stretches far beyond Britain’s boundaries), blatant racism, and opportunism to opt instead for a policy of blaming the immigrant for all British workers’ woes, even if this will strike a chord with the basest instincts of many workers. While we are on the subject of the ‘indigenous working class’ just who are they? At what point does an immigrant family become an indigenous family? If the answer to that question is never than even someone with the flimsiest grasp of British history would have to draw the conclusion that there are very few members of the indigenous working class about. The question of house prices, rents, etc., being the fault of immigrants is pure bunkum. Immigrants tend to live in the lowest quality (if any at all) housing, unless, of course, one subscribes to the somewhat popular, but totally incorrect, view that ‘they come over here with nothing and are given the best houses by the council’ that can be heard in any working class area and is merely a reflection of the anti-working class repeating the pap that fills the pages of the gutter press. Workers do say these things and, if not shown the errors of these views, will tend to believe them. The Socialist Party will not pander to these simplistic views or try to give these opinions credibility. Another point about housing is that if immigrants really are causing rents and prices to rise then one must suppose that this is due to a housing shortage, which would be alleviated by, yes, you guessed it, building more homes which would create jobs wouldn’t it?

For sure it cannot be denied that the majority of the UK population now wants far stricter limits on immigration numbers. Our exposure of the level of ignorance and backwardness in the working class, its atrocious level of disunity, should not be cause for celebration or smugness. The fact that this level of ignorance exists does not make it either right or desirable, it only goes to show the staggering amount of work that socialists have to do to bring education, enlightenment and unity to the working class in this country. The Socialist Party is not afraid to take a minority position that is correct merely because it is unpopular with the working class at present. But our approach is to assign blame where it lies, squarely with the rich and not with the average person. The rich are trying to make the people pay for the crisis.

Xenophobia and racism are not the exclusive domain of the right. Some of those Leftists calling for an end to immigration argue that immigration is and has always been a mechanism for depressing wages and undermining working class organisation. And some will cite evidence that West Indian immigrants who came here in the fifties and sixties were invited to take the low-paid jobs that British workers could not afford to take. This helped to maintain the low wages of those jobs. The idea that immigrants can only have a negative effect on wages, etc., is strange that we still remember the Grunwick dispute where immigrants, many first generation, organised themselves and fought courageously for reinstatement and union recognition, being defeated only through the treachery of the Labour Government of the day. Yet, even in defeat, these immigrants achieved higher wages and better conditions for those left inside the Grunwick’s plants. The picture is presented of immigrants coming here to live because we British workers have made life in our country so wonderful through our organisation and principled struggle. What nonsense! If people from the South of England start to migrate North for the cheaper housing, should we drive them back at Watford Gap telling them to go and fight for cheaper housing in the South? When British dockyards, with the full backing of their workforces, compete with each other for shipbuilding contracts and try to win work to their area away from other workers in Britain does this not usually involve bringing down wages and conditions and boosting productivity? The anti-immigrant argument, apart from freeing the employers of all responsibility for the things that they actually have control over, is not just silly but very dangerous and can easily incite regionalism as it already has Scottish and Welsh nationalism.

We in the Socialist Party have the task to educate all workers to realise the need to destroy capitalism and build socialism. No worker should be declared illegal for wanting to work or to better him or herself. Capitalism is the enemy of all workers. It is the system of capitalist production that produces unemployment, homelessness, destitution and crumbling social services (not to mention the incessant wars that creates refugees flee to safety) – not workers, be they ’indigenous’ or foreign. We are all wage slaves and we should not permit the media to constantly slander a section of us by blaming them for the problems created by the capitalist class itself – such as unemployment and homelessness. Red herrings are part of the poison of political life and demonizing those unable to defend themselves is an easy way to divert attention. The capitalists try to turn groups of workers against each other, competing ever more fiercely for dwindling jobs and falling wages in a war of all against all.  Workers of every country are forced to compete with each other in order to force down wages everywhere. Working people have only two choices: either let the bosses play us off each other until we hit bottom, or to unite and fight for decent wages and benefits for all.

One very basic idea, unity of the working class is critical. In capitalist society, a tiny class of people owns the means of production and profits by exploiting the workers’ labour. United, the overwhelming tendency of the working class would be to fight for a decent life for all, which is incompatible with capitalism. Powerful united struggles of the working class would inevitably demonstrate the need to overthrow capitalism altogether. Since the working class is the only class with the power to overturn capitalism, the capitalists use every possible divide-and-conquer tactic to prevent this development. The bosses hope to keep the workers fighting with each other over shrinking pieces of a small pie instead of uniting for better pay and conditions and a higher standard of living for everyone. Workers have nothing to gain by falling prey to any type of anti-immigrant scapegoating. We have to reject all laws that divide the working class into legals and illegals. The rich are the exploiters, a class of idle parasites who live off the toil and sweat of the workers. These big money-bags have only one interest: profits, and not just any kind of profits, but maximum profits. Hence, the rich use nationalism to wring maximum profits out of their employees and to make it easier to rule over the people. They use nationalism to single out certain sections of the people, the immigrant communities, for the worst kind of exploitation and to incite other sections of the people to attack the immigrants. This is the standard tactic of all minorities with state power: divide and rule. Politicians will continue to distract the public by blaming the individual and minority groups, and in particular newcomers and strangers rather than the economic system and the austerity policies it require to survive as the root cause of the problem.

As the gulf between rich and poor becomes greater so too will the desire of the capitalist class to use all weapons to divide working people. The response is to fight for the common interest of working class unity. But unity is not an automatic process. Create and perpetuating national divisions within the working class has always been an essential feature of the capitalist system. This was a point that Marx recognised over 100 years ago when he talked about the prejudice directed by English workers against migrant Irish workers. He called this antagonism the ‘secret of the impotence of the English working class ... It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power.’

The Socialist Party has always approached the question of not from the standpoint of a particular capitalist state, but from the standpoint of the interests of the world’s working class. These are best served by the free movement of workers around the globe. Not only does this enable workers as a whole to get the best price for the sale of their labour power, it also increases the proletarisation of previously peasants and also aids international unification. We therefore reject completely all attempts by the ruling class to restrict or control the international migration of labour.

“I mean, your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, let's blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don't even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.” -  Iain Banks

Lest we forget

Obituary: William Logan  from the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard It is with deep regret that we report the sudden death of William Logan—"Loge" to all who knew him. "Loge" was one of the founder members of Edinburgh Branch in 1968, and a driving force in its early dynamic days. He was an entertaining speaker and a prodigious literature seller. One of his greatest contributions to the Party was his interest in silk screen printing, which enabled Edinburgh Branch to produce their own inimitable posters, which sprang up all over the city. A visitor to one of our meetings in the late sixties, remarking on the number of SPGB posters he saw, thought that the cultural revolution had spilled over into Edinburgh; you could not turn a corner without seeing a poster.  The death of "Loge" at the age of only 35 is a grievous loss; his enthusiasm, drive and humour will be sadly missed.

Rhymeating lion tamer (1978)

Book Review from the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

John S. Clarke: Parliamentarian, Poet, Lion-Tamer by Raymond Challinor (Pluto Press)

This little book, published a couple of years ago, is well worth reading containing, as it does, illuminating sidelights on the genesis of the British Communist Party and its later left-wing off-shoots.

Clarke was an extraordinary character, leading a colourful life as a lion tamer (he came of circus stock) and merchant seaman. He travelled all over the world but, although entirely self-taught, showed remarkable gifts as a writer and Scottish "rhymeater" in the Burns tradition. He gravitated to the Socialist Labour Party where his journalistic talents soon made him the actual editor of The Socialist during the first World War. With the advent of the Bolshevik seizure in Russia, Clarke was the first (with Willie Gallacher) to make the Moscow trip. Whereas Gallacher (a muddlehead if ever there was one) swallowed the Russian bait, Clarke refused to come back to England and, as editor of the Glasgow Scottish Workers Committee paper The Worker, wrote critical articles, exposed the unsuitability of Russian tactics in Britain and, above all, the lying, glowing reports sent to Lenin by the greedy job hunters of the British Socialist Party. "Information by the mass, specially preened, pruned, doctored and cooked by the officials of the old BSP was sent to Russia with the deliberate object of misleading the Bolsheviks as to the true state of affairs in Britain" he wrote.

This certainly did not suit the new Russian paymasters who, after buying up The Worker, promptly had Clarke sacked. He was the first publicly to denounce the absurdity of Lenin's tactics of supporting the Labour Party. Challinor claims to have "subjected all Lenin's statements about Britain to a close analysis" and to have come to Clarke's view. "Lenin's mistake was his belief that most British workers considered the Labour Party to be Socialist, and that this myth could only be dispelled by seeing it in office but, in fact, most British workers are aware the Labour Party is largely the mouthpiece of the Trade Union leaders, whose limitations have been known for many years. Hence Lenin's tactic was an unnecessary exercise, telling workers what they already knew," he writes. What a pity that Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Foot, Tony Cliff, Gerry Healey, Chris Harman and co., many of whom were still, up to a few years ago, urging workers to vote for the Labour Party, did not know what "most workers knew". We would have been spared the rubbish of WRP, RWP, Big Flame, IMG etc., "New CP", "Old PLC." Chinese Leninists and so on.

Clarke was persuaded by the Glasgow ILP (Maxton and co) to run for Parliament. He was elected, sat for Maryhill for two and a half years and, to his, credit, chucked it up in disgust!

Borrow the book from the local library, like I did.

Horatio 

To BP or not BP?

Campaigners will stage a theatrical protest against BP’s sponsorship of the Edinburgh International Festival on Sunday. They argue cultural institutions across the UK are offering a veil of legitimacy to the firm as it continues to drive climate change and cause environmental destruction. The performance group will stage a street theatre performance to highlight what it says is the festival's "unethical" choice of sponsor. Performers will be joined by Friends of the Earth Scotland, staff and students from the University of Edinburgh. Artists scheduled to take part in the festival are also expected to make an appearance. Protesters attending the demonstration have been instructed to dress in black, and arrive at a yet-to-be disclosed venue in Edinburgh at noon.

Environmentalists, academics and artists will gather in the heart of Edinburgh to highlight BP’s monopolisation of Britain’s cultural landscape. In particular, they are criticizing Edinburgh International Festival's choice of sponsor.

The protest's organisers say that BP’s funding of the event is an attempt to distract attention from its role in exacerbating climate change. The demonstration has been organized by activist theatre group ‘BP or not BP?’ which has campaigned extensively against BP's practices across the globe. Among the energy extraction techniques BP has been criticized for are fracking and deepwater Arctic drilling. BP or not BP? warn the energy firm continues to draw unsustainable levels of fossil fuels from the earth, while using its influence to lobby against progressive forms of climate action.

Ric Lander, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, told RT BP’s ethical and environmental legacy is scandalous.
“BP has been involved in some of the world’s biggest environmental disasters and actively lobbies against meaningful action against climate change,” he said. “World class performers haven’t come to Edinburgh this August to make the oil industry look good. Let’s clean up the Edinburgh International Festival and stop BP buying prestige at the expense of Scotland’s treasured public arts.”

Edinburgh People & Planet campaigner and medical student Eleanor Dow said the oil giant's role in greenwashing must be exposed.

“We need to expose this absurd and dangerous act of greenwashing by a company that is contributing to catastrophic climate change,” she said. “With the triumph of our occupation this year, which forced Edinburgh University to drop its investments in three major fossil fuel companies, it is clear the fossil fuel divestment movement is winning. The EIF needs to get its act together instead of remaining complicit in the destruction of our planet.”

Jess Worth of the “BP or not BP?” group decried the festival's acceptance of funding from BP.
“BP has a business plan for the end of the world, and the Edinburgh International Festival is endorsing it through this sponsorship deal,” she said.

As emphasis on the urgency of dealing with climate change a new report has recently been published.

Global food shortages will become three times more likely as a result of climate change according to a report by a joint US-British taskforce, which warned that the international community needs to be ready to respond to potentially dramatic future rises in prices. Food shortages, market volatility and price spikes are likely to occur at an exponentially higher rate of every 30 years by 2040, said the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience.

Climate-linked market disruptions could lead to civil unrest. "In fragile political contexts where household food insecurity is high, civil unrest might spill over into violence or conflict," the report said. "The Middle East and North Africa region is of particular systemic concern, given its exposure to international price volatility and risk of instability, its vulnerability to import disruption and the potential for interruption of energy exports."

Global food production is likely to be most impacted by extreme weather events in North and South America and Asia which produce most of the world's four major crops - maize, soybean, wheat and rice, the report found. Such shocks in production or price hikes are likely to hit some of the world's poorest nations hardest such as import dependent countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the report found.

While we can all share the campaigners sincerity in trying to do something to halt global warming, they must offer real solutions to the problems and that means understand the cause and removing that cause. It is not a matter of smoothing off the unwanted bit of capitalism or protesting against one or two corporations. It means re-casting capitalism into another type of economic system - socialism. This needs to be said over and over again until it sinks into peoples understanding.

On the issue of climate change, capitalism is hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with it. Human and environmental needs come a poor second whenever the needs of capital dictate. The history of sincere but failed attempts to correct a system which cannot meet needs leads to the conclusion that a new social system should be tried. A system without money and the profit motive in which the interests and needs of all are paramount. In such a system the challenge of the human impact on the environment can be seriously addressed for the first time. People, and not money, will control their lives and the direction of social progress.

A choice has to be made. It is no longer a matter of ‘socialism or capitalism’ or even ‘socialism or barbarism’. The choice now is between world socialism and global catastrophe.