Change the world before it changes you

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can be achieved in today’s world only by a socialist revolution. The Socialist Party is a Marxist party in that we understand that the interests of the capitalist class and the working class are opposed and cannot be reconciled; that capitalism can and must be ended and replaced; that the working people must capture the State then build a socialist society. Reformism - the acceptance of the framework of the capitalist economy and state - and seeking to "manage" capitalism has always ended by leading the attacks on the working class. The attempt to travel the road to socialism in small steps, to start it off through changes or reforms which are possible under capitalism, leads inevitably to forgetting the final aim and making the means an end in themselves. Reformist tactics have up to now led to the the carrying out of reforms being by the leadership of working class organisations, the politicians of the parliamentary parties thus every successful reform strengthens the faith of the workers in ‘those in power’, who can ‘get it done’, and to weaken the independence and consciousness of the working class. Socialists call upon the consciousness, self-activity and self-reliance of the workers and thus strengthening them in the class struggle.

Socialism will not be won by moving speeches and convincing writings, nor will it come if we were to elevate the day-to-day struggles to the exclusion of the fight to win the minds of the working class. We do suggest that the outlook which sees these struggles as ends in themselves, will also prove lacking. Our approach must be a synthesis of ideas and action. A socialist party is needed to give the working people an understanding of the nature of the capitalist system in which they live. Socialist understanding does not arise by itself from the immediate struggles, however hard or successful they may be. The working class does not develop a political, socialist consciousness spontaneously, out of separate or even out of a series of struggles or campaigns. The impact of a recession upon workers does not immediately and automatically turn into class-consciousness, but only through long drawn out theoretical education, propaganda and agitation. Without these, sections of the working class can very easily develop a fascist consciousness instead of a socialist one in a crisis. Everyone who has participated in a strike knows that the strikers, however militant, do not automatically become socialists as a result of their struggles. Socialist theory enables the Socialist Party to present the interests of the whole of the working class and not of any one section of it at the expense of others. This means that the Socialist Party helps the working class to fight against narrow sectional advantage and to fight for the unity of the working class.  We have no ready-made solutions to this problem which events have forced upon us. We claim only that the problem must be faced: and there must be discussion. The result of this discussion, we hope, will be to liberate great political energies based on socialist principles. As in the case of the New Model Army during the English Civil War against the monarchists, those soldiers, “know what they fight for, and love what they know.”

The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers. There is war. It is class war. It is waged by the representatives of one class, the oppressors, against the mass of another class, the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. This is the only realistic view of the State. Everyone who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial and only “regulatory,” is misleading.

The winning of a majority in Parliament, supreme organ of state power, is one of the essential steps. A primary task of the socialist government would be to deprive capitalists of economic and political power. When a socialist majority in Parliament is won it will need the support of the mass movement outside Parliament to uphold the decisions. The working class and popular movement will need to be ready to use its organised strength to prevent or defeat attempts at violence against it.

Suppose you reject the case for socialism and decline to organise for its establishment. Will the world stay just the same, will it move forward, or will it go backwards? It is most important to understand what will happen to capitalist society if it is not replaced by socialism.  In every country, the crises of capitalism makes life harder for people to endure. Silent obedience is made a “patriotic” duty. Today under the austerity policies being imposed, the unemployed, “maintained” by the government and are at the government’s mercy. They are ordered to take any job, regardless of wages of working conditions, which it instructs them to take. Although this may make the chains of wage-slavery heavier and harder to bear, it does not lead to our extinction as a species. Capitalism’s effects on the environment, however, does that very thing. Socialism will also conserve the natural resources of the country which are now being ruthlessly wasted in the mad capitalist race for profits.

We live in a world of enormous economic and social contrasts. Although the potential exists to create wealth unimagined by previous generations and distribute them around the world billions in the developing countries have no safe water supply, lack sanitation and millions suffer from chronic malnutrition. Capitalism is unable to tackle the problems of the world because it is a system based on private ownership and individual greed. Socialism remains the only alternative and this conclusion is not a case of wishful thinking.

The capitalist class own most of industry, land, commerce, the banks and the mass media. The overwhelming majority of people can live only by selling their labour power to a capitalist employer, or to the state. Under capitalism, the price of commodities that workers produce reflects the average labour time taken to produce them, including their inputs (raw materials, power, wear and tear of machinery etc.) But the revenue that capitalists receive from the sale of those commodities is more than enough to pay the wages bill, other production costs, taxes and renewed investment. The balance—capitalist profit—goes mostly in dividends to shareholder capitalists, in rent to landowning capitalists and in interest payments to money-lending capitalists. Where does this capitalist profit come from? It is the value created by the company workforce, over and above the value of their wages. Workers, for example, create almost twice the value of their wages. The portion they do not receive back in wages or social benefits is the ‘surplus value’ kept by their employers. Here is the source of capitalist profit, and in this way workers are exploited under capitalism.

As employers seek to minimise costs and to squeeze more surplus value out of their workforce, they will try to hold down wages while also investing in machinery and equipment that saves labour costs and enables them to produce commodities more cheaply than their competitors. As the price of a commodity is determined largely by the average labour time taken to produce it, companies producing it at below average cost and value will make extra profits at the expense of the high-cost ones. In the state sector, workers in local government and the civil and public services are also engaged in a struggle with employers. Lower costs and higher productivity of labour will keep public expenditure down—which means lower taxes, less pressure to increase wages and therefore bigger net profits in the private sector. Whether in the private or public sector, it is in the interests of the capitalist class to reduce labour costs by employing workers who can be discriminated against on the basis of their race, gender, or age. Divisions within the working class on these and other grounds assist the capitalists to force down the general level of wages and other labour-related costs. That is why it is in the interests of all workers to unite against discrimination and inequality.

In a world-wide rush for profit capitalism has ravaged the resources and environment of the earth for more than a century. Widespread pollution of the air, soil, rivers, lakes and seas is but one of the consequences. Global warming and its ‘greenhouse effect’ threaten a greater incidence of climatic instability, crop failure and flooding. Destruction of the rain-forests is driving plant and animal species to extinction. We must move towards an overall system of production in which waste is either eliminated or reduced to an absolute minimum. The atmosphere, the oceans and the land can no longer be treated as a dustbin. Waste must either be recycled or used as a starting point for other processes. Where this is not possible in a particular process of production, that process may have to be abandoned or replaced by an alternative one. At all times, the effects of human activity on the environment will have to be carefully monitored, and research carried out to deal with problems as they arise. This applies to agriculture as much as to industry. The change to a closed system of waste-free production is incompatible with the existence of an unplanned capitalist economy dominated by the monopolies. Their drive for maximum and short-term profit takes precedence over the long-term consequences for the environment. The drive for private capitalist profit is an in-built obstacle to greater environmental protection. It regards ‘green’ policies as a drain on potential profits and dividends. It leads to the wasteful levels of consumption of raw materials seen today in the highly industrialised world.

Make socialism a reality

Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must own and control in common all the means of production. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society there can be no question of the democratic control of the conditions of life. Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. Capitalism is a social system which breeds conflicts. It is a seething jungle of struggles wherein individuals, classes, nations, and empires fight against each other. Individual wage-earners vie with each other for jobs; capitalists outbid one another for markets; classes struggle against each other in the economic and political arenas; and nations are prepared to wipe each other off the map for the sake of expansionist conquest. Socialism will be won through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the seizure of political power by the working class. Working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transforming force. Socialism will open the way for great changes in society.

The Socialist Party is convinced that socialism is the only hope of the workers. The social revolution, on the other hand, sets out to destroy private property in the means of wealth production and to establish social ownership. Socialism, therefore, means the end of class rule. It will have no use for the instrument of class domination—the State. That institution, the emblem of class hatred, will pass away. Such a system of society is possible. Neither reforms nor palliatives can in any way remove the great economic contradictions inherent in capitalism. Thus reforms, palliatives, and patches will not rid capitalism of its problems. It must be replaced with the new system of socialism. Socialism is, therefore, not a reform movement. Our political declaration is to aim at the capture of the political machine in order to tear the State, with its armed force, out of the hands of the capitalist class, thus removing the murderous power which capitalism looks to in its final conflict with labour. In a word, the revolutionary value of political action lies in its being the instrument specially fashioned to destroy capitalism.

Because the political weapon is used by the capitalist class against labour, and because the political State is a machine to maintain class rule, there are many workers who contend that working class political action is futile, if not dangerous. The Socialist Party declares that as political power is used by capital to enforce its economic power, for that very reason the workers must meet capital on the political field. In the class war the workers dare not allow the capitalists to hold ground on the battle-field without a view to capturing it. We may ignore the political arena, as our anarchists do, but neither the class war can be waged successfully by ignoring any stronghold of the enemy. Until the working class is conscious of its own interests—until it clearly realises what it wants and how to get it—then they are the tools of the Labour Party and other left-wing charlatans. The moment that the wage-earners understand their class interests they will not be betrayed either industrially or politically. Because “leaders” are only able to act treacherously when their followers are ignorant and confused.

The Socialist Party takes the political field with one plank upon its programme—Socialism. It emphasises that only Socialists must vote for its candidates. Every other vote is useless and dangerous. Alliances, compromises, and all such arrangements easily mean the return of a candidate, but not of a socialist candidate.

Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. It is the next step in the further development of the world. Socialism will not mean government control.

Millions of people have come to realize that something is basically rotten with the whole society. Among these some people have begun to search out more the cause of the abuses and outrages they were fighting against and the solution to them. This led a number of them to Karl Marx whose work shows that capitalist society is based on the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class and that all the evils of this society arise from that. But more than that, it shows that throughout history society has been propelled forward through various historical stages by the struggle of the oppressed classes, and that in this era it is the carrying through of the working class struggle, to overthrow and eliminate capitalism, that alone can move society forward. And further it explains how the working class in abolishing capitalism will put an end to the division of society into classes and bring about a completely new era in human history where mankind as a whole, through it cooperative efforts and conscious planning, can continue to gain mastery over nature and harness its forces to advance to heights undreamed of in the past.

There is only one way that all the suffering caused by capitalism can be finally ended – by wiping out its source, capitalism. And there is only one force in society that can bring this about–the working class, uniting against the capitalists all those who suffer under their rule. This is why the aim of the working class, through all its daily battles against the capitalists, must not only be to win whatever concessions that can be wrung from them today, but to build the strength and unity of the working class and build for the day when it will be able to overthrow the capitalists altogether.

In Wages, Price and Profit Marx insisted that if workers were to abandon their battles around wages and working conditions, then “they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation ... By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.” But these battles are not ends in themselves. In the very next paragraph Marx also warned against exaggerating the importance of such battles and becoming “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never-ending encroachments of capital...” Thus while this struggle is necessary if the proletariat is to resist everyday attacks and still more to develop its fitness for revolutionary combat, such struggle is not itself revolutionary struggle. Moreover, unless the economic struggle is linked to building a consciously revolutionary movement–unless, as Marx puts it, it is waged not from the view of “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” but under the banner of “abolition of the wages system”.

Why we are socialists

When the working class has power it can build socialism. The political power of the capitalist class is exercised, not merely through the parliamentary institutions, which it modifies or discards according to the situation but through its own class control of all institutions, by its own officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force, police force, law courts, press, schools. It is only possible to conquer this class domination when, the majority of the workers are prepared to throw off the capitalist class control in all phases of social, industrial and political activity, and themselves take control of the factories, mines, workshops, railways, etc. There can be no real democracy unless it is a workers’ democracy that is in power. Real democracy means the mass of the population being at once voters and administrators. This is can be possible under a system of workers’ councils or peoples’ communes or another form of participatory decision-making that is deemed fit and proper at the appropriate time and place

The establishment of a socialist, planned economy, based on the needs of the people, will mean the end to the chaos of capitalist production with its lack of planning, repeated crises, unemployment and criminal waste. The guiding principle will be “from each according to ability, to each according to needs”. Exploitation, oppression, and degradation will not exist in socialism. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished. The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated.

With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and intellectual labor will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away. We socialists are up against the fact of life that many people have to be convinced afresh that socialism does in fact represent a better and more fulfilling life, that the idea of the withering away of the state is not a pipe-dream, but a realistic sketch of the future state of human society. New recruits to socialism will be created only when people believe these things again, and only by cogent reasoning and intellectual demonstration can we hope to convince them. They will certainly never be won by repeating the tired old mantras and shibboleths. Socialism has been the goal of the working class political movement since the time of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Essential aspects of their political program can be found in the Communist Manifesto, which still has considerable relevance for our own time. Marx and Engels outlined the most important measures to be carried through by the proletarian dictatorship: expropriation of the expropriators, the replacement of private ownership of the means of production by social ownership, the abolition of exploitation of man by man and of the exploiting classes, and the ensuring of a rapid rise of the productive forces of society. Marx and Engels foresaw that in socialist society anarchy of production would be replaced by planned development of social economy.

Capitalism, no matter how it plans and hopes and prays, would never actually be able to do more than drive the worker to the bedrock of subsistence – although there is plenty to provide  feather-bed luxury for all. It is the very essence of capitalism to keep labour at a minimum point, just sufficiently above the starving point so that it can continue to produce. It should be clear that socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to struggle for socialism and that means that they have some idea of what it is. If the people who vote for a socialist do not do so because he or she is a socialist but because they do not know that he or she is a socialist, of what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend upon the consciousness of a knowledgeable majority and not upon their lack of understanding. The idea that we should first be elected to office and then teach the idea socialism utterly absurd. From the point of view of achieving socialism a few hundred votes, obtained conducting a campaign where socialist ideas are stressed, are worth ten times more than if thousands of votes are cast in a campaign where the necessity for the struggle for socialism was not emphasised. Some within the socialist movement have expressed the opinion that the word “socialist” has kept the workers away and have advocated a change of terminology and language name as a method of weaning the working class away from the mainstream parties. The working class will come to accept the ideas of socialism party not because all the workers will read our literature but because bitter experience will teach it that there is no other way out. The working class always tends to take what appears to be the easiest path and only after constant disappointments will it come to realize that the path of revolutionary struggle offers the only solution. Our party was the only party that pointed out during the general election that there is no alternative for the working class other than socialism. The fundamental issue of our election campaigns is always socialism versus capitalism.

A reformist wants to achieve an immediate demand without struggle and as one of the necessary steps to achieve socialism without struggle. The socialist wants to educate the workers in the struggle as a step towards the final struggle for power. We take it for granted that socialism cannot be introduced by a change of the constitution and the enactment of one law after another. We take it for granted that the state is an instrument to serve and protect the interests of the capitalist class. One can shout from now till doomsday that socialism is necessary and that it is better than capitalism but to educate workers one must explain the significance of great events that agitate the minds of vast numbers of people. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong – in fact quite the contrary – in describing a picture of future socialism. But a picture book which has as its purpose winning workers over to the socialist movement which does not contain a word about the class struggle and which indicates that all the workers have to do, in order to get these nice things shown in the pictures, is to vote the socialist ticket, is worthy of the worst type of reformism.

If the political power of the working class is not used as a means to establish common ownership over the means of production and to abolish wage-labour, if this power is not exploited to bring about the economic revolution which constitutes the essence of the socialist revolution of the proletariat, then any victory is doomed to failure. Socialists are not out to create a bloody revolution. Socialists work for the improvement of the conditions of the people. Their understanding of social science teaches them that in the long run, such is capitalist development, that improvement can only be attained by changing basic social relations, by a shift in ownership and control from the few to the many. Capitalism produces its own grave-diggers, the masses of the wage workers and they reach a point where it is no longer possible to live, they see the limitations of the trade union struggle in the persistence of insecurity ... private ownership must go, social ownership must take its place, socialism.

Communicating revolution

People don’t suddenly understand everything at once. Often they are politicalised (radicalised, if you like) by one issue that effects or influenced them. These people begin to question the whole society, and to see the inter-relationships between different issues. Our aim, in fact, is to help move people to a wider and broader perspective and understanding of the world. We point the way to the goal of the class struggle: socialism. Reformism preaches defeatism to the exploited. Nothing can be expected, nothing is possible but what exists, and what continues is betrayal of what could be with the argument of lesser evil. Those who call for a “lesser evil” — that is, for evil — will unfortunately succeed. The call for a “lesser evil” is what makes possible the greater evil.

Often revolutions are defensive. Fundamental social change takes place as a defense against attempts to take back hard-fought rights, gains, or conditions. Often revolutions do not occur out of ideological commitment to a better or higher social order. Ideas, on a mass scale, can transcend the ideological constraints of the existing social order only in part and for short periods of time, during intense, mass, independent from the ruling class activity. Often revolutions occur because deep contradictions develop between what people see as justifiable — as taught by the existing society — and the unjustifiable policies pursued by the ruling class. Capitalism creates a continuous conflict between its own ideals and the reality it creates. Capitalism cannot resolve its basic contradiction by becoming more responsive to social needs except for short periods of time, and then only in a limited manner. This is the case because taking into consideration human needs always comes into conflict with the drive for profits that is capitalism’s reason for existence. Inevitably, capitalism is forced to go against its own ideals and thus open the road towards revolution. Even such a simple everyday concept as the right to education, which we have come to take for granted, at least at the secondary level, comes into direct conflict with the profit system and so we have a groundswell of opposition to student debt and privatized schools. The struggle for universal education is now deeply ingrained in our consciousness as a norm and a right and there exists resistance against it being undermined. The expression “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” takes on a 1001 varieties that are coming into increased conflict with the needs and very premises of the capitalist order. From efforts to protect our environment to the battles against oppression based on gender and race, people are drawn into the struggles to defend a “tradition” that lays claim to the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

An understanding of the traditions and ideals that exist among the exploited and oppressed is crucial if we are to develop a united working class capable of linking together with a common consciousness. It is essential for driving a wedge between the ruling class and the people to build mass movement against the ruling class. The traditions of the struggles of working people, includes the revolutionary rhetoric to Lincoln's claim that democracy should be “of, by, and for the people”, which we now have as the basis for opposition to present ruling class policies. Marx referred to a “dictatorship of the proletariat” as opposed to a “dictatorship of capital”. Marx was not speaking of a draconian government with a state-security apparatus. A “dictatorship of the proletariat defends the interests of the working people, is by definition far more democratic in any form than the most democratic dictatorship of capital, which must defend the interests of a tiny minority. The working class itself forms the absolute majority of the population. A call for control by working people is itself a call for democratic majority rule. Today, we have a government responsive to corporations run of, by, and for the rich. A majority of people, based on democratic traditions, favor a democracy genuinely of, by, and for the people, but do not fully understand that the present governments does not meet that goal. Our task is to claim for ourselves the positive interpretation of democracy and so drive a wedge between the masses and the ruling class. The world is ripe for a planned rationally based economic order that produces for human needs and is administered democratically. All our social problems are intertwined, and the struggle to improve the quality of our lives and our “rights” are tied to our tradition of struggle. The right to vote, the right to representation, is deeply ingrained in our culture and traditions and can become a powerful weapon against the ruling class.

A return to a better understanding of Marxism and a better grasp of linking up with one’s own revolutionary heritage could be a means of persuasion. The efforts of the well-intentioned but dogmatic sectarians who opposed, sometimes correctly, certain errors and abuses within the workers’ movement too frequently led to self-righteousness, and to the formation of “vanguards” who fancied themselves the final answer. History has shown them wanting. The Left today is, in general, divided between ideological dogmatists on one side and single-issue activists on the other. The sectarians wish to overcome our dichotomy between less politicized activist and highly politicized dogmatist by recruiting out of the activist layers new members into their sects. We reject this.

In the beginning there arose a mass social movement calling for working people to fight for their rights as capitalism developed in the 19th century. This movement had an ongoing debate over what its ultimate goals should be. Its immediate objectives were somewhat obvious. It fought for better pay, shorter hours of work, better working conditions and in many cases against various forms of ethnic, racial or social discrimination. But also, fundamental to the immediate struggles was the struggle for political rights for working people, the right to vote being one obvious and important issue. The conception of a future society in which there would be no rich or poor, where society would be run democratically both politically and economically, where the economy would be rationally planned and production would be based on human needs not profits for individuals, gradually became accepted by millions throughout the world. That future society was generally referred to as socialism. Marx raised the concept that to change the nature of capitalism to a society responsive to the needs of the majority — the working people — a change of who rules would be needed, something that the present ruling circles would resist by any and all means.  Marx made a differentiation between struggles for reforms within a capitalist society and a struggle to fundamentally change society, that is, to revolutionise society.

The confusion in the minds of working people on a world scale is immense regarding the word “socialism”. For most it is an economic project that inevitably will end up in a totalitarian government. For some it may mean “Sweden” or simply lots of welfare safety nets. Socialism means reorganizing the economy so workers would have the decisive say and society would be run for the benefit of the majority. It means rational planning and equality. In the last analysis if we are correct and capitalism will be surpassed by a more rational social order in which class divisions as we have known them will end, this has to have very deep objective roots. If our concept of the origins of ideas is the material world, the ideas of class struggle and of a socialist vision, are being generated continuously. The experiences of people in this society — the exploitation, oppression and abuses — always generate struggles, organizing and the development of social movements. Ideas about these movements and how to change society are always in flux. To believe that a small number of enlightened leaders discovered the magic wand is not materialist. Our movement is still developing ideas on how to organize and how to change society. A lot of people around the world are thinking about these issues. Their experiences are helping them to find a way forward to end the way capitalism is destroying the planet and its human population. The future will hold all kinds of surprises especially regarding forms.

Language is not a tactical question. It reflects the real political content of our movement and to begin to overcome the isolation is a political need to shift away from sectarian traditions, language, internal culture and stale methods of intervention. Rather than always start from what happened in history it may be  better to start from what is needed in the world to create a peaceful, just, ecologically sound, prosperous society for all, and how that translates into reality. The future changes in society will only come about after the socialist movement has literally become the culture of working people. The potential power of the people is so great that it puts sharp limits on what corporations can do. There is now no more important issue than saving our planet from destruction. We do not consider ourselves a substitute for other movements or organizations, such as peace and environmental organizations and other specific issue groups that seek to unite people of all political persuasions around a specific platform. We welcome diversity to defend conditions. But we must have unity of purpose when it comes to changing society and establishing a socialist system.

We are working class

Try an experiment. Dress up smart in a suit and tie, and walk into some corporation and say: “Hello, I’m a sociologist, I’m here to do a study. Could I just walk around and talk to people?” And then you walk up to somebody and say: “Who’s your supervisor?” And he’ll point to some office, and you find someone with a little name plate, and it’s a supervisor. And you ask him: “Who’s your supervisor?” And he’ll point to a different place, and you walk in and there’ll be a rug. And you say to him: “Who’s your supervisor?” And he’ll point to a different floor, all carpeted and you’ll find it gets harder and harder to get in the doors. There’s more and more secretaries, and phones, and the carpets gets thicker and thicker. Eventually you have to make appointments. And then you hit the barrier. Here is where you switch from the people who carry out decisions to people who make the decisions. And that’s your local ruling class. And from your test, you’ll find that all institutions are structured in the same way. A pyramid from the top going down. This goes for government, for the political parties, the army, the churches, the universities, for every basic institution. And when you get to the very top of these structures, to the most powerful people, you will invariably find people who own big property.

The capitalist class and the working-class stand openly opposed to each other. The class lines are clearly defined. There is no mistaking who is a capitalist and who is a worker, who is rich and who is poor. The capitalists are banded together in their Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, and their trade associations. Worker are organised in trade unions. While there remain many workers outside the unions, for all effective purposes—as in all vital industries—the organised workers dominate the situation. That is to say, that while the industries of the country could be run without the unorganised workers, they could not be run without the trade unionists. In the past, ruling classes were proud of their role. They would walk around with feathers in their hats, or luxuriant robes and things, and when they went down the street, people would say: “Hey, there goes one of our ruling class.” Nowadays, they don’t do that. Now, somebody in the ruling class could walk right by, and you wouldn’t even know it. They dress just like you. They’re incognito. They go around saying that there are no longer any classes, that everybody’s ‘middle-class’, only that some are a little more middle-class than others. In other words, they are frightened to reveal their own existence. They have to hide it. And there are good reasons for that. One of their problems, of course, is that they’re so small in number. They are few and we are many. The smallness of the ruling class means we have more power in comparison. So how do they maintain their rule? The reason is simple. The mass of people are under false illusions.

The capitalists are the most astute, the most cunning, the most resourceful and the proudest ruling class in the world. They have become so by centuries of experience of robbery and pillage and piracy in all parts of the world. They know how to create the atmosphere of liberty but yet rule and rob with an iron fist. It knows how to manipulate democracy. It knows how to have “freedom of speech” and “freedom of the Press” which is no freedom if you cannot afford it. The propertied interests respect neither religious texts, nor logical propositions. These are always moved to action to protect their interests. They hold the world by their power, and they only respect power. They know how to create and end revolts. They know how to corrupt the leaders of people abroad and at home with honours, flattery, social position, money. The working-class is enmeshed with the webs woven by men “honoured” and paid by the capitalist class, always at the ready to play the part of Judas. From experience they possess a wide knowledge of how politics operates. Such a ruling class knows well the art of protecting itself. The capitalist class has at its disposal a powerful media, colouring the minds of millions of peoples’ outlook on life, determining largely their political opinions, fashioning their thoughts, moulding their minds to a servile acceptance of things as they are or as the controllers of these mouthpieces of capitalism desire them to be. The capitalists realise their strength in this connection and ensure their control of it. All this and much more is well understood.

On the workers’ part it is perfectly known that society is fully ripe for the transformation to complete social ownership and control and nothing stands in the way but political consciousness of the people themselves. No serious student of history would attempt to say how near any country is to revolution in terms of months or years. Our work, therefore, is still that of agitation, education and organisation. Our revolt cannot be just against politics and the distribution of the surplus-value. The revolt must be against value production itself. A worker’s fundamental function in all societies, past, present and future, was to create use-values. Into this organic function of all labour, capitalist production imposed the contradiction of producing value, and more particularly surplus-value. Within this contradiction is contained the necessity for the division of society into direct producers (workers) and rulers of society. On this class distinction rests the bourgeois distinction between economics and politics. The working class must now give notice that it is ready to solve these contradictions and abolish labour as “labour”. It seeks to substitute instead a meaningful creative activity with a social aim as the end and the exercise of its natural and acquired faculties as the means.

Everything you use, everything you eat or wear, your car, your housing — you didn’t make any of these things. We don’t produce these things as individuals. We produce socially. People in one part of the world make things which people in another part of the world use. But, even though we produce socially, through co-operation, we don’t own the means of production socially. And this affects all the basic decisions made in this society about what we produce. These decisions are not made on the basis of what people need, but on the basis of what makes a profit. Take the question of hunger. There are people going hungry all over the world and yet, because of the profit system, many governments are subsidizing some farmers not togrow crops to eat but to put into cars as fuel. Farmers don’t make their decisions by saying: “We need a lot of corn so I’m going to plant a lot of corn.” They never say that. They say: “How much money am I going to make if I plant corn?” Did you know that if decisions were not made on this basis, then the USA alone would have the potential to feed the whole world? The productive potential is there. Take the question of homelessness. We could build beautiful free homes for every family. They could wipe out every slum in a matter of a few years. The potential exists, not only in the factories and materials for building, but in the potential to build new machines and factories. Yet, they are not going to solve the housing question because it’s not profitable to build houses. You have the unemployed not hired because it’s not profitable to hire them. In addition, you have a mammoth, organised effort to create waste. For instance, if you designed a car for that would last 50 years, they wouldn’t use it. Because that would destroy the purpose of making cars, which is to produce profits. We have the people who consume a great deal but don’t produce anything. Then you have things like the people in the advertising industry. They don’t do anything really useful or necessary. Another example of how the potential for meeting human needs is destroyed because of the profit system. Say you are a capitalist, and you’re about to build a factory. Do you say: “I’ll build it where it’s nice, where there are trees and fresh air, and where the workers will have nice homes and will be able to go mountain climbing or hunting or swimming?” No, that’s not the way you think. You say: “Well, where’s my market, where are my raw materials coming in, how can I make the most profit?” And this means you might build the factory where you will pump even more poison into the air. Things are getting worse.

Socialists have been accused for many years of wanting to overthrow capitalism by force and violence. When they accuse us of this, what they are really trying to do is to imply that we want to abolish capitalism by minority action, that we want to force the will of the minority on to the majority. The opposite is the truth. We believe we can win a majority to support a change in the system. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and other democratic rights. So, say you go to your job one day and test it. Wear a big badge that says, “Vote Socialist”. And watch how fast you get promoted. Watch how you are treated. Formally you have the right to have any political view you want. But, the truth is that in all these institutions there is a very worked out, institutionalised way of going up. And on the way up, you sell your individuality, you commit yourself to the values of the system. And you learn very fast that in return for full commitment to the system — for personal discipline, for showing up every morning wearing the right clothes, keeping your hair short, and the rest — in return, you get privileges. It’s done on the basis of privileges. That is what holds the society together. All the institutions under capitalism are ideological institutions in the sense that all of them maintain and demand support for the system. So it should be no surprise to you that the higher you go in a corporation, the higher you go in the university structure, the higher you go in the army, the people get more and more reactionary. They get more and more consciously pro the system; they are more and more for whatever crimes the system has to commit. They simply wouldn’t be there if they weren’t.

If tomorrow the plutocrats and oligarchs cancelled all elections, did away with freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so on and if there was any dissent throw you all into concentration camps. How long do you think the ruling class would stay in power? They couldn’t do it. Their power is already limited by a certain consciousness that exists in the mass of the people. Their power is limited by the fact that the mass of the people believe in free speech, in free assembly and in democracy. Many believe that the ruling class has unlimited power – not true. Of course, our rulers will suppress opposition to them insofar as they can get away with it. And they will use the most brutal means available if it suits their needs. But they will try to keep the repression in the bounds of what they can get away with without waking up the majority of the people, without destroying the illusion of democracy. Because, if the people begin to wake up, that’s a big danger.

For example in the United States there is no real democracy in the sense that ordinary people don’t run this country. The elections are totally phony. The ruling class simply gets up and picks two people, or three, and they say: “Okay, everybody, we’re having elections. Now you can vote for Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton” Then they have their candidates have a debate. But the debate isn’t entirely superficial. The debate often represents a real living struggle between different positions within the ruling class. The ruling class resolves many of the smaller tactical differences they have among themselves through means of elections. Obviously, such elections do not in any way mean that the people have a voice in ruling this country. At the same time, the masses of people believe in democracy. And this belief in democracy is something that actually weakens the rulers. And it is something that gives us real power. There is a power relationship between working people and the ruling class based on the potential power of the working class. Because of this power relationship, you can do many things. It gives us what we call free speech. It gives us free assembly. It gives us the right to organise political groups legally. They don’t suppress these newspapers because they know that the minute they start suppressing papers, it’s going to wake people up and bring a reaction. The only hope the ruling class has is if it can isolate the revolutionaries completely from the rest of the people. That is why the number-one task of all socialists who really want to change the system is to know how to reach the people.

This is one of the biggest problems existing in the labour movement at this point. There’s no way that we radicals can by ourselves wake up the American people. Just forget about that. There is no magazine we can publish or leaflet that we could write so articulately that when you hand it to a worker, he will pick it up and say: “That’s it — I’m with you.” If that were how we could do it, we’d have done it a long time ago. There is only one way it will happen. Capitalism does it for us. The system creates the situation in which people wake up.  The rebellion takes place on all levels. People want to be free and sometimes they realise this is possible. All of a sudden, you have an increase in consciousness, an awareness about the problems of society, created by the capitalists. And this awareness can become much more intensified if you have a crisis — if you have a major war, or a downturn in the economic situation. This is a spontaneous radicalisation, an uprising of sorts, but that will never result in a change of the system, unless it’s organised, unless there is a concept of how to struggle and what to struggle for. We must seek to understand how to change society and know what we want to change it into. Very few individuals come to this consciousness completely on their own. Ideas have been a by-product of the accumulation of thought and experience over the long history of class struggle. The capitalist class has also had experiences, from which they have gained knowledge. They’ve been running the world for a couple of hundred years now. They know how, when an opposition develops, to try to repress it, to knock it down, while at the same time how to manoeuvre and absorb it and buy it off. Let us explain what a reformist is. A reformist is someone who doesn’t like what capitalism does, but likes capitalism. They are try to solve the problems created by the system by supporting the system. They are looking for shortcuts, trying to change the system from within. They hope electing a “progressive savior” will substitute for building an independent political movement of the working people against the ruling class. And there is no shortcut to change the system.

Vanguard Leninist/Trotskyist parties think they can take on the power structure, then they can change society. But they’re not going to change it by themselves. You can’t change it without the majority of people involved. And you most certainly can’t change it when they are against you. The Leftists are merely expressing frustration. They don’t have the patience and the understanding of the need to persuade the people, to win them over, to involve them in the struggle through mass movements. We have is an overwhelming majority of people who have objectively no interest in this capitalist system. They have to be won over, and our whole strategy, everything we do, has got to be directed at winning them to our side. Our every step our every demand, is based on democratic ideas. Socialism does not simply mean that the Socialist Party comes to power, but rather that working people come to power. Any concept, any struggle that ignores this will only end in disaster.

So, to end, we say this. The ruling class is never going to solve its problems through the capitalist system. Therefore, the objective conditions for revolution are going to rise up over and again. We don’t create these conditions, but there is one thing we can do. That is, we can create the subjective factor, by understanding and participating in the revolutionary process, we can make success possible. Are we going to be able to do it? Others have failed to do it. Are we going to be able to build a mass socialist party to overthrow the system? That is the great challenge.

What do we mean by socialism

ALL FOR ALL

Capitalism is not part of an eternal “natural order” of things and nor is it a consequence of “human nature”. It is a fairly recent arrival in man’s history. The problems we face – unemployment, poverty, recession, are not some aberrant “illness” of capitalism, they are an essential part of how it works. All these evils are the direct result of the private ownership of wealth, and the consequent exploitation by a few of the mass of the population, the workers who produce all wealth – and whose reward is a pittance. This tiny minority of the population holds complete control of the economy and political power, and effectively controls all the machinery of the state, the armed forces, the police, judiciary and upper rank of the Civil Service. The economic and political power of the capitalist class has its counterpart in the domination and control of the production of ideas, through which it maintains the repressive machinery of the state.

The ruling class will attempt to defend its power by any means possible and so, if any fundamental change is to come about, the mass of exploited people must be prepared to use any means necessary but our first and primary weapon is the vote. Peaceful revolution cannot be achieved by a small group of plotters or terrorists. It can only come about when the mass of workers themselves decide to move.

There is an alternative to the system we live under. It is socialism and it can be achieved. What do we mean by socialism? Not the phony “socialism” of the Labour Party with its years of betrayal, and its attempts to organise the working class to make capitalism work, nor is it the “socialism” of the old USSR which used pseudo-socialist phrases but where in fact one huge capitalist monopoly, the state, exploited the Soviet workers and peasants on behalf of a small ruling elite of Party polit-bureau and State officials. We are fighting for a social democracy in which the producers of wealth, the working class, will collectively own the factories, the land, the hospitals, the schools, etc. and will run them themselves according to the will of the majority. The aim of the apologists for capitalism is to turn workers away from socialism. They are especially determined to discredit Marxism, claiming it is no longer relevant. This means that socialists must redouble their efforts against their arguments. They must show that socialism is a valid and necessary alternative and that Marxism is an effective guide for the working class. At times pseudo-Marxists show up and under a camouflage of revolutionary terminology they add grist to the mill of capitalism’s apologists.

With socialism there are no longer a market, commodities, values, prices, or wages. The community, through their representatives, guide their own destinies and organise themselves so that world-wide production may be purposefully controlled and managed. The allocation of material and workers to a particular industry is made, not according to the hectic fluctuations of the market but by an analysis of the needs of people and of the productivity of the workers. For the first time, society rises from the domain of necessity into the realm of freedom. There being no class struggles, there is now no need for a State, and the State withers away. The army and navy are not necessary. Police disappear. The basis for crime is gone, since labour is so productive that all the wants of life can easily be obtained. Such criminals as may remain are treated as sick persons to be given humane hospitalisation and rehabilitation until they become fit again to return to the community. Socialism lays the basis for a new type of family life, the ending of the misery and despotism that mark familial relationships. A complete emancipation of women and children occurs.

Neither Marx nor Engels ever dreamed that you could wipe out the capitalists in one country alone and establish a classless rule there while all around in the rest of the world there were slavery, colonialism, poverty, hunger, riots, revolutions, etc. The proletariat was conceived of as an international class. The appeal was to the workers of the entire world to unite. In the Communist Manifesto they wrote: “The working men have no country.” “United action, of the leading civilized countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.” “In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.”

Many say to socialists “Why do you waste your time, you’ve been mixed up in the struggle for socialism for years, it hasn’t happened and if it does happen, it won’t be in your time”

The Socialist Party is confident that it will happen. If it’s not in the current members’ life-times, so what? We certainly do not regard our efforts as wasted. Precisely because we think it is inevitable that social evolution will continue and part of that inevitability is the struggle of mankind, so we believe that those who understand this have an obligation to humanity to participate in the struggle, to serve the people. To do otherwise, to desert the struggle, is shameful. It is not a question of what personal advantage an individual gets. What a shabby criterion! It is a question of serving the people to free them from exploitation, oppression, poverty, unemployment, war. What greater service could there be? And if it is for a generation to be, all the greater the obligation. We think the old society of the world is heavily pregnant with the new – socialism. We witness worldwide that the productive forces have developed tremendously with gigantic development in new technology, computers and automation, that presently enriches the few and impoverishes the many. The workers will rise in revolt.

The Need for Marxism

We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind.  It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of other countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment.  Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humanity.  The hour is late and urgent action is necessary. Capitalism has only one function and that is to employ and exploit workers for profit. It is not particular about what it turns out, whether computers or candy-floss, in fact many large financial enterprises have capital invested in a widely different range of goods; the common denominator is profit. The great transformation of society from capitalism to socialism can only be accomplished by the common efforts of the workers themselves, all of them acting together. Unions are essential for the working class and have done much to advance its cause. Without them, workers would still be subject to the every whim and fancy of the employers and their foremen. Unions first arose out of the spontaneous battles of working people to defend themselves from the abuses and oppressive conditions imposed by the very system of wage labour. In this situation of virtual enslavement, workers were bound to resist. They began to form various societies, organisations and common funds for mutual protection. From the earliest struggles in the 19th century, organized labour demonstrated its power in sharp strike battles. From the founding of the earliest unions to the present, the capitalists waged a vicious battle to block them, to crush them before they could spread. They passed laws, jailed and killed organizers and leaders and sent out police, the army, guards and goon squads to massacre and intimidate the growing workers’ movement. But the workers’ movement was too strong and persistent; the workers, faced with the brutalities of capitalist exploitation, were bound to resist and fight back at whatever cost. In drawing together workers and teaching them through struggle the need for solidarity and unity against the onslaught of the capitalists, unions served as centers for organizing the working class as a whole. They were schools that provided an elementary class training, demonstrating to workers the necessity of subordinating individual interests to those of a larger section of the class, of putting solidarity above competition in order to advance the interests of all working people.

But unions, while indispensable in the struggle of the workers against capital, have limits as well. That is why socialists recognise the necessity of a more developed form of working-class organisation – the socialist party which sums up the experience of many different unions and provide an orientation for the workers’ fight against the capitalist system. In their everyday life workers pour their sweat into production and, in capitalist society, experience the life-killing exploitation on which the system is built. They take part in struggles, together with fellow workers and others, against the abuses and outrages of the capitalist system. Each worker perceives a part of the reality of capitalism, but none by himself can grasp the overall picture, fully discover the source of his oppression or grasp the laws of nature and society that determine the development of the class struggle. The class struggle can have only one result: socialist revolution that will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Karl Marx recognised the enormous potential of the unions far beyond the fight against day-to-day abuses. In “Wages, Price and Profit,” written in 1865, Marx warned that workers should not be “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerrilla fights.” The trade unions failed as centers of the working-class struggle, he noted, when they limited themselves to fighting only the effects of the capitalist system, “instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wage system.” It is the task of socialists to introduce revolutionary ideas and win these workers over to a socialist revolution and the socialist party. The workers will struggle, we know, with or without us, will rebel and revolt, with or without us. However, a successful outcome is dependent upon the workers possessing a clear sighted view and taking a courageous stand.  Class struggle is frequently fragmentary; the different struggles need to become mutually supporting and to be given coherent form. There is massive cynicism and distrust of the system, its inability to provide basic services, its determination to charge us for the necessities of life and to impose unaccountable bureaucracies to rule our lives. The problem is, what course of action can offer a solution? We are still a long way from revolution, but only through the educational and preparatory politics of today, through an ideological assault on the system, in other wards the battle of ideas, can we revolution nearer. Things never stay the same: opportunities will arise to assert the working class’ interests.

People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society.  It is essential to generate interest in social change. To achieve this aim we are spreading knowledge of the revolutionary outlook among the working class. It is through political action that we reach out to people with our message.  To create a socialist world it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through revolution.  The working class and other oppressed people must depose the capitalist ruling class and establish socialism, a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society.  In order to become conscious of itself as a class, and to know and change the world in accordance with its revolutionary interests, the working class must have its own socialist party, a party that consistently points the way forward toward the goal of overthrowing the rule of capital and building socialism. The working class in each country needs only one socialist party. The capitalists usually have more than one party, because of their need to compete with each other and to deceive the people. Different sections of capital seek to advance their interests by competing both through and within these parties.  The working class has no interest in competition in its ranks–it is the rule of capital that forces the workers to compete for jobs and for survival. The working class has no need for masks–it openly proclaims its intention to overthrow and dictate to the exploiting minority. The working class needs a single socialist party to unite it as a mighty fist, to build its understanding of the historical mission of ending all class society. The working class needs one socialist party, representing the interests of one class, and through these interests, the great majority of humanity. A socialist party brings to the class an understanding of the laws of social evolution and struggle and enables it to consciously change the world and make revolution.

Marxism shows that all societies are basically an organised way that the people carry out the production and distribution of the material requirements of life. And that the political system, the culture and other aspects of society are a superstructure that arises on the basis of the relations of production–the economic relations in society–and in turn serves to preserve those relations of production.

Marxism analyses how, after a certain point in the development of the productive forces, the old relations of production, and the superstructure that serves them, become a brake on production itself and have to be overthrown.

Marxism shows that the revolutionary class throughout history was the class which at the time represented the more advanced relations of production, the higher form of organizing production to correspond with the development of the productive forces.

Marxism explained how the exploitation of the working class to create surplus value is the foundation of the capitalist system.

Marxism showed that the working class was bound to overthrow the capitalist class, socialise the ownership of the means of production and remove all social chains on the development of the productive forces, by advancing to classless society, communism.

Marxism showed that a forcible revolution by the proletariat and its forcible suppression of the overthrown bourgeoisie were necessary to carry out its revolutionary role.

Marxism explained that it was not because of “personal genius” or because “he was one of those great men who come along every few hundred years” that Marx was able to found the science of revolution. It was because capitalism, with its high level of science and technology and its constant replacement of scattered with more concentrated production, had developed, and along with it the modern proletariat, representing highly socialised production. And it was because Marx actively took part in the struggle of the proletariat. In the past the basic laws of nature and society were hidden from man, but now it became possible for the first time to bring them to light. This Marx did and in so doing created a great weapon for the working class.

Marxism is a living science and must continue to develop with the development of society itself. One of the most basic principles of this revolutionary science is that the people are the makers of history and that correct ideas arise from and in turn serve the struggle of the people.

The party of the working class is the party of social revolution. The hour is late. Join us now.

Paying more for being poor

The Poverty Premium

The Scotsman reports people living in poverty pay around 10 per cent more than average for essential goods and services – a “poverty premium” which can push people on low incomes into crisis.

Citizens Advice Scotland’s Poverty Premium study found that people with low incomes end up spending more on services such as metered utilities because they are unable to take advantage of cheaper pay in advance deals or direct debit discounts across a range of services and utilities. Citizens Advice Scotland warned that a lack of internet access or a landline telephone creates extra costs and more barriers for clients trying to contact both public and private sector service providers, which are supposed to help vulnerable people in times of need.

Meanwhile, low income households are paying up to £112 a year more for their energy due to a lack of ability to take advantage of switching or finding cheaper tariffs.

The investigation warned that people in poverty are more likely to use pay-as-you-go options for mobile phones, which tend to be higher per unit than those for customers on contracts, adding to costs. Around a fifth of all households in Scotland lack an internet connection, with the lowest income groups least likely to have one.

Meanwhile, low-income households are more likely than others to use pre-payment meters (PPM) for their energy supply. Despite action by energy regulator Ofgem to address price discrimination against PPM users, who were paying inflated costs far above the additional costs of supplying them, a difference still remains as meter customers are less likely to be able to find – and switch to – the best tariff. The study warned that even if poorer households were able to carry out research on lower tariffs, they would often still be unable to take advantage of them because of a lack of basic banking facilities. The report said: “The market relies on consumers having the ability to research tariffs and identify and secure the best deals. But access to that information is heavily dependent on internet access.”

Norman Kerr, director of Energy Action Scotland, said: “This is something which has been highlighted to us by our members. The regulator has taken action to cut the discrepancy, but it still exists. When you are talking about access to the internet it often means smartphones and even those with a smartphone may not have the £30 a week to be able to access the internet to browse price comparison websites. Also, a lot of cheaper tariffs require things such as bank account for direct debits and things like paperless billing, which means again, people need access to the internet.”

For a world-wide co-operative socialist commonwealth.

Social interests shape ideas. Ideas serve social interests. We are not uncritical idol-worshippers of Marx or Engels. We have learned what to do and what not to do.

In capitalism production is carried on not for the purpose of supplying the needs of the people but for the purpose of sale in order to realise a profit. Only those who have something to sell can get a living. Only those can obtain things who can afford to buy. This is the commercial system, and this is how it works out. If things were produced for use, nobody would spend time in the manufacture of shoddy goods, jerry-built houses, or adulterated food. Commerce is the only purpose of industry.

The worker has nothing to sell but labour power sold to an employer for so many hours a day for a certain price, that is, wages. Since one cannot separate labour power from one’s body it comes to this, that worker actually sells themselves like a slave. We socialists, call the workers of capitalist countries, “Wage slaves”. Wages are determined by what it costs to maintain a family. How many working people do you know who can save out of their wages? Very few and only the most frugal. They may be able to put something by in good times, but bad times invariably arrive and the savings are gone. It is a fact that on the average a working person is no more than two weeks or so removed from penury.

What does capitalism offer working people? A life of toil, a bare subsistence. Always the dread fear of the sack. A drab, colourless existence in the slum districts of the towns and, when unable to work any longer, to be discarded on the muck-heap. There are riches and luxury for the few, sweat and toil for the many. Palaces for the wealthy, hovels for the poor. Capitalism can offer workers nothing but wage slavery.

The capitalist will only buy labour if he can make profit out of it. Just compare the value of the goods you turned out in a day when you were in the factory, and what you received for your work. The difference between the two is the employer’s profit. Profit is the result of the unpaid labour of the worker. Under capitalism, the workers are continually robbed of the results of their labour. The capitalist will compel the worker to work as hard and as long as he can, for as little money he can possibly impose; whole industries in which absolutely inhuman conditions of work and pay still exist. Even through the efforts of the best-organised trade unions wages never rise higher than the cost of living. And even this is not secured. In the endeavour to produce as cheaply as possible, the capitalist continually introduces labour-saving technology, which enables him to produce more goods in less time and reduces the standard of skill required. As a result unemployment is continually on the increase. The same hopeless outlook for toil for another person’s profit lies before every worker from the cradle to the grave.

The only thing that will free us from wage-slavery is to make ourselves the owners of the means of production and distribution. We need to abolish capitalism and take the land, factories, mines and transport into common ownership by the whole people. Everything which industries produce goes not to enrich a small parasitical part of the community but to satisfy the needs of the whole community. The world becomes a huge cooperative society, and the working man or woman, instead of slaving to enrich the idle capitalist, creates wealth for the whole community. The worker enjoys the results of his or her labour, without having to pay tribute to speculators and profiteers. For the first time in history the world really belongs to the workers.

People will take a direct part in the management of industry, no longer a slave of another but as an equal member of a great community. Together we shall form a world-wide co-operative socialist commonwealth.

Under chattel-slavery the slave was oppressed and exploited by the slave-master. The wage-slaves of today - the working class - are exploited and oppressed by the capitalist employers. Workers are constantly struggling for better conditions and for the ABOLISHMENT OF CAPITALIST SLAVERY. The emancipation of humanity from all forms of slavery and oppression is the historical task of the working class and can only be realized by this class. The working class has a historical mission to muster under one revolutionary banner and to overthrow the capitalist class. The capitalist system is incapable of dealing with the problems facing the working class as it is the cause of all problems. The capitalists are quite conscious and acutely aware of the potential power of the workers. The capitalist governments are passing anti-working class legislation in order to continue depriving the working class of the right to organise and the right to strike. The capitalists will only undertake reform in order to strengthen the capitalist system. The working,class is basically disunited. There are no united struggles of the entire working class, and the capitalists have been able to split the working class into as many sections as possible. The Socialist Party maintains that in order to fight any battle with the capitalists, the unity of the entire working class is absolutely necessary and essential. Socialism was not built automatically but through a protracted process of class warfare. The abolition of classes is not achieved by dissipating the class struggle, but by its intensification.

Food For Thought. Reading Notes.

 In one article in the book, "The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2009)" Michael Specter writes in his article "Big Foot",referring to one's carbon footprint, "Greenhouse gas emissions have risen rapidly in the past two centuries, and levels today are higher at any time in at least the past 650,000 years. In 199 each of the six billion people on earth was responsible, on average, for one ton of carbon emissions. Oceans and forests can absorb about half that amount. Although specific estimates vary, scientists and policy officials increasingly agree that allowing emissions to continue at the current rate would induce dramatic changes in the global climate system. To avoid the most catastrophic effects of those changes, we will have to hold emissions steady in the next decade, and then reduce them to at least 60 to 80% by the middle of the century... Members of Congress tried repeatedly to introduce legislation to reduce sulphur dioxide levels, but the Reagan administration (as well as many elected officials, both Democratic and Republican, from regions where sulphur- rich coal is mined,) opposed any controls, fearing that they would harm the economy. When the cost of polluting is negligible, so are the incentives to reducing emissions." In other words, as we continually point out, to pollute or not, is a matter of the impacts on profits, and that alone. Specter later writes that he believes the market will solve the problems of pollution and mitigate global warming through a carbon trading system on the market whereby levels of pollution are set and those who exceed them would be able to buy credits from those who pollute less (cap and trade). In baseball, each team has a salary cap that cannot be exceeded or a fine will be imposed. The richest team, the New York Yankees, continually ignore the cap and buy just whoever they want, fines be damned. So it would be with carbon emissions. Capital will win out in capitalism. John Ayers.

Going Beyond The Unions

FOR A  NEW WORLD WITHOUT MONEY

The assumption, in our present system, is that workers may not be allowed to make fair wages, if it means employers are forced to take less profit for themselves.  It doesn’t matter that the corporate CEO makes millions, or that the shareholders make millions.  The system defends, at all costs, against a billionaire having to make do with one less jet or yacht. This is why the workers are screwed, big time and all the time.

Unions were the first means of defence developed by the working class in its struggle against capitalist exploitation. They were the result of concerted efforts by workers to organise and fight collectively for better working conditions, wage increases and a shorter working day. The establishment and organisation of unions is no gift from the capitalist class, but the result of the workers’ struggles against their exploiters. A glance at the miserable life imposed by capitalists on the unorganized workers in the early 1800s and the struggle to set up the first unions best illustrates this step forward. It also shows how the first unions developed in open conflict with capitalist legality. Working conditions were intolerable before unions were organised. The working day in factories had no limit other than the physical exhaustion of the worker. Workers needed union organizations to wage united struggles and develop labour solidarity so to present a common front against the employers and also the government. Revolutionary political education and socialist thought have been part and parcel of the union movement from the beginning.

What every worker must realise is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the causes which is capitalism but only its symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system as Marx points out, and not against the system itself.

When we fight for a demand like a pay rise, we are merely fighting against the effects of capitalism. Not merely that. We are demanding it from the capitalists. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it by socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles.

Trade unions as we explained are not revolutionary organisations and fight only for limited demands within the system. Furthermore, once rank-and-file workers force the boss to recognise the union (and they must force it; bosses never volunteer to deal with a militant union), the next step for the bosses is to attempt to reverse that workers’ victory. The bosses attempt this because a strong, militant union will eat into their profits and because such a union will become a vehicle for still greater struggle by the workers. Out of this struggle longer-range, revolutionary ideas and goals may be learned. Within it are the seeds of understanding necessary to final overthrow of the system which can take root. What is wrong is to limit ourselves always to trade union struggles.

We do not, of course, therefore oppose trade union struggles or refuse to participate in them. Very often, it is only in the course of these fights, that the workers learn about the system of capitalist exploitation and the need to abolish it. Trade union struggles can educate the workers. What is wrong is to stop at that stage, limiting ourselves always to trade union struggles. Workers, at some stage, should transform the economic struggle into a political struggle for the capture of state power by the working class. If we do this we would be doing revolutionary work. Otherwise we will invariably sink into the morass of reformism. We should prepare for revolutionary action to overthrow the system of exploitation itself. We must not only fight for wage increases. We must go further and abolish the wage system itself.

The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation and it can only be realised by the workers themselves being master over production. The employing class have never concerned themselves with the positive aspect of socialism, which is the liberation of the working class from all forms of oppression and exploitation and the assurance of abundance and freedom for all. Their idea of what socialism is, is simple enough. It is the threat to the profits and privileges they derive from their ownership of the means of production and exchange which socialism would abolish. Socialism is uncompromisingly opposed to capitalism. But if socialists were merely an anti-capitalist movement and nothing else, it would be exceedingly primitive, simple-minded and even subject to all sorts of reactionary perversions. If it simply took the view that what is good for the capitalist class is bad for the working class, that what hurts the capitalist class automatically promotes the interest of the working class, or that the aim of the working-class movement is to take revenge against capitalists for their exploitation and oppression – it wouldn’t have the progressive character which gives it its fundamental power. Feudalism, for example, is opposed to capitalism and stands in the way of its development. But the feudal opposition to capitalism has never promoted the interests of the working class and it never merited the name or the support of socialism.

 

TOWARDS WORLD SOCIALISM

Workers, enraged by capitalist exploitation, at one time unleashed their fury against the modern machines which were the means of exploiting them. But the smashing of the machines which took the place of primitive handwork was, at bottom, futile and reactionary; and even if it was painful to the capitalist, it did not advance the interests of the working class.  Socialism opposes capitalism only from the standpoint of promoting the interests of the working class, only from the standpoint of speeding the working class to control of the economic and political power throughout the world, only from the standpoint that this control alone will enable society as a whole to dispense with all forms of class rule and therewith develop in full freedom from all social fetters. The more acute the problems of society become, the more urgently the working class is called upon to break all its ties with capitalism and to resolve these problems in a socialist democratic way. If the working class fails to destroy capitalism it will suffer the penalty of its own destruction.

Stopping war crimes

After a fourteen day trial, a group of activists known as the Thales Ten (members of Glasgow Palestine Action) received their verdict in Glasgow Sheriff Court last week. Five were convicted, and five acquitted, of the crime of breach of the peace. The group scaled onto the roof and blockaded entrances to the Thales UK factory on 23rd September, 2014 in response to the war in Gaza. They hung a fifty foot Palestine flag and several banners. One read: ‘Another Scotland is Possible: Stop Arming Israel’.

Human Rights Watch documented 87 killings through drone strikes on the Gaza Strip during the Israeli named ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in 2008-9. Thales manufacture components for Israeli drones at the plant in Glasgow. According to their own trade regulations, the UK is not allowed to sell arms to countries that violate international law. Concerning arms sales, criterion six of the Consolidated EU and National Export Licensing Criteria compels the British government to take into account the buyer’s respect for international law. The United Nations mandated Goldstone Report, investigating the conduct of the belligerents during ‘Operation Cast Lead’, contained damning evidence of Israel’s violations of international law.

Strikes at the Museum

The Public and Commercial Services union said 120 members at the National Museum of Scotland were due to take part in seven days of strike action over the removal of a weekend allowance from staff. The strike will begin on Monday. The action is part of a union campaign, now in its 18 month, to get the allowance reinstated for all staff working on a Saturday and Sunday. National Museums Scotland (NMS) withdrew the allowance for new staff. It resulted in two rates of pay for staff working weekends, those who get the allowance because they were employed before 2011, and those who do not.

The withdrawal of the allowance could reduce an individual's pay by £2,000 to £3,000.

Lynn Henderson, Scottish secretary of the PCS, said: "Our members are determined to win this dispute. It is heartening to note that the support is as strong with members who get the allowance as with those who don't. We call on NMS management and the Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop to right this wrong. It is one thing to say that you oppose austerity measures and low pay but when it's in your gift to do something about it, for relatively little money, the Scottish government choose to do nothing about it.” 

The Revolutionary Working Class

Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed every-day. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the big banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our labour. The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the world capitalist system. There is only one class capable of conducting the struggle for a successful socialist revolution. That class is the working class. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win!

All the resources for a world of abundance, without pollution, disease and squalor, exist at the present time in skill, technique and science. They are the same resources used to produce pollution and destruction. They cannot be used for constructive purposes till the capitalist system of profit-making is overthrown. Grim reality teaches that the alternative posed by Marx and Engels of democratic socialism or barbarism has been transformed into a united world socialist society or annihilation. While capitalism remains, the resources produced by the labour of the workers will be squandered. Marx did not speak of ‘state-socialism’ [state-capitalism], which he opposed strongly, but of "the association of free and equal producers", directing their work themselves. It is not possible for a centralised bureaucracy of planners and experts to ascertain all needs, prescribe all the work and supervise all the processes in their details; all the proposed systems lead to arbitrariness in distribution by a ruling minority. Self-rule of the free and equal producers, on the one hand, is able to regulate production and distribution without difficulty.

Humanity is at a crossroads. Capitalism’s continued rule offers humanity nothing but more wars, more mass acts of terror and grinding exploitation and poverty. The capitalist system was erected on unspeakable violence, Cromwell and Robespierre weren’t known for squeamish scruples. The world’s working class, the one class with no essential interest in oppression or exploitation, has the potential to put an end to capitalist barbarism. If it rises up to overthrow the capitalists in revolutions the planet over, it can take hold of the productive power of the world economy to put an end to poverty and build a world of abundance for all. It can end the racism, chauvinism and sex and gender oppression that thrives on capitalism’s world of want and competition. Only by building a global socialist movement can the working class prepare itself for the titanic task of undoing the disasters the capitalists keep making—and building a new world in their place. A socialist society is not created by steps toward socialism. Socialism is a result of conscious social building, planned and conducted by the organised workers who have won political power and supported by the majority of the population. There are no short cuts. There are several parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. We have important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary phrases, but underneath they are defenders of capitalism.

Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and exchange, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development. Much can perhaps be added to this definition, but anything less you can call whatever you wish, but it will not be socialism.

Marxism is our guide to action. We need the theory because it helps us win. But it is not the Party’s personal property. It belongs to the working class and is a mighty weapon of the working class. It is the business of all advanced workers to grasp this theory and use it in the struggle to liberate our class. The struggle for worldwide socialist system is long and arduous. Unfortunately, the movement of the working class does not proceed in a straight line. Setbacks are inevitable, but they cannot erase the class struggle which must go on until it has been solved by the removal of exploiting classes. The working class is revolutionary because it must be.

Never Enough Money

On June 12, Statistics Canada said that for every dollar Canadian householders earn, they owe $1.63 in consumer credit, mortgages, and other loans. This is among the highest of all time and shows the depth of the faltering economy and the desperation out there. It's high time we got rid of all debt and its attendant anxiety. John Ayers.

Compassion? It Depends On What Matters

In its issue of June 6, The Toronto Star focused on the plight of an eighty-five year-old who is being evicted from her apartment in New York's Little Italy. The bitter irony of it is that the woman, although a child of Italian immigrants, the building's new owners who want her out are the Italian-American museum. She can afford the current rent of $820 a month but not the five fold increase demanded by the new owners. This shows that under capitalism compassion and feeling for fellow compatriots count for nothing, beside war of course where you are expected to fight for king and country, only money does. John Ayers.