Talking Socialism

THE TRUTH HURTS

Capitalism does not know how to abolish poverty, hunger or war – but we socialists do! If capitalism, with its system of production for profit – with its international rivalry for domination of foreign territories and trade, which produces one war after another – if capitalist, which keeps millions exploited, by its wage system, – if this system cannot give peace and plenty to its people, socialism will.

Today with the global economy recovering from a protracted recession, rising unemployment and draconian austerity policies, working people are increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo. However, this discontent does not necessarily translate into support for the socialist option. While there are many reasons for this, one of the most important is that at the present time the socialist alternative does not appear so attractive to many. First of all, the word “socialism” is in the popular consciousness was closely associated with the former USSR and Eastern Europe. While these state-capitalist regimes were not socialist – for socialism means that the workers hold power, not a handful of privileged bureaucrats yet we never stop hearing that these countries typified socialism

Socialism means production for use and not for profit. Socialism means internationalism. It means that one working class is not pitted against the others in wars. It means that one worker is not pitted against the other in the fight for a job. The criteria for production in socialism would be – how much is needed? Some people will argue that it can’t work, it’s a utopia. We can only answer that capitalism has already ably demonstrated that it cannot work. A society organised on the basis of production for use would have more of a chance of working than our present economic system. The thing to observe is that for decades those who claim to be political leaders have never been able to devise any kind of plan to solve the basic ills of capitalism. They all seek to do the impossible: make capitalism work. Wars every few years years, untold misery, poverty and unemployment are the living proven facts that prove that capitalism doesn’t work – not for the working class, anyway. Our mission is not to preserve capitalism.

Socialism is a word that has been so misused for so long that it is worth re-stating its basic principles. Socialism means that the means of production are owned and controlled by society so that what is produced can be shared out according to people’s needs. Do we have a blueprint for a socialist society? Can we envision what such a society looks like? If we rely on the people, if we pool our own collective experiences we can. If more workers are to be won to the cause of socialism it is clear that we must greatly advance in our ability to explain the advantages of a socialist world and how we can achieve it. Socialism means expanding democracy, freedom not just in the political sense but economic liberation – freedom from want. Our compass for where we are finally headed should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end foremost in mind so to not to lose our way. We have a world of plenty. All around us are the signs that we can produce more than enough for everyone. If production is planned and its products shared fairly, there is no reason why anyone should be short of anything – nor why the environment should be polluted and destroyed in the process. We can end the dirty work and the drudgery. As for possessions, the whole point of common ownership of the means of production is that more is produced and distributed, not less. To every one according to needs, from everyone according to ability.

Working people will own the industries, plan the industries and work for themselves and not for the capitalist class. Socialism means a change in the relations of production. With socialism, control of production, the plan of production, determination of working conditions, are in the hands of the workers themselves. The working class and the minorities must vigorously oppose every transgression upon their civil and constitutional rights, from whatever quarter they come, and utilise every safeguard provided by law. But they cannot entrust the protection of their liberties to the capitalists or expect the powers-that-be to stop or eradicate the menace of authoritarianism. Class-conscious workers should not fall into the trap of demanding infringements of anyone’s civil rights, including those of the fascists.

We must be sure to stress that this new society do not exist in some text, nor can they be mechanically transposed from some other country. They will be defined and forged by the working people as we all advance in our struggle.

RISE is risible

Marx and Engels supported only certain nationalist struggles on the basis that it would help further development of the capitalist mode of production and opposed others which would retard that development. However, capitalism has now spread to every corner of the globe and every country is ruled by the laws of capitalism whether they wish it or not. For left nationalists, though, independence and “socialism” go together and that this struggle must be waged simultaneously because, according to their logic, independence is essential to socialism (in fact, some rank it above socialism). The Left nationalist puts the question of socialism on ice, shelving the struggle for socialism and replacing it with demands for reforms. Many of the Trotskyist groups, for example, have become Scottish separatists. The Trotskyists say they want to “radicalise” the movement for independence yet can we forget that one of the promoters of RISE sat alongside business leaders on the Yes campaign during the referendum debate.

One telling characteristic of the Left is that, although they are forever dividing, they always end up uniting to divide the working class movement. They become in favour of Scottish independence because this point of view is currently popular among Scots. As far as they are concerned the working class is too retarded in political consciousness to take up the socialist struggle. It needs a transitional programme of wishful promises. RISE’s basic belief is that the Scottish worker is more radical than his or her English counter-part. But being anti-Tory doesn’t necessarily correspond to being more socialist.  Yet many of workers’ struggles in Scotland and England have been linked together and the victory of each often depends on the other.  The Scottish, Welsh and English working class have not developed separately but, because of capitalism, have developed as part of one united working class. Independence may rupture the united British working class movement at trade union level. Scottish independence would disrupt the unity of the working class fueling the myths of national brotherhood between exploiters and exploited.  In reality, a socialist transformation of Scotland could only take place in a British (European and World) context. Mass movements would take place also in Wolverhampton and Walsall, as well as in Glasgow and Greenock. A socialist transformation would be on a world scale. There is no Scottish road to socialism. For there can be no socialist Scotland, socialism is global or it is not socialism. The Scottish working class is exploited in the same way as the English working class: by the English, Scottish and international capitalist class. The bosses organises internationally and those sympathetic towards RISE want to ensure our class doesn’t do the same.

The task before workers in Scotland and the UK is to join in struggle against their common enemy, whether they wave the Union flag or the Saltire. The overriding goal is not to build new, smaller states but to end the nation state system through social revolution. The Socialist Party stands for the overthrow of capitalism and a precondition for this is the unity of the working class in this common struggle for socialism. RISE offer the same stale promises of the old Labour Party all dressed up in new clothes. Although they speak of “socialism” against “capitalism,” they do not propose the overthrow of capitalism, the working-class conquest of power, the expropriation of the capitalists; their basis is still the same basis of capitalism, of capitalist democracy, of the capitalist State, and therefore the outcome can only be the same. Their only proposals are for the constitutionally re-organisation of capitalism by re-locating the Parliament and government. This is precisely its value to capitalism, to act as a diversion for workers in the name of phrases of “socialism.”

Socialists must tell the workers the truth. And the truth is that nationalism, regardless of how it is camoflaged with Marxist terminology, represents no way forward for the working people. The establishment of a separate Scottish state is the creation of a capitalist state. Scotland envisage by RISE (and particularly if in coalition with the Green Party) would be thousands of small businesses thriving. There's no virtue in being a small business. They make their money the same way as large ones, by paying workers less than the value that they produce. Often the working conditions of small businesses are no improvement on bigger enterprises: wages tend to be lower, insecurity of employment higher, less health and safety oversight making the work riskier, the pollution worse. Left nationalists such as RISE are simply spouting populist rhetoric. Being against big business but in favour of small business shows little understanding of capitalism or of class.

Somehow in this "socialist" Scotland profit would no longer be the raison d'être
of businesses (even if they were cooperatives). The logic of capitalist production is the preservation of the capital invested and the creation of surplus-value – the origin of profits. This is a logic which is fundamental and cannot be suspended. Instead of being siphoned off to shareholders (who would of course receive fair compensation for their loss), the surpluses produced by workers would be used to increase wages, reduce hours, improve working conditions. Socially owned companies such as workers co-operatives or council-owned.  Banks would become more like building societies again or nationalised.  The creation of community banks or credit unions is not really doing anything that is in anyway revolutionary. It's definitely not challenging capitalism and property ownership. It is not questioning the parasitic relationship of capitalist production which is all about money -- money expanding into more money, the accumulation of capital.  Yes, their vision of a "socialist Scotland" is a nice and not a nasty capitalism. Left-wing nationalists  imagine that businesses in their " socialist" Scotland will no longer be concerned with costs or competition or commercial confidentiality or market share. But capitalism is now more than ever a global system of production. Competition is a fact of life for the capitalist mode of production. It has destructive effects upon the lives of working people. However, competition is also frequently destructive to capital. It is so destructive that large capitalists try to eliminate competition by buying up competitors, ruining them in various ways or forming cartels and monopolies. For one country to be competitive means having a higher productivity, lower labour-costs and lower infrastructure and taxation costs than another country.  Capital looks for places where production can be set up with low wages, low taxation, low levels of regulation and few restrictions on pollution. To be such a competitive location for capital investment – on any serious scale – would require that advanced capitalist countries such as Scotland will have to lower wages, taxation, regulation, welfare provision and pollution regulations to a standard level or below the current average available in Asia, Eastern Europe elsewhere. Or increase productivity to such a high level that massive levels of relative over-production would occur and increase pollution and resource destruction. Competition on the world level requires mass-production and mass-production conducted with fewer and fewer workers. And if each country adopts this path – a competitive race to the bottom of welfare standards will ensue. So increased competition will lower wages, lower environmental standards, lead to more exhaustion of raw material resources and more crises down the competitive road of economic growth.

Of course, the solution RISE will present to save their "socialist" Scotland will be by increased taxation. Taxation, is revenue extracted from wages, salaries, profits and sales of commodities. Under capitalism wages and salaries come from the payment for two main types of labour – productive-labour and unproductive-labour. Productive-labour is that which is employed by capital and preserves value as well as creating surplus-value. This value and surplus-value is the source of money-capital from which, wages, profits, rents, interest and those taxes collected from these sources, is paid. In other words surplus-value is the source of direct tax revenue for governments. Even the taxes paid on consumption also comes out of the wages and salaries of workers which have their origins in surplus-value.

 The oppression and exploitation of working people is a product of capitalist society and can only be removed by the genuine socialist transformation of society, not pretend state- or municipal- “socialist” imaginations of a make-believe Scotland. This requires the unity of all workers, irrespective of nation, colour, creed, sex or language. It is our role as socialists to put across the case for socialism openly and honestly and not try to dupe our fellow workers into joining through the advocacy of so-called "transitional demands" and the like. The only way capitalism will come to an end is if a majority of workers decide to consciously replace it with non-market, non-statist alternative. Members of the Socialist Party understand well the urge to do something now, to make a change. That makes us all the more determined, however, to get the message across, to gather together our fellow workers to clear away the barrier of the wages system, so that we can begin to build a truly human society.

Wake Up, Workers

Socialism — what fear and anger the word arouses in the minds of the rulers of society! Daily the press pours out its denunciation and men in high places issue their warnings and threats against it. Socialism is dictatorship, it means bloodshed, wholesale murder and destruction. It means the collapse of orderly society, the breakdown of production, and consequent misery and poverty. Thus speak those whom socialism threatens with the loss of their privileges to amass wealth at the expense of the misery and poverty of the masses. Why does socialism arouse such dread and anger among the exploiters of the workers? Why do they fear it so? The answers to these questions are to be found in the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels — who first formulated the principles of the socialist movement.

Marx and Engels said that the history of the past was the history of a class struggle. They said that in each period of the past there appeared a ruling class — rich, powerful, living in luxury and splendor — and an exploited class which worked hard and long but enjoyed little of the wealth it brought into existence. They said that in the past the struggle between these classes had resulted either “in the revolutionary reconstruction of society or the common ruin of the contending classes.” In modern society this struggle presents itself, they said, in a conflict between the capitalists who own the factories, mines and mills and the means of production generally, and the workers who have to sell their labour power to these capitalists in order to earn a living. They said that since the capitalists own the things that the workers must use in order to earn a living, the capitalists have the whip-hand and that they compel workers to sell their labour power for much less than the value of what they produce. In fact they argued that the workers usually receive in the wages paid them only just enough to buy the necessities for a poor sort of living for themselves and to provide for the raising of children so that the line of workers might not be exhausted. The workers produce the amount of wealth they receive in wages in two, three, or four hours, depending upon the technical development of industry, but they are compelled to keep on working up to eight, ten, or twelve hours and during the hours they work over and above the time required to produce their wages they produce “surplus value” for the boss. They said that naturally the workers attempted to improve their standard of living by an effort to secure more of the wealth they produced and that the capitalists resisted this effort of the workers in order to keep as much as possible of the product of industry for themselves as profits, and that, consequently, the there was a class war between the workers and capitalists. The working class are the grave-diggers of capitalism and the builders of the new world.

A better world is of course possible, if we ourselves make it possible, but a worse one is too! Capitalism has outlived itself as a world system. It has ceased to fulfill its essential mission, the increase of human power and human wealth. Humanity cannot stand still at the level which it has reached. Only a powerful increase in productive forces and a sound, planned, that is, socialist, organization of production and distribution can assure humanity—all humanity—of a decent standard of life and at the same time give it the precious feeling of freedom with respect to its own economy. Freedom in two senses—first of all, human beings collectively will no longer be compelled to devote the greater part of his or her life to physical labour. Second, he or she will no longer be dependent on the laws of the market, that is, on those blind and dark forces.

The Capitalist Reich

We come before you as an organisation advocating the principles of world socialism; that is, we seek a change in the basis of society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities. Workers, although they produce all the wealth of society, have no control over its production or distribution. People are treated as a mere appendage to capital - as a part of its machinery. This must be altered from the foundation: the land, the capital, the machinery, factories, workshops, stores and offices, means of transport, mines, all means of production and distribution of wealth, must be declared and treated as the common property of all. The waste now incurred by the pursuit of profit and the amount of labour necessary for every individual to perform in order to carry on the essential work of the world will be reduced to something like two or three hours daily; so that everyone will have abundant leisure for following intellectual or cultural or sporting pursuits.  The Socialist Party aims at the realisation of complete socialism, and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all the world. For us neither geographical boundaries, political history, race, nor creed makes rivals or enemies; for us there are no nations, but only varied masses of workers and friends, whose mutual sympathies are checked or perverted by various ruling classes masters whose interest it is to stir up rivalries and hatreds between the dwellers in different lands. Socialism will be worldwide and universal, or it will be nothing.

Wage-workers are ravaged by this global scourge with lost jobs and low pay, wage freezes and wage cuts, downsized and diminished benefits, factory closures, out-sourcing and casualisation of labour along with strike-breaking and union-busting. What does the future hold for the working class? The prophets of profits talk of “free markets” and “free trade”. But how about freeing workers from wage-slavery? Marx said that the governments of the various countries were merely committees for administering the affairs, protecting the property interests, of the whole capitalist class of these countries. He said that all social institutions reflect the changes that take place in the economic life of a nation and that these institutions foster, and protect the economic owners of society in their private ownership and control. But capital today has become so absolutely global. To be effective socialists must array the workers’ Internationale against international capitalism.

They tell us progress and prosperity will ultimately trickle down. And we always ask “when?” and keep waiting. Working people have produced more wealth than the total output of mankind since the dawn of civilisation. But the gap between the rich and the poor is wider and deeper than ever in history. Despite all the advances in technology, billions today still have no food on their tables, nor clothes on their backs or roofs over their heads. The last 100 years of capitalism has been a century of over-abundance for the owners of capital and utter deprivation for those who live only by the sale of their labour. Is this the meaning of capitalist progress and civilization? Capitalism has been a history of wars and civil wars. Paradoxically, the esteemed professors and intellectuals teach that it is socialism rather than capitalism that is passé. Revolutionary movements which predicted the fall of capitalism are now likened to religious sects which prophesise the end of the world. But let these conceited academics beware the lesson of history. The barons of capital will be no different from the feudal lords and slaveholders of yore who thought they would rule forever. The capitalist reich will not last a thousand years. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

 But capitalism isn't going to end without a struggle. Nowhere is labour going to triumph without standing united against the foe. Socialism is coming but whether it be sooner or later depends upon us! The Socialist Party’s exists to make Socialists, and there is only one way of doing that — by teaching socialism, true socialism, revolutionary socialism, world socialism. Socialism must be seen as feasible and practical so that people are convinced that it will work. Socialist have find out from workers what they want most, and they must explain this in terms of and they must make the workers want more — make them want the Revolution. We must do this in words which can be understood immediately by the workers, in terms of their own lives. Our message is that all workers belong to the working class and must be conscious of it; that all the sources of wealth belong to the capitalist class — who are conscious of it; that this wealth must become the property of the workers before they can control their own lives

Man is a god to man

ALL THINGS ARE HELD IN COMMON

People will be guaranteed security, democracy, equality and peace only when our world is run on an entirely different basis than it is now; only when a socialist system replaces the present capitalist one. Anti-socialists charge us with fomenting the class war as though we had invented it! It is not by shutting our eyes to the war which divides and exhausts humanity that we shall arrive at the desired peace. The war of every moment is threefold:

War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. Man becomes a wolf for his fellow-man. It is a question of eating one’s brother or being eaten by him.

War between workers and workers for the sharing of wages.

War between capitalists and capitalists for the sharing of profits.

General insecurity has become the normal condition of society. More and more has capitalist society proved its failure to produce anything from a superabundance of riches; of means of consumption and happiness, but misery, suffering, ruin and death! The solution of the social problem is to be found in the problem itself, such as I have just given in a short exposition. The greatest socio-economic evil of today consists in the ever more complete divorce of the two factors in production, labour and property or capital, and consequently the remedy can be found only in their unification. Under what form ought this unification to be effected? It is only collectively that the workers can and ought to possess the means of wealth (mines, railways, factories, etc.) socially operated. Capitalist evolution itself supplies the necessary elements, material and intellectual, of this appropriation and of this production by and for society now become a vast co-operative commonwealth. This economic expropriation—which would allow to the expropriated full participation in the benefits accruing from social appropriation—must be preceded by a political expropriation.

The state–the police, army, courts, bureaucracy and similar institutions–is set up and controlled by this capitalist class. These big businessmen–the bourgeoisie,–consistently use the police, army and courts to break workers’ strikes and generally to put down the rebellions of the poor who own little or no means of production. The police and military are never called out against the bankers and CEOs. In short, this state is a bourgeois dictatorship. This does not mean there is a dictatorship in this country of one or several men. It does mean there is a class dictatorship, where a tiny handful of profit-makers rules society and uses the state as their machine to suppress the working people. Most people do not think of their country as a dictatorship because the relationship of different classes is usually concealed. The monopoly capitalists do not openly admit their rule. Instead they claim that this is a democracy where everyone shares power and takes part in running the government. In fact, the bourgeoisie is no more willing to “share” power with the majority of people than it is to share the ownership of the means of production and the wealth that comes from this. For them to function as a capitalist class, they must exploit the working class; and to exploit the workers, who constantly resist this exploitation and oppression, they must use the state to suppress the workers. The ruling class goes to great lengths to cover up their dictatorship under the mask of democracy, for it is extremely difficult for a minority of exploiters to rule by force alone.

Of course the ruling class has been forced to grant the workers some democratic rights such as the right to vote, free speech, free press, etc. But these freedoms, like everything else in capitalist society, have their class content: they mean one thing to the ruling class and quite another for the workers. For the capitalists, freedom of the press and free speech, as examples, mean the right to fill the air-waves and daily newspapers with their propaganda and lies and to use them freely to debate with each other. For the capitalists, elections are a way to settle differences among themselves, while making it look like everybody has equal say. For the working class, democratic rights are the fruits of previous struggles, and we fight to preserve them for they make it easier to organize and mobilize for the day when the capitalists will be overthrown. Nevertheless democratic rights for the masses are primarily a sham, a mask, to cover the real dictatorship of the capitalists. This becomes especially clear when democratic rights come into conflict with the most basic “freedom” of bourgeois society–the right of the capitalists to their “private property” and to exploit the labor of the workers. In the final analysis all their talk about democracy boils down to one thing. The ruling class decides by struggle and compromise within its own ranks, and among its paid politicians, how it will maintain its system of exploitation over the people. Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich–that is the democracy of capitalist society. This situation can only be reversed by socialist revolution to overthrow capitalist rule.

There will be an end to all class distinction and consequently an end to the class-war. All the members of society are at once and with equal title co-owners and co-producers. The State, in the oppressive sense of the word, will cease to exist, it being nothing more than a means of maintaining artificially, by force, order that a system of society, founded on the antagonism of interests would naturally give birth to. The government of men gives place to the administration of things. It is the reign of social peace and harmony. Commercial production of exchange-values with an end to realising profit will disappear, and be replaced by the co-operative production of use-values for consumption with a view to satisfying social wants. In place of robbing and exploiting one another, we will all help one another. Homo homini Deus, “Man is a god to man”.

When everyone in society can share equally in mental and manual work, in producing goods and services and managing the affairs of society; when the outlook of the working class, putting the common good above narrow, individual interests, has become second nature to members of society; when goods and services can be produced so abundantly that money is no longer needed to exchange them and they can be distributed to people solely according to their needs; then society will have reached socialism. Classes will have been completely eliminated, and the state as such will be replaced by the common administration of society by all its members. As this happens, throughout the world, mankind will have scaled a great mountain and will look out on a whole new horizon.

Glasgow: New slums for old (1962)

From the May 1962 issue of the Socialist  Standard In Glasgow recently, the press gave a great deal of publicity to the collapse of a tenement in the Gorbals. Photographs of this victim of old age and disrepair were spectacular, showing one side of the building minus a wall and exposing a rabbit warren interior where the tenants lived, ate and slept. To the newspapers it was a one-day sensation. To the Socialist it was something much more. Glasgow Corporation's publication Industry on the Move (January, 1959),  has this to say about the nightmare living conditions of workers in the city: There are over 80,000 people living at more than three persons to a room. And dealing with certain parts of Glasgow: These central districts home more than half a million people. In these areas most of the people have to share toilet facilities; only one house in five has an an internal water closet—and few of the houses have a bath. The promise of better housing for the working class was, of course, in the programmes of all the reformist parties in the recent municipal election. Indeed, the last Labour-controlled council had the audacity to boast of their record and point to the new housing schemes on the city outskirts and their "overspill" programme, as solutions to the workers' plight. "Overspill" is a scheme to get Glasgow workers housed in another town. It is proving far from popular, even among the desperate, as it sometimes involves moving great distances, and suitable jobs are not always available in the new areas. A sorry commentary on the housing schemes in the outskirts can be found almost daily in the Glasgow newspapers, in the forms of warrant sales. These are sales of household effects of workers hopelessly in debt. Many of them are in the homes of workers who live on the new housing estates and it is not hard to understand why. Although these houses are superior to the slums (it would be difficult for them to be inferior), the rent is almost invariably higher. This, coupled with the increase expense of travelling to and from work, lands many workers in the position of seeing their sticks of furniture compulsorily sold. In a single day recently in Drumchapel, there were five warrant sales in one street. To those who have lived in a single room, the change to a three or four roomed dwelling with interior water closet and bath must seem like Utopia. But when you consider that such places were built mainly of the cheapest possible materials, it does not take much imagination to recognise them as the slums of the not-too-distant future. Already, peeling plaster, shrunken doors and badly made window frames bear silent witness to the shoddiness of production for profit. And the grim irony of it all is that a physical shortage of houses does not exist in Glasgow. Like so many problems confronting Glaswegians and their brothers elsewhere, it is really one of poverty—the sheer inability to afford a decent place to live in. How then can this problem be solved within the present social set-up? The answer is a simple one. It cannot. But this is not something which our Tory, Labour and other opponents are telling workers during the current local elections. They can be safely trusted to carry on flying in the face of fact and promising to remedy this evil which is as old as Capitalism itself. It is left to the Socialist candidate contesting North Kelvin Ward to point out the unpalatable truth and to give the only answer, Socialism. Glaswegian.

Against All False Idols

The Socialist Party, being a voice of the needs and aspirations of the working class, takes as its aim the emancipation, by means of class struggle, of the whole working population from the yoke of capitalist society. To this end, the Socialist Party, linked to the World Socialist Movement is carrying on the struggle for the total transformation of society. The working class will take possession of the means of production (land, mines, factories, means of communication), which in the hands of the capitalists are the means of exploiting and oppressing the working masses, and will make them into social property. By suppressing the division of society into classes, workers will put an end to the exploitation of man by man, and will make it possible for all people to enjoy the fruits of their own and collective labour.

Nationalism is a bourgeois ideology which developed with the emergence of nations and the rise and development of capitalism. Nationalism serves the bourgeoisie in the sense that they are seeking a market for their goods, and their national market is always primary as capitalism develops. And nationalism serves to help that bourgeoisie secure its national market. It is nationalism that can divide the workers so that the workers of one nationality are struggling against the workers of another nationality for a few illusory crumbs the rulers throw out exactly for that purpose! It is nationalism that can pit groups of workers against each other with the most hideous rage, while their mutual oppressors skip off with both their purses for a little sun and fun. Nationalism means exclusivism and isolation. Any nationalism finally implies that those people are better than all others. We are the victims of nationalism that preaches superiority and inferiority. We have seen its obscene terror and oppression. We are not fighting so that we can put these on somebody else. Nationalism ultimately does not serve the real interests of the masses of that nationality. As ironic as this sounds, nationalism does not even ultimately serve the nation. This is true and has been proven correct time and again. Nationalism after a certain point isolates the oppressed people from their allies and delivers them into the hands of the exploiters and reactionaries of their own nationality. Zionism should teach us this more forcibly than anything else, how even the most “justifiable” nationalism, taken to its logical conclusion, can end up justifying the repression of almost anybody else outside the nation. The struggle that unifies the working class completely must be the struggle to abolish capitalism forever.

Despite recurring crises of the capitalist economy, capitalist society will not collapse spontaneously. Capitalism requires the conscious actions of the people to over-throw it. The victory of the working class, the destruction of the economic and social bases of the possessing classes, the putting into practice of the principles of the planned socialist economy – all these will lead to the creation of the classless society, where there will be no exploited or exploiters, nor class struggles, and all the efforts of society will be deployed to the common good. From the moment of the revolution and the establishment of the classless society it will make possible the complete achievement of socialist democracy and the abolition of the State. Society will then determine for itself the forms of its confederations and its organisational structure. The victory of socialism means the emancipation of all humanity. Socialism will create not only the new economic and social order, but also the higher civilisation of free mankind.

Religion is a social phenomenon in present-day society. Hence no amount of merely negative and critical propaganda can destroy it. Hence, to seek to abolish religion in a society founded on exploitation is futile. The ancient Greek and Roman freethinkers such as Epicurus and Lucretius demolished every theological argument as well as their modern successors have done, but when Paganism passed from the scene it was Christianity, not Atheism, which took its place. Only the positive achievement of a classless society can do that by abolishing its causes. It follows that religion cannot die out or be abolished in a class society, it follows equally and by the same reasoning that it could not survive inside socialism. Once a socialist society is fully established the twin foundations of religion, ignorance and fear, will be torn up by the roots. Socialism, by doing away with class exploitation and by developing to the fullest possible extent the unfathomed productive potentialities of the modern-age, hitherto hardly touched under capitalism, would make poverty and insecurity absolutely meaningless terms in an age of universal plenty. Whilst war, the third partner in the unholy capitalist trinity, would necessarily pass into oblivion along with the competitive capitalism and imperialism which is its sole efficient cause. All the social roots of religion would thus simultaneously disappear. And, of course, it goes without saying that the last remains of barbaric ignorance and superstition which still survive from pre-civilised eras would vanish before the impact of universal free education based on the scientific humanism that is inseparable from socialism, and no longer twisted as today by class domination into a mere machine for producing standardised wage-slaves, mechanical minders of machines, and servile robots. Whosoever therefore is capable of reasoning scientifically from cause to effect must realise that socialism means inevitably the definitive end of religion; which, deprived of all reason for existence, would become a mere anachronism in such a society. Religion becomes ever more obviously a parasite. With world socialism we shall arrive at that pleasing state of things where the Social Revolution will destroy religion by abolishing its effective causes and humanity itself takes the place of god.

In the meantime, the Socialist Party continues its necessary propaganda against all manifestations of capitalism, including those which belong to the sphere of religion. Whether it is necessary to attack religion specifically depends on local and on particular circumstances, but every reactionary movement of the Churches in our current society should be exposed. In all fairness we must draw attention to such movements as those of the Lollards and Anabaptists which were anti-ruling-class, and in some cases, even ‘communistic’ in their tenets. It is undeniable that such movements existed, that they reflected their contemporary class antagonisms and were, even, to a certain extent, revolutionary in their relation to contemporary states and society. To that extent accordingly they must be excempt from the strictures passed above on their official counterparts, the ‘orthodox’ churches.  We must also add, however, that their ‘communism’ was pre-scientific and therefore backward -looking: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span where was then the gentleman?’, as the Lollards phrased it: viz, in the beginning class distinctions did not exist. In all such Utopian ‘Communism’ history chases its own tail. Moreover, most of these movements were dominated by clerics—for example, John Ball and Thomas Munzer, etc. Had they succeeded they would have inevitably become themselves theocracies. Voltaire has summed up, once for all, the social character of all theocratic communism in his satirical description of the clerical ‘communistic’ state founded by the Jesuits in Paraguay (eighteenth century): ‘In Paraguay perfect communism existed: the Jesuits shared the wealth; whilst the Indians shared the work!’

What has been said of Christianity is equally true in respect of other religions also. For example, Islam has always stubbornly opposed even the modernization of the bourgeois revolution: Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, still strongholds of Mohammedan clericalism, are almost completely feudal. Whilst Hinduism, by means of its doctrine of reincarnation, has cleverly allayed the discontent of the Indian masses with their frightful conditions in this life! Even the originally rationalistic Buddhism had in Tibet become an obscurantist and oppressive monastic despotism. As far as the class struggle is concerned, official religion is, and always has been, on the side of the exploiters. Indeed, granted its social background, it could not have been anything else. And the same is true today.

The war against the gods is equivalent to the class war for a socialist society: Forward to the Social Revolution! Banish gods from the skies and capitalists from the Earth.

The Price of Cost-Saving

Steven Conway died while working at Diamond Wheels (Dundee) Ltd. There were no safety protocols in place at the premises, no risk assessment was carried out and there was no safe system of work in place.

The 33-year-old was sent in to remove debris from a tank containing "volatile" chemicals with limited protective clothing. He was wearing only trainers, tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and fleece. The mask he was given did nothing to protect him from the toxic fumes let off by the chemicals and was actually releasing "contaminants" into his air supply. The gloves he was given had holes in them. He had suffered chemical burns from contact with hydrofluoric acid. Pathologists concluded he had died from inhaling industrial paint stripper.

Diamond Wheels, pleaded guilty to a charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act. They will face a fine as a punishment.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-34119674

By Us And Not For Us

WORLD SOCIALISM

There are people fearful of the word ‘socialism’ but what is important is not the word, but the ideas which remind us of the powerful appeal of the socialist ideal to people alienated from the political system and aware of the growing stark disparities in income and wealth. The word ‘socialism’ may still carry the baggage of past distortions usurping the name. But anyone who goes around the country, or reads carefully the public opinion surveys can see that huge numbers agree on what should be the fundamental elements of a decent society: guaranteed food, housing, medical care for everyone; equal rights for all races, genders, and sexual orientations; the rejection of war and violence as solutions for tyranny and injustice. We should recall times gone by when we had an enthusiasm for socialism - production for use instead of profit, economic and social equality, solidarity with our brothers and sisters all over the world. Today we have the opportunity to now once again re-introduce genuine socialism to a world feeling the sickness of capitalism - its nationalist hatreds, its perpetual warfare; wealth for a small number of people in a small number of countries, and hunger, homelessness, insecurity for everyone else.

The achievement of socialism awaits the building of a mass base of socialists, in factories and offices. The development of socialist consciousness must be the first priority of the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party must be seen as the parliamentary wing of a movement dedicated to fundamental social change. Capitalism must be replaced by socialism, by the common ownership of the means of production in the interests of the people as a whole. By bringing men and women together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and material gain in place of humanity, capitalism has always been inherently alienating. A socialist transformation of society will return to mankind its sense of humanity and community, to replace the sense of being a commodity. Socialists strive for democracy at those levels that most directly affect us all — in our neighbourhoods, our schools, and our places of work. The process is the raising of socialist consciousness. Socialists are no Utopians. They know perfectly well that Rome was not built in a day, neither was capitalist civilisation evolved in a week, nor will the complete machinery of a Socialist Commonwealth be a going concern in a month, for that matter. But true as all this may be, there is a distinction between the Labour Party type reformist , who is proud in what he is pleased to term the “evolutionary” character of his ‘socialism’, and the revolutionary socialist. The reformist seeks to make changes as little as can effectively be made which means that even what is acceptable in their principles trickles into practice on such a scale as to render it totally inoperative for serious good. You cannot empty the Atlantic with a tea-cup. As socialists, we are sincere in our avowed desire to create, as speedily as possible, a revolutionary change of a fundamental character in the present system of society. This change for the better can only be realised by the efforts of the workers themselves. ‘By us and not for us’ must be the motto.

The socialist revolution can have no other goal and no other result than the realisation of socialism. The working class must above all else strive to get the entire political power of the state into its own hands. Political power, however, is for us socialists only a means. The end for which we must use this power is the fundamental transformation of the entire economic relations. Currently all wealth belongs to a few private capitalists. The great mass of the workers only get from these capitalists a meagre wage to live on for hard work. The enrichment of a small number of idlers is the aim of today’s economy. This state of affairs should be remedied. All social wealth, the land with all its natural resources hidden in its bowels and on the surface, and all factories and works must be taken out of the hands of the exploiters and taken into common property of the people.

At the moment production in every enterprise is conducted by individual capitalists on their own initiative. What – and in which way – is to be produced, where, when and how the produced goods are to be sold is determined by the industrialist. The workers do not see to all this, they are just living machines who have to carry out their work. In a socialist economy this must be completely different. The private employer will disappear. Then no longer production aims towards the enrichment of one individual or group of share-holders, but of delivering to the public at large the means of satisfying all its needs. Accordingly the factories, works and the agricultural enterprises must be reorganised according to a new way of looking at things.

If production is to have the aim of securing for everyone a dignified life, plentiful food and providing other cultural means of existence, then the productivity of labour must be a great deal higher than it is now. The land must yield a far greater crop, the most advanced technology must be used in the factories, only the most productive coal and ore mines must be exploited. In order that everyone in society can enjoy prosperity, everybody should work. A life of leisure like most of the rich exploiters currently lead will come to an end. A general requirement to work for all who are able to do so, from which children, the aged and sick are exempted, is a matter of course in a socialist economy. The public at large must provide forthwith for those unable to work – not like now with paltry alms but with generous provision. For the general well-being, one must sensibly manage and be economic with both the means of production and labour. The squandering that currently takes place wherever one goes must stop. Naturally, the entire war and armament industries must be abolished since a socialist society does not need murder weapons and, instead, the valuable materials and human labour used in them must be employed for useful products. Luxury industries which make all kinds of frippery for the idle rich must also be abolished, along with personal servants. All the human labour tied up here will be found a more worthy and useful occupation. If we establish in this way where everybody works for everyone, for the public good and benefit, then work itself must be organised quite differently. Nowadays work in industry, in agriculture and in the office is mostly a torment and a burden for the proletarians. One only goes to work because one has to, because one would not otherwise get the means to live. In a socialist society, where everyone works together for their own well-being, the health of the workforce and its enthusiasm for work must be given the greatest consideration at work. Short working hours that do not exceed the normal capability, healthy work-places, all methods of recuperation and a variety of work must be introduced in order that everyone enjoys doing their part. Currently the capitalist, his overseers stands behind the worker with his whip. Hunger drives the worker to work in the factory or in the office. In a socialist society the industrialist with his whip ceases to exist. The workers are free and equal human beings who work for their own well-being and benefit. That means by themselves, working on their own initiative, not wasting resources, and delivering the most reliable and meticulous work. Every socialist concern needs of course its technical advisors who know exactly what they are doing and give the advice so that everything runs smoothly and the highest efficiency is achieved. Now it is a matter of willingly following these orders in full, of maintaining discipline and order, of not causing difficulties or confusion. The worker in a socialist economy must show that he can work hard and properly, keep discipline and give his best without the whip of hunger and without the capitalist and his slave-driver behind him. 

A socialist society needs human beings full of passion and enthusiasm for the general well-being, full of self-sacrifice and sympathy for fellow human beings, full of courage and tenacity in order to dare to attempt the most difficult. We do not need, however, to wait perhaps a century or a decade until such a species of human beings develop. In the struggle, in the revolution, people learn the necessary idealism and soon acquire the intellectual maturity. In a socialist revolution, we are creating the future socialists which a new society requires as fundamental.

The emancipation of the working class
must be the act of the workers themselves

Socialist Standard September 2015

• Editorial: Back to the 70s?
• Pathfinders: The Biggest Question? Don’t Ask...
• Letters: 'Corbyn for Leader?' & 'Blacklisted'
• Halo Halo! Catholics and Aliens
• Cooking the Books: Is He a Leninist?
• Material World: No Peace in the Pacific
• Greasy Pole: Catching a Crabb?
• Clause Four Resurfaces
• The Rainbow Party and Its Vision of ‘Socialism’
• More Union Bashing
• The Human Condition
• Cooking the Books: Who Pays the Working Poor?
• Mixed Media: Steel City
• Book Reviews: 'Postcapitalism - A Guide to Our Future', & 'The Deluge: the Great War and the Remaking of Global Order'
• Proper Gander: Under the Concrete Carpet
• 50 Years Ago: What Runs the Labour Government?
• Action Replay: From Ashes to Ashes
• Voice From the Back
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Rise Up and Go Around in a Circle

ROUND IN CIRCLES

The left nationalists in Scotland having suffered a set-back by the referendum defeat where they propped up the SNP now seek to offer themselves as the left opposition to their former allies.

 RISE – Scotland’s Left Alliance is a coalition formed by the SSP and various other groups with the noticeable exception of Sheridan’s Solidarity. http://www.rise.scot/

They have taken a cue from George Galloway’s party RESPECT by using an acronym to name itself:

Respect Independence Socialism Environmentalism

And similarly to “Solidarity - Scotland's Socialist Movement” they require to add a qualifier on what they are – “RISE - Scotland’s Left Alliance”.

The RISE party logo is very appropriate, as you can see for yourself,  for a political organisations that is going around in circles. 

The SSP have said that they will not stand any candidates next year in order to maximise the attention upon RISE, although, of course, its leading lights such as Colin Fox will be favourites to stand as candidates for the new party.  It is a marketing re-brand offering voters the same old same presented as something different. It’s not. RISE offers very little new in its policies and positions from all the previous political alignments of the Scottish left-wing such as the Scottish Socialist Alliance. RISE are merely re-packaging previously flawed ideas and faulty analysis. 

The left nationalists urge Scottish workers to reject this historic solidarity with their English and Welsh fellow-workers, on the grounds that it is impossible to achieve progress at a British level; only in Scotland. But they are wrong if they think that a more radical, more socialistic agenda will emerge in an independent Scotland. The new Scottish state would find its policies constrained exactly the same sort of undemocratic and technocratic rules of globalisation that left nationalists stringently oppose. As with the formation of the Irish Republic, the political landscape will be dominated not by a consciousness of class but of “national interest”. Working people will be spun the line that sacrifice for the good of the nation is the symbol of patriotism despite the pain and privation. A new Scottish state would have an overwhelming incentive, like Ireland, to cut business taxation to gain a competitive advantage over its larger neighbour and would actively discourage collective co-ordinated action by workers across all of the nations of the United Kingdom. Scottish English and Welsh workers do not respond to an abstract appeal for “international solidarity”, they don’t need one, they act out of their already existing unity. The fact is that we live in a single state with a single economy and trade unions have created an organic unity with identical interests and a common consciousness. Independence will tear the fabric of unity apart. In Britain a division of the working class along national lines would be a huge step backwards for the workers movement, even from the weakened state it is currently in.  For though class struggle is at a very low level, those struggles that have taken place, including in Scotland, have arisen out of nationwide disputes.  The creation of an independent Scotland would break that unity and make the task of advancing the workers movement more difficult.

The left nationalists must ask themselves if the possibility of a few seats in a Scottish Parliament is a worthwhile exchange for an abandonment of basic socialist principles. Is such miserly gains worth draping themselves in the Saltire rather than the Red Flag. The truth is that there are "socialists" of the RISE-ilk who regard vote-getting as of supreme importance, no matter by what method the votes may be secured, and this leads them to hold out inducements which are not at all compatible with the uncompromising principles of a revolutionary party. They seek to make their propaganda so attractive— eliminating whatever may give offense to bourgeois sensibilities— that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means of education. Votes thus secured do not properly belong to socialism and do injustice to the movement as well as to those who cast them. These votes do not express socialism and in the next ensuing election are just as easily swing to another political party. Socialism is a matter of growth of understanding by education, but never by obtaining for it a fictitious vote. We should seek only to register the actual vote of socialism, no more and no less. In our propaganda we state our principles clearly, speak the truth honestly, seeking neither to flatter nor to offend, but only to convince those who should be with us and win them to our cause through an intelligent understanding of the Socialist Party's mission.

There is an alternative to nationalism and spreading false hope amongst workers in Scotland. It’s called class politics and it comes with working class unity and being honest with the working class, even if it’s not what some want to hear, rather than peddling cynical opportunistic shortcuts up deluded blind alleys to gain some supposed influence amongst workers. The Socialist Party rejects the idea that Scottish independence represents a way of advancing the interests of the working class.  All the arguments for independence are in essence nationalist and pro-capitalist whatever the left-wing gloss may be placed upon them. Our opposition to independence is not support for the status quo but for the unity of the working class. The workers movement would be weakened by a process where regional capitalist classes try to corner local resources and endeavour to win the workers over to defend them. The task for socialists in all countries, whether that be Scotland, Britain or Ireland, is indeed independence - not of nations or of regions - but of the working class political action. This class independence, in terms of politics and organisation, is the very foundation of the struggle for socialism.  It is because Scottish nationalism and the call for independence throw up yet more barriers to this unity that we urge workers in Scotland to reject the siren song of separatism

Our task as socialists is to try to provide clarity on the class basis for taking a position. And our position must always be based on what is going to be in the interests of the working class movement. We socialists want to show workers that their interests lie in the maximum unity of all workers against all oppressors. We want them to identify their interests with the oppressed everywhere, to discard the blood-stained Saltire along with the blood-stained Union Jack. But we will not do that without understanding clearly who our friends are and who are our enemies. Our job is to propagate a class-conscious understanding in order to help workers discard harmful popular prejudices. If we don’t do that, then there’s really not much point to our existence, since it is only through discarding the beliefs that keep us shackled to capitalist ideas that we will be able to build a movement capable of building socialism. The fact that good, well-meaning people have been misled must not prevent us from seeking truth from facts. The fact that left-nationalists Scots wish to see British capitalism weakened, and hope that by voting for independence they will achieve this aim, does not prove that that is what will actually happen.

Put your class first, not your country. The world is a “global village”. Each region may have its own particular traditions and distinct customs, but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide.

That "the emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists…" (From the rules of the First International) should be the guiding principle of the working class of the world.

John Lennon sang “Imagine no countries and the world will be as one” RISE and the left-wing nationalists who constitute it lack imagination.

RISEN FROM THE DEAD 

Plenty for all

This is the age of science. We are on the thresh-hold to a new world. Never was there such an immense power for good. But how have the ruling class used this knowledge and potential. Have they ended poverty? Have they introduced security? Have they provided a high standard of living? Have they brought about the peace and harmony which is possible with plenty? Have they used new technology to create the more wealth to share in? Have they really made proper use of the power placed in their hands by science and technology? Never has the world had such a wonderful opportunity to build a decent place to live in but what kind of world have the ruling class built for us all? The industrial machine age did and still pours out great wealth but where is it going?  We can see the ordinary people are not growing fat on it. Mankind is smart enough to travel through space, dig into the bowels of the earth, travel deep under the sea; but we go hungry in the midst of food. That is capitalism! It cannot be otherwise under capitalism. Instead of plenty for all – it is luxury for the few and deprivation for the rest of us.

Why is this?

Because the very root of capitalism is wrong.

Because the basic idea is illogical.

Because the foundations are unsound.

Because the capitalist system is built on a contradiction.

It is the system in which the man who owns the tools of production does not work them whereas the man who works them does not own them. This is the basic contradiction of capitalism. The product does no longer belonged to the producer – the worker at the machine. It belongs to the capitalist owner of the machine. He sold it for the best price the market would pay. And gave the worker the smallest wage he would work for. The less wage for the worker, the bigger the profit for the capitalist. The bigger the wage for the worker, the less the profit for the capitalist. The capitalist is simply interested in longer hours, speed-ups and low wages. The worker is only interested in shorter hours, easier work, and high wages. Capitalism has employers pitted against employees - at war with each other - engaged in a class struggle with each other.

The capitalist owner of industry has only one reason to run his factory-profit. Under capitalism, the needs of the people for various goods are not the primary purpose of production. The capitalist will just as soon make rifles as bibles. All he asks is: "Which will pay more?" The fact that the millions of people depend upon industry for food, clothing, housing, furniture, transportation, communications and amusement is of interest to the capitalist only as the "market" in which he can realise a profitable return. He is the dictator over his plant. He can run it or shut it down to please himself. If production pays he hires and offers overtime. If profit falls, he throws his workers into the streets.  For all the rhetoric there exists no great plan nor social purpose. The only god is the Almighty Dollar and the Holy Script is the magic word "Dividends." This makes capitalism more destructive than any Act of God such as earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, cloudbursts, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions ever divinely visited upon earth from the beginning' of time. Capitalism kills and cripples millions in its wars, in class strife and civil war, in hunger and freezing, in industrial accidents and disease, in malnutrition, in poverty and crime. It destroys the wealth of society and wastes the potential of millions of idle hands. Place a hundred people in a room with a tiny opening for air. As they begin to suffocate, a mad fight takes place, with everyone attempting to get to the opening. In their madness, friend will turn upon friend, brother upon brother, son upon father. That is capitalism.

Capitalism pits worker against worker in bidding for a job. It pits capitalist against capitalist in fighting for profits. It pits workers against capitalists in class struggle. It pits capitalist nation against capitalist nation in war. It pits producer against consumer, landlord against tenant, farmer against city dweller, white against black, gentile against jew. All in a mad race for a crust of bread, for survival, for a bit security and this in an age when plenty is possible for all! It is the system of competition, dog eat dog, of each for himself and the devil take the hindmost, of the law of the jungle. An age of plenty - the New World within our power and reach - is being trampled in the dirt. Capitalism stands before us indicted as a system of criminal insanity, dripping with blood and filth. And the capitalist class stands before us as crazed overlords careering the planet towards its destruction.

When a capitalist nation is not at war, it is preparing for war. It must keep the people in a mood that makes them ready to fight. It is therefore necessary to instill a nationalist spirit in people. "My country, my flag." And not knowing whom they might have to fight, the capitalists instill in the people a hatred of all the neighboring nations.  In the Human Family such national hatreds would die out. And with the end of national hatreds and wars would come the end of militarism. Cutting out this great waste of resources would bring more to share in the good things of life. When one knows that one has enough for today and tomorrow and that there is more where that came from, one will no longer think as we do. We only want to heap up wealth for fear that we may some day be poor. Or else in order to get to the top of the heap and exploit others. Socialism will establish a new principle of pay: "From each according to ability, to each according to need." No longer driven to work by fear of hunger, labour will become a pleasure and a privilege to perform.

 Socialism will not only mean plenty for all, but also freedom for all. For the first time in history, people will really be free. Free from fear. Free from fear of the boss, fear of losing his or her job, fear of war, fear of insecurity, fear of hunger. Democracy cannot function when men and women  live in fear; when people fear to say what they think, fear to write what they believe, fear to join with those they agree with. Without true freedom there cannot be true democracy. For democracy to work it needs above all complete freedom for men to speak and write as they believe. Can there be freedom if one must depend upon others for the right to earn a living? If others can control our jobs, do they not control what we can say? If another has power over my bread and butter, over whether my children have food or not, does he not also have power over my freedom? That is why there can be no real freedom under capitalism, even in the "free-est" of countries. Every last person must have a feeling of complete freedom in participating in the affairs of a democratic decision-making. He or she must feel free to suggest, condemn, criticise, advise, proclaim without the slightest fear that those in charge will be able to strike back by discrimination on the job. This can never be under capitalism. That is why capitalist democracy can never reflect what the people are really thinking. Only the capitalist class are free in a capitalist democracy to speak out. Who controls the mass media, the school curriculums, the hundred and one ways of bringing ideas before the public? These are in the hands of the capitalist class. Is there a genuine right of free expression when the media can publicise what they please and refuse to circulate thoughts that capitalists think are "undesirable"?

If you are a worker, surely you cannot agree to go on living under capitalism, with its crises and uncertainty. Surely, you want to organise to fight to end it. The first step is to turn your back upon the parties of capitalism, Labour and Tory, Democrats and Republicans. The second step is to join with those who are striving to abolish wage slavery. The Socialist Party constantly seeks to educate our fellow workers as to the truth about capitalism and the need for socialism. Find out more.

Spreading the socialist message

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM AND NO LESS

Marx wrote no “Utopia”. Nowhere in his writings is there to be found a detailed account of the new social system which was to follow capitalism but we can make generalized observations from what we know of the present capitalist system and what socialism needs to become. The first essential feature of socialism is that the means of production are taken from private ownership and used for society as a whole. The next step is the conscious, planned development of those productive forces. In socialist society, where production is not for profit but for use, a plan of production is possible. Therefore the factories and the mines, the power-stations and the railways, agriculture and fishing can and must be reorganised and made more up-to-date, so that a far higher level of production can be reached. What is the object of this? To raise the standard of living of the people.

One of the favorite arguments of the anti-socialists used to be that if everything produced was divided up equally, this would make very little difference in the standard of living of the workers. Even if this were true – and it is not – it has absolutely nothing to do with Marx’s conception of socialism. Marx saw that socialism would raise the level of production to undreamed-of heights. This increase in the level of production, and therefore in the standard of living of the people, is the material basis on which the intellectual and cultural level of the people will be raised. From the time when the working class takes power and begins the change to socialism, a change also begins to take place in the outlook of the people. All kinds of barriers which under capitalism seemed rigid grow weaker and are finally broken down. No person is treated as superior or inferior because of his or her gender, colour or nationality. In every factory, in every block of flats, in every aspect of life, men and women are shaping their own lives and the destinies. People are drawn into all spheres of public life, given responsibility for helping themselves and others. The self-seeking, individualist outlook bred by capitalism will have been replaced by a really social outlook. But even within capitalist society there is what is known as “solidarity” among the workers – the sense of a common interest, a common responsibility. This is not an idea which someone has thought of and put into the heads of workers: it is an idea which arises out of the material conditions of working-class life, the fact that they get their living in the same way, working alongside each other. The typical grasping individualist, on the other hand, the man with no sense of social or collective responsibility, is the capitalist surrounded by competitors, all struggling to survive by killing each other. Of course, the ideas of the dominant class – the competition and rivalry instead of solidarity – tend to spread among the workers, especially among those who are picked out by the employers for special advancement of any kind. But the fundamental basis for the outlook of any class (as distinct from individuals) is the material conditions of life, the way it gets its living.

Is this Utopian?

Human beings have no fixed characteristics and outlook, eternally permanent. In primitive tribal society, even in those forms of it which have survived to recent times, the sense of responsibility to the tribe is very great. In later society, after the division of society into classes, the sense of social responsibility was broken down, but still showed itself in a certain feeling of responsibility to the class. In capitalist society there is the most extreme disintegration of social responsibility: the system makes “dog eat dog” the main principle of life. Hence it follows that the outlook of people can be changed by changing their material conditions, the way in which they get their living. When therefore the material basis is socialist production and distribution, when the way in which all the people get their living is by working for society as a whole, then the sense of social responsibility so to speak develops naturally; people no longer need to be convinced that the social principle is right. It is not a question of an abstract moral duty having to establish itself over the instinctive desires of “human nature;” human nature itself is transformed by practice, by custom.

Marx’s whole account of socialist society shows that it will mean the end of wars. When production and distribution are organised on a socialist basis, there will be no group which will have the slightest interest in conquering others. A capitalist country conquers another country to extend its capitalist system, to open up new chances for profitable investments; to get new contracts for its corporations; to obtain new sources of cheap raw materials and new markets. Once again, it is not a question of morals; socialist societies will not make war because there is nothing they, or any groups within them, can gain from war. Years will pass and not a stone will be left of the accursed capitalist system, with its wars, its vile brutality and savagery. In the memory of people the times of capitalism will remain as a ghastly nightmare from a long gone era of darkness and ignorance. Socialist educators and agitators have capably demonstrated how socialism could end poverty, unemployment and war by eliminating private ownership of the means of producing the things of life, national and international competition, and the struggle for existence by the overwhelming majority of the population in this and all other countries. They have supplemented this campaign for socialism with a merciless exposure of the evils of capitalist society, its murderous exploitation of the workers, its utter hypocrisy in human relations, and the most evident feature of its class character: the impoverishment of the masses for the enrichment of a small class of capitalists.

The World Socialist Movement knows how to talk socialism. While, admittedly, failing in organising large groups of workers around the class struggle or the urgent need for constructing a mass socialist party with the aim of fighting for a socialist society, it has accomplished quite an effective job of telling people what socialism was. This propaganda for socialism, the “dream of socialism,” as it was often called, has taught thousands that socialism meant a society without classes, without the exploitation of man by man, without a production system operating for the purpose of producing profits for a few. The PR of Big Business, the paid-for and bought professors and intellectuals of every variety have taken to the pen to explain why capitalism is a wonderful society and socialism a mere utopia. These hired apologists even argued that the new richness of capitalism was actually paving the way to the kind of life, the socialists wanted and now call for a new capitalism with no unemployment, high wages, workers owning their own homes and even sharing ownership of their work-places in various forms of co-operatives. The bubbles keep bursting and the foundations carry on tumbling down, revealing the prosperity was fraud and we the working class are emerging from the slump worse than ever.  We are now witness to a new experience.

The necessity of rebuilding the movement for socialism requires the re-establishment of the art of socialist propaganda and agitation, to tell millions what socialism is, its relation and comparison to capitalism, and how it can be achieved. The task now for the WSM is to once more keep describing the present capitalist system, revealing how thoroughly rotten it is, how it is an outlived system capable of producing nothing but unemployment, poverty, war, the scourge of dictators and suppression of the people. Others may have done the same thing. The importance of the WSM is that it points a way out of this foul system and not only shows why socialism is inevitable and necessary, but describes what it is and how it can be achieved. This is all to the good to spread the message of socialism.

Aberdeen Shadows

Following the global collapse in oil prices, North Sea oil revenues have been in freefall. In the first three months of this year they fell by 75%, continuing the downward spiral from the middle of last year. The downturn seemed to have justified the fears expressed by No campaigners in the referendum on Scottish independence. Indeed, tax receipts from oil accruing to Scotland between January and March this year were £168m, down from the £742m gathered in the final quarter of 2014. And nowhere is the economic wind-chill factor being more sharply felt than in Aberdeen.

Amid job layoffs in a region long regarded as Scotland’s Klondike, the big oil operators are putting an end to the longstanding “two weeks on, three weeks off” working model for oil-rig workers. Crews are being pressured into signing up to a “three weeks on, three weeks off” equal-time rota. This is a tougher regime than in Norway, but is comparable with working practices in regions such as the Gulf of Mexico.

Aberdeen international airport show that passenger numbers in May took a hit of 8.1% against the same month last year. The occupancy rate for city hotels, meanwhile, was 68.9% in April, down from 77.9% in April 2014. More than 1,200 oil workers have been laid off in the region since the downturn began last year, while local businesses – minicab firms, hotels and restaurants – are reporting fewer customers. The property market, once seen as the most buoyant outside London, has begun to retreat, with worse expected.

But it is not all gloom.

Eclectic Fizz is the city’s premier champagne bar, as its manager explains “There’s still a lot of money in this place. You might ask yourself where it’s coming from, but it’s still there and it’s still evident. Of course, the falling oil prices have had an adverse effect, but that’s happened all over the world. If this is what it’s like when money is supposed to be scarce, I’d love to see this place when the good times roll.”

Sales of Moët, the house champagne, remain healthy, he says, while prosecco and cava are still sold in high numbers for those who want as close an approximation of the high life as they can get.