Modern Day Slaves In Thailand

In Thailand, according to The New York Times, August 2, young men and boys are lured into working in fishing boats as slave labour. Guarded by armed men, treated violently, where the sick are often thrown into the sea and captives sold like cargo, they are forced to work for nothing. The report states, "Labour abuse at sea can be so severe that the boys and men who are its victims might as well be captives from another era. This activity is driven by the demand for seafood across the world and, of course, the money to be made from it. What a different world it would be without money. Illegal activities would be of no use whatever. John Ayers.

Socialism from below

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

There is a saying “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and members of the Socialist Party are often accused of this because we strive solely for the establishment of socialism and nothing less. We have on innumerable occasions refuted such allegations in the sense that we have never opposed workers seeking amelioration of their conditions within capitalism but we have argued that it is not the task of a socialist party to seek reforms of the system it endeavours to overthrow. Our case is based upon another well-knowing adage - “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”. Throughout history we have witnessed workers organisations advocate reforms and palliatives and they have advanced not one step towards socialism but have changed into supporters of the status quo.

If a person is suffering from a fatal disease and the only chance of survival is an operation, is he or she being a martyr if the person submits to this operation? Most will say, no. He or she is acting intelligently. Therefore, if society is suffering from the cancer of capitalism that all the best treatments offered are merely palliatives which aren’t going to cure, what choice has the intelligent worker? One can either resign oneself to the progressively worsening of the capitalist system - more wars; increasing poverty and mounting environmental damage. Or he or she can submit to the operation known as social revolution!

Workers have been working harder and more productively but aren’t seeing any change in how much they take home at the end of the week. A study from America by the Economic Policy Institute found that many parents’ paychecks aren’t enough to cover their family’s most basic needs, and that working full-time at the federal minimum wage isn’t enough for a parent with one child to get by anywhere in the US. Even though the recession has passed most Americans have failed to see improvements in their pay, according to a recent study by the National Employment Law Project. This is especially true for those who work in the retail, food service, and home-care industries, which already are among the lowest paying sectors and have seen the greatest declines in take-home pay. All the while, more and more corporations are leaving the people who cook our food and stock our shelves without the right to stand together to demand better wages and working conditions. And, profitable corporations like McDonald’s and Walmart are keeping their employees from working enough hours to pay the bills and making their lives impossible to plan.

The forces that keep working people living on the brink are beginning to fall apart, and it’s not a mystery as to why: People have been beginning to stand together and press for change. Still, there is so much work that remains.

Some ‘socialists’ say the way to change things is to rely on enlightened leaders to do it for you. These ‘great’ people will shape the world for us, for our own good. The most we can do is admire and trust the wise in their work.  ‘Socialism’ from above is elitist and bureaucratic. It leaves the exploited majority in the same position as before. It is the Fabianism and reformism of the Labour Party intellectuals.

Socialism from below is entirely different. Its rallying cry is the first sentence of the Rules of the First Workers’ International: ‘The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the workers themselves.’ Socialism can only be achieved if working people themselves inspire it, create, develop and strengthen it. Their own consciousness and self-organisation is the only possible basis for socialism. Such a socialism must be, in its essence, democratic, involving the mass of workers in taking over and running society in their own interests, under their own control. Socialists endeavour to chart a new world free of the State and freed from nationalism.

This is the world you live in

CAPITALISM - DIVIDE AND RULE 

Some people refuse to learn. Others refuse to remember. And still others remember what they have learned only up to the moment when events call upon them to put it into practice, whereupon they start to forget. A socialist is not an ordinary person who absorbs ignorance and prejudices pumped into him or her like a sponge every day in a hundred ways. The socialist endeavours to think about social problems. The first question he or she asks about any problem that needs tackling is this: How has this problem arisen. Only after this question has been answered as ably as social science permits, is it possible to tackle it intelligently and effectively and with positive results.

Society is divided into property owners and propertyless people and this lies at the root of the crises and problems of the capitalist world. Millions of workers own neither the land nor the machinery they use nor the products they make. These are the property of the capitalists. The vast majority of people in society to-day are thus at the mercy of the private owners. They cannot organise the distribution of the wealth which they have co-operated to produce, because they do not possess this wealth. It is the property of the private owners. Here is to be found the fundamental reason why the socially necessary goods are obtainable only in the market-place as commodities. They cannot give the goods to society, for that would be an abandonment of the right of private property to extract profit. They cannot distribute the goods according to the needs of the people, however vast and urgent those needs may be, because private property production is governed by the law of production for profit irrespective of the needs of the people. The criterion of all capitalist enterprise is—does it make a profit? When it ceases to make a profit it goes bankrupt—it is finished and the workers are cast on to the scrapheap of unemployment. For the capitalist there is no other way of disposing of the goods produced other than through the exchange market, the laws of which are not need nor beauty, nor quality. It is a transaction between individuals exchanging property, however repeated, however multiplied, however varied. One can have exactly according to his means to pay. If you have £1 or its equivalent you can have £1’s worth of goods. If you have nothing, then you can exchange nothing. Thus the number of boots sold is not governed by the number of men, women and children needing boots but by the number who are able to buy boots. The market demand therefore is not the measure of human needs nor human capacity to produce, but the measure of the means at the disposal of the people to purchase the things they need. Society can measure the resources of the country through its social organisation. It can measure the needs of the people through its social organisation. But it cannot distribute products it does not possess, nor control production when it does not own the means of production. When society owns the means of production it will own the products. When it owns the products it can distribute them to its members according to their individual and collective needs. This is the only solution.

The State in a class-divided society can be nothing other than an instrument in the hands of the class owning the property and means of production in society. The talk of “reconciling class interests” is simple deceit. It is impossible to reconcile the interests of the slave owner and the slave, the exploiter and the exploited. We have no intention or desire, no right and no need, to abandon the fight for socialism. The only way we know how to do this is: tell the truth about capitalism; help make those we can reach conscious of the problem of society today and how to solve it, and increase the clarity of those who are already partly conscious of it. We will do everything we can do to deepen the understanding of the capitalist system. We will continue in our way even if we fight alone. We will try to teach the ignorant better; and we will answer the deceitful as they deserve to be answered. We are working for the power of the working class and as such, we shall be guided accordingly in our campaign for the cause of the working class, of socialism and against all attacks upon them.

In the World Socialist Movement the case for socialism will remain clear and firm. It will be heard and it will be echoed.

The Right Wing Play Book

- Regarding the ISIS threat, Canadian PM, Stephen Harper stated, "It would be absolutely foolish for us not to go after this group before they come after us." British PM David Cameron said, "This is the great threat of our generation, the battle of our generation, and the fight that we are going to have." Australian PM Tony Abbott opined, "They're coming after us. We may not feel that we are at war with them, but they are certainly at war with us." They must be all reading from the Right Wing play book, probably written by George Bush. John Ayers.

Confirmation

Under the harsh conditions of Greece's $122 billion bailout, social security will be cut, property taxes will increase, and, if Greece's creditors have their way, there will be price hikes on food. The people hit the hardest will be pensioners on a fixed income. Most of them will not be able to get work, not that there are many jobs available for anyone. All this confirms that no matter how big a mess the effects of capitalism create, it's the working class that will suffer and pay the debts. John Ayers.

THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

RISE says what is needed an "independent socialist Scotland" and that then the problems will be solved. But they won't be. First, because socialism cannot be established in one country (we are living in an interdependent world and capitalism is a world system and those Trotskyists within RISE are perfectly aware of this fact) and, secondly, because what the RISE mean by "socialism" isn't real socialism but only a form of national state-capitalism. Left nationalist groups have done so much to discredit the idea of socialism by associating it with a state-run economy. In spite of all their revolutionary posturing they have devoted their time and energy to chasing reforms of capitalism. Scotland is only a small part of an economic system which embraces the whole world. It could never enjoy any real autonomy or self-sufficiency in the face of the world market. From day one it will be buffeted by hostile economic forces entirely beyond its control. In no time at all, Scotland will be faced with two choices—either total ruin, or the complete restoration of capitalist economics. The independent socialist Scotland of RISE would be neither independent nor socialist.

RISE is lucky that there isn’t a political equivalent of the Trades Description Act or they could be prosecuted for fraudulently describing what they are trying to sell as “socialism”. Historically, socialism was generally seen as a worldwide system of common ownership and democratic control in which the watchword would be “From each according to ability, to each according to need”. It would mean the end of the wages system along with money, buying and selling and the capital/labour relationship.

We, in the Socialist Party’s Glasgow and Edinburgh branches, are few in number but our mission is simple. We  proceed with educational propaganda until the working class have understood the fundamental facts of their position - that they do not own the means by which they live, that they are but commodities on the market, never hired unless employers can profit, always discarded when a liability. We have to emphasise the fact that no appreciable change is possible in the working-class condition while we all remain commodities. There are no short cuts. Naturally, we wish the work to be accomplished as soon as possible, and that is why we oppose and expose those who, sometimes with the best of intentions, blur the issue that must be kept in clear view, and so prolong the task of emancipation. For the worker in Scotland there is hope. Join the local branches of the World Socialist Movement and make common cause with the socialist workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation; saying to both English and Scottish capitalists: "A plague on both your houses". For the true battle-cry of the working class is more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rally cry is: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

Stick Your Labels

Dundee City Council is set to become the first local authority in Scotland to sign up to a campaign which aims to tackle the stigma encountered by many people living on low incomes.

The campaign aims to address the negative and stigmatising attitudes that blight the lives of thousands of people living on low incomes amid a hardening of attitudes towards welfare and an increased use of stigmatising language in the media and from politicians. According to the campaign, people living on low incomes are regularly labelled as ‘cheats’, ‘scroungers’ and ‘skivers’ while the reality is very different, with people doing all they can to make ends meet in difficult circumstances. Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, said: “The Stick Your Labels campaign is about challenging the myths that surround poverty, and ending the stigma that people experiencing poverty often face. “Much of the language that is now used to refer to those claiming social security benefits is has the intention to stigmatise and separate, making people feel less worthy and having no right to support.

The campaign is encouraging organisations from the private, public and voluntary sectors to commit themselves to a series of statements and take the action needed to help change beliefs about poverty.

These are:

1     Poverty is not inevitable: it is a problem of political choices, it is neither natural nor acceptable. We all have a role to play in addressing poverty: We will set out our contribution to tackling poverty in Scotland.

2     Attitudes matter: How we talk about poverty and how we portray it can stigmatise and harm people: We will never use language that may stigmatise people experiencing poverty.

3    Actions change attitudes: To change beliefs about poverty requires action across our whole society: We will develop actions that help address negative attitudes towards people experiencing poverty.

The Socialist Party while sympathizing with such worthy sentiments would point out that poverty and inequality is inevitable within the capitalism system and it is only through the abolition of capitalism will people be finally free of poverty and the insecurity threat of poverty. 

A Great Reason To Get Rid Of Capitalism

These are some of the captions of the articles in the business section of The Toronto Star recently- "GDP Falls for the Fifth Month, Economists Expected No Change", "Mining and Quarrying Also Down", "Investors Show Caution with Social Media Firms", "Enbridge Earnings Sink as Oil Drops", "GM Jobs in Oshawa in Doubt", "Recession Question Has Economists Torn", "As Election Looms Economy Lurches Toward Recession." Put them all together and you have a great reason to get rid of capitalism. Things are getting so bad even the apologists can't put a brave face on the outlook. John Ayers.

FORWARD TO SOCIALISM!

The average worker is unable to see any alternative to the profit system.  He or she is often willing to see the boss get higher prices for the goods which he, the worker, has produced. Under capitalism or the profit system, it is necessary to maintain and, if possible, increase the gap between wages (or what it costs in labour power to produce goods) and price (or the exchange-value which those goods have on the market). This gap exists because the worker only receives the price of his or her labour power and no share in the values he or she creates. With socialism, there will be no wages at all. There will be no prices or market values.

No profits; no production: that is the capitalist law. For, the whole purpose of the capitalist production process is – profit, which is but another name for the self-expansion of capital. The capitalist throws into the productive process a certain quantity of capital as a means to expanding it. That is the whole point in the process – for the capitalist. If at the end of the process the capital thus thrown in has not expanded, i.e. increased in quantity, the whole process is, from his point of view, useless. Which is why we say that capitalist production is but a means to capitalist profit. Production, which is essential to society, is only incidental to the process; profit is its motive, and profit its purpose.

Under capitalism, the worker, at the end of the week (or more commonly these days, the month), receives wages which simply go to refurbish him or her for another Monday. Sunday is the day of rest if you’re lucky and don’t have to work on Sundays, too. And so it goes on and on for workers under capitalism – a continuous treadmill (sometimes broken by unemployment), with the worker never quite catching up or getting ahead, but always forced to go to work on Monday.

In socialism, all this is changed. Goods are produced for the use of men and NOT for the profits which they bring to bosses. Labour power is no longer regarded as a commodity to be bought and sold. It is not purchased at all, let alone purchased at the lowest possible price to keep it alive and able to produce more value. Men and women, inside socialism, will work and produce useful goods. But they will produce these for their mutual needs and for their mutual development. The sufficiency of goods which mankind and machines can create will be given to people to develop their bodies so that their minds can grow rich in the wealth of human knowledge, esthetic appreciation and artistic creation. From day to day, from week to week, and from year to year, individual creativity will widen and increase. Men and women, no longer fettered by the necessity of working for the bosses’ profits, will be freed to live more fully. The time that is spent at work will shorten yet the goods produced for all to enjoy will be plentiful. Those who even thinks of “reasonable profit” will be jeered at and treated as a barbarian out of the past Dark Age. He who talks about prices and wages will be talking gibberish, for we all have been freed from the capitalist system, freed from wage labour, price and profit. That is why, instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” workers must inscribe on their banner the REVOLUTIONARY watchword: “Abolition of the wage system!” Socialism is the ONLY answer!

We of the Socialist Party have nothing to do with those other parties that pass themselves off as socialist. We are orthodox Marxists, because we know that Marxism is the only revolutionary socialism of the working class, and that is the only genuine socialism. History has demonstrated the spuriousness of every other brand. Marxism is a theory of social evolution which affirms that capitalism is obsolete and bankrupt, and that it must be, and will be, replaced by a higher form of social organisation which Marx and Engels called socialism or communism. Marxism teaches that socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the good will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters, as the Utopians, who preceded Marx, used to think, and as some people still seem to think. Socialism can be realised only as the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. The class struggle is the motive force of history. All the actions and judgments of a socialist party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. The class struggle is the central and governing principle of socialist politics. It is by carrying the class struggle to its necessary conclusion — that is, to the victory of the working class and the abolition of capitalism — that the socialist society will be realised. This is the teaching of Marxism. There is no other way. And every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliating them, by collaborating with them, in peace or in war, has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers.

The road to the socialist solution is clearly indicated by history. Socialistic aspirations of the working class are rising. Humanity’s problems can be solved only as a world whole. Marx, however, did not say that if you somehow destroy capitalism socialism must dawn. That is a fatalist and mechanistic conception with which Marxism has nothing in common. What Marx did teach and demonstrate was that if you destroy capitalism in a certain way, that is, by a certain form of social action, the road to socialism would be opened. In what way? In the revolutionary way. If socialism is to be the outcome of capitalism’s downfall, it is necessary that mankind take conscious action in that direction. The basic classes of capitalist society are the capitalist class and the working class. Between them there is already a struggle going on; the struggle by the capitalist class to maintain its system of exploitation, and the struggle by the working class to overthrow it. What Marx taught and demonstrated was that the road to socialism lay through the carrying forward to its logical conclusion of this struggle by the working class against the capitalist class. Why did he teach this? Not out of “selfishness” or “hate” but by reason of reasoned necessity. Marx showed that the successful carrying forward of the struggle of the working class to free itself from capitalist exploitation would open the road to socialism by demonstrating that the working class could not emancipate itself without also emancipating all

society. In order to emancipate itself, the working class would have to expropriate the capitalists and socialize their property. But the process of socializing the means of production and distribution is also the process of bringing in the world-wide, classless and democratic society. Marx demonstrated that socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism and that the bringing of the socialist society into being demands the carrying forward of the revolutionary class struggle to its logical conclusion, i.e. the overthrow of the capitalist class and its state. For ends determine means, and means condition ends.

Hunger Lesson for Teachers

Child poverty in Scotland is now so severe that teachers are being sent advice on how to spot if a child in their class is going hungry, amid evidence that the problem is having an increasingly serious impact on education. The new guidance, which will be distributed to schools and colleges across Scotland next week, warns that the issue of hunger among pupils is “moving from the exceptional to the more commonplace” as families struggle to make ends meet. 

The advice has been drawn up by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country’s largest teaching union, after a survey of 300 schools and colleges suggested that teachers are increasingly having to help underfed pupils.

“Pupils may appear pale, fatigued, irritable or lacking in concentration, or complain of headaches or feeling unwell,” it states. “While there can be other reasons underlying such signs, for a growing number of children and young people in our schools and colleges today, the reason will be hunger.”

More than 222,000 children in Scotland are currently described as being in poverty, but the EIS warned that the number would rise if the Government’s “austerity agenda” continued. “Schools and colleges are part of society, and so are not immune from the problems of that wider society,” said the union’s general secretary Larry Flanagan.

Billionaires With A Conscience?

Some of the world's billionaires are getting a social conscience, according to The New York Times. Johann Rupert a dealer in Cartier diamonds and Montblanc pens 'sounded more like a Marxist theoretician' when he said, that it wasn't good business for the richest of the rich to raid the world's spoils and, "It's unfair and not sustainable." Paul Tudor Jones II, a private equity investor, said that extreme income divides have traditionally been resolved by taxes, wars, or revolution. Then Jeff Greene, a real estate billionaire weighed in with 'the super rich should pay higher taxes to restore the inclusive economy I grew up in.' And Nick Hanauer, a tech billionaire from Seattle warned, "I have a message for my fellow filthy rich. For all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up people, it won't last." Well it has lasted too long already, higher taxes will solve nothing and capitalism never claimed to be a fair system. Chrystia Freeland in her book, "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else." said that the phenomenon of the socially conscious billionaire is significant. Apparently a few billionaires told her that they agreed that the current system isn't working. All well and good but will they support a system that guarantees necessary goods and services to all humans? Not bloody likely! John Ayers.

There Is Only One Solution – Socialism!

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

We live in an epoch in which there exists class oppression, poverty, hunger war, racism and sexism. There’s a name for this kind of society and it’s called capitalism. It relishes and thrives on inequality. By capitalism, we mean the system that exists on the basis of your unpaid labour. You as a worker produce commodities to be exchanged on the market. You produce not only enough to pay your own wage, but also an added value, a surplus value, over and above the cost of your maintenance. Surplus labour is your unpaid wage. In polite circles it is called “profit.” And that’s what capitalism is all about. Capitalism is at the core of all of our struggles and all of our problems. The ruling class wants to preserve its privileges, its interests, its power, its wealth, its dominion. And so it engages in what is called divide and conquer. It’s a weapon designed to make us all hate and resent and compete with each other. And so many of us fall into its trap. We can’t let ourselves do that! We have to make change. We have to make revolutionary social and  economic change. And we can do it through unity. We are the people. We are the majority. If we organise, we can change this world, and we must for humanity to survive.

Some people try to escape the system. They try to ignore things happening around them, pretend it doesn’t affect them. It’s always a temptation to want to avoid trouble. But although you may try to escape the system, the system won’t escape you. You may try to ignore it, but it won’t ignore you. Sooner or later life and the system are going to put you in a struggle stance. Sooner or later you’re going to find yourselves in a battle. And suddenly you’ll find you need solidarity. When people realise the system has turned against them, they become politicised. And a very, very quickly acquire class consciousness. When it hits you, when it hurts you, you can begin to generalise, to see that everybody is suffering its effects. So we’ve got to have solidarity. We’ve got to stick together if we’re going to create change. What is class? Socialists call it your relation to the means of production. What end of the commodity production process are you on? Are you a producer of goods, or are you an appropriator of profits? Are you a worker employed by somebody else, or are you the owner who reaps surplus value from the labour of your workers? Workers are all the people who don’t own their own means of production. By this we mean the factories, the offices; the production operation.

So who are workers today? Who isn’t? Movie stars, artists, musicians, government workers, professionals of all kinds, teachers, professors—almost everybody is a worker today. Workers aren’t just blue collared in overalls; there are very few of those as automation takes over and everything becomes computerised. We do different kinds of work these days. We work with our minds more and we sit on our behind monitors more. But we’re still workers. We are the working class. We are the overwhelming majority. And taken together, workers in jobs and out of work, workers of various colours, young and old, male and female, gays and lesbians, and the fit and disabled are the majority class. That’s what too many of us lose sight of. We really have some power if only we would use it. And that’s why we should stop sniping at each other and start organising.

There’s a big class struggle going on. And the question is, what side are you on? There can be no liberation without socialism. And conversely, there can be no socialism without liberation for everybody. What is socialism? Socialism is not production for profit. It is production for use. It is not private ownership of resources. It is common ownership of the wealth. It is not inequality and misery and persecution and discrimination; it is equality and fairness. It is not poverty and want; it is freedom from want. It is freedom from war. It is freedom from ugliness and squalor. To achieve socialism you have to recognise class—who’s the boss, who’s the worker, who’s right and who’s wrong.

Cameron And Refugees

 The British government has pledged sniffer dogs and fences in the effort to keep economic migrants and war refugees from entering its territory. PM Cameron said, "We rule nothing out in taking action to deal with this very serious problem. We are absolutely on it." Too bad he's not 'absolutely on' the major problems facing Britons today. Some world where you have to use dogs, fences, and worse, to keep people from their armed enclaves. John Ayers.

The Pope's Comments.

Pope Francis' approval rating in the USA has dropped twenty-seven percentage points to fifty-nine per cent just two months ahead of his visit there. Three weeks before the poll was taken, Francis proclaimed that climate change was man-made! You can't fool those Republicans. Topping that, The New York Times (July 19) reported, "His (Francis') speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to 'the dung of the devil'. He does not simply argue that systemic 'greed for money' is a bad thing. He calls it a 'subtle dictatorship' that 'condemns and enslaves men and women'. Has he been reading our web site? John Ayers.

We Can Win, We Shall Win

Forget six counties overhung with smoke

Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke

Forget the spreading of the hideous town;

Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,

And dream of London, small and white and clean,

The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.

William Morris, ‘Earthly Paradise’

Socialism is not a social system in which everybody has been levelled down to a shared lower level of a so-called “equality”, but a society in which the classes have really been abolished, in which a rise has been accomplished in production that there can no longer be any comparison between the living conditions of the workers (i.e., of the whole population) under the new society and under the most highly developed capitalist state, and above all, in which the state power and coercion have died out, replaced by the administration of things. This assumes a tremendous rise in the productivity of labour.

Socialism does not propose to take the clothes off your back, to evict you from your home and commandeer your car. Capitalism is based on capitalist private property – not on personal possessions. It means the ownership by a minority of the population of the means of production and exchange. And when we say expropriate private property we mean nothing else but that. This ownership is what gives the capitalist class power of life or death over the working class and over society as a whole. To live, you, the working men and women, must not only work for the owners of the means of production and exchange – you must guarantee them a profit. Working for them is not enough; a profit is absolutey required for you to get your job; and that profit can be obtained in no other wise except by exploiting that which is your only real possession – namely your physical or mental capacity to work. That is all the worker has. 

Ownership on the one hand, non-ownership of the means of production on the other hand tht is today’s society and it is why two classes are hostile. To survive economically, the capitalist must accumulate; not that he wants to or doesn’t – he must accumulate in order to prosper. To accumulate, he must be assured profit. To profit, he must exploit labour. There is no other way. No one, no genius, not the greatest, has discovered another way. Capital always seeks to intensify exploitation; labour always and necessarily seeks to resist exploitation. Capitalism seeks what is rightfully its own, from its point of view: the maximum that it can get out of the worker. Labour seeks what is rightfully its own: that’s why it forms class organisations, labour unions. We, in the Socialist Party, argue that capitalism, which is founded upon and cannot exist without the ownership and control of the means of production and exchange by a minority, has brought society literally to the edge of a precipice, where it cannot guarantee security to the people, cannot guarantee peace to the people, cannot guarantee brotherhood to the people, cannot guarantee abundance to the people or protect the planet from ecological ravages. Any social system which cannot guarantee those to the masses of the people stands condemned. 

The only way to replace capitalism is to build socialism. Socialism demands not only the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution but the control of the working class. Anything less than that may be anything you want; it is not and never will be socialism. We declare with them that the most important work that men and women can engage in is that of helping on the overthrow of capitalism, and the creation of the socialist co-operative commonwealth. The truth in socialist utopianism is what shows the potential in the capabilities of workers. Socialism cannot be introduced without the actions of organised public opinion supporting the socialist ideal. Whether that support is won at the ballot box or through workers councils is not as important as that it be won. As long as the ballot can be used, even under difficulties as it is today, it should be used. That is why we look forward to bigger and better Socialist Party election campaigns. If that method is withheld from us in the future, we shall still have to go forward until we do gain the socialist commonwealth by the best means at our command. One thing seems evident. If we cannot get people to vote for our idea, there is little hope of getting them to take up arms on behalf of our cause. If the people who vote for a socialist do not do so because he is a socialist or because they do not know what socialism is, what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? The answer is “none whatever.” 

 On every occasion we state our socialist position and our socialist objective. The Socialist Party is and must be a political party throughout the year, and not only during election campaigns.

Wellfare For Capitalists?

The British government has approved the expenditure of one hundred and fifty - million pounds to renovate Buckingham Palace. They say there is no money for education, health and various welfare programs but they do have it to fix up a capitalist's house. We can call this a capitalist's welfare program. So much for government priorities. John Ayers.

When Do Unions Work Effecttively?

-About four hundred unionized jobs at Sobeys warehouse in Milton will be eliminated by 2017 as the supermarket chain shifts more goods into its new high-tech warehouse in Vaughan. The union can do little to save the jobs. This justifies the socialist belief that unions can only work effectively in periods of high production. John Ayers.

Against Capitalism - For Socialism

According to the media magnates, the “old fashioned radical” ideas of the socialist movement are “out-dated” and “obsolete” because we now live in a “Welfare State”, even if it is an ever weakening one. But the Socialist Party point out that in the process of capital accumulation by the capitalists, wealth is constantly accumulated at one end and poverty is accumulated at the other. “This,” Marx said, “is an absolute and general law of capitalist accumulation.” (Capital, Vol. 1) In capitalist society part of the workers’ labour that is plundered by the capitalists as surplus value, the source of all profit under capitalism. A parent’s feeling that their children won’t live as well as they have – under capitalism – is true. They won’t. That part of the capitalist dream is gone for now. And the ability of even the children of the “middle-class” suburbs, and of the country as a whole, to reach or surpass the income levels and status of their parents through a college education is rapidly being closed off by mounting fees and student debt. No longer is there guaranteed the road to the highly illusory “upward mobility.”

Wherever there is capitalism, there is unemployment. The official unemployment rates actually show only the tip of the iceberg about the true picture of joblessness under capitalism. Today there is a whole stratum of jobless who are permanently unemployed and who will never hold a productive job under capitalism. It is another example of how the Great Recession today is fundamentally deeper and more extensive than the Great Depression. The trend in this crisis is for more and more workers and poor to be forced into the ranks of the permanently unemployed. For black and other minority youth (and increasingly for white youth as well) this means that they may never know what a steady job and steady income mean as they hop from one lousy McDonald’s job to another. For older workers in dying declining industries many will also be forced onto welfare. Though the capitalist system has created increasing permanently unemployed and the deepening stagnation is driving more and more workers into its ranks, the employing class are ruthlessly cutting off the funds that keep them alive. Capitalism tears at and destroys the social fabric in which we live. The impact of the economic crisis on the family is profound, gnawing at people’s standard of living and taking a relentless toll and the family is under attack by the capitalist system as never before in our history. Unable to direct their anger at the real source of their desperation and destitution, the capitalists, many people inevitably lash out at anybody available, including their nearest and dearest. People go berserk, grab guns and say “I hate this world” as they randomly kill strangers. Demagogues are whipping up Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, pitting people against people, feeding on the desperation and fears of people.

For all the suffering borne by people, we have not seen any mass resistance of significance. A strange situation indeed – accelerating destitution and deprivation on the one hand and relative docility on the other.  This is the deepest capitalist economic crisis ever and the number of strikes is actually almost the lowest in decades. Disoriented, the vast majority of workers are still dazed by the full brunt of the capitalist crisis. People have not taken to the streets in droves (with a few notable exceptions), but they are in fact awakening to political life by the millions and tens of millions. Unlike any time in the last thirty years, the vast majority are open to political ideas, listening intently to all shades of political opinion. In every pub and club, in every living room, a great debate on every question is raging and discussions on politics are no longer taboo topic at the dining table. That the people will at some time soon vote with their feet is certain. They are trying to decide now what they are going to “vote” for. Soon there will be action but for a revolution to be any good, you have to be FOR something. We should be, without hesitation or embarrassment, Utopia, and demand the impossible.

We analyse the sources of surplus value, class exploitation and its termination in a socialist society of abundance for all with production for use not profit. We fret over the cruelty and the absurdity of unemployment, of want and suffering in the midst of plenty. We probe the economic and political roots of war and question how to eradicate them. We wish to  establish an economic order internationally where the antagonism between classes vanishes and the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. We seek the human future of associated labour in which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all. People want clarity and want to study. We want to teach. But above all, we ourselves also learn.

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Why we are socialists

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

Capitalism — the rule of business — must be abolished. Working people need to throw the capitalist parties out of office and fundamentally transform society. The needs of working people can only be met by creating an economy, where ownership and control of the means of production are taken from the tiny minority of capitalists and placed in the hands of the working people, to be run democratically. When we speak of the means of production, we mean that wealth which is necessary for the production of the necessities of the people. The industries, the railroads, mines, and so on. We have never proposed the elimination of private property in personal effects. We speak of those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs. When the vast resources available to us are used to serve the needs of all instead of the profits of the few, and there exists a world socialist commonwealth, then the way will be opened for unparalleled growth in culture, freedom and the development of every individual. In a socialist world of plenty, mankind is at long last freed of the dominance of economics, the tyranny of economics. We will for the first time be free to develop the full potentialities and capacities of the human individual, and see the full flowering of man’s spirit. This is the only goal worth fighting for today. It is the real freedom. Socialism is a name applied to a new form of society, and it is a name also applied to the movement working in that direction. Those of us within the World Socialist Movement visualise a social system that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes.

Such a society is worth fighting for. Socialists often hear the comment that "Socialism is a good idea but it’s not practical." But today it’s becoming more apparent than ever that it is the present system — capitalism — that is impractical and unworkable. The Socialist Party want to change society. But we think that problems will not disappear by wishing or hoping them away. The only way we can get a rational society, based on the needs of the majority, is by organizing and fighting for it. We know that a better world is not only possible, but absolutely necessary. We in the Socialist Party stand for a society where ownership and control of the means of production are taken out of the hands of the tiny minority of capitalists, and placed in the hands of the majority — the workers. The capitalist system is run for the profits of the few, not the needs of the majority. Workers are thus continually forced to fight to defend their interests. Through these struggles, they will come to see the need for socialism, to replace capitalism. We feel that all the problems people experience in the context of our present society — war, poverty, pollution, the deep economic crises— flow from a cause, the nature of this profit-oriented society. We see that there are no real solutions to these problems until the entire society is changed.

We should be very clear about the kind of change that we are talking about. When we say that we are revolutionaries we are not talking about a change in society that would take place when some small group storms parliament and runs up the red flag. What we mean by revolution is the political and economic transformation of society and it is fundamental change because it will affect the property system and affects the method and means of production. A political revolution can occur without any radical transformation of the underlying economic structure of society, the property basis of society. A social revolution, on the other hand, affects not only the government, but affects the economic system. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of people consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way people relate to their jobs. We're out to change the whole system. If you are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the system and to build a political organisation capable of assisting in that. A few workers see the need for socialism. Others don't see that need. The task of the Socialist Party is to educate, agitate and organise.

The economy of the world now is all tied together in one unit, and because we think that the solution of the problem of the day—the establishment of socialism—is a world problem, we believe that workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We have, from the very beginning of our movement, collaborated with like-minded people in all other countries in trying to promote the socialist movement on a world scale. We have advocated the international organisation of the workers, and their cooperation in all respects, and mutual assistance in all respects possible. The Socialist Party is opposed to all forms of national chauvinism, race prejudice, sex discrimination. We visualise the future society of mankind as a world socialism where will have a worldwide division of labour according to their resources, a comradely collaboration between them, and production of the necessities and luxuries of mankind according to a single universal world plan

The reformists wish that the problems of the world could be solved by reforming capitalism. They don't recognise the existing reality today and what the possibilities are right now for building the socialist movement. They don't want to have to work for a fundamental change in society. They conclude that capitalism can be reformed. Bernie Sanders campaigning to win the Democratic nomination so he can contest the presidency simply says that the United States can learn a few things from Scandinavian states when it comes to having a stronger welfare state, socialised health care, stronger unions, and the like. He is diluting the meaning of the word socialism which for actual socialists refers to workers’ control of production and the democratic running of the economy for people and the common good, not the profits of a capitalist elite as much as advancing it. Bernie blames the US billionaire class for the increase in poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and even war. It also makes it clear that Bernie believes the system that created this relatively minuscule group of billionaires can reform itself given the right person at the helm with a large popular movement behind them. This belies the idea that he has a socialist understanding of how capitalists accumulate wealth. In other words, Bernie Sanders is no socialist. Instead, he is a progressive in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. Like both of those men, Sanders believes that capitalism can work if it is properly tethered and monopolies are broken up.

Socialists contend that present day society is divided into two main classes. One is the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie (a French designation which is used by Marx interchangeably with the expression the modern capitalist). The other main class is the working class (or the proletariat.) These are the two main classes in society. We use the term working class, or proletariat, to designate the modern wage workers. The workers are exploited by the capitalists. There is a constant conflict of interests between them, an unceasing struggle between these classes, which can only culminate in the eventual victory of the proletariat and the establishment of socialism.

The Socialist Party view the trade-union movement as the basic organisation of the workers that should include the great mass of the workers, and must include them, in the struggle to defend their interests from day to day. We are in favor of trade unions, and participate in organising them wherever we can as individuals. The trade unions help the workers to resist oppression, possibly to gain improvement of conditions; that is for us a decisive reason to support them, because we are in favour of anything that protects the workers. In general we are in favour of industrial unionism. That is, that form of unionism which organises all the workers in a given shop or given industry into one union. We consider that a more progressive and effective form of organisation than sectional craft unionism but we do not believe in setting up rival parallel unions. We don’t condemn trade unionism although we are continually insisting upon a democratic structure of decision-making inside the unions, demanding the rights of the members to speak freely, to have regular elections of officials , and in general, to have the unions under the control of its members through the system of democracy.

When classes are abolished, as exploitation is eliminated, as the conflict of class against class is eliminated, the very reason for the existence of the State diminishes. Governments are primarily instruments of repression of one class against another. According to the doctrine of Marx and Engels and all of the great Marxists who followed them, and based themselves on their doctrine, we visualise, as Engels expressed it, the withering away of the State as a repressive force, as an armed force, and its replacement by purely administrative councils, whose duties will be to plan production, to supervise public works, and education, and things of this sort. As Engels expressed it the government of men will be replaced by the administration of things. The “government” of a socialist society in reality will be an administrative body, because we don’t anticipate the need for police and armies, jails, repressions, and consequently that aspect of government dies out for want of function.

We have the possibility of peaceful revolution by the registration of the will of the majority of the people in elections and it seems to the Socialist Party it would be utterly absurd to reject that, because if we don’t have the support of the majority of the people, we can’t make a successful revolution anyhow. Our party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct very energetic campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in elections . The first purpose is to make full use of the democratic possibility afforded to popularise our ideas, to try to get elected wherever possible and advancing the socialist cause by democratic means. It is our opinion is that if the workers reached the point of the majority, and confronted the capitalist private owners of industry with the fact of their majority and will exercise their power, then the capitalist class will capitulate but if not then the workers will appropriate and remove them from power by force, legitimised by our electoral victories.

Quote of the Day

"I don't like nationalists. So my goat has been well and truly got over the past 18 months by the independence referendum. I don't like putting new lines on maps, breaking up countries into smaller parts. And I don't like people who bang the drum of their tribe, thinking that the coincidence of where they were born confers superiority on them..." -  Neil Oliver, Scottish archaeologist and historian,  presenter of TV series  'Coast' and 'A History of Scotland'