More On The Environment

More on the environment – an international group of scientists have calculated that if we burn all the coal, oil, and gas resources available, the Antarctic ice sheet will melt entirely triggering a global sea level rise of more than fifty metres. It would take thousands of years to unfold but would reshape the face of the earth. The scientists believe that any more than a two degree warming would set in motion a melting that would be unmanageable. Another reason, they say, for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. John Ayers.

Shriking Water Lakes

On July 31, 2015, the temperature in Bandar Mahshahr, Iran reached 72 degrees on the humidity index that combines moisture and the temperature to state what it really feels like. Actual temperature was 'only' 46 degrees Celsius. In Iraq, a government was sacked over its inability to deliver air conditioning. The first decision by Iran's new government under president Hassan Rouhani was not about the nuclear power deal but to deal with the country's shrinking lakes. Lake Oroumieh, once home of the biggest salt water lake on earth has shrunk eighty per cent in the last decade. In Pakistan, more people have died from the heat this year than from terrorism. (All from The New York Times, Aug 30) Climate change and how to deal with it is appearing on the political agenda of those countries who are feeling the effects. It will be interesting to see how capitalism will deal with this, or not. John Ayers.

The Hopes and Dreams of Socialists.

This is a time of change and transformation. Many say we have begun to move forward again and difficult decisions, hard battles, and no doubt some serious defeats, lie ahead. But, for all that, we have begun to move forward again. We have reached a turning point in the class struggle. To build the socialist movement we need to clearly state our case. Environmental campaigners are confronting a ‘single issue’ of such enormity that its political ramifications demand a more general critique of the system. Many of these activists have such a critique, although it may not be a socialist critique. Today the movement against corporate-driven globalisation is at a decisive juncture. There are different proposals on how to move forward. Let us not waste the opportunities opening up by being wed to the thinking and strategies of the past.

Freedom is not a thing that can be won for a few. If any are in chains, no one is truly free. Nor can freedom be granted as a gift. It must be taken by the many because only in doing so can we learn to use and expand it. The rich hate the thought of socialism so much that they call ‘socialist’ any reform in the system that cuts into their wealth in the slightest—from public education to environmental regulations  Such reforms, however needed they might be, are not socialism. Real freedom, socialism, will mean turning that system over, or, more accurately, standing things right side up. It will mean organizing society and the economy on a totally different basis, where the wealth created by the labor of the many goes to serve the people and not to enrich a tiny handful of parasites. Today the rich and powerful, the tiny handful who squat atop our social pyramid try to claim the banner of freedom for themselves. But we have a different vision of freedom. The great majority of the globe’s women and men want freedom from misery, from exploitation, from the jackboots of the state, from living our whole lives in alienation and insecurity. And more, we want freedom to become fully human, to develop all our gifts and abilities. And millions of us sense that this cannot be done by each of us as individuals, but only by the pooling of our collective strength and wisdom. Because the over-riding law of capitalism is “expand or die,” enormous waste, suffering and environmental destruction are built into the system we live under. In place of this dog-eat-dog madness, we need cooperation, and collective planning.

The original role of money, before the development of capitalism, was to serve as a medium, a standard that made easier the exchange of one commodity for another. But under capitalism, this medium of exchange has taken off with a life of its own. For the capitalist, the aim of production is not to produce goods to exchange and to use, but instead it is a compulsory drive to accumulate capital through exploitation– simply put, to make more money. Once money becomes the aim of production, labour power has to become a commodity. In other words, a worker’s labour power can be bought and sold. Besides the fact that people must be legally free–that is, not slaves owned by others or serfs tied to the land – the labourer must have lost all means of production and thus all ability to produce either for consumption or exchange for himself. An example of this is peasants being driven off the land. Labour power as a commodity is the necessary complement of the private ownership of the means of production by the capitalists.

 Only by buying the worker’s labour power can the capitalist make profits. Workers produce more than what the capitalist pays them in wages and benefits. This is the basis of exploitation of the workers. What the workers produce over and beyond the socially necessary labor for keeping themselves and their families alive and working is surplus value. Surplus value is the only source of profits and is ripped off by the capitalists. While with socialism labour power is no longer a commodity, you no longer sell your labor power to the capitalists and we are not thus equating it to labor power in the land-bound, bodily-restricted conditions of the past. The context is modern society, a complex, highly productive and healthy society compared to the past periods.

The employers have one basic goal in life: to make more and more profits, and they accomplish this by dominating the economics, politics, and cultural life of their workers. They will throw workers out into the streets to starve, promote nationalism and racism, and build a military arsenal that can destroy the world several times over – anything for profits! This is an irrational and unjust system. But life does not have to be this way. We can improve our lives and society, and eliminate exploitation and capitalist injustice, by overturning the capitalist system. We can replace capitalism with a rational and humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit of society; where the common good, not profits, becomes the chief concern; where the everyday working people become the rightful masters of society. It takes a radical solution to bury the miseries of capitalism. The socialist revolution has become a possibility and a necessity. There is no other choice today but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day, win socialism.

The world today is a land of stark and bewildering contradictions. We possess the greatest technological industrial and agricultural power in history yet cannot feed, clothe and provide a decent livelihood for millions. What is the reason for these contradictions between the promises, the potential of this society, and its stark reality? Why is there such a gap between what is and what could be! The answers to these questions cannot be found “human nature” or apologies about “that is the way things are.” No! Capitalism, the social system under which we live, is responsible for the contradictions of in society. A system of exploitation thrives on the private control and ownership of society’s wealth and production – production involving the interconnected efforts of millions of working people. Socialism, by fundamentally changing the social system will end situation and will qualitatively improve the lives of the working people. 

If the working people, and not the capitalists, controlled the great resources of our society, we could improve all our lives. We could all have employment and safe places to work. We could end pollution and the threat to the environment. We could guarantee a decent life for all. Women and men, young and old, and people of all lands are realising we must unite and struggle to survive, to be able to work, eat and live as decent human beings. Today each person on the planet is faced with the choice of either enduring the suffering of unemployment, brutalisation and war; or taking the path of struggle – joining with the millions of others who are dissatisfied and know that a better society is possible. People are crying out against pollution and environmental destruction. We could live in a society that is not preparing constantly for war and self-extinction. These are the promises that encourage us forward. These are the hopes and dreams of socialists.

We are a Marxist Party

Socialism has been defined and interpreted in lots of different ways, most of them bogus. We are one of the few political organisations who emphatically maintain that socialism should be identified with abolition of wage-labour and creation of economic equality between people. This clearly distinguishes us from all those currents who identify socialism with state-ownership or with redistribution of wealth. We maintain that socialism requires the abolition of wage-labour, and the transformation of the means of labour, means of production, into the common property of society. Social welfare and economic security of people can only be the result of such a revolution in the economic foundations of society. Marxism is not a scholastic criticism of capitalism. It is the worker’s criticism as a definite class and a living fighter in capitalist society.

There are a many sincere people these days on the Left who seek modify or revise Marxism. Such as trying to add the "market" to the concept of socialism. As far as we are concerned, it is absurd to abandon Marxism to people who accept it, not as a critique of capitalism, but as a fashionable school of thought that they can pick and choose whatever suits their thesis. A great many of them are people who had been using Marxist terminology as a wrapping for views and social aspirations alien to Marxism. As a Marxist political party we challenge the non-Marxists in the general labour movement. We criticise, from a Marxist standpoint, the way they explain the condition of the working class, the society, the economy, the state, religion, the political regime, etc. This is a fundamental objective of our party. Our account of the history of the social struggle of the working class, and of the causes of socialism's failure so far, is itself a characteristic and distinctive feature of our tradition. On why we have not yet achieved socialism, some have already come up with what they regard as answer. The tell us: "Marxian theory was wrong" and "socialism, in general, has always been a Utopia; it's not practicable". In response to such explanations we put forward a totally different argument.

In response, we are able to explain other reasons for the failure. We are able to show capitalist movements borrowed the slogans and the language of our movement. We can explain our movement was defeated by nationalism and the experiences of the false socialism in the Soviet Union. We can point to the reformists who said their way was the most efficious way towards socialism as it led workers and their organisations up the garden path to dead-ends. The victory of socialism was never inevitable and a pre-determined outcome of history. A modern slavery for several generations could just as well be the destiny of the world.  The resistance and protests of workers against capitalism is, of course, inevitable. But no one can claim that this protest will inevitably occur under the banner of the real socialists. Our future depends entirely on the actual practice of our movement and its activists; on what they do, and what visions they have and hold out to the workers' movement. If we do it right, it will work out; if we don't, it won't. There is no historical inevitability here.

Our socialist case , however, begins within our own class, as a current critical of the non-socialists, as the political party that pursues a more fundamental cause and a more radical change, as a Marxist party that propagates a particular view within our class. Supporting trade unions and strengthening the labour movement as a whole against the bosses, is an important task. But, we must examine the visions, the policies, and the views of working-class organisations and their leaders. To democratise the debate we have to ask vital questions: What do you think of socialism and Marxism? What alternative do you have for the reorganization of society? How, in your mind, can workers' total liberation be finally brought about? Workers should be confronted with the question as to why they are not socialists; why they have nothing to say and nothing to do concerning the economic foundations of the present system, the state, religion, the educational system, the permanent war drive, and so on, and so forth. We do not bow to the attitudes of the reformist workers' movements. We are duty-bound to intervene in economic, political, cultural and intellectual life of society. We want the worker to emerge as the force that presents the whole human society with a real alternative. We regard socialist vision, the Marxist critique and social revolution as crucial; just as we regard the fight for a wage rise, or to defend unemployment benefits, the right to strike, and organising to bring about improvements in the economic and political condition of the working classes as vital. Each one of these aspects expresses a different moment in the life, the struggle, the self- assertion, of the working class; aspects that we regard as indivisible and indispensable. We must criticise all social tendencies, working-class or otherwise, which break apart this whole and keep workers away from the social revolution and the social revolution away from the workers. We are fighting for the establishment of the worker’s social and economic alternative as a class. The worker’s position in production does not change. The economic foundation of society does not change. This class’s alternative for the organization of human society does not change. The worker still has to sell his or her labour power daily in order to live, and thus views the world from the same standpoint and offers the same solution to it.

The Socialist Party arose from a certain tradition of struggle within the class itself. Its relation with the working class is thus based on the relation of that tendency within the class with the working class as a whole. This means that it is not a party formed by a number of social reformers for the salvation of the working class. It is not the party of "all workers" irrespective of their outlook and their social and political aims. This is the party of the socialist workers who put forward a fundamental and comprehensive critique of the present system. We consider ourselves not a political party outside the class, but a critical party, with a definite socialist outlook, within the class itself. It is therefore for us to confront others within our class theoretically, politically, and ideologically. Socialism is the cause of workers to destroy capitalism, abolish wage-labour and do away with exploitation and classes. It may seem that socialism has turned into the password of reformist parties who to realise their palliative programme have needed workers’ power. But the workers remains where they are, with their objective situation, with their protest against the effects of the wages system and private property, with their real solution for mankind, and cannot protest against the present system except by socialism. We as activists in this socialist movement movement declare this movement, and this movement alone, is the only the present situation. The working class will triumph by virtue of being the backbone of production in the existing society and the social class having a real solution to human suffering as a whole. The power of the working class lies in its size, we have the numbers, but also rests on this class’s position in capitalist production. The era of workers’ show of strength on the political stage is once again arriving, and this time, particularly, in the cradle of capitalism its heartlands where allegedly workers’ weight has declined.

Edinburgh's Luxury Houses

Chinese investors are snapping up multi-million pound Scots homes – because they are “inexpensive”. House prices in Scotland remain modest compared to those in London, China’s big cities and Hong Kong. Wealthy Chinese families have been showing growing interest in Scotland’s “affordable” high end property market. Interested buyers have even flown halfway across the world to view extravagant mansions that most would only be able to dream of acquiring.

Estate agents across the country have revealed that as a result, there has been a surge in the sales of properties over £750,000 in recent months. A private island off Scotland’s west coast is currently up for sale for just £550,000 – the same price as a one-bedroomed flat in certain parts of London.

Savills, CKD Galbraith, Rettie and Strutt and Parker say they have all had recent interest from Chinese investors, particularly in Edinburgh properties. They say that education plays a key role in the city’s appeal, with several sought-after private schools located in the centre. Blair Stewart, a partner at Strutt & Parker, said: “Two or three high net worth Chinese buyers who have children going into St George’s and Fettes have come over recently. They want houses nearby in the Inverleith area. “Last week we had a Chinese buyer fly over to look at Windmill House, a £2.8 million property in Edinburgh. The buyer’s daughter is going to St George’s School, right next to the house, and he was over from Beijing and thought that the Edinburgh property market was very inexpensive.”

Windmill House, located in secluded grounds in the heart of Murrayfield, boasts ten bedrooms, eight bathrooms and an impressive south-facing terrace. It is described as being in “one of the most desirable residential areas in the city” with private riverside access to the Water of Leith.

Max Mills, at Rettie, said: “High-end contemporary flats appeal to Chinese buyers. One example is Quartermile, because it’s a new development. It was designed by an award-winning architect, and it comprises shiny new properties with lots of glass and stainless steel, which reminds them of upmarket flats in the Far East.

Peter Lyell, of Savills Edinburgh Residential, said: “We have had three sales at Quartermile alone to buyers from China, Hong Kong and Singapore already this year. There are more being sold as new-build investment properties in the same development.”

Oceans Of Plastic?

As many as nine out of ten of the world's sea birds probably have pieces of plastic in their guts, a new study estimates. The birds mistake plastic for fish eggs so they think they are getting a meal. One researcher said, "I've seen birds eat everything from cigarette lighters to bottle caps, to model cars, even toys." It's obvious it's time to clean up the oceans, but can it be done in our present system? And, The New York Times reported recently that researchers have found a' stunning' amount of plastic in the world's greatest fresh water system, The Great Lakes. Studies show that there are about 7,000 plastic particles per square kilometre in Lakes Superior and Huron, 17,000 in Lake Michigan, 46,000 in Lake Erie and a whopping 248,000 in Lake Ontario. Another report published in "Global Change Biology" states that fifty-two per cent of turtles worldwide have eaten plastic debris. Not too surprising as, in this throw-away society, developed to increase profit, about thirteen million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans each year John Ayers.

Hoarding Money

Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, discussing politics and the election, wrote, "Corporations still make profits (in spite of the recession). But because demand for goods and services they produce is so weak, many don't reinvest. Canadian companies are sitting on billions of dollars worth of what former Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, called dead money." Bingo! He got it right. All socialists know that when something is not profitable, money gets hoarded, production slows, and unemployment results. Nice to see it written in the press, though. John Ayers.

Fracking and farming

Scotland has announced a moratorium on underground coal gasification and has also widened a review on the effects of fracking, moves that have delighted environmentalists. Scotland was taking a “precautionary, robust and evidence-based approach” to unconventional gas” explained Fergus Ewing, the SNP energy minister.

Campaign group Friends of the Earth Scotland praised the new moratorium, saying underground gasification was a “risky and experimental technique, with a very chequered history around the world”.

Fracking for shale gas under Scottish farmland could have a "profound effect" upon the food chain for current and future generations, Professor Robert Jackson, a pollution expert has warned in a recent issue of Scottish Farmer.

 Described by Scottish Water as one of country's leading independent experts in waste water management, he has cast doubt on the gas extraction industry's safety claims, citing years of evidence from the US that many hydrocarbon wells, sooner or later, will threaten groundwater with noxious leaks.

Incredibily Stupid

Although, as reported last month, the Pope has supposedly lost support for his stance on climate change, he is currently appearing to large cheering crowds in the US. Not all are happy, however. A University of Iowa professor, who should know better, criticised him by saying, "The church should be about making people holy, not about making the environment clean." Incredibly stupid. John Ayers.

U. N. Failing Goals

Talking of the UN, it appears to be failing in reaching many of its stated goals such as ending poverty – the Democratic Republic of Congo has GDP per capita of US$394 per year; End hunger – six million Syrian refugees are totally dependent on food aid; ensure healthy lives – the world's highest infant mortality rate is in Afghanistan with 117 deaths per 1,000 live births; full and decent employment for all – Bosnia and Herzegovina's youth employment rate is a staggering 62.8 per cent, the highest of any country at peace. The list goes on and on showing the incredible failure of the capitalist mode of production. John Ayers.

This is what socialism is

The Socialist Party struggles for the complete victory of the social revolution of the working class. The advances of human society in economy, science, technology and standards of civic life have already created the material conditions necessary to set up a free society without classes, exploitation and oppression, i.e. a world socialist community. Marxism is a very coherent explanation of capitalist society. It is the indictment of a particular section of society – the wage-workers– against the existing relations. It is an analysis which contends to be the true explanation of society and there is no reason to reject it, and the recent world developments only more emphatically prove its legitimacy. Marxism proposes that economic relations determine society’s political and cultural life. Everyone knows that it all comes down to profits and labour productivity. At the back of their mind, everybody knows what the state is good for, what the police and the army have been built for. All know that there is an incessant conflict going on within society between the employer and the employee; that any trace of freedom and humanity has come from the power of worker and working-class organisations to prise gains from business and their state. People naturally expect unions to be against exploitation and discrimination, to stand for social welfare, and so on. Intellectuals considers the Marxist label as boost to their credentials (deservedly or not) and dress themselves up in the Marxist garb. Nationalists, and reformists and a whole host of other tendencies had turned to Marxism. We need not a revision of Marxism but the application of it to the contemporary world.

To this day, socialism, in the sense meant by Marxists, has not been set up anywhere. Marx was the most important and profound critic of the dehumanisation of humanity under capitalism. In capitalist society the human being is slave to blind economic laws which determine his/her economic fate, independently of his/her thinking, reasoning and judgement. Socialism aims to return this identity to human beings. The slogan `from each according to ability, to each according to need’ is entirely based on the recognition and guaranteeing of the right of every person himself/herself to determine his/her position in society.  Socialism is a society in which human beings gain control over their economic lives, are freed from the chains of blind economic laws and themselves consciously define their economic activity. The decision is with the person not with the market, or accumulation or surplus value. This liberation of entire society from the blind economic laws is the condition of emancipation of the individual and the restoration of humanity and human specificity of every individual. The basis of socialism is the human being – both collectively and as an individually. Socialism is the movement to restore man’s conscious will, a movement for freeing human beings from economic necessity and enslavement in pre-determined moulds. It is a movement for abolishing classes and people’s classification. This is the essential condition for the growth of the individual.

Technical innovation and improvement in product quality is not an invention of capitalism. Human beings are always eager for knowledge and improvement in production techniques and in the quality of their lives. In capitalism it is the market that defines the needs and the level of demand for the commodities which satisfy them. Capitals which produce these commodities make profit. It is through these capitalist equations that scientists and experts find and take up their researches and projects. It is here that the proportion of society’s resources which should be set aside for scientific research, the direction science and its practical application should take, the areas which have priority are decided. In socialism, on the other hand, there is no market, no competition and no individual interest. But people and their scientific curiosity and drive for innovation and to improvement of the quality of life are there. A socialist society is an open and informed society. In socialism it will be a routine procedure to constantly inform people about the needs and problems in the various areas of human life worldwide. Under capitalism it is the market that informs capitals about the existence of demand and the opportunity of making profit in the production of certain commodities. In the socialist system it is the citizens and their institutions that constantly inform each other of the economic, social and human needs, as well as of the scientific and technical advances of the different sectors. Given the present technology, the organization of such information interchange and of everyone’s constant access to it is feasible even right now. A socialist society will be a society in which people enjoy a much higher level of scientific education than today. Access to learning and participation in scientific activity is not a privilege of a particular social group; it is everyone’s elementary right. Just as once literacy was the privilege of a few but today is regarded as a basic right. We see even today how, for instance, using computers and even their relatively complex and specialized application, at least in the more advanced countries, has become so generalized – though still a far cry from socialism’s capability in promoting general scientific capacities and making the means for scientific work accessible to all.

Capitalism has itself brought about striking technical changes but in this society technology develops where it is profitable for capital. Alongside the enormous progress in the development of armament technology we see the advances in medicine and health care, education, housing, agriculture thwarted by lack of investment. And the majority of the people of the world is deprived of the results of this technological progress. Socialism will certainly be different from capitalism, since the technical priorities of a society based on improving people’s lives will be totally different from a society driven by the profit motive.

Capitalism’s stereotyped picture of the human being and human motivation cannot be a starting point for the organisation of socialism. Capitalism builds on individual self- interest and competition. To make the economy work, it bolsters these qualities in people and trains them in this spirit. The basis of socialism, however, is man’s humanism and his social nature. Scientific effort and the socialist ideal cannot be realised without getting rid of the intellectual prejudices fostered by capitalism. Like any other social system, socialism will reproduce the appropriate human being and it is not difficult to imagine a society in which people’s motivation in their economic and scientific activity is to contribute to the well-being of all, to participate in a common effort to improve the lives of all.

The realisation of socialism is the result of class struggle, and this struggle is capable of defeat so capitalist barbarism, on a scale perhaps not yet experienced by our generation, can be the outcome. There is now a need to express the socialist vision in more concrete terms and offer more practical models of economic organisation in socialist society and elaborate further. If you’d put this question to a Marxist at the beginning of the century he or she would reply that it is not for us to devise blueprints and utopias, that our task is to organise a revolution against the existing system, that our goals are clear and the process of workers’ revolution itself will provide the practical forms of their realisation. The rise of capitalism itself was not on the basis of a clear positive model of the system. But what has to be done is, firstly, to clarify the precise meaning of socialist aims, and, secondly, to show the feasibility of their realisation. It must demonstrate, for instance, that the abolition of capitalist ownership does not mean introduction of state ownership, and explain how the organisation of people’s collective control over means of production is practical. It must be emphasizes that socialism is an economic system without money and wage labour, and then shown how organizing production without labour power as a commodity is feasible. What cannot be done is to prepare a detailed blueprint of production and administration in a socialist society. The specific form of economy, production and system of administration in a socialist society should be worked out in the context of the historical process. Our job to show in what ways socialist society differs from the existing one. For example, we show the process of the withering away of the state following a workers’ revolution by explaining the material basis of the state in class society and its superfluous requirement as a political institution in a classless society, and not by issuing a step-by-step pamphlet dismantling of state institutions and departments.

We can always find people who shrug their shoulders at socialism, at socialist organization and even at having lofty ideals. Deriding socialism and workers has always been rewarded by the elite. Perhaps more intellectuals and academics than ever before, in the media, universities and the various think-tank institutions have turned it into ‘honourable’ profession. This is not our concern. More important today is implanting Marxist ideas and actual involvement in working-class mass movements. We emphasise the terms Marxist because for many on the left protest simply means anti-capitalism and not proposing socialism. Many times what is meant left activism is participation in reform movements or democratization of this or that political regime, and so on. The world is full of campaigns and protesters who carry out ‘alternative’ activity only later to find it incorporated into the established tradition. The ruling class are putting up its own economic, political and cultural ‘alternatives’ – from nationalism to religion, neo-fascism and racism. The period we are entering will not be lacking in working class protest movements and actions. But the outcome of these struggles and specifically their impact on the general conditions of workers in society, their power and dignity, is another question. It requires an active socialist movement in society and a revolutionary presence within the workers’ movement.

Money free, wage free, market free

It is at the point of production exploitation takes place. Robert Tressell's ‘Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ piece on waged slavery is still applicable today.

Poverty is both actual and relative.

Capitalism is global and will continue to exploit locally and globally to extract surplus value from the workers it employs on a waged rationed access basis. It must 'exploit or die' its watchword, Accumulate! Accumulate!

"…capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt". (Marx)

We need to have a dialogue with fellow workers worldwide, and make our common cause about abolishing waged slavery and establishing a post-capitalist commonly owned world of free access for all, in re callable delegated democratic conditions of social equality.

Capitalism cannot be reformed and must be replaced, by a post-capitalist society, a commonly-owned, production-for-use, not a for-sale society.

Which has free access to the common produce.

Which is a money free, wage free, market free society.

Which has delegated democracy over the control of resources. Not representative democracy over people.

"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.’ (1879 Marx and Engels)

The Socialist Party of Great Britain speakers, who had a platform in Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow on most Saturday afternoons espoused the unequivocal case for socialism. They were and still are, the only political party who don't want to be leaders or 'guvnors', insisting, 'don't vote for us if you don't understand', that the task of bringing in socialism is the task of the working class themselves and pointed to self-education allied with political action as the means of self-liberation.

Wee Matt

Edinburgh Branch

Job Worries

Almost 70 per cent of workers say the quality of their job is getting worse, according to a Scottish Parliament survey. Most had been in their job for more than five years and 68 per cent of this group said work was getting worse. Key factors include low pay, poor management and insecure employment.

More than 60 per cent said their mental or physical health had been impacted by their job, with almost 90 per cent of that group mentioning stress, anxiety or depression.

Dumfries and Galloway Council said: “On the whole jobs have become worse since 2008.

“Though there is an ever-increasing awareness of what a good job involves and requires (the importance of aspects such as fairness, equality and work life balance are greater understood and emphasised), there are fewer full-time jobs, there are fewer well-paid jobs and there is less job security.”

NHS Health Scotland said risks to workers’ health was the highest in elementary jobs, sales and customer service, process, plant and machine operative and caring and leisure positions. According to the most recent Annual Population Survey, these occupations account for around one third of the labour force.

The Unite union said tensions in the labour market had created a problem with “presenteeism”, where staff ignore health troubles and continue working for fear that taking sick leave could cost them their livelihood. The union said: “Around one third of sick people are going in to work with stress due to workload and a further 13 per cent with fear of being made redundant. When they do attend work they are unfortunately subjected to extreme stress levels leading some workers to suffer bouts of mental ill health.

Citizens Advice Scotland told the enquiry the number of work-related cases it was handling had gone up 12 per cent from around 45,100 in 2011-12 to more than 50,600 in 2014-15. During that time, it experienced “particularly sharp increases” in matters of pay and entitlements, dispute resolution and self-employment.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress said: “Feedback from trade union workplace representatives across the economy strongly suggests that the quality and security of employment has deteriorated since the recession started in early 2008.

“Adverse trends which were apparent prior to 2008 – eg underemployment, zero hours contracts – have become more deeply embedded over the past seven years with the rising prevalence of insecure work a particular concern. Although concerns around insecurity tend to focus on zero hours contracts, it is important to note other insecure forms of work are also increasingly common.”

A Disgrace To Mankind

As we watch the refugee crisis in Europe unfold, we tend to forget the plight of others around the world. The Toronto Star, September 19 reminds us that Dadaab in Northern Kenya near Somalia's border, is the world's oldest and largest refugee camp, "More city than camp, more prison then city." The UN says there are 350,000 people living there but the count is likely closer to 500,000. The camp started twenty-four years ago as a temporary shelter and there are over 6,000 grandchildren of the original inhabitants. That such a place can exist in the twenty-first century is a disgrace to mankind. Time to stand up and be counted! John Ayers.

Tawdry Values

A recent TV program on the American Civil War mentioned the fact that two days after the Confederate victory at Bull Run, a bunch of real estate sharks bought the land and turned it into a museum of the battle to, obviously, cash in on the public interest. So much for capitalism's tawdry set of values. John Ayers.

This topsy-turvy world

The capitalist world is a world that is upside down. The motivating aim of economic activity is not satisfaction of people's needs, but profitability of capital. Scientific and technological progress, which are the key to human welfare and well-being, translate in this system into even more unemployment and impoverishment for hundreds of millions of workers. In a world that has been built through cooperation and collective action, it is competition that reigns. To put the world right side up is the aim of the Socialist Party.

The socialist revolution is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and their conversion into common ownership of the whole society. Communist revolution puts an end to the class division of society and abolishes the wage-labour system. Thus, the market, exchange of commodities, and money disappear. Production for profit is replaced by production to meet people's needs and to bring about greater prosperity for all. Work, which in capitalist society for the overwhelming majority is an involuntary, mechanical and strenuous activity to earn a living, gives way to voluntary, creative and conscious activity to enrich human life. Everyone, by virtue of being a human being and being born into human society will be equally entitled to all of life's resources and the products of collective effort. From everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need — this is a basic principle of socialism.

Not only class divisions but also the division of people according to occupation will disappear. All fields of creative activity will be opened up to all. The development of each person will be the condition of development of the society. The socialist society is a global society. National boundaries and divisions will disappear and give way to a universal human identity. Socialist society is a society free of religion, superstitious beliefs, ideology and archaic traditions and moralities that strangle free thought. The disappearance of classes and class antagonisms makes the state superfluous. In socialism the state withers away. The socialist system is a society without a state. The administrative affairs of the society will be managed by the cooperation, consensus and collective decision-making of all of its members. Thus it is in a socialist society that the ideals of human freedom and equality are truly realised for the first time. Freedom not only from political oppression but from economic compulsion and subjugation and intellectual enslavement. Freedom to enjoy and experience life in its diverse dimensions. Equality not only before the law but in the enjoyment of society's material and intellectual wealth. Equality in worth and dignity for everyone in society.

Socialism is not a dream. All the conditions for the formation of such a society have already created within the capitalist world itself. The scientific, technological and productive powers of humanity have already grown so enormously that founding a society committed to the well-being of all is perfectly feasible. The spectacular advances in communication and information technology during the last few decades have meant that the organisation of a world community with collective participation in the design, planning and execution of society's diverse functions is possible more than ever before. A large part of these resources is now either wasted in different ways or is even deliberately used to hinder efforts to improve society and satisfy human needs. But for all the immensity of society's material resources, the backbone of communist society is the creative and living power of billions of men and women beings freed from class bondage, wage-slavery, intellectual slavery, alienation and degradation. The free human being is the guarantee for the realisation of communist society.

Socialism is not a utopia. It is the goal and result of the struggle of an immense social class against capitalism; a living, real and ongoing struggle that is as old as bourgeois society itself. Capitalism itself has created the great social force that can materialise this liberating prospect. The staggering power of capital on a global scale is a reflection of the power of a world working class. Unlike other oppressed classes in the history of human society, the working class cannot set itself free without freeing the whole of humanity. A socialist society is the product of workers' revolution to put an end to the system of wage-slavery; a social revolution which inevitably transforms the entire foundation of the production relations.

The wage-labour system, that is the daily compulsion of the great majority of people to sell their physical and intellectual abilities to others in order to make a living, is the source and essence of the violence which is inherent of this system. This naked violence has many direct victims: Women, workers, children, the aged, people of the poorer regions of the world, anyone who asks for their rights and stands up to any oppression, and anyone who has been branded as belonging to this or that 'minority'. In this system, thanks essentially to the rivalry of capitals and economic blocs, war and genocide have assumed staggering proportions. The technology of war and mass destruction is far more advanced than the technology used in production of goods. The global arsenal can annihilate the world several times over. This is the system that has actually used horrendous nuclear and chemical weapons against people. Capitalist society can also take pride in its remarkable advances in turning crime, murder, abuse and rape into a routine fact of life in this system.

Capitalism is a world system, the working class is a world class, workers' conflict with the employers is a daily struggle on a global scale, and socialism is an alternative that the working class presents to the whole of humanity. The socialist movement must also be organised on a global scale. The aim of the World Socialist Movement is to organise the social revolution of the working class. A revolution that overthrows the entire exploitative capitalist relations and puts an end to all exploitations and hardships. Our immediate programme is for establishment of a socialist society; a society without classes, without private ownership of the means of production, without wage labour and without a state; a free human society in which all share in the social wealth and collectively decide the society's direction and future. Socialism is possible this very day. The socialist revolution that must bring about this free society does not happen just upon the will of a political party. This is a vast social and class movement that has to be organised in different aspects and forms. All kinds of barriers must be swept out of its way.

The socialist revolution is not a revolution out of desperation or poverty. It is a revolution relying on the political consciousness readiness of the working class. The wider the extent of political freedoms, economic security and social dignity of the working class and people in general and the more progressive the political, welfare and civil standards, the more prepared will be the conditions for workers' revolution, and the more decisive and sweeping the victory of this revolution. The revolutionary struggle to build a new world is inseparable from the daily effort to improve the living conditions of the working humanity in this same world. But the Socialist Party stress the fact that complete freedom and equality cannot be achieved through reforms. Even the most profound economic and political reforms, by definition, leave the foundations of the existing system, namely private property, class divisions and the wage-labour system, untouched. Besides, as the whole history of capitalism and actual show reforms which are won are always temporary, vulnerable and capable of being rolled back. The Socialist Party insists on the necessity of social revolution as the only really viable and liberating working-class alternative.

Scotland's Wealthiest Families

Report from Oxfam Scotland finds wealth off the top four dwarfs the poorest one million people in the country. The four richest families in Scotland are worth £1 billion more than the poorest 20 per cent of the country’s population, according to new research. 

The combined wealth of the Grant-Gordon whisky family, Highland Spring water owner Mahdi al-Tajir, oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood and former Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed dwarfs that of the one million people who make up Scotland’s poorest 20 per cent, according to Oxfam Scotland.

The four families – all of whom are either based in Scotland or have substantial business interests there – are worth an estimated £6.1bn, according to the most recent Sunday Times Rich List. Scottish Government figures show the combined wealth of the poorest 20 per cent of Scots stands at around £5.1bn. Researchers at the charity also calculated that Scotland’s 14 wealthiest families are better off than the most deprived 30 per cent of the population.

You Can Get Rid Of Poverty

Statistics recently released by the Associated press inform us that on any given night, 153,000 homeless people are on the streets in the US. There are 120 homeless people per 10,000 residents in the District of Columbia that includes the nation's capital. Thirty-four per cent of cities ban camping in public. According to The National Law Centre on homeless and poverty, fifty-three per cent of cities ban sitting or lying down in certain public places. To think, all this is in the world's number 1 industrial power. You cannot get rid of poverty by sweeping it under the carpet but you can with a change from capitalism to socialism. John Ayers.

A Socialist Tenet

On a recent TV Ontario program about the spice trade, mention was made of the suicide of 200 pepper farmers in India. A disease that destroyed the pepper trees gave them the choice – starvation or suicide. Free access to all, a socialist tenet, would solve any such problem. John Ayers.

Capital Disgrace

Children living in poverty in Edinburgh are marked out for stigma even before they get to school, and may never lose that scar, accordingto a report to the city’s education, children and families committee yesterday.

15,000 children in the capital are officially designated as living in poverty, with every ward affected. The number is expected to rise to 19,000 within the next five years, while “in work” poverty – in which one person in a household is working but their income is below poverty level – was also expected to grow significantly.

John Heywood, the council’s lead officer on tackling child poverty, said: “The gap with more affluent peers is pronounced well before children in poverty start school and continues to widen as they move up through the school system. There is a hardening of attitudes towards people living in poverty, and that includes children, and people are increasingly willing to blame some sort of individual failing rather than structural issues. There is therefore a strong stigma associated with poverty.”