The accursed capitalist system

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. With the abolition of capitalist exploitation there is also end of the managerial despotism inseparable from it, and representing all-powerful capital, the arbitrariness of the owners and the employers. Under capitalism the working people look on those in charge such as directors, managers and supervisors as enemies, since they direct production in the interests of the capitalists and of their profits. In socialist society those who administer enjoy the trust of the people, since they execute the decision of the entire community in the interests of everybody, not for capitalist profits.

 In a socialist society there is production is not for profit but for use, socially planned production. A socialist economy is a planned economy. In capitalist society, the capitalists own the means of production and engage in production for the sole purpose of making profits and satisfying their private interests. Therefore, though there may be planned production in a few enterprises, competition is rife and lack of co-ordination prevails among the different enterprises and economic departments as a whole. Cyclical economic crises which break out in capitalist society are the inevitable result of anarchy in production. Engels pointed out: “With the seizing of the means of production by society…Anarchy in social production is replaced by plan-conforming, conscious organisation.” Socialism has freed the workers from exploitation and has replaced work in subjection to the exploiters by free labour for oneself, for the whole of society. Labour in socialist society has a creative character, and is organised in a planned way.

Nationalisation in a capitalist class society is not socialism, nor is the “mixed economy”. Such nationalisation is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. The “welfare state” is not socialist as “welfare” in a capitalist state is to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker and is another form of state capitalism (aka the means test State). It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. Social production is aimed at meeting the ever increasing needs of the entire society in the interest of all the people, instead of catering to the private interests of the few. The establishment of common ownership of the means of production and the fundamental identity of the interests of the working people in socialist society make it possible for a socialist society to arrange the whole society’s labour force and means of production in a unified way. Capitalism makes the worker an appendage of the machine and stifles man’s abilities. Socialism, on the contrary, liberates labour from exploitation and gives all citizens free access to the fruits of society’s collective production. Socialism heralds a new and higher stage development of co-operation of labour, compared with preceding forms of society. Socialist co­operation is the co-operation of workers freed from exploitation, and linked with each other by relations of comradely mutual aid.

To use the word “socialism” for anything less than “from each according to ability, to each according to need” is to misuse the term. Members of the Socialist Party capably demonstrate how socialism could end poverty, unemployment and war by eliminating private ownership of the means of producing the things of life, national and international competition, and the struggle for existence by the overwhelming majority of the population in this and all other countries. They merciless expose of the evils of capitalist society, its murderous exploitation of the workers, its utter hypocrisy in human relations, and the most evident feature of its class character: the impoverishment of the masses and the enrichment of a small class of capitalists. The SPGB understands the necessity of building the movement for socialism requires the the art of socialist campaigning and agitation, to tell millions what socialism is, its relation and comparison to capitalism, and how it can be achieved. We need to reveal how thoroughly rotten capitalism is, how it is an outlived system capable of producing nothing but poverty, war and suppression of the will of the people. The Socialist Party is pledged to over-turn this accursed capitalist system, with its wars, its reaction, its vileness, brutality and savagery so that in the memory of people in future times of capitalism will remain only as a ghastly nightmare.

No Security Here.

One thing nobody hears about today is "Freedom 55", a smart financial way to retire early, though I did hear someone joke about having "freedom 95". People invested in it believing they would retire at 55 and live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but when the economy went belly up, so did their illusion. This shows that there is no such thing as security under capitalism. John Ayers.

Build the socialist commonwealth

The Socialist Party always makes it quite clear as to our exact aim and object. We as socialists, wish to advance the case for socialism, and by socialism we mean the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system, and the conducting of all production on a co-operative basis. We seek to overthrow capitalism, and build the socialist commonwealth. Socialism is the highest stage of human society, economically, socially, and intellectually. All the accumulated treasures in machines and technical appliances created by the genius of man, all that science and art had given to the human race in generations is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. This socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, will provide the basis for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

To substitute common, for private, ownership in the means of production, this it is what economic development is urging upon us with ever-increasing force. The abolition of the present system of production means replacing for production for sale with production for use. In a socialist system the people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically controlled workers councils, cooperatives, or other collective groups. The primary goal of economic activity is to provide the necessities of life, including food, shelter, health care, education, child care, cultural opportunities, and social services. The Socialist Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people’s lives under their own control in which people cooperate at work, at home, and in the community. Planning takes place at the community, regional, and world levels, and is determined democratically with the input of workers, consumers, and the public to be served. Socialism is not government ownership, a welfare state, or a repressive bureaucracy. Socialism is a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighbourhoods, homes, hospitals and schools. Democracy in daily life is the core of our socialism. State ownership is a fraud as decisions are made by distant bureaucrats or authoritarian managers. In socialist society power resides in worker-managed and cooperative enterprises. Community-based cooperatives help provide the flexibility and innovation required in a dynamic socialist economy. The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. Socialism produces a constantly renewed future by not plundering the resources of the earth. The capitalist system forces workers to sell their abilities and skills to the few who own the workplaces, profit from these workers’ labour, and use the government to maintain their privileged position. The inevitable product of the capitalist system is a class society with gross inequality, draining productive wealth and goods of the society into military purposes and war in which workers are compelled to fight other workers. People around the world have more in common with each other than with their rulers. We condemn war, preparation for war, and the militaristic culture. We ally with no nation, but only with working people throughout the world. A socialist society carefully plans its way of life and technology to be a harmonious part of our natural environment. The cleanup of the polluted and contaminated environment will be among the first tasks of a socialist society.

Socialism and democracy are one and indivisible. The Socialist Party is democratic, with its structure and practices visible and accessible to all members. It ought to be obvious to every socialist that socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to struggle for socialism and that means that they have to understand what it is. If the people who vote for a socialist candidate do not do so because he or she is a socialist then of what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend upon the consciousness of the workers and not upon their lack of knowledge. The idea that we should first be elected and then teach socialism is absurd. It can be stated with the greatest of assurance that a socialist candidate who refrains from advocating and explaining socialism during the campaign, with the idea that he or she will do so after elected will forget all about socialism.  The building of socialism requires widespread understanding and participation, and will not be achieved by an elite working “on behalf of” the people. The working class is in a key and central position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future – to a real radical democracy from below. Socialists participate in the electoral process to present socialist alternatives. The process of struggle profoundly shapes the ends achieved. Our tactics in the struggle for radical democratic change reflect our ultimate goal of a society founded on principles of egalitarian and non-exploitative relations among all people. Our aim is the creation of a new social order, a society in which the commanding value is the preciousness of every woman, man and child.

The Capitalists Are Blood-Sucking Leeches

We in the Socialist Party are not reformers but revolutionaries. We do not propose to change outward appearances. We want to change the essence of society. Reformism skims the surface. The socialist movement cannot exist unless carried on by men and women because in the last analysis it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions. The only path before workers is revolution. Only socialism can bring the solution and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for everyone. This is the aim of the socialist revolution. Only the organised working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, can drive the capitalists from possession, and can organise social production to create a free and equal society. All production is directed solely to supplying people’s needs. It is for use, not for profit. Therefore every expansion of production means greater abundance and leisure for everybody. Because production is for ourselves and administered by our own organisations, it will spur on initiative and enthusiasm unattainable under capitalism. Through the rule of the people we can immediately realise the fruits of the revolution and end the present reign of inequality — inequality in respect of every elementary human need of food, clothing, shelter, conditions of labour health, education, etc., and bring the material conditions of real freedom and development to all. In this way we shall immediately banish poverty, offering a new life for all. The capitalists hold up the spectre that revolution means “starvation,” that the workers depend on capitalism for their existence. The contrary is the truth. The workers can by the method of social revolution, and by the method of social revolution alone can rapidly reconstruct this redundant social system and win prosperity for all of us.

Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed everyday. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. The situation in health care, housing and welfare services is rapidly deteriorating. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing only – to make the most profits possible for a few people. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mined the mines, built the buildings, manufactured all the products: and then got just enough to live on – if we fought hard enough for it! On the other hand, the capitalist class reaps their huge fortunes from our toil and do no work themselves, except spending the money that we made for them. Class consciousness means that workers come to see that united in action they have enormous power—they can bring the entire economy to a halt and stop profit-making in its tracks. Our class becomes conscious of its true interests and the need for revolution not simply by reading textbooks but through practical action. Mass action is the only way even to defend past gains and to win new ones. Workers learn through experience, through fighting the capitalists in the living class struggle. And whatever the initial outlook of most of the participants, mass working-class action always carries the potential threat of a revolutionary challenge to the system.

There are other parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. We have important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary phrases, but underneath they are defenders of various forms of capitalism. There are many who say that they are for socialism and claim to be in favour of the emancipation of workers. However, we mustn’t be taken in. Many of these “socialists” have abandoned the principles of Marxism.

Socialist revolution will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Since human communities have become class-divided communities through the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of people who constitute themselves as the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished from the surface of the globe. The Socialist Party always stand for class solidarity in the course of workers’ struggle. We do not drop our support for the fight against the bosses because we do not like particular trade union leaders or their policies.

It is time no for to turn away from the capitalist system, with its mounting mass misery, exploitation, war and terrorism, and look towards socialism. Socialism abolishes the chaos and anarchy of capitalist production and social organisation; it does away with the dog-eat-dog competition of capitalist industry, breeder of commercial crises and war. It sets up instead a planned system of economy in harmony with the worldwide character of modern industry and social relationships. Capitalism robs the toilers of what they produce. Under capitalism everywhere wealth piles up automatically in the hands of the parasitic owners of the industries, while the masses of actual producers live at the bare subsistence line. But in socialism this is fundamentally different. Production is carried on for the benefit of all those in the ommunity. There are no artificial limits placed upon production by the need to sell. There can be no “exploited” when there is no ruling, owning class, no class to get a rake-off from the worker’s production? With private property abolished (but, of course, not in articles of personal use), with exploitation of the toilers ended, and with the capitalist class finally defeated and all classes liquidated, there will then be no further need for the State, which in its essence, is an organ of class repression. The State will, in the words of Engels, “wither away” and be replaced by a scientific technical “administration of things.” The guiding principle will be: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, clothing, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Production for use, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. There will then be no need for pinch-penny measuring and weighing.

The road to this social development can only be opened by revolution. This is because the question of power is involved. The capitalist class, like an insatiable blood-sucking leech, clings to the body of the working people and has to be dislodged.  

For the socialist revolution – join us.

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually striving towards? This question, long a subject of debate is receiving even more attention today because of the inability of capitalism to address its mounting crises. Nothing less than the fate of humanity hinges upon the speediest implementation of the socialist solution yet hardly anyone nowadays retain hope in the anti-capitalist strivings and sentiments of the working people or believe that they can in time participate in a mighty movement oriented toward socialist objectives. For adhering to these convictions and being guided by them, the Socialist Party is looked upon as a political dinosaur, ridiculed as a relic of a by-gone age, dogmatists to outworn views who cannot understand that the world has changed. Indeed, it may seem odd to argue against the preponderance of public opinion so why not go along with the prevailing mood? Unfashionable and unpopular as it may be, we in the Socialist Party have solid reasons for our principled stand and our convictions are not those of religious-like faith but derived from a scientific conception of the course and driving forces of world history, a reasoned analysis of the decisive trends of our time, and an understanding of the mainsprings and the necessities of capitalist development. Socialist ideas  have clarified many perplexing problems in philosophy, sociology, history, economics, and politics, explaining the key role of the working class in history. Nothing less is at stake than the destiny of civilisation and with it the future of mankind.

Too often, too many radicals place too much importance upon the undeniable shortcomings of the labour movement than by any of its positive accomplishments. They disparage the significance of the sheer existence of trade union organisations which act as a shield against lowering wages and working conditions and check the aggressions of capitalist reaction. They ignore the working conditions of a century ago, before unionisation, the fourteen- to sixteen-hour day, the exploitation of child labor, the early mortality rate for all workers; and they neglect to study what happens when unions are exceptionally weak and fragmented. The widespread under-estimation of the working class comes from a short-term perspective. We are living in a world of rapidly changing events and many unexpected developments. The working class will be roused from its slumber by events beyond anyone’s control. We do not believe that they can be summoned into battle on anyone’s command. The class struggle unfolds with a rhythm of its own, determined by historical conditions. The Socialist Party takes full advantage of opportunities in good times or bad. That is its reason for its existence. We are no idle dreamers. We want to make things happen.

But how was this new society to be achieved? The critical first step, in our view, is taking political power, replacing the government of the capitalist class with the rule of the working class. People should rule society in their own interests. Socialism is a society dedicated to the interests of the vast majority of the population. The basic means by which society produces its wealth – factories, mines and farms – are transferred from private to public ownership, and exploitation is for the most part eliminated. Socialism unleashes the creativity of the common people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not laboring under a system of exploitation. The key to the solution of the problem lies, for us, in a social revolution throughout the capitalist world. There is no other way. Socialism has to become a tool and a weapon again for going to the roots of existing social problems and pointing the way to their solution. If you want to fight the only battle worth fighting, for the socialist revolution – join us.

We are the SPGB

For some people the day for socialist struggle never seems to come around. The time for the struggle for socialism never arrives. Time and time again the struggle for socialism has been sidetracked by the so-called radical parties who have held out the promise of immediate salvation for the people. Again and again people believed in the false prophets and voted him into power, only to reap a heavy harvest of bitter disappointment. It is in the light of this fact that the importance of the Socialist Party must be measured. Not a party of mere patchwork reform, nor a party of sham revolutionary phrases, but a socialist party, rooted in the working class movement, based upon principles of education and organisation, both indispensable for a party that is a socialist party in the true meaning of the term. The soul of our party is to be an effective instrument for the coming social reconstruction. We call upon workers to join the Socialist Party, the party of revolution. We stand before them as the party of the fellow workers, of the poor and oppressed. We stand for no economic, political or social privilege, but consider that the oppressed of the world must act together to gain peace, prosperity, security, equality; with abundance for all but special privilege for none. This is the only way to save the world from the catastrophes unleashed by capitalism. The Socialist Party has never under any circumstances forsaken or subordinated the needs of the struggle in the interests of alliance with class enemies.

Workers’ labour power is purchased on the market by the owners of capital. On average in half the working week it produces value sufficient to cover wages to maintain workers and their families. The value produced in the remainder of the working week constitutes surplus value, the source of profit. The goods and services produced by workers’ socialised labour are privately appropriated by capitalists. They will continue to be produced so long as they can be sold for profit on the market. The system of capitalist production leads inevitably to the alternating cycle of boom and bust and periodical crisis under capitalism. It is inevitable that sooner or later these social conditions will impel people to organise to end the conflict between the socialised labour process and the private ownership of the means of production, the big factories, mines and farms, by the establishment of socialism. With socialism, production is planned and rational, and takes place for peoples’ use. When socialists speak of a society organised on the basis of planned production and distribution we mean doing away with production for profit.

Capitalism is a system based on production for profit, not for human need. This system is driven by the necessity to accumulate profit, which means that capitalists compete with one another, both nationally and internationally. The capitalist class is a ruling class whose ownership and control of the means of production is based on the exploitation of the working class. Thus, a small minority rules society. The contradictions between competing capitalists, produce war, poverty and crisis. The struggle between the classes will produce the overthrow of capitalist society. The working class has the capacity to end exploitation and oppression. It is a law of capitalism that capital moves to wherever the rate of profit is highest. Capitalism is a system of production for profit: for the accumulation of more capital. Companies therefore produce only the products that give them the greatest profit, and they try to set up their enterprises whenever the most favorable conditions for making maximum profits are to be found. The welfare of the people is simply trampled on by the profit-hungry monopolies: their search for profits is a ruthless rampage that leaves a trail of misery, ruin, hardship and poverty. This is how capitalism works. Capitalism needs the working class; the working class does not need capitalism.

Every state is the dictatorship of some class over another. It is a body of armed men organized by the class in power to carry out that class’ will unrestrained by any laws and to suppress the rights of those classes opposed to the continued rule of the dominant class. The present state, which claims to be a “democracy” of all the people, of all classes, is no such thing. It is a special body organized by the capitalist class to protect that class’s property and to keep the workers subserviant in the factories of the rich. All the laws passed have as their purpose the enslavement of the masses and the protection of the unjustly acquired wealth of the wealthy, who produce nothing of value, but appropriate the product of the sweat and blood of the workers. No matter how fine-sounding these laws they were only written to deceive the people rob them. We can count on nothing but their own numbers. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the working class.

The System

By 'The System' we mean capitalism. To the casual observer investments seem to grow as if by a force of nature, like a seed which sprouts a plant if well-treated. "Let your money work for you" say the ads. Getting rich is generally seen as a matter of foresight and some luck. This is equivalent to thinking that water comes from a tap, milk comes from the supermarket , and electricity from the wall outlet. What actually happens is that investors get paid out of the profits of companies their money is invested in. Even most of those who realise that nevertheless think that each company wins its profits on its own, and thus by choosing companies which act "responsibly" one can invest in a politically progressive manner.

But an individual company's profit is not simply the result of sales, of that specific company's revenues exceeding costs. Even such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo came to realise this around 200 years ago. Every seller is also a buyer of something. So if all sellers were to sell at 10% above cost, what they gain as sellers they would lose as buyers, leaving them where they started. At best, sales can (and do) explain the redistribution of money from some enterprises to others, but cannot explain economic growth at the level of society as a whole. Both Smith and Ricardo, who deemed capitalism to be simply human nature, sensed profit had something to do with human labour, but admitted they could not figure out exactly how. It fell to latter critics of political economy, especially Karl Marx, to discover that the explanation lay in the fact that, on a world-wide basis, human beings working in the production of goods and services spend more time working during a given time period than it takes society to produce what they need to survive for that period. This surplus work-time, embodied in money form, is the source of a general global profit pool. Individual enterprises "drink" out of this pool at a level based upon their market competitiveness, by selling their product. This favours the huge companies, which keep their unit costs down via vertical/horizontal integration, the use of more machinery and technology versus direct human labor, and market domination by sheer size. Also in force is the nature of the functioning of capitalist competition, which tends to distribute surplus to larger units.

The surplus is thus largely produced by small labour-intensive sweatshops, but largely appropriated by corporate giants. In fact, a lot of it is appropriated by banks and other financial institutions, which play absolutely no role in producing wealth, but suck up ever larger portions of it via interest payments. And a growing number of workers are engaged not in producing wealth, but in circulating it (for example, sales, advertising, information processing) and in maintaining the structure (such as state workers), likewise fed from the surplus pool. These workers are wage labourers, whose work, even though unproductive of surplus, is necessary for the system's functioning, and whose conditions and social disempowerment are just as bad as those of production workers.

This understanding was incorporated by the 19th Century movement for a new post-capitalist society, by both its "communist" and "anarchist" components (most anarchists accepted Marx's analysis of capital, though they generally rejected his political prescriptions). Not surprisingly, it was greeted by the powers-that-be with sheer horror. One result was the complete abandonment of the understandings reached by Smith and Ricardo in favor of a new "science" called economics, which not only treated capitalism as ordained by nature, but deemed that only market interactions between individuals needed to be studied to fully understand the workings of the system. Class relations were deemed irrelevant. Thanks to domination by the capital-owning class of all social institutions, including the media and education, the basic underlying view implied by economics has become accepted by the vast majority of the population, even by many who consider themselves on the political left. The system now appears as natural as the weather. Few people even know of the previous understandings. And thus, each company is seen as if it alone is ultimately responsible for its profit performance.

In fact, capitalism is not at all natural, or even the result of a basic evolutionary process inherent in human social development. It is a social system that was born not via evolution in Europe's trade centers, but via imposition upon the post-feudal English countryside starting in the late Middle Ages, a process referred to as the Enclosures, which was not completed until the 19th Century. Formerly un-owned land (the commons) and small estates were expropriated by large landowners. Most of the peasants living there were expelled, and those remaining turned into wage workers. The new large estates became competing enterprises whose aim was wealth accumulation, the first truly capitalist entities. The expelled peasants, no longer able to produce their survival needs, flocked to urban centers, where they were to become the workforce of the industrial age, likewise in the form of wage labour working for capital.

This process expanded out of England to encompass the whole world. It is still proceeding quite openly in places such as Latin America, Africa and South Asia, and in more subtle ways even in the advanced industrial world. This is why every day there are more people willing to sell their labour power for a wage; they have to in order to survive. The profitability of every single enterprise thus depends upon the continued operation of the global process of capital accumulation, a process which inherently requires the vast exploitation of human labour and the continued conversion of the natural world and all human needs into saleable commodities. Such a system cannot fail to be destructive to the human community and the planet's eco-system, regardless of all the good intentions (however sincere) espoused by managers of investment funds and companies.

But the notion that good investment decisions can lead to a better world is wrong not only as a long-term strategy, but even as a short-term tactic. For every dollar invested with a "socially responsible" intent, there is a pool of a billion dollars seeking the maximum return no matter what. Control of the vast majority of the world's capital is concentrated in the hands of a tiny portion of the population made up of billionaires and multi-millionaires. And companies receiving their investments are the ones that will thrive and out-compete rivals by being able to buy new technology, extend control of both markets and supplies, obtain government assistance (military interventions, trade pacts), and a host of other advantages.

The very idea that the market (and money) is freedom, and participation in it, whether as a consumer or as an investor, is like political democracy, is skillful propaganda. The main effect of the notion of "socially responsible" investment is that of supporting this propaganda, much as participation in the two-party electoral charade legitimates the claim of the political system to be a "democracy". Some people lament that “Oh well, capitalism is here and nothing more we can do about it. Most people (even socially aware ones) accept it, might as well make use of it. They may have learned a lot about the symptoms of the current system, but little of its underlying operating principles. This shows a major problem of the workers’ movement, its general eschewing of hard analysis in favour of "practical action" based upon gut reactions to perceived injustices. Many on the Left have yet to grasp any notion of change beyond some rules (e.g. environmental and labour legislation) which will make the process more "fair" and less harmful to the world's working people and environment. They have not been able to visualise any social arrangement that goes beyond the current one, i.e. capitalism.

Accumulation is capital's very reason for being. Otherwise it wouldn't be capital, a sum of money whose aim is to expand itself into a larger sum. And this accumulation has only one source: the time that working people all over the world spend working beyond that which is necessary to produce our needs, surplus time. As capital develops, it relies more and more on machines, due to a process which favors enterprises that produce more cheaply per unit. Thus, even as there is more and more capital demanding to be invested for a profit, there are proportionally fewer and fewer people to produce the surplus to create that profit. Capital thus finds itself under pressure to cut costs ever more, especially wages, and eliminate regulations which keep it from going where it wants to go, doing what it wants to do, and getting around obstacles. This has been its way since its birth. And the current state is the culmination of its drive to conquer the world, to turn every activity, every facet of living, into a commodity ruled by the rules of capitalist production.

Notions that the current system can be changed to one which safeguards (and even restores) the environment, and which lifts the living standards of all of the world's people, while still sustaining profitable production, are at best naive and illusory. At worst, they are deceptions, meant to channel people away from a direct challenge of the status-quo and towards some sort of a managed situation. They will rely less upon open repression (while of course not doing away with that option) and more upon cultivating an image of people who really care, who are willing to compromise, provided the opposition is likewise willing to compromise, to drop any notion of radical social change, and settle for a seat at the table, even if it's a seat at the end of the table, whose rewards are everyone else's scraps. This only shows the workers’ movement desperately need to do some reflection, to understand what they are up against and where they want to go, if they are not to become mere cogs in a campaign to spruce up the present system.

Socialist Standard No. 1335 November 2015

• Editorial: Climate Change and Capitalism
• Pathfinders: After the Sugar Rush
• Letter: If Robots Take Over
• Music Review: 'Thee Faction - Reading Writing Revolution'
• Halo Halo! Do the Gods Ever Change Their Mind?
• Cooking the Books: Moore on Marx
• Material World: Rising Sea Levels
• Greasy Pole: Tessa Fails To Make It
• Economics, Politics and Climate Change
• Neither Westminster Nor Brussels But World Socialism
• Peter Watkins: A Revolutionary Film-Maker pt.2
• Growing Old, Growing Old
• Consumerism
• Cooking the Books: A Classic Reformist
• Mixed Media: Pier Paolo Pasolini
• Book Reviews: 'How Voters Feel', & 'Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind'
• Proper Gander: Soldiering On
• 50 Years Ago: Indian A-Bomb
• Action Replay: Online Gambling - Getting the Punters Hooked
• Voice From the Back
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Auld Reekie Loses its Charm

The formal recognition of Edinburgh as one of the world’s most beautiful cities is under threat amid a battle for the soul of its most historic quarter. The city was inscribed as a Unesco world heritage site in 1995 for the beauty of its medieval old town and 18th-century new town but, following complaints from the public and architectural experts over a number of new buildings, inspectors from Icomos, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises Unesco, have toured several of the most contentious sites.

David Black, a conservationist and architectural critic, detects a sinister hand in the planned developments and others that have occurred with seemingly indecent haste around Edinburgh. 

“The cataclysmic event as far as I was concerned was the wrecking of St Andrew Square last year and two wonderful, B-listed buildings within it, to build a TK Maxx and offices for Standard Life, all of which was dusted under the carpet,” he said. “Edinburgh is in crisis financially as a result of the tram catastrophe and the losses arising from a property repairs scandal. They’re trying to deal with this with a number of panic measures, like extending parking controls to late night and through Sundays to raise more revenue and doing all sorts of events deals in public spaces like Princes Street, St Andrew Square, and the Meadows. They’re also pimping the city to global investors like TIAA-CREF of North Carolina.” He went on to say, “If you are an international developer there has never been a better time to open up in Edinburgh and to get past planning protections for its built heritage.”

Pacifists aid war

Most people are opposed to war. War is so terrible in its methods and results that only a small number of deviants or professional soldiers or completely ruthless financiers can support it. Even the practical politician, at least, must pretend to themselves that they are against war. But we have seen that wars do not result from what people wish and believe; and that being against war does not prevent people from acting in a way that helps bring war about.

The aim of the pacifist is to bring about a state of affairs in which war will not exist. The goal of pacifism is a warless society BUT under exactly the same form of production and in the same social conditions as at present. War is inseparable from capitalism it follows that the “abolition” of war is possible only through the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism. The pacifist would rather we first get rid of war, then talk about socialism. Pacifism spreads illusions about the nature of war and of the fight against war (advocating disarmament, conscientious objection, non-aggression treaties, UN mediation, etc., as solutions), and thus prevents a real struggle against war, which can be based only on a true understanding of the nature and causes of war. The UN will keep peace as long as peace is to the interests of the powers that control the UN. Pacifism turns aside the working class from its struggle for power, the only genuine way to fight war. In this way it redirects the revolutionary struggle against war into “safe” channels. 

The goal of socialists is a society without exploitation, the society in which the demand for the complete abolition of private property in the means of production will be realised. This condition of human society accomplishes the objective of permanent warlessness. War must be made impossible by destroying its deepest and best hidden roots. Socialists are not satisfied with destroying the poisonous fruit - war. Socialist anti-war activity is only part of the general struggle for emancipation of the working class. Pacifists believe that the struggle against war can be carried on independently of the class struggle.

Before being able to combat an evil, one must know its cause. Thus, seeking the primary cause of war is the first step in preventing it. Even a brief study of the nature and causes of modern war proves that war is an essential part of capitalism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and must lead to war. The only way actually to get rid of the high fever is to remove the cause of the fever –if it is a diseased appendix then take it out. The same thing is true for war: the only way to get rid of war is to remove the cause of war. War is not the cause of the troubles of society. The opposite is true. War is a symptom and result, of the irreconcilable troubles and conflicts of the present form of society, that is to say, of capitalism. The only way to fight against war is to fight against the causes of war. Since the causes of war are part of the inner nature of capitalism, it follows that the only way to fight, against war is to fight against capitalism. But the only true fight against capitalism is the struggle for socialism. It therefore follows that the only possible struggle AGAINST war is the struggle FOR the socialist revolution.

There is no “separate” or “special” struggle against war. The struggle against war cannot be divorced from the struggles of the workers. No one can uphold capitalism – whether directly, as an open adherent of the capitalists, or indirectly, from any shade of liberal or reformist position – and fight against war, because capitalism means war. To suppose, therefore, that the Socialist Party can work out a common platform “against war” with non-socialists is based on a misunderstanding. Pacifists are not merely powerless to prevent war; in practice it acts to promote war, both because it serves in its own way to uphold the system that breeds war, and because it diverts the attention away from the real fight against war. There is only one policy against war: advocating socialism. By overthrowing capitalist economy and supplanting capitalism with a socialist economy, it will remove the causes of war. With socialism there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war. The expansion of the means of production, under the common ownership and democratic control of society as a whole, will proceed in accordance with a rational plan adjusted to the needs of the members of society. Socialism will remove the artificial limits on consumption, and hence permit the scientific and controlled development of production. Thus, with socialism, war will disappear because the causes of war will have been removed.

Pacifism aids war by spreading illusions about the nature of war and the fight against it; by shifting the energies of honest opponents of war to a fictitious fight against it; by sugar-coating the realities of capitalist society and thus making them – including war – more palatable; by subordinating the working class to middle class individuals and ideas; by preparing the betrayal of the masses in the next war, when outstanding pacifist leaders will decide in the crisis that, this war is different – is for democracy, culture, God, or what not – and call for support of the government. No, the pacifist way is not the way to fight war. War and militarism must be approached by the working class from a class standpoint. War is a manifestation of capitalist society. War remains as long as capitalism remains.

The Socialist Party is against any and every war undertaken by the capitalist state and is the implacable enemy of the capitalist state – the political representative of the class enemy – on every occasion. We support only one particular kind of war – the class war – since only through the class war can capitalism be overthrown and the causes of war thereby removed.

All across the globe people have always been fighting for peace between nations. However, the preaching of peace does not necessarily further the cause of peace. Pacifism as a policy may look plausible so long as peaceful relations prevail but it collapses like a pricked balloon as soon as hostilities are declared. In previous periods many professional pacifists have turned into fanatical war supporters once the ruling class has plunged the nation into battle.

The Socialist Party is not a pacifist organisation. Indeed, we are opposed to pacifism, the reason being that pacifism is completely ineffective as an instrument for preventing war. This has been shown again and again. Pacifism’s weakness lies in its failure to diagnose the causes of war. Pacifism tends to regard war as simply the product of misguided foreign policies or the ations of aberrant politicians. In reality war has much deeper roots. Its main cause in the modern world is the capitalist system, which subordinates all production, and with it the whole of society, to the struggle for capital accumulation, which by its very nature is competitive. If pacifism succeeded in converting a huge majority to ‘non-violence’ it would still not be able to prevent war. The only way to abolish war is to abolish the system that generates it, and replace competitive production for profit by collective, cooperative, production for need. By counter-posing the struggle for peace to the struggle for socialism pacifism encourages the idea that mere could be a violence-free, war-free capitalism. The pacifists proceed on the utopian premise that the laws of capitalist competition can be nullified by the cooperation of people of goodwill who can prevail upon the capitalist class to refrain from war-making. Pacifists oppose the development of the class struggle in favour of class peace at almost any price. Pacifist ideology disorientates anti-war movements.

The task of the Socialist Party is to direct anti-war protest into class-war. It seeks to promote socialism by the workers.

FFS - For a Free Society

The Socialist Party was founded for the establishment of a free society and the abolition of all forms of exploitation. Every day is demonstrating more clearly the incompetence of our politicians to solve our problems. Many are beginning to realise that this incompetence is not due merely to the stupidity or corruption of individual leaders of industry and the government, but that the system itself cannot work properly any longer, whoever is in charge. More and more people are beginning to understand that the present system of society must itself be done away with and a new system substituted - that we must have a revolutionary change in the whole structure of society. The Socialist Party claims to know the nature of the revolutionary change that can save our society from continuing and increasing disintegration and degradation. The Socialist Party further claims, that with the support of the workers of will be able to assist the movement to bring about this change, and to establish political and economic democracy, guaranteeing peace, security, and the opportunity of individual development for all. The Socialist Party calls upon all who are no longer willing to suffer needless injustice and who have decided not merely to complain at but to change society.

The central contradiction of capitalism is unmistakably clear: it is the contradiction between a productive potential now physically capable of supplying amply all the basic needs of men and women, of freeing them forever from hunger, want, and insecurity, of enabling mankind as a whole thereby to develop creatively as truly human beings--between this and a system of social relations that prevents this productive possibility from manifesting itself, that directs its operations not to the fulfillment of human needs but to the making of profits for private individuals and corporations. Out of this contradiction, and the irreconcilable class division it creates-the division between those who do and those who do not have an interest of ownership in the means of production flow the myriad other contradictions that devastate modern society. It is the struggle of the small owning group to maintain its position of privilege against the just demands of the vast dispossessed majority.  

The aim of the Socialist Party is to join with the revolutionary workers of all other countries in building world socialism. A world socialist society is the only solution for the contradictions in present world society.  Only a socialist society can put to use rationally the natural resources and productive machinery of the earth in the interests of the peoples of the earth.   Only world socialism will remove the causes of hunger, wars and climate change that under capitalism now seriously threaten to send mankind into barbarism or complete destruction. Wage slavery and the profit system must be abolished. Our technology applied to our natural resources can be made the basis of a rich and growing life. The Socialist Party aims to establish a socialist economic system where the resources which nature has provided  and the productive machinery built by people will be owned by them in common and administered in their mutual  interest, without interference by profiteers of the capitalist system. With such conditions abundance for all will be available. Every family could at once have Food and clothing in abundance, a comfortable home, medical care, ample opportunity for education and recreation and the assurance under a true economic democracy that this standard of living would be secure, in fact could be steadily improved. Reforms have been tried before. In the end it always turns out that the masses are fooled and robbed in a new way. We must not be satisfied with half-measures. We will not be.

Against capitalism

In recessions, many people thoroughly and quite rightly resent the blows which fate under the present system has meted out to them. Some people rationalise their interests in utopian plans of harmony and goodwill, trying to work out some system of planning whereby Big Business of the large corporations will not drive the little fellow further into ruin. Unable to fully understand the productive process, they work out their own panaceas in the sphere of the circulation of commodities and the money system. It is not capitalism that is bad, they conclude but the money system, the Federal Reserve becomes the enemy. The problem is viewed as a financial and credit problem of the issue of money. They demand cheaper money. Because they lack money they believe there is a general lack of money, and they call on the State to fill the void. Some will argue that if we returned to the gold standard prosperity will return. Others seeking to be seen as radicals call for a nationalisation of banking for the purpose of ensuring increased credit. These things add to the belief that the ills of society are due to the methods of circulation and finance rather than to the capitalist mode of production. Storekeepers and salesmen, investors and speculators who produce nothing, they live in a world of exchange; naturally they must seek their panaceas there. Many even attack those bastions of capital – Wall St and the City of London. The most militant agitate for the slogan “Share the Wealth” – the universal basic income – that is to be handed out to “revive the market” Taxation will be focused upon the fortunes of the wealthy and the stashed away profits of the multinationals. Yet those appealing for a drastic redistribution of wealth, has never stopped to consider that the laws of distribution are intimately connected with the mode of production.

Read any newspaper. The misery of the people is growing. The ruling class tells workers that while maybe a long time ago they were really oppressed, now it doesn’t make that much sense to talk of classes anymore. But workers have never bought into it. Workers live a life of deep economic insecurity. Automation and new technology has led to an intensification of the class struggle, not its lessening. The working class knows these developments are costing them jobs. Automation and robotics must be looked at from a class viewpoint. With socialism, machinery will be advanced and developed. They can serve the people, make life easier for them. But under capitalism they are used against the interests of the people. Hence, no matter how many times the bosses tell us not to, workers are going to wage a struggle to see to it that we don’t get screwed by them. And this is true also of many who work to build, programme, and operate the new machines, because except for a very few of the most skilled and educated, they too are cheated.

It is pure fantasy to pretend that the struggle over wages does not challenge the power of the capitalist class. Such a theory ignores the clear facts of daily life in which the fight over the distribution of surplus value forms the heart of the class struggle. To maintain otherwise is to say that capitalism no longer thrives on the exploitation of workers; it is to be blind to the increasingly sharp struggles between boss and worker. A ruling class will go to great lengths to devise ingenious schemes pretending to offer workers an opportunity to “make decisions affecting their lives” rather than concede the main point–money. Though the struggle for higher wages and better working conditions is not a revolutionary one it is one in which socialists must participate. But while we fight with the workers we must also offer the message that only the capture of the state machine by the working class can put an end to exploitation. It is of great importance and fundamental to create socialist consciousness. The only thing fatal to capitalism the revolutionary actions of the people. The Socialist Party base ourselves firmly in the working class, to whom the future belongs. The future of the workers’ movement, the future of socialism, depends upon the quickest divorcement of the labour movement from the cancerous influence of reformism and vanguardism– that enemies of the free society of world socialism. The future lies in a reorganisation of the worldwide socialist movement based on the teachings and the spirit of Marx and Engels.

The struggle for socialism

Hunger is the daily lot of millions of individuals, yet tons of food are thrown out with the garbage. Anger is growing everywhere. Today, many people are conscious that capitalism is not paradise on earth. In fact, the material conditions of the masses are constantly deteriorating. The working class must assume its historic mission and fight for the abolition of class society and the complete elimination of the exploitation of man by man.

Capitalist production is characterised by the greatest chaos. Each capitalist and every enterprise, does not seek the well-being of society in general: it seeks its own profit. It thus produces what is profitable; and that, only when it is profitable. When market conditions are favourable all the capitalists and all the enterprises, without exception, go full swing into production so as to be the one who will profit the most, the fastest…until such time as the market can no longer absorb such an influx of products. Businesses must temporarily, and perhaps permanently, close their doors, and workers by the thousands and tens of thousands are reduced to unemployment.

The working class must guard against these sleight-of-hand artists who claim to want to do away with capitalist exploitation but who adhere to a policy of collaboration with the class whose very reason for existence resides in the continued existence of capitalism. There has been a steady growth of nationalism in all regions of the world in recent years; the working class must be remain on its guard against it. Nationalism is always a reactionary ideology. It is a dangerous weapon in the hands of the capitalists who make regular use of it. The result? The peoples of the world have shed their blood repeatedly in the many so-called liberation struggles. It does not take much reflection to realise that so-called the anti-imperialist line is nothing but a mask to cover up clear nationalist aims. We can say that these national liberation struggles have, by and large, succeeded in deflecting the struggles of peoples away from the revolutionary path of socialism. This nationalist conception furnishes the pretext for ignoring the socialist revolution as an immediate question everywhere in the world, in favour of the struggle against the “imperialist superpower” . The “struggles-to-be-waged-while-we’re-waiting” provide a justification for the support of the “positive actions” of “their” national bourgeoisie and of all the other native bourgeoisies except for “the most dangerous one”, all in the name of national sovereignty. Only the working class can carry the revolution through to the end, to the abolition of capitalist exploitation. It is the only class that has a fundamental interest in putting an end to capitalism.

The struggle for socialism has stagnated because the working class and peoples have remained dominated by the opportunism of reformists and nationalists. They give the working class no inspiring goal beyond the ceaseless, bitter and exhausting struggle for economic reforms whose benefits are cancelled out by the system of commodity production. Consequently they do not tell the working class of the necessity for a socialist system nor how to achieve socialism. It is part of a deliberate and well-organised attempt to compel the majority of the population, to deny their socialist destiny – in a world where the natural resources, the productive capacity and the social forces needed to reach this goal of liberation are present in the greatest abundance.

The Contradictions of Capitalism

Archaeologists and anthropologists have discovered much about early pre-class societies. We know that when people lived co-operatively and there was no division into classes. The end of these egalitarian societies came because of the division of society into classes – one class in which the overwhelming majority of people, women and men, work to produce everything and the other, ruling, class which steals from us the wealth we produce. This transformation did not come about overnight. It was the result of the development of society’s productive forces, and the production of much greater material wealth than had been possible in earlier societies. As human beings worked to control the world in which they lived, they developed tools like the wheel, the plough and irrigation channels, which allowed them to settle in one place, and to produce a surplus to put by for the next season’s planting and for times of scarcity. But the surplus produced was small. It was not enough to be divided out and had to be ‘protected’ by a small minority on behalf of the rest of the group. Gradually this minority grew to have different interests to the rest of their group and started to treat the surplus as ‘theirs’ rather than everyone’s. They employed bands of armed men to protect the surplus from the majority and used metal tools to develop a monopoly on the best weaponry. The emergence of private property and of embryo states.

Profits are the heart of capitalism, markets its circulating system but it is the working class that is its muscles which transforms nature into saleable goods. Capitalist production needs propertyless workers to work for wages anywhere, and this was accomplished by expropriating peasants, driving them from the land. 

Capitalism is full of inherent contradictions:

(a) the contradiction between use value and exchange value; between production for use and production for the market, for profit.

(b) the contradiction between social production and individual appropriation.

(c) the contradiction between increased use of science in production and the tremendous waste (of the soil, of labour-power, and of materials and means of production).

(d) the contradiction between the rational planning in the factory and the chaos and anarchy in the market.

(e) The contradiction between the unlimited possibility for scientific and technological advancement with increased output and the imposition of artificial rationing.

(f) The contradiction between the falling tendency of the rate of profit and the rising proportion of constant to variable capital resulting the increasing hold of dead labour over living labor.

(g) The growth of the unemployed with the growth in strength and energy of capitalism.

(h) The development of private property contradicted by the expropriation of the direct producer from the means of production and the separation of the owner from the productive process. (i) The contradiction between city and country, between industry and agriculture.

(j) The rise of monopolies concurrently with the intensification of competition.

(k) The ruin of ‘middle classes’ and the consolidation of the rentier class.

(l) The development of nationalism with the further internationalisation of markets and division of labour.

The social system is made up of a net of social relations, the most decisive of which are the economic, that is, those productive relations which result in the satisfaction of our basic needs, food, clothing, shelter. In the close to 300 years since the beginning of the industrial revolution, modern capitalism has greatly developed the productive powers of society. But more and more capitalism is now choking these productive powers. The last world war and the present great economic crisis are two outstanding proofs of the fact that capitalism is played out and is hindering the development of humanity.

Again, the contradictions of capitalism:

1. Capitalism is tremendously wasteful and destructive of men, goods, power, land. The ultimate destiny of all useful goods is to be consumed. Yet under capitalism goods are not produced to be consumed, but for profit, and if a greater profit can be made by destroying the goods, the destruction takes place.

2. While production is a social act, the appropriation of the product, under the present system, is individual. As capitalism develops, larger and larger factories are built, thousands of workers co-operate in the production of a single article, yet the article does not belong to them but to the owner of the means of production. The workers are merely paid wages for the use of their labour power, wages which constantly grow less and less an aliquot part of the total product as the total product ever increases. Simultaneously the owner of the industries becomes progressively more divorced from the productive process. As small partnerships become big corporations or are driven out of business by the trusts and monopolies, the original entrepreneurs become mere rentiers. The corporation also develops, becomes more and more a public utility. The state begins to take a hand, and to run the industry. The former individual owner now becomes a purely parasitic hanger-on, his dividends paid regularly by the state apparatus which he controls.

3. While the productivity of man is unlimited and increases in geometric ratio, the markets are limited, increase in arithmetic ratio, later do not increase at all and even decrease. The greater the productivity of labour, and the greater the amount of production, the greater becomes the surplus product in the hands of the owners, the greater the need for markets, the greater, therefore, the competition among the capitalists, and the greater the tendency to lower the rate of profit, the greater the lowering of the wages of the workers, the larger the army of unemployed and paupers, the more vigorous the drive for foreign markets and colonies for exploitation, and the more violent the military struggles to control the world.

4. The greater the internationalisation of markets, the greater the need to have a military machine to defend the market interests, the greater grow the oppressive burdens of the state apparatus, the greater grows the necessity to transform the whole nation into an armed, economically self-sufficient, ruthless, chauvinistic state.

Thus is it not clear that although in the beginning capitalism developed the productive forces, as capitalism reached its maturity, capitalist relations throttle and destroy these productive forces. With what a system are the products we need and want produced? Within the factory a rigid dictatorship, a terrible “rationalization” where the dead machine rules living labour, where the man is transformed into a cog of the machine, where labour becomes wage-slavery. Outside the factory dictatorship is replaced by economic chaos, man is ruled by prices which he cannot control, by the wild forces of the market of which he can be only the victim. It is only through the hectic fluctuations of supply and demand, it is only through the frantic rush of “successes” and bankruptcies that society “decides” and “plans” the division of its labour.

What is the way out of these contradictions? The present economic relations breed different classes, the capitalist class and the working class, with opposing interests. Inasmuch as our ideas rationalize our interests, the ideas of the ruling, capitalist class will be along the line of preserving their property and their right to exploit laborers, while the ideas of the working class will follow their interests and go along the path of solving the contradictions by removing their causes. The capitalists and their agents in the seats of government are blinded by their self-interest, by the profits which they make as beneficiaries of the present system. The workers, on the other hand, having nothing to lose, are free to see that the present society must evolve into a new one; they see that nothing can free society from its convulsions save the change in the mode of production from a capitalist one, of private ownership of the means of production, to a socialist one, where the means of production are socialised and classes are no more.

Who can provide the way out? Certainly, not the capitalist class, the beneficiaries of the present system. But rather the working class who bear the full weight of capitalism upon their backs and who are in a position to see that capitalism is redundant. As the working class fights against its increasingly worsened position it comes to the realisation that the only way out is for they to take what it has produced for itself. To take over the means of production, the mines, mills, factories, resources, utilities and run them for their own benefit. Then we will have production for use and not for profit. Then we will end both despotism in the factory and anarchy in the market. Then society will allocate its resources according to a social plan that will benefit all.

The interest of the workers are diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists and exploiters of the workers who, controlling the government strive to keep the workers down. The productive forces have created capitalist relations, capitalist relations have created classes which have opposite economic and thus opposite political interests. The capitalists want to keep the old relations of exploitation. They fight the rise of the workers. But their only alternative is to plunge society into one crisis and one war after another. The victory of the workers cannot be forever delayed. The old relations must be burst asunder. And if the capitalists, blinded by their interests, try to stop the wheels of progress they are ruthlessly pushed aside by the workers just as in the past they themselves pushed aside the feudal lords. When the workers of the world unite to take  power then the rule over persons will begin to give way to an administration over things. The state, along with religion, will begin to wither away. There will be no exploitation. There will be no classes. Each will receive according to needs, giving according to ability and as the productivity of labour will greatly increase. Humanity will have reached a rational system of society where development of mankind will no longer be choked by social relations, where, therefore, society will be a free one and mankind emancipated.

Fuel Poverty Continues

Fuel poverty in Scotland has witnessed a steep rise with more people seeking help for energy bills from consumer advice charities.  Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) has published new evidence showing the extent of fuel poverty over the last few years, with the number of energy cases recorded by the service increasing by 130% since 2011. The report blames government austerity policies, low pay and changes to the social security system for the increase.

CAS consumer spokeswoman Sarah Beattie-Smith said the report clearly showed Scots are struggling to pay their energy bills as well as the increase on the charity's workload.  “Our case evidence highlights the key issues that have affected peoples’ ability to heat their homes over this period," she said.  "These include; low pay, under-employment, increased living costs and rising debt, in addition to the impact of austerity policies such as below-inflation benefit payments, the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions and long waits for benefit assessments… The levels of fuel poverty in Scotland are higher than ever, and all over the country there are families who yet again this winter will face the devastating choice of whether to heat their home or put food on the table.” 

Free your imagination and then use it

Capitalism is based on wage slavery. The capitalists hire wage workers to produce wealth, give them part of that wealth in the form of wages and keep the rest. We do not sell our labour to the capitalists; we sell our labour power which is the mental and physical capabilities of man or woman exercises when he or she produces wealth.

As an illustration of what a wage slave is, suppose you owned a nice automobile and someone should say to you, "I want to use your car until it is all worn out. I will give it gas and oil enough to keep it running until it can’t run anymore." Surely you would not agree to that. You wouldn’t allow anybody to use your car until it was all worn out just for gas and oil. But that is exactly what you are doing with your body. The capitalists use you until you are all worn out and all they aim to give you is what the chattel slaves got, what the serfs got, what a horse gets, a bare living, and you are not even sure of that.

How about your children? You parents spend many happy hours teaching your children how to walk and how to talk. Long years are spent upon their education. When they get to be wonderful young men and women with their eyes brightly shining like the headlights on a new car, and with their veins and arteries like the wiring on a new car, and their hearts beating without a murmur, like the smooth running of new engines, then the capitalists say to the proud parents, "We want to use your children to produce wealth for us and for our children. Just as we have used you to produce wealth for us, so our children want to use your children to produce wealth for them when we are gone."

The parents ask, "What are our children to get for the use of their bodies during the precious years of their lives?" Answer, "Gas and oil". A mere living wage. The endless chain that starts and ends with work. Work to get money, to buy food, to get strength to work. Every increase in the productivity of labor, every invention, every victory of science and triumph of genius in the line of industrial progress, only goes to increase the wealth of a parasite class while the workers are only supposed to get what slave classes always got, a bare living and often not even that. This is wage slavery, the foundation of capitalism.

But some workers want to escape from wage slavery. Class systems are not eternal. Everything in the universe, from atoms to solar systems, is continually moving, changing, transforming, developing; likewise the history of the human race is nothing but a ceaseless change, a continuous development. In the course of its history classes are formed; these classes continually struggle for supremacy and, after prolonged struggle, one class succeeds another in the dominating position. The struggle continues until class divisions themselves are dissolved and a new, classless society results. The slave owning patrician gave way to the feudal nobility; the feudal nobility in turn was overthrown by the capitalists. The working class are now challenging the capitalists for control of the economic structure and we now advocate that the entire human family own and control of the means of life as the solution to all social problems—an industrial democracy. Production has been socialised. It remains only to socialise control.

Production under capitalism is anti-social. It is anti-social because it operates against the interests of the producing class. It refuses to act without profits. Capitalism is synonymous with violence, and it is the handmaiden of chaos. We, the workers, are many, but divided because of ignorance. They, the capitalists, are, few, but strongly organised, ruthless and determined to increase their power and to perpetuate their dictatorship over the class they rob. We have reached an era where action may not much longer be delayed if we are to escape the mounting threat of ecological destruction. Our species have built a world that has at last brought us within reach of the creation of universal abundance. The genius and energy of humanity have shown that there need be no want, no hunger, no famine. All that stands in the way is capitalism. It will fall and with it will go slavery, crime, war, ignorance, poverty and waste. What will rise will be the Co-operative Socialist Commonwealth, the hope of martyred workers, the dream of generations of workers. 

Glasgow Street Scene (1943)

From the October 1943 issue of The Western Socialist

[The following are extracts from a personal letter from the organizer, Glasgow Branch, Socialist Party of Great Britain, describing a street meeting recently held at Glasgow.]

Picture one thousand people at the corner of Blythswood and Sauchiehall Streets. There was a large sprinkling of American soldiers and N. C. O's. Two looked like generals . . . they looked as if they were going to shout "Fall in," at any minute. They were amazed at the crowd and their troops (they came when the meeting was well on). In a few minutes they, too, were just members of the audience 

Now to some of the questions after Tony (Comrade Tony Turner) had exposed the war, he pleted into American capitalism and, of course, all capitalists.

Turner knew the Americans were going to have a go and that's what he was angling for.

An American officer asked this question: "I agree with what you say but is it not possible that you may sell yourself to a Government and smother your ideas."

Here is Tony's answer: "Yes. I may sell myself, but I am not trying to sell myself to you. I am trying to sell an idea, etc. etc. Are you satisfied with the answer?"

"Yes," says the officer.

"Do you wish a supplementary question?" says Tony.

"Yes. Have you ever been in America?"

Tony repeats the question and says, "The answer is a brief one — NO! Now what is the implication?" 

"Well. I don't think that you are entitled to claim a superior knowledge of America when you've never been there."

Tricky Tony hesitated for about one minute (long time at a meeting), pretending to be lost. All of a sudden he pointed to the officer and said, "Brother, I take a long shot. I know more about America than you do, and you have just come from there. To test this I will begin by an examination of the Constitution, important events in American history, the domestic scene, statistics relating to wealth production and distribution, etc. etc." Tony did all this and more. The officer remained silent for the rest of the meeting.

He handled drunks in a masterly fashion. One of the beer-sodden hooligan type got the spanking of his life. Tony pointed to him and said, "Look at the poor little fellow — his wee belly full of beer and he wants to fight. Should you see him tomorrow morning, he will make a mad gallop to the factory and start saluting, saying, "Yes sir! Yes sir! Three bags full." And Tony kept saluting as he was saying this.

He tanned the Scottish Nationalists, the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party.

Three husky CPers were crushed like mice before his devastating attack and exposure. How the people laughed when he said, regarding the present friendship of Stalin and Winston, "Churchill's song today is: 'You made me love you and I didn't want to do it, Joe'."

Literature sales were £4-13 — a record; collection £3. Turner was publicly thanked by members of the audience for his brilliant address. Tony got a smashing write-up in the (Glasgow) Evening Times by a special correspondent . . . I will try to get you a copy and send it on.

Angus McPhail

Black Lives Matter

“I caught up with Sheku at his house and I tried to calm him and he lashed out at me. It appeared as if he was scared or upset. He punched me a few times but I did not hit him once and am extremely angry at any suggestion or inference that I did. It is an attempt to plant a seed in people’s minds that the main injuries found on Sheku’s face, head and body could have been caused by something other than his contact with the police.” explains Zahid Saeed.

Sheku Bayoh was restrained by up to nine officers using CS spray, batons, wrist and ankle restraints and was pronounced dead two hours after coming into contact with police. A post-mortem examination revealed he had cuts and bruises all over his body, including more than 20 facial injuries.

Police tried to have the body of Sheku Bayoh returned to Sierra Leone two days after his death in custody, it has emerged. They contacted the country’s embassy to discuss repatriating his body but officials in London were alarmed and contacted the father-of-two’s family. Sheku’s brother-in-law Ade Johnson said: “That is not the action of a police force with nothing to hide.” He goes on to say, “It stinks. Mr MacAskill thinks the police have nothing to hide. Why then were Police Scotland looking to send Shek’s body out of the country without consulting his family? And how convenient that Sierra Leone is a country with Ebola and there would have been no returning the body to the UK, helping the cause of death to stay hidden? “Police Scotland knew that Shek lived in Scotland and his next of kin was in Scotland… Then you learn the police are trying to have the body quietly removed from the country. What kind of faith can we have in the police after that? ”