Without money, we’d all be rich

Investors benefit from the continued actual or relative impoverishment of labour in order that workers will present themselves for further exploitation in return for wages. Capital is dead labour, it has already been stolen via the wages trick, or acquired by local or global banditry, or else borrowed by the individual capitalist, but this capital risk is not taken for philanthropic reasons. It is not to create jobs or wealth for the worker that capital is risked, it is to exploit the wealth producing capacity of labour over and above their rationed access (wages) and accumulate ever more wealth from their parasitism that drives capitalist investments.

There is no natural reason for this division between rich and poor. Both classes include every biological and psychological facet of humanity. The only difference between them is one of ownership. The vast majority of people own practically nothing but their ability to work and the little that they do own — some clothes, some furniture, perhaps a house and a car — is dependent on their continuing to possess and exercise that ability to work. Unable to do so through sickness, old age or unemployment, they will quickly be reduced to the level of pauperism. They are the working class because they have to sell their working power to live and to such an extent that they are virtually living to work.

This lack of ownership among the many is paralleled by the immense wealth of the few. They are the capitalist class because they live on the income from their capital which, as well as the means of production and distribution, includes the labour-power, the mental and physical energies, of those workers hired to operate them. The capitalist class do not give workers jobs out of charity. If they did not make a profit out of the deal, they would soon be left in the same position as the workers. They only employ you if your abilities can be exploited to provide some of the wealth which secures their life of ease and luxury. If not, your much vaunted "right to provide for home and family" becomes your right to whistle for it. This is what is happening in many industries just now. All over the world, there are large stockpiles of unsold goods with many either wholly or partly unemployed.

In terms of playing a social role in production, the capitalist class are redundant. At the dawn of their epoch, they were instrumental in razing to the ground the anachronistic restrictions of feudalism and developing the means of production and distribution on an enormous scale in their drive for bigger and better profits. Today, they only take part on a small, individual basis and have been replaced by paid managers and various other hired hands. The only role left to them is that of consuming the finest fruits of a society run by the working class.

The major problem that most people face today can be summed up in one word — poverty. They are denied access to the wealth of society which would enable them to develop and enjoy themselves to the full. They have to make ends meet and make the best of it. The result is a life-style of frustration and boredom — getting up in the morning, the buses, the trains, the traffic, the shop, the office, the factory, the boss, the canteen and so on, ad nauseam.

These situations give the lie to the false notion that 'hard work' will solve all the worker's problems. If the people in these industries worked any harder they would just be out of a job so much the sooner. The market that they produce for is on the downturn, their masters cannot profitably sell all they are capable of producing, and so there is no work for the wage-slaves.

It is not a 'free' agreement. The worker is 'compelled' to seek employment in order to live. The capitalist class have no such compulsion and only offer employment in order to extract surplus value from the worker.

Nor has it to do with human nature. Damn all natural about capitalism. It is a consequence of a class struggle between the then emerging manufacturing and trading classes overthrowing feudal institutions and establishing a new class settlement where the capitalist class held the dominant levers of power reflecting their ascendency. It is a social construction and not a natural one. Capitalism must ensure that the poor are always with us in order to keep them in luxury by exploiting our need to surrender ourselves to waged slavery that they may exploit our mental and physical abilities to produce a surplus value over and above the price of our labour-power.

The self-preservation of the human species and well-being of the planet, would be considerably enhanced, if the earth and everything in it and on it were in the common custodianship of us all, as social equals with free access to the common produce. Capitalism produces its own gravediggers and gives them the means to free themselves, and humanity, from economic necessity. We run capitalism from top to bottom and can free ourselves form its domination, by use of its Achilles heel. Democracy. You do not need capitalist political party such as Labour is, and always has been, to give power to the common people. It will never happen.

Where did the capital come from in the first place? "Capital came into the world oozing blood form every pore" as Marx put it. The Atlantic slave trade, some piracy operations, smashing the Indian cotton weaving village industry, forcing the Chinese to allow the opium trade through gunship diplomacy. Today’s capitalist are descendants of colonial war criminals, and now live high on the hog in conspicuous consumption mode.

If you appraise yourself of the fact that capitalism unable be reformed and must be replaced by a wage-less society and persuade the immense majority, then fellow workers of the world can unite for socialism, abolish the wages system and 'take' power for ourselves. Extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers worldwide and work with them to end the wages system, where all the productive resources of the Earth become the common heritage of the people of the world. "Make the Earth a common treasury for all", as Gerrard Winstanley put it right at the beginning of capitalism—so that they can be used, not to produce for sale on a market, not to make a profit, but purely and simply to satisfy human wants and needs in accordance with the principle of "from each region according to ability, to each according to needs".

Workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains

Scotland V England - The Pay League

Typical hourly pay in Scotland has crept above that in England for the first time since records began.

As recently as 2004, typical hourly pay in Scotland was 7.2 per cent lower than in England, the study says. But strong wage growth in the mid-2000s reduced the gap to just 2.9 per cent by 2009, when the repercussions of the crash began to be felt throughout the British economy. In the years following the financial crisis, Scotland experienced sharp falls in employment, but people still in work saw their pay packets squeezed less than those in England. Typical (median) pay in Scotland is now £11.92 an hour, marginally higher than the £11.84 earned in England, the analysis concludes. Earnings growth in Scotland has also been stronger than in England across all pay levels, other than for those at the very top.

A greater trade-union presence, more public-sector employment and lower migration rates – meaning less competition for jobs – all benefited Scotland in the years before the crash. When the 2008 crisis came, Conor D’Arcy, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, explained  the country also experienced a more “traditional recession” than England, with unemployment rising steeply but pay levels not taking as big a hit as they did south of the border.

However, around one in five workers in Scotland still earns below the low-pay threshold. A Holyrood committee highlighted a concerning decline in “job quality” in recent years, with an increase in low-paid, zero-hours contracts since the recession. It said poor-quality jobs were having an adverse impact on health.

Change is Happening

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness. The only way to socialism is through majority working class understanding and democracy. Left-wing capitalism can no more alleviate the condition of workers than dyed-in-the-wool right-wing capitalism. Workers will have to grow out of expecting a 'nicer' politician will make them happy-clappy wage slaves. Supporting the Labour Party, or any of the other parties of capitalism, is futile. Poverty, actual and relative, is an inevitable and essential part of capitalism, whether we are in work or not, and cannot be reformed away. The Labour Party do not want to end capitalism, they wish to reform it into a nicer capitalism with relatively happy wage-slaves. But..., capitalism requires a work-force sufficiently impoverished, so that they will present themselves to be exploited in return for rations, (food, clothing, shelter etc. expressed in a wage or salary) Exploitation takes place at the point of production, whether by hand or by brain, at the workplace, when the worker sells his or her mental and or physical abilities for a wage or a salary. They produce a 'surplus value' over and above what they receive from wages. This wealth, 'surplus value', after it is sold on the markets at a profit for the capitalist blood-sucking class. All wealth is produced by the working class. The owning class produce nothing. They live of the exploitation of the working class. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It can only be replaced.

Removing class ownership and control of wealth production and distribution, means at last, we can have production for use 'and' be social equals, with free access, to the common product. Only the workers themselves organised to this end, are the sole agency for this change, not the parties of capitalism of which the Labour Party is but one amongst many. There are no 'revolutionaries' inside the Labour Party. Even at his or her most radical, a Labour Party member stands for the retention of capitalism.

Not only al the economists know that there will always be a pool of unemployed but they also want there to be. They don’t want ‘full employment’ as this would exert an upward pressure on wages, cutting into profits. But the truth sometimes slips out, as in an article in the Times (10 June, 2015) by its Economics Editor, Philip Aldrick. He referred to an ‘equilibrium unemployment rate’, defined as ‘the level at which wage inflation pressures build up.’ This used to be called ‘the natural rate of unemployment’ but conceding that unemployment was natural to capitalism was considered too much of a concession to its critics and it is now called in economics textbooks the ‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU). It’s a bit of a dubious concept (it’s trying to calculate when a boom begins to get out of hand, but even if this could be done it wouldn’t make any difference as nobody could do anything about it). But that’s not the point. The point is that government policy-makers believe it. Michael Saunders of the Citi investment bank, is suggesting that the rate here could now be as low as 4 percent, and comments:

‘In other words, at the economy’s optimum cruising speed, 400,000 fewer people need be unemployed than before the crisis.’

‘Need be unemployed’! That’s a telling phrase, saying that some people need to be unemployed. In the three months to April this year the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent, or 1,810,000. If it had been 4 percent this would still have left 1,316,000 as ‘needing’ to be unemployed. The government may well, from one point of view, want to cut the benefits bill by reducing the number on the dole, but, from another point of view (that of big business whose interests they serve), to reduce the number too far would set off an upward pressure on wages to the detriment of profits. It’s a balancing act. Capitalist firms will have to pay one way or another. Either their profits are taxed to pay unemployment ‘benefit’ to at least 1,316,000 (or on the Bank of England’s figure 1,678,000). Or their profits will be eaten into by rising wages.

So, no matter how many application forms they fill in, however many courses they go on, however many times they report to the DWP, between one and two million people will not get a job because, if a substantial number of them did, it would upset ‘the economy’s optimum cruising speed’ and the government doesn’t want that. In saying that they are practising ‘tough love’ by harassing people as a means of helping them to get a job, Cameron, Osborne and the rest (the leaders of the Labour Party too as they are also into bashing the unemployed) are shameless hypocrites. We need to get rid of capitalism, abolish the wages system. Protest is insufficient, we need to use democracy to replace capitalism. We are not pining away for a mythical future. We are working for a new world. The cruel joke is on you, if you are worker and do not recognise your class interests lie in getting rid of this warring system. How the capitalist class must laugh at you, foolish worker. Laughing all the way to the bank. Workers collectively, produce all of the world’s wealth, they mine resources, they create technological marvels, they produce them, they collectively, effectively, run this system from top to bottom, even though they do not share in the accumulated products, other than a wage. If you are incapable of conceiving this then you have been getting ideologically neutered by capitalism's equivalent of the Rome’s 'Bread and Circuses'.

It would be foolish to expect the capitalist class to voluntarily give up its privileged position in society. Governments exist solely to administer the society as it exists, in the interests of the ruling (capitalist) class, so governments will not end the privilege. Capitalism will continue as long as the working class accepts it. The working class will have to force the capitalist class to give up its position of privilege. Political parties of the left, right and centre, claim to be working for the betterment of society. Because society functions in the interests of the capitalist class, it is clear that these parties are then supporting the interests of the capitalist class. History shows us that no matter what these parties say, when elected they administer capitalism in the only way it can be administered - in the interests of the capitalist class. Each of them has their own idea of how to run capitalism, often stealing the ideas of their supposed political opposites. The reforms that they implement must reflect economic reality. If they do not, they will not get re-elected - until the next party fails to reflect that reality. Taxation difference constitute much of election manifestoes but they have damn all to do with 'most' people though. If you are a worker, your wage is your take-home pay. If the government removed whatever nominal tax your employer pays your wages would be cut accordingly. If you are not a worker, but an employer, tough luck, as your parasitic employer class collectively have the benefits of exploiting educated, qualified workers to produce more wealth for you, (surplus value) in return for their wage-salary (ration) they can collectively, damn well pay for their wage-slaves of the future's education. Tax is a burden upon the capitalist class and it is their interests, business that the clampdown is taking place. It will make no real difference which capitalist party is in power. The employing class pays the piper, calls the tune and if need be have capital flight as a last resort.

Get off your knees and make common cause with your fellow worker to abolish this iniquitous system, instead of spouting slavish 'Uncle Tom' platitudes, applauding the oppression of your class. There is no way that capitalism can meet the needs of the majority, but all of these parties pretend it can if only they find the right plan. None of them have any really new ideas, only rehashed reforms that have failed in the past. Voting for any of these parties is voting for capitalism, forever.

Scots gasping for fresh air

Scotland's most polluted streets have been named by environmental campaigners, Friends of the Earth Scotland, from official data. The environmental group said air pollution was linked to thousands of deaths in Scotland each year.

The annual average European legal limit for nitrogen dioxide, which is linked to asthma and other respiratory problems, is set at 40 microgrammes per cubic metre. But new research from Friends of the Earth Scotland, collected from official monitoring stations, says it was breached on streets across the country in 2015.

It listed annual average levels as:

St. John's Road Edinburgh: 65 microgrammes

Hope Street Glasgow: 60 microgrammes

Seagate, Dundee: 50 microgrammes

Atholl Street, Perth: 48 microgrammes

Lochee Road, Dundee: 48 microgrammes

Union Street, Aberdeen: 46 microgrammes

Queensferry Road, Edinburgh: 41 microgrammes

Wellington Road, Aberdeen: 41 microgrammes

Friends of the Earth Scotland also collected data on particulate matter - tiny particles which are pumped into the air by diesel vehicles. It said streets in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Perth, Glasgow, Dundee, Falkirk and Rutherglen failed to meet Scottish air quality standards.

Friends of the Earth Scotland air pollution campaigner Emilia Hanna, said: "Air pollution causes 2,000 early deaths in Scotland every year - it's a serious public health crisis and tackling it should be a top priority for the Scottish government."

Let's not fix capitalism – Let’s get rid of it.

The earliest societies practiced a primitive communism. To work is good for one’s well-being, as opposed to being employed. The people who transcend the capitalist method of wage slavery producing for sale on a market will not be lacking in their resolve to make the superabundance be shared and work for all. Capitalism has solved the production problem and created the knowledgeable workforce capable of running it from top to bottom. Socialism is going to be built upon the mass technology of capitalism. Capitalism generates an abundance of evidence of its own failings every minute of every hour of every day, evidence which people are remarkably adept at ignoring or skilled at explaining away.  Nothing, however, is forever. Capitalism had outlived its useful potential by the start of the 20th century. We have had two world wars, innumerable small ones and they are picking sides as we speak for another go, over raw materials, spheres of interest etc. War isn't about 'Goodies' versus 'Baddies'. It is 'business by other means.' Capitalism is in the same predicament as feudalism was with warring kingly factions seeking domination over what spoils of war may bring. Arguments for going to war are arguments for killing our fellow worker on both sides. Capitalism cannot exist without war.It is an insane system which can legitimise slaughter in the interests of a minority parasite class against other capitalist parasites, for raw materials, strategic advantage, trade routes etc. and justify it with our without, the legal and juridical structures which are imposed for protection of the dominance of king Capital. War is never in the interests of workers and are not entered into out of any humane considerations. These are sometimes stitched on to the case made but this is a part of propaganda.

The division of the world’s population into distinct nations seems to be perfectly natural. The idea of nationalism is that "we" all have certain characteristics in common, and "we" should stick together. We are all assumed to belong to a national group but nationality is a product of social processes. The modern state is a product of bourgeois (i.e. capitalist) development. There exists a mistaken belief in a country's permanence - the myth of the "eternal nation", based on national character, or territory or its institutions and upon its continuity across many generations, the community's common ancestry. Capitalist nations however are not 'ours' but serve the interests of the elite. It is their nation, not ours. Political scientist, Benedict Anderson, discusses nations as socially constructed "imagined communities," because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion." Nationalism conceals the real nature of capitalism, turns worker against worker and serves to impede working-class solidarity. Race is a stupid, contrived category. We all came out of Africa. We are all homo-sapiens. We have more in common with workers worldwide than with our home-grown leeches. We should be making common cause with our fellow workers to overthrow the system which causes misery and share the planets resources. Race is an irrelevant, unscientific classification.

It is not the concern of capitalist politicians to put workers first. The may pretend to do so to win power, but their job is to govern workers to maintain the discipline, in order to maximise profits for the parasite capitalist class. Sounding tough on immigration is an attempt to deflect attention from the causes as well as consequences of inadequate, housing, over-crowded schools and under-funded health care, by blaming other factors than the everyday cutting of rations to the wage slaves in a market driven by profits, by focusing public perceptions elsewhere, at symptoms rather than causes. In fact, austerity is a prime example of the capitalist imperative to put Profits before People. No doubt IDS is a tosser, but he is only a symptom of a market system, which requires workers, whether in work or not, to have wages or subsistence benefits, until market conditions change sufficiently, expansion and boom follows slump and stagnation, so they have more bargaining power. This will continue ad infinitum until capitalism and production of profit within a competitive, anarchic market, in conditions of waged slavery is ended and replaced by a society where production is for use and there exists free access for the wealth producers. We need a social revolution to win a world fit for us all. Instead of being choked off as presently, when production is for sale, before needs can be met, a society of common ownership can continue with production until human needs are satisfied. This will utilise the available technology with "calculation in kind", replacing the need for monetary calculation. Auto-regulated, self-correcting stock control systems, using bar codes and whatever new gizmos are available at the time, enable a rational human-centred demand and production model, rather than profit driven boom/slump present day models which create artificial scarcity by rationing methods (the wages system and the prices system). In a post-capitalist system, there is no elite planners or top- down state bureaucracy, or any other privileged minority with control over decision making, but rather the wealth-producers, as social equals, self-administer over 'things.'

Effectively there are only two economic classes now. We don't accept there is a true 'middle'' class any more. They were either absorbed into the upper class or fell into the working class as the progress of capitalism's revolution gathered pace. If you 'have' to work for a wage or salary in order to live, then you are working class. If you are an owner of sufficient capital so you can exploit and have others work for you to produce more wealth, then you are in the capitalist class. It is a conceit that capitalism can be fine-tuned and managed. Capitalism is competition married to market anarchy.

We are already producing enough food to meet the needs of ten or even 12 billion people. The question is really where, how and what to produce. Right now, too much is being produced in some regions of the world, and not enough in others.  In the northern part of the world and in some emerging economies, there is a surplus in the production of particular foodstuffs – like corn, cereals, rice, soya and rapeseed – which are mainly used for making biofuels, animal fodder, starch and sugar (which we do not need). In most southern countries, however, there is a great untapped potential for producing more. So we need to rebalance the world food and economic system. Current production exceeds our need for food, but millions of people are still dying of hunger – which means the current system doesn’t work. We need systemic change to the food processing model. Currently, throughout the world, there is a growing trend of simplification. Intensive single crops that will produce foodstuffs generating a large profit are favoured. They are often high in calories, too, which can have a devastating effect on health. While there are 800 million people suffering from the effects of famine, 1.5 billion are overweight. We really need to move onto a sane post-capitalist future where production is for the use and consumption of everyone, in conditions of free access and common ownership, with democratic control by social equals, free at last from the drudgery of wage slavery for the enrichment of a capitalist class. The SPGB (Britain's oldest existing socialist party) are proceeding from a Marxian analysis which sees capitalism having to be replaced with its superior advantages of technology and production and information intact, harnessed for the common good with production for use and free access to the wealth, by the worlds workers, who already produce the wealth but not only that, increasingly run capitalism, from top to bottom.

Capitalism has outlived its essential usefulness in developing the technology. Let's not try to fix this exploitative and oppressive social system but get rid of it.  Ending the capitalist mode of production and distribution, with private, corporate, state ownership of resources, would free up labour presently engaged in buying and selling and money shuffling, for the production of useful necessities and lighten the working day for all.

"Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds that there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves". - Eugene Debs

 

Omnia Sunt Communia

The Socialist Party of Great Britain recognises the immense contribution made by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in developing a scientific understanding of capitalism as a distinct and transient society, one which was historically progressive in its time, but which is now outdated and needing to be replaced. This is not to say that we think Marx and Engels were correct on every subject then, still less now. The whole point of a scientific approach to politics and economics is that it is based on facts, evidence and objective testing and reassessment. Marxism itself has been defined as the distillation of all the lessons and understandings gained from working class struggles against capitalism, expressed in a scientific manner. Nonetheless, there is enormous value to be gained from studying the classical works of Marx and Engels. Writing during the earlier phases of capitalism’s development and working to get a handle on the whole phenomenon, their writings provide a clarity and a perspective on capitalism and the need for workers to replace it by socialism, rarely achieved since. In fact, some hold that the development of capitalism has accorded even more closely with their basic analysis than was perhaps the case at the time.

For over 110 years, the Labour Party has hoodwinked the workers, and endlessly led them down the blind alley of reformism, always mindful that its real allegiance was to the master class who own and control society. Make no mistake. A Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn would make no departure from the historical record. Its task would be primarily to try to make capitalism – a system based upon the exploitation of one class by another – work in the interests of the exploited. Labour, under Corbyn, would not really control the economy, it would control him. The historical record shows that if the dictates of capital demanded, the workers would have to be lied to, betrayed and made out to be villains of the piece and a threat to the economic interests of the country. No Labour leader to date has failed to be cast in a mould created by the capitalist class, no matter how noble their intentions. Bloody hilarious how people can see the Labour Party having ever been socialist. Nostalgic workers, who mourn the demise of Clause 4 in the 1990s, would do well to remind themselves of its authors and who they actually were – the Fabian Society – and what they actually thought about the working class. Perhaps the closest we come to a definition of the Fabians is Engels' description of them as 'a clique united only by their fear of the threatening rule of the workers and doing all in their power to avert the danger.' The Labour Party then, as now, was not so much interested in promoting ideas that threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class, but in securing the most votes. Even at its 'hardest Left' the Labour party can provide no solutions to the problems of capitalism. They all stand for a 'nicer' capitalism so are no socialists, but social reformers. Capitalism came into the world oozing blood from every pore and it continues likewise. We had two world wars last century and they are all doing war dances presently. You cannot have a nicer capitalism and there is no such thing for instance as "a fair days pay for a fair days work". Even at its most radical, Labour stands for the retention of capitalism, wage labour. Nationalisation is NOT Common Ownership socialism but state capitalism. Labour's Clause 4 was and is a nonsense. We don't need a means of exchange when 'all' is owned by us 'all', in common with each other as social equals. Removing class ownership and control of wealth production and distribution, means at last, we can have production for use 'and' be social equals, with free access, to the common product. The 'Left-capitalist parties don't tell you that as they want to be guvnors like the Fabians they consider you too stupid to comprehend the ideals of socialism. But it is incumbent upon the workers to make the post-capitalist revolution for and by themselves.

Western capitalism society is not an isolated separated system, from the events people are fleeing from, or the sweat shops of eastern capitalism, or the shanty towns amidst opulence. Global capitalism is interrelated. We workers have more in common with workers elsewhere, than with the global capitalist parasite class. All wealth springs from the workers. Capitalism has solved the production problem and created the knowledgeable workforce capable of running it from top to bottom but it is unable of solving the distribution one. It is obsolete and in the same predicament as feudalism was with warring kingly factions seeking domination over what spoils of war may bring. Employment in capitalism is, ‘only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer.’ Such dehumanisation of those involved will only end when the terms buyer and seller become redundant with the establishment of socialism. We have a world of free access to win.

Marx and Engels, unlike vanguardist 'Lefties', insisted that the task of building and running the post-capitalist society was to be the workers prerogative and they would decide what forms the new society would organise in. They recognised too, that the idea of socialism was older than their own contribution to the critique of capitalism, favourably quoting Thomas Muntzer to this end 'omnia sunt communia', (‘all things held in common'.) Employment in capitalism is, ’only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer.’ Such dehumanisation of those involved will only end when the terms buyer and seller become redundant with the establishment of socialism.

The division of the world’s population into distinct nations seems to be perfectly natural. The idea of nationalism is that "we" all have certain characteristics in common, and "we" should stick together. We are all assumed to belong to a national group but nationality is a product of social processes. The modern state is a product of bourgeois development. All this of course benefits the ruling class. It is usually a sign of desperation and of an incapacity to formulate a coherent argument when our masters resort to playing the nationalist card. It benefits them to see the workers placing meaning and identity in things that are irrelevant and mythical to the truth of class struggle.

Keeping the workers unable to see the true state of affairs in the world works to the ruling class advantage. Class existed before the nation-state. Throughout history one ruling class or another has attempted to impose its view on those they ruled over, manipulating their passions and pretending that its interests and their interests were the same. So, in another of life's ironies, the masses waste their energy fighting amongst themselves, believing their interests and the interests of their rulers are linked. Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation-states not only literally but ideologically. If the workers were ever to put their misplaced passion for “their” nation into socialism, then it would be the end of the ruling class.

"We're A’ Jock Tamson's Bairns" is a saying in Scotland and the north of England used to mean "we're all the same under the skin". A “bairn” is a child; the A’ is an abbreviation for All. Jock Tamson (John Thompson) is a generic name, equivalent to such names as “John Doe” or “Joe Bloggs” It is a reminder that despite the fact we live in a capitalist society we are all equal.

We should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.

"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." - Eugene V. Debs

Democracy – capitalism’s Achilles heel

People don't generally become poor. They are born poor, (in relation to the amount of wealth available) Yes, even in work. They may have better or worse conditions but essentially they are only a few week’s wages or a couple of month’s salary cheques away from the food-bank. The wealthy have generally inherited wealth and can increase their wealth by exploiting the labour power of those who are born poor. With few exceptions if you are born poor you will die poor and if born rich you will die even richer. Poverty is actual and relative to the wealth produced collectively. The rate of exploitation of the waged slave is greater and accelerating. The fact of working people having access to smart-phones, cars, education is used as some indication of social progress, when it is just an indicator of technological progress and workers require access to these in order to present themselves to perform the tasks of selling their mental and physical abilities for a wage or salary, to keep producing surplus-vale for the local, regional and global parasite class who employ them. We are still wage slaves though. Freedom is still to be won.

Socialism is a post-capitalist society, where production is for use (not for sale) to satisfy human needs, with free access to the wealth produced which will have no need of banks, insurance, or money, itself. With voluntary labour and real social equality, with no need for elites or government 'over' people, we will be free at last. The last great emancipation will be the emancipation of the wage slaves. The workers themselves self-organise to this end and are the only agency for this change. The principle for the new society is, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"

The Labour Party in the past, as now, was not so much interested in promoting ideas that threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class, but in securing the most votes. Corbyn-style Labour is merely a recipe to run capitalism and an attempt to manage it in a way which is fair and balanced, while still retaining all the features of capitalist exploitation - private, corporate or state ownership of the means and instruments of producing wealth, waged slavery for the wealth producers (workers), and production for profit after sale on the market for the enrichment of the parasite class (capitalists). What is the difference between a Labour (capitalist business friendly government) and a Tory one? Very little. It is reformism doomed to failure, no matter how laudable and sincere the intentions of the reformers, as capitalism cannot be reformed in any lasting way, to ensure 'a fair and balanced outcome' (however you define this) for the majority. It is just left wing capitalism rather than anything to do with socialism. So the so-called intellectual argument is proceeding from a dishonest and willfully blind perspective of trying to damn 'ideas' of that which is not being implemented, (socialism) in order to traduce the idea of socialism, which is a post-capitalist society. Capitalism once revolutionary, is an outmoded social system and has been so since the start of the last century where inequality is an entrenched as is poverty and the elite ownership of resources. What is in the ultimate class interest of all workers, is the abolition of the wages system and the removal of capitalist ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

The ruling class don't have to physically own the business they invest in. Capital is dead labour if it isn't used. That is why governments hammer the poor in a downturn when capital is being held back (capital strike) as the markets have slumped, in order to make them (then worker wealth producer) more attractive as an exploitative opportunity for the parasite class to invest in.  Even the public service sectors, for example are a function of the overall system.

First of all the rate of exploitation is greater in the examples of shrinking work-forces and growing profits, (more widgets with fewer workers means as you say unemployment for some) secondly, Capital cannot grow just by laying around, it needs to be re-invested in exploitative opportunities in order for it to expand. For our purposes it matters little whether this is knowingly, in some venture, or managed (the richest don't even have manage their loot, it is workers who do this for them) through investment trusts, or even extracted by the state for investment in infrastructure say (some capitalists will howl others rub their hands), as it results in the exploitation of workers on wages or salaries to produce surplus value over and above their wages (ration)to be sold on the markets with a view of realising a profit. All wealth springs from labour. The conditions where by capital is accumulated but human needs are not met, except for a minority parasite class, are an impediment upon human progress now, as we could have production for use to satisfy human needs, if all the means of producing and distributing wealth were owned and controlled in common by the whole population, without an elite class or its government overseers. Capital is plundered by extraction of surplus value via waged slavery. The original capital was literally plundered by all manner of dastardly derring-do.

Capitalism can't be regulated out of excess, as it is so intensely competitive, there is always an advantage to be sought in circumvention of 'restrictions on trade'. It can never be based on social justice principles for the majority, (the majority are effectively waged slaves) it will have such aspirations (fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work nonsense as exploitation at the point of production is essentially the part of capitalism where surplus value is created for the capitalist), all the more to gain your support, but regulation is for capital and properties advantage alone, as its raison d'être is profit and accumulation. It is workers who presently run and manage capitalism, from top to bottom and it is workers who innovate and invent new methods and techniques. Why, when it is in their interests to produce a superabundance of necessities to satisfy human needs should their creative spark be dimmed? The difference with this in capitalism, as one example ,when technology which could save labour hours is introduced, it is often accompanied by a pitch as to the merits of its introduction 'freeing labour', but in effect it is used to 'increase' the rate of exploitation, but the competition with other capitalists jumping onto the new technological bandwagon, leads eventually to gluts of unsaleable commodities, (capitalism doesn't exist to satisfy human needs, but for profit of a few) lay-offs and more production with labour then languishing upon the dole.

Capitalism requires, actual and relatively, poverty stricken workers to exploit their need for rations by the wages system, in order to profit from their (Capitalists) ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

The post-capitalist society not only frees us from the last great slavery (of wage slavery) and ends social classes with elite parasitical relationship to the wealth producing majority, but allows us to begin produce in ecological harmony with the needs of the living planet on which we reside, instead of trashing it with wasteful by-products and war. It has been a feasible proposition since the start of the last century and is even more so now. All that is required is a majority of politically aware workers to utilise the Achilles heel of capitalist democracy to abolish government 'over' us and elect the people.

Scotland Chokes

At least,  2,000 early deaths in Scotland are caused by air pollution in Scotland every year according to a BBC Scotland documentary. The BBC Scotland investigation 'Car Sick' revealed that high levels of traffic-related air pollution are causing a public health crisis in Scotland.

In 2014 a Glasgow street was found to be the most polluted in Scotland, when figures were released showing the 13 streets where toxic Nitrogen Dioxide concentrations exceeded both Scottish and European safety limits. Glasgow's Hope Street and Edinburgh's St John's Road topped the charts for bad air.

Also featured in the BBC1 documentary was the revelation that only 13 of Scotland's 32 local authorities carry out roadside emissions testing. Glasgow City Council was shown to carry out around 3,000 tests a year - but Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen all undertook none at all.

What money?

Around 40% of Scottish adults are not in control of their finances, a new study has found, due to not knowing their current account balance, not feeling their approach to budgeting works or struggling with bills. 37% of people in Scotland do not know their bank balance within £50. It also found less than a third of people in Scotland have financial goals and plans to achieve them.

Lest we forget

Obituary: Andrew Thomson (1997)

Obituary from the December 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with great sadness that Glasgow branch report the death of Andrew Thomson.

Andrew joined the Party in 1944. He was a vehicle builder in the Springburn railway workshops. Around that time there were five or six Party members working there; indeed at one time they used to hold outdoor public meetings during their lunch break.

Andy was one of those members who are the backbone of any branch. At many branch meetings when an outdoor meeting in Glasgow or Edinburgh was reported and the literature sales seemed high, some member would say by way of explanation, “Oh, aye. The pamphlet sales were good, but that was because Andy was selling them.” His straightforward, open approach to enquirers or even opponents of socialism was disarming and powerful. The socialist movement is built on the decent, reliable and honest virtues of workers like Andy Thomson.

The branch extends its deepest sympathy to his wife Emily, herself a member. Her loss must be heartbreaking. Glasgow branch have had many members with great abilities as speakers, debaters, literature sellers and organisers. It is doubtful if we have ever had a member that inspired such real affection as we all felt towards Andy. He was in many respects one of the best of us and the loss of his cheerful, comradely presence will be felt by all of us who had the privilege to know him as a comrade and a friend.

GLASGOW BRANCH

Et in terra pax hominibus

Some of us tread gently on the earth and others clump with big tackety boots all over it and anything which gets in the way.

Where did capital come from in the first place? From piracy, plunder, slavery, war and conquest. The destruction of other countries mode of production and enforced drug peddling, by gunboat diplomacy. It is now all legitimised as inherited wealth and constitutes dead labour until it is invested for the purpose of more exploitation of a wage-slave class. It may be true that some capitalists go bust, but most escape with a larger proportion of the loot, even as more shut up one business to open another. It is the workers who produced their wealth who face penury. They do not have any 'Right to work'. Capitalists do NOT create wealth. It is the labour of the working class from which all wealth derives. Capital is dead labour, plundered surplus value form the activities of an exploited working class, which is only risked by the capitalist when an opportunity arises to derive a profit from this wealth producing capacity of labour. The workers commodity (labour -power) is a unique commodity, in that it produces a surplus over and above its own reproduction, which is sold on the markets to realise a profit for the parasitic capitalist class. Capitalism cannot have any other purpose than the economic one of making and accumulating profits. It cannot serve any other social purpose and cannot be made to. It is based on a division of society into those who own and control the places where wealth is produced and those who don’t.

The modern working-class have no class below them on whom to foist a fraudulent conception of class interests, and from whom to draw support and assistance in the struggle. All their strength must be of themselves and in them themselves. All their militant might must be based upon the knowledge of their class position and the logical course dictated by that position. Therefore at the very outset it is seen that the need for leaders does not exist. Only those who do not know the way require to be led, and this very fact makes it inevitable that those who are led will be entirely in the hands of those who lead.

The working class can only find emancipation through socialism, which implies the overthrow of the present ruling class and their social system. The only possible human instruments in the prosecution of the struggle for this end are those who understand the working-class position in society, realise that only socialism can lift them from that position, and who desire that the proletariat shall be so lifted. Broadly speaking, only members of the working class will come in this category.

The class-unconscious mobs, therefore, whom the "leaders" place themselves at the head of, can never be effective factors in the struggle for working-class deliverance. It is often said that the leaders are in advance of the led, but in the broader sense this is not true. Lading, after all, must be by consent. So it happens that the "leader" can only lead where he is likely to be followed. Hence, so far is the leader from being in advance of the mob, he is only the reflection of its collective ignorance. We remember Bevan who had what they call the common touch. Who better than a one-time down-trodden miner to justify the anti-working class policies of his party? Bevan who was a member of the Labour government when they were busy breaking strikes and getting involved in the slaughter of workers in Korea and other parts of the world. Bevan, a minister in the government which promoted the great swindle of nationalisation, which made the shareholders more secure than before and left the workers no better off. Yet - and here is the greatest swindle - this was said, by Bevan and others, to be in the name of building socialism. It was not a working example of socialism but managed capitalism. The NHS was supported by the Liberals and Tories as more efficient than giving higher wages to purchase insurance for medical care. Beveridge was a Liberal. It was certainly a bit of a benefit for workers but it was set up as a consequence of the war which preceded to manage any discontent which would have impinged on the boom which follows a war. In effect, it was to be capitalism with nice bits added on and the bad bits lopped off, retaining wage slavery and profit. All capitalist countries are or have the potential to be highly socialised, (even in the emerging capitalist Bismarck's Germany the railways were state run), but this doesn't make them 'socialist' or 'socialistic' but managers, on behalf of exploiters of wage labour, (Workers/wealth producers) in the interest of the dominant class of exploiting parasites, (Owners, Employers, Capitalists.) A left-wing capitalist fantasy masquerading as socialism. Facing the threat of, or actual strikes, Labour governments always took the employers side in such confrontations. While pretend that we can make capitalism fairer? By misleading workers that capitalism can be reformed by a nicer style of government in order to get their support at the ballot box? No capitalist party is worthy of support. Capitalism must be replaced.

The socialist and the true democrat does not place faith in leaders. He knows that the only hope lies in the intelligence and courage and energy of the working class as a class, and all his hope, all his faith, all his trust, rests in the working class. We should be asking why we persist in the delusion that any capitalist political parties have your interests at heart?

Socialism not a 'belief' system, it doesn't have leaders, rulers or a ruling class, or elites, and has no sacrosanct books, Marxists continually dispute scientific points with each other in evaluation of contributions, but only uses all scientific evidence to underscore its case to be made. It does not do mechanistic blueprints or certainties, but places in the sphere of human action upon the material circumstances of the day.

War is not necessarily constrained by good people, (religious or not) or caused by bad ones (religious or not). Modern wars arise out of material conditions of fierce competition with occasions of dispute over power, trade routes, raw materials or geo-political advantage, by different sections of ruling class elites. These elites will justify their behaviour by reference to principle, religion, or cynicism, as war being "business by other means".

Foe and friend, believer and non-believer alike are blessed, before being slaughtered in the interests of these elites, God being the first conscript on all sides, with guardian angels Jingoism and Xenophobia enlisted, for the duration with lies, damn lies and misinformation as scripture. Believers and non-believers can, have done in the past and will do so in the future, stand shoulder to shoulder, with their brother and sisters of this common humanity, in opposition to the monstrosity of war. Far from misrepresenting history this unbeliever wants us all to learn from it.

The Socialist Party seeks to see things develop: a growing worldwide anti-capitalist movement that will eventually end capitalism and replace class ownership by common ownership and democratic control and production for profit by production directly to satisfy people’s needs. Workers need to become aware of possibility of abolishing the wages and prices system altogether. If this doesn’t happen then capitalism will just stagger on from crisis to crisis while social needs and the good of society continue to be neglected. Enough of this though, friend, we will say "peace be upon you" ("et in terra pax hominibus") and know we mean it.

The UCS "Take Over" (1971)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sirs,

On reading your August edition of the Socialist Standard, I was shocked and disappointed at the inaccuracies and blatant lies given out under the heading "Revolt on the Clyde”.

In a previous article entitled “Do You Know About Socialism?” you attack the working class of this country for their placid acceptance of the controls and restrictions placed on them by the capitalist system. And yet when a section of the working class make a stand against this system of suppression you immediately condemn them out of hand for being unrealistic.

The author of the derogatory article states, "That workers in a declining industry like shipbuilding have any economic power capable of overcoming the all too real and socially accepted political power of the government is a myth”. This statement shows a gross ignorance of the world shipbuilding situation today. A little investigation would have shown that the true situation is the reverse of that stated. World tonnage for ships launched has been steadily increasing over the past ten years, and there is no evidence to suppose that this increased demand will not continue.

The statement, "Locked in the yards with no work and no money the workers would only be able to hold out for a short while”, again shows a lack of understanding of the situation. Due to tremendous response from all over Britain in the way of donations to the UCS fighting fund and weekly levies imposed by trade unions, the shop stewards should have sufficient capital to re-employ UCS workers as soon as they are made redundant until March 1972. There is also sufficient work in the yards to keep the men fully occupied until then. By this time it is envisaged that the government will have altered its viewpoint on the situation.

It is further implied in the article that UCS in its present form is not viable, and that the cause has been partially lost because "thousands of Clyde shipyard workers did lose their jobs while Benn was Labour Minister”. May I point out that the thousands mentioned were laid off during the creation of UCS as part of a productivity agreement with the unions concerned. Since then the company has increased productivity and improved labour relations no end and can now confidently quote £5.5m. for the 17,000 ton cargo ships which are so much in demand as against Japan’s quote of £5.3m.

The government sponsored Shipbuilding Industry Board says in its report that the shipyards are in better shape than they have been since the war. "They deserve encouragement and support”.

Since the shop stewards took control of the situation at UCS, words such as "occupation" and "workers’ control” have been bandied about, not by the stewards but by irresponsible articles written by authors lacking in either basic socialist morals or common sense. In direct contrast the men in control of the UCS at present have shown themselves to be responsible, realistic and genuinely concerned about the current unemployment situation.

These men are fighting for The Right to Work, a right regarded by true socialists to be basic and by the present government to be contrary to the theory of capitalism.

A victory for this right just now will not only be a victory for the Clydeside workers, but a victory for all those who regard socialism as the only true and fair system for this country.

I therefore respectfully suggest that your publication refrains from the type of public sniping and destructive criticism we are accustomed to in the capitalist press and get on with the job of educating the people of this country in preparation for socialism.

You could begin by assigning the author of the article to the organisation of appeals on behalf of the UCS fighting fund and therefore practically assist those who are currently leading the fight for a basic socialist principle, The Right to Work.

F. J. Coyle, London, W.5.

REPLY:

We have never condemned the UCS workers. Quite the reverse. The article in question wished them luck “in using their bargaining strength to get the best of redundancy terms they can”. Which is essentially what the so-called work-in is about. It is not the beginning of a workers’ revolution, nor the expropriation of the capitalists at the point of production but, as Mr. Coyle recognises, simply a trade union tactic of an unusual kind.

We do not doubt that the UCS shop stewards are what Mr. Coyle describes as “responsible” and “realistic”. For all their fiery words, they must know that all they can hope for is some deal, either with the government or with some capitalist like Archibald Kelly, that will save as many jobs as possible. It is to their credit that they do not seem to be interested in leading the Clydeside shipworkers into a head-on clash with the forces of the State, despite the nonsense mouthed by those criticised in our article (and despite some of their own earlier statements made in the heat of the moment). In passing, we would challenge the accuracy of saying that the stewards now “control” the yards seeing that for the time being it is also in the interests of the liquidator that work on the unfinished ships goes on.

The shop stewards must know, too, that any deal is bound to involve some redundancies. We stand by what we said on this, that whatever happens some (more) Clydeside shipworkers are bound to lose their jobs because of the profit situation in British shipbuilding. The UCS workers cannot win in the sense of achieving “no redundancies” and any deal the unions and/or the stewards are likely to get—like the last one when Benn was Minister — cannot avoid some men being declared redundant. To assume otherwise is to assume that capitalism can cease to run on profits. This is not to say the workers should not put up a struggle. They should, if only because the more militant they are the better deal they are likely to get, as past trade union struggles have shown.

How successful will be the particular tactic they have adopted remains to be seen. But it is not something to be condemned out of hand just because it has not been tried before (if it was really an attempt to expropriate the capitalists rather than a mere trade union tactic that would be a different matter; that has been tried before with disastrous results and we would have no hesitation in condemning it). The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always given its general support to the industrial side of the class struggle, which is what the UCS workers are involved in, while leaving the specific tactics to be adopted in this struggle to the workers immediately involved. If after considering the situation carefully the UCS workers have democratically decided on a peaceful, disciplined “work-in” that is up to them. As we said, we wish them luck. Mr. Coyle may also be interested in knowing that members of the Socialist Party through their trade unions have contributed to the UCS fighting fund.

Mr. Coyle charges us with certain inaccuracies but he has misunderstood us. First, the reference to shipbuilding as a declining industry was to shipbuilding in Britain not the world. Incidentally, by “economic power” we meant the trade union strength of the shipbuilding workers rather than the competitive position of the shipbuilding industry. Second, does Mr. Coyle think that from August 1971 to March 1972 is not “a short while”? Third, we specifically stated that we were not going to get involved in “board room disputes”. Whether or not UCS in its present form is viable comes into this category and readers can judge from Mr. Coyle’s enthusiastic comments on UCS’s labour relations and costs where this can lead.

Finally, Mr. Coyle seems to think that Socialism could be established just in “this country”. We do not; we say Socialism can only exist on a world-scale. Mr. Coyle also thinks that the so-called Right to Work is a basic socialist principle. We do not, as we explain elsewhere in this issue.

Editorial Committee (October 10)

Also for further reading see:

UCS Shipyard Occupation - What we said 

Human nature is the daftest argument against socialism

You are entitled to an opinion but if it is a misinformed opinion, even if held by the vast majority, then we do you a disservice by not bringing a correction or different view of it to your attention. Public misinformation often masquerades as common sense the better to spread its falsehood. In his book ‘The Common Good’, Noam Chomsky makes an important observation:

‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate’.

‘Human nature’ is the worst thing many can come up with to deny the possibility of socialism. Human nature is the daftest argument anyone can make. Even capitalist exploitation requires slavish co-operation. Mankind’s behaviour is as much more socially and culturally induced than anything. To a certain extent, no doubt, this reflects a healthy scepticism amongst ordinary people towards so revolutionary a new idea. But there is more to the human nature argument than this. Behind it is a clever but false theory touching on the subjects of biology, anthropology, and sociology. Because people are lazy and greedy and aggressive, runs the human nature objection, they could not live in a society where work was voluntary or where there was free access to wealth. If work were voluntary, nobody would do it; if goods were freely available, there would be a free-for-all as people fought each other to grab as much as they could. Let us be clear about what this says: that certain patterns of behaviour are innate and are inherited from generation to generation by all human beings.  What evidence has been brought forward in favour of this view? Only the way people actually behave in present-day and in many previous societies. It is true that people sometimes are lazy or aggressive, but this is not in itself strong enough evidence for concluding that this is because they are born that way. Because, if this were so, all people would exhibit these characteristics at all times in all societies.

Since this is what the human nature argument asserts, it is sufficient to disprove it to produce examples of men behaving in a hard-working or a friendly way. This is easy. At times most human beings will feel lazy; at others they will undertake extremely hard work because they enjoy it. At times they will be aggressive, but at others friendly and helpful to their fellow human beings. The fact is that everyday experience of life today disproves the human nature argument.

So does the evidence of the past. There are travellers’ tales going back to ancient times of human communities based on common property with equal or fair sharing of what little there was to go round. Witnesses have testified to the consistently friendly and co-operative behaviour of the members of these communities. Anthropologists studying present-day survivals of primitive social systems — like the Eskimos, the Bushmen of South West Africa, or the Aborigines of Australia — confirm this. In fact all the evidence amassed on human society and human behaviour suggests no rigid or consistent pattern. Quite the reverse. It points to people being a highly adaptable animal who can survive in and adjust to an immense variety of different circumstances.

So we can list the evidence against the human nature objection to Socialism:

1. That there have been societies based on voluntary work and free co-operation.

2. That some work today, for example the dangerous work of manning lifeboats, is done voluntarily.

3. That there have been societies where there has been free access to some of the necessities of life.

4. That those things, such as water from a public drinking tap, that are more or less freely available today are not grabbed or hoarded.

What is more, there is no evidence from genetics, the branch of biology concerned with heredity, that complicated behaviour patterns like being greedy can be inherited. The mechanism by which certain characteristics are inherited is now fairly well known. The sort of characteristics that are inherited are those governing the physical make-up of people. Since the brain is part of the human body this too is inherited, but ideas and complicated patterns of behaviour are not transmitted along with the brain. Each normal human being will inherit a brain that can be trained to think abstractly just as he inherits hands that can be trained to use tools and make things or a voice that can be trained to speak and sing.

The human nature argument is a ruling-class idea. As long as people believe that Socialism is impossible and that only class and property society is practical the ruling class is safe. Marx pointed out that in a non-revolutionary period the ruling ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class. The human nature argument is so widespread today because it is a ruling class idea in a pre-revolutionary period.

Socialists are quite clear on who will society the people themselves. No more politicians or ruling elites. Dissolve the governments and elect yourselves.

Capitalism cannot be meaningfully reformed. There is no solution to this dilemma inside the capitalist system. Only genuine common ownership (not to be confused with state-ownership) of all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interests of the whole community, in conditions of democratic oversight by the whole population, (real social equality) with production for use, as opposed to for markets, with distribution according to self-determined needs, can utilise and harmonise the immense latent productive capacity inherited from capitalism in a way which is harmonious to the needs of all the people and the ecological imperatives of nature in an interconnected globalised world.

This is, of course, a revolutionary transformation into post-capitalist, free access, society which can only be undertaken with the politically conscious intent and participation of the immense majority to abolish waged slavery and elite control and ownership forever.

“…experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other…” - Frederick Douglass

Everyone deserves a decent warm home

Homeless children spent almost one million days in temporary accommodation last year, housing campaigners have said. Shelter Scotland deputy director Alison Watson branded the figure "staggering" and insisted it is "simply not good enough".

The housing and homeless charity has published new datashowing Scotland's councils provided homeless households with an estimated 3.8 million days of temporary accommodation in 2014-15 There were an average of 10,302 households in Scotland in temporary accommodation - which can be in a bed and breakfast, hostel or local authority property - on any one night. The figures showed a quarter of the households were families with children, with an average of 4373 youngsters in temporary accommodation on any given night. The charity has now raised concerns over "whether the best use is being made of this expensive resource".

A report from Shelter Scotland said: "For thousands of households every year this provision provides an important safety net in times of crisis. However, the average time spent in so-called temporary accommodation is 23 weeks, with one in ten households spending over a year there This suggests that local authorities can struggle to move on households that have a right to settled, permanent accommodation in a timely manner."

The charity wants 12,000 affordable homes to be built each year over the next five years to drive down the need for temporary accommodation.

Revolt on the Clyde (1971)

From the August 1971 issue of the SocialistStandard

We’ll occupy the yards and bring the government down! Only force will get us out! These were the sentiments expressed by the UCS shop steward’s convenor just after the government announced its refusal to help Upper Clyde Shipbuilders out of yet another financial difficulty.

These sentiments are understandable but the fact remains that the occupation of the shipyards — other, perhaps, than for a short while as a token demonstration of anger and protest at the way capitalism works — would be utterly futile. Those who urge the Clyde shipyard workers to believe that they can in this way coerce the government to preserve their jobs are cruelly and foolishly misleading them. That workers, especially in a declining industry like shipbuilding, have any “economic power” capable of overcoming the all too-real and socially accepted political power of the government is a myth.

Locked in the yards with no work and no money, the workers would only be able to hold out for a short while. All the government would have to do would be to sit back and wait for them to surrender. They would not even have to consider using troops. The plain truth is that there is nothing the workers can do to save their jobs. The most they may be able to get is a short postponement or a little more redundancy pay.

No employer is going to pay workers to produce wealth he cannot sell at a profit. Employers are in business to make profits, not to provide jobs. If they do not make profits they are in trouble. Which is precisely what has happened to UCS. Indeed Sir Iain Stewart, who resigned as deputy chairman of UCS only a few months after it was set up in 1968, has expressed the view that it was an ill-advised “no sackings” pledge which has landed the company in trouble:

When the merger came together, the board’s first idea — and Mr. Anthony Hepper was the man who promoted it — was to get a full order book. So off he went round the world and picked up millions of pounds worth of work which in fact was profitless . . . Rather than face up to the redundancy of 5,000 men, Mr. Hepper guaranteed them two years full employment — 5.000 people at £1,200 a year is £6m, in two years it is £12m. If you are going to pay out £12m. and get nothing back from it, you go bankrupt (The Times, 24 June).

Stewart, incidentally, favoured immediate mass sackings so that the workers would be compelled to work harder by the threat of unemployment.

It is not our job to get involved in board room disputes, but if this is true all UCS seems to have done, with the help of bribes from the Labour government was to postpone the mass sackings for a while. Some, like Wedgwood Benn and the Labour Party, want to postpone them a little longer or perhaps to phase them out over a longer period. They do not actually put it this way, of course, but this is the most that nationalisation could achieve. For no government could afford to keep open for any length of time unprofitable shipyards, any more than the Labour government was prepared to postpone for more than a few months the closure of unprofitable coalmines. Besides, thousands of Clyde shipyard workers did lose their jobs while Benn was a Labour Minister.

As workers in unprofitable industry about to lose their jobs, sooner or later, en masse or in dribs and drabs, they are victims of capitalism. They have our sympathy as fellow-workers and we wish them luck in using their bargaining strength to get the best of redundancy terms they can, but it would be dishonest of us to pretend — as do the loud-mouthed advocates of occupation, nationalisation, workers control, etc. — that there is any way out for them under capitalism. The way to fight back is to recognise the essentially defensive and limited nature of industrial action and to join in the political struggle for Socialism, to make all the means of production the common property of the community and to abolish for ever the system of employment for wages.

Adam Buick