World Socialism Restated

All things are held in common

When we talk about the inevitability of socialism we assume that the workers will continue to struggle for it. Were they, on the other hand, sit down tamely and wait till socialism came to them, they would remain enslaved by wage-labour. Socialism can only come when workers are no longer willing to allow themselves to be exploited. When the workers, both politically and economically, are so class conscious and so well organised as to make their exploitation impossible then capitalism will have reached the end of its road. That is what we understand by social revolution, and our ideal – that of human brotherhood – is revolutionary, because it is only to be realised by the social revolution. Whoever speaks of social revolution speaks above all of the abolition of capitalism, the abolition of its productive and property relations and the establishment of new relations.

It is important to realise that capitalists are not always looking for ways to increase the degree of exploitation of workers because they, the capitalists, are inherently greedy but that they do this because of the way in which the capitalist economy operates leaves them with no choice if they are to stay in business. Similarly, if workers are not to be worked to death and totally impoverished then they have no choice except to take a common stand together against capitalist employers so as to resist employers’ attempts to exploit them even more. This is done by forming trade unions to defend wage levels and working conditions. Not only do capitalist exploit workers but the system operates in such a way that capitalists constantly have to try to exploit workers even more. Different capitalists producing the same kind of commodity are competing with one another in the market to sell their products. Failure to sell the commodities produced by his firm means bankruptcy and ruin for a capitalist and the main way of ensuring steady sales is to offer given commodities on the market at a price below that charged by other capitalists. If a capitalist is to reduce his prices without reducing his profits then one way is to increase the hours of work of his employees without paying them any more wages. Another ploy is to speed up the rate of work, increase its intensity, and thus reduce the cost per item by forcing the workforce to produce more commodities in the same time as before. It is obvious, especially with the onset of the present economic recession, that trade unions only have a very limited capacity to defend the living standards and working conditions of the working class. While trade unions are a necessary means of defence of the working class against the capitalist class it is also the case that they pose no fundamental challenge to the whole capitalist system. Trade unions do not challenge the right of capitalists to exploit workers but only the degree to which this takes place. Even the most militant trade union struggles pose no fundamental challenge to the dominant position of the capitalist class within contemporary Britain. If the working class does not rise above the level of recognising the necessity to organise industrially, of a trade union consciousness, then it will be doomed to an eternity of struggle with the capitalist class.

A paradox of the capitalist system of production is that in the midst of plenty it also produces severe material deprivation. Capitalism has brought about the progressive development of the forces of production at a very rapid rate. Modern science and technology make it possible to provide material comfort and plenty for all. Yet in the world as a whole today the gap between the rich and the poor is actually widening, especially in the underdeveloped countries. The proportion of the world’s population who are underfed and starving is increasing. Even in the relatively prosperous countries such as Britain there are still millions of people who lack such basic necessities as a healthy diet and adequate housing. Clearly the problem for the great mass of humanity is not a lack of the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to bring about the material welfare of humankind. Rather the problem is one of abolishing the capitalist relations which prevent the forces of production being utilised in ways that meet the real human needs of everyone. From being in its earlier stages a force for the progressive development of humanity capitalism has now become a brake on further progress. The working class in all countries, including Britain, has a very real and urgent need to abolish the capitalist economic order.

Not only does capitalism deprive most people of the means of material well-being but it also means that they lose control over the process whereby they produce the means of material life; we are in a state of alienation. What crucially distinguishes human beings from other animals is the very active relationship we have with our natural environment in the course of productive activity. We act on the world to satisfy our material needs and in the course of so doing change not only the world but ourselves as well; our relationships and consciousness. Mankind reproduces itself through work. Yet the worker does not possess the products of his or her labour, he or she does not have control over the productive process, capitalist economic relations throw workers into conflict with each other and work itself, that most human of our attributes, is experienced as a burdensome imposition. The loss of control, the alienation of the worker, is not confined to the sphere of production but extends out to all aspects of life in capitalist society. We need to abolish capitalism not simply to have a fatter pay packet but so as to gain control together over all aspects of our lives, to liberate the whole of humanity from alienation.

The Socialist Party is the only political party in this land that stands against the present system and for the rule of the people; the only party that boldly avows itself the party of the working class and its purpose the overthrow of wage-slavery. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to own the world’s resources, the toiling masses will be struggling in the hell of poverty as they are today. The Socialist Party champions of the world socialist society and seeks to reawaken and revitalise a world movement of the workers. The Socialist Party as the party of the exploited workers in the mills, mines, on the railways and on the farms, and in the offices, the workers of both sexes and all colours, the working class in a word, constituting a great majority of the people and in fact the people, demands that the means of production and distribution shall be taken over by the workers shall operate them for the benefit of the whole people. Private ownership and competition have had their day. The capitalist system is doomed. Capitalism exploits the world and has no future. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. The Socialist Party stands for social ownership and co-operation. Our demands are most modest. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and active minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental and physical achievement. We demand the earth for all the people.

A new society on new foundations

“Competition is civil war, and monopoly a massacre of the prisoners” - Proudhon

Hunger in the midst of plenty, that distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production, is intensified a hundredfold during an economic crisis. The anarchy of the market brings about a catastrophic fall in wages, the shutdown of factories, widespread unemployment, disruption of world trade, disturbance of the monetary system, the frantic search of capitalists for new outlets and new markets. To restore profit margins, the government, as executive committee of the capitalist class, drives down the living standards of the workers in order to place the national capitalism in a stronger competitive position. To start the wheels of industry going, the capitalist government pours bail out the banks and subsidises the corporations. The state’s budget takes on undreamed-of proportions. Its balancing becomes ever more precarious and in fact near-impossible. The national debt increases at a dizzying pace. The big bourgeoisie evades and escapes taxation paying little or nothing by loopholes and the use of tax-havens. The bankers not only protect themselves but profit anew. The politicians rely on the method of democratic illusions to baulk and blind the masses to carry out the will of the ruling class, long on promises, short on performance. The vicious capitalist drive to beat down the living standards of the workers is conducted under a barrage of propaganda concerning raising these living standards at the expense of profit. The eventual upturn in business, due in large measure to government spending, permits workers an opportunity to organise and engage in renewed struggles to try and  regain the conditions they had lost during the recession. But the recovery gives to business, a refreshed taste for profits and a new sense of power and confidence. Capitalists will brook no resistance to the expansion of profits by the wage slaves. Anti-union laws subdue any rebellion. No ruling class has ever proclaimed: “We sacrifice you for our class interests.” It is always for for the country and “national” interests. Salvation will been provided not for the workers, but for the capitalist class.

As for curing the ills of the workers by reforming capitalism, particularly in a world where everybody could have a decent, comfortable home, plenty of attractive clothing, abundant food, educational opportunity, money for travel and amusement, it does not make any difference how well-meaning these capitalist saviors may be, there is no way out for people under capitalism. The bosses must run their businesses at a profit in competition with other bosses, and his chief concern is necessarily to keep his costs, including his labour costs, as low as possible. If for the moment the wage rates are maintained, the boss looks for some other way to squeeze out profit, as by putting in “labour-saving” technology and putting workers out on the street. Capitalists make their profits by paying the worker in wages a smaller value than he creates by laboring. The capitalist thus gets what Marx calls surplus value. It is the only way profit can be created. Under modern conditions expensive plants and equipment are increased, but the work is done with fewer workers. Thus they must be exploited ever more fiercely in order that surplus value – profit – may be squeezed out of their labour, the only possible source of profit. Capitalism will force the living standards lower and again lower. There was a time when made concessions to the workers, affording better the standard of living, without cutting into profits. No more. Capitalism now maintains itself only by taking away concessions – wage rates, working conditions and social benefits, etc. – which it once gave. Capitalism cannot be reformed, it must be abolished. The sole hope for humanity, the hope of civilisation, lies in the establishment of a socialist society of production for use, of genuine freedom and equality. Because capitalism must drive the standard of living lower all the time. Any trade union no matter how conservative, meek, respectable, peaceful, will offer resistance. By workers we mean the working class. It includes the miners, transportation, factory workers. It includes also the clerical workers, agricultural workers, many technicians and professionals who are also wage earners. These have to organize in their economic organizations, just as the factory workers. They will more and more engage in the same kind of struggles as the latter. We see this today with the Junior Doctors strikes and before them teachers and other professionals. They will fight for mere existence. The workers cannot save themselves or their movement by being humble and cautious.

We workers cannot obtain plenty and security, deliverance from misery and war, by trying to reform the capitalist economic system. We have to abolish it. And we cannot abolish it except by the revolutionary method. The Socialist Party seeks to build a new society on new foundations. The time has come when in order to exist, in order to prevent complete ruin, the people have to carry on their fight, ever more broadly and intensely, against the economic system which serves the masters.  When we speak of unity today we have to understand clearly what we mean. Unity – on what basis? Merely repeating the word “unity” will not accomplish anything. Membership in a political party of the working class is not on the same basis as membership in a trade union. A union is a mass organisation to which all workers in a given trade or industry belong – Labour Party, Tories, nationalists and assorted leftists. It does not follow that you can put those in a political party, and have a socialist party. The Socialist Party does not deal with immediate issues of wages, hours and conditions of work – that is the role of the unions. The Socialist Party engages with the problem of the economic-political system as a whole, how it must and can be changed or abolished, etc. A revolutionary party must, therefore, have a philosophy, a theory, a program. If it has the wrong one, then at the critical moment it will fail and betray the masses. We have our Declaration of Principles upon which every member must agree. Our primary task, as the Declaration of Principles states, is “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.” We do not believe that the fellow workers can be delivered from poverty, unemployment, degradation, war, by any reform of the capitalist system under which we live. That system must be abolished, wage slavery must be done away with altogether. The workers must collectively own and democratically control the machinery of production and distribution.

The capitalist treadmill

Competition must go. The abolition of the exchange economy and its institutions must be replaced with the rational, socialist organisation of labour that mankind may become free to build his or her own life and to be human with the others. Marx analysed the capitalist system of production. He exposed how it rests on the basis of the exploitation of man by man. All value comes from labour. Because they own the means of production, the capitalists hold the whip-hand over the workers. They do not own them, as a slave-owner owned his slaves. They pay them wages. But the wages are not equal to the real value produced by the worker. The worker works only part of the day to earn his wages. The rest is free labour for the boss. This is surplus value, out of which the capitalists make their profit and accumulate wealth. Because of their great economic power and wealth, the owners of the means of production dominate in every capitalist country. They run parliament and the press; their ideas prevail in educational and religious institutions. The laws are made to suit their interests. The State, the army, the police and the courts, defend, in the first place, their property. However democratic it may appear on the surface, every capitalist state is in reality a dictatorship of the capitalist class. Capitalism, in its time, was a progressive social system. Capitalism is now obsolete. Socialism puts an end to the contradictions of capitalism by abolishing private ownership of the means of production and placing them under common ownership. It overcomes the class and national conflicts inherent in capitalism by abolishing the exploiting classes and the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is a classless social system. All members of socialist society will enjoy full social equality. The all-round development of the people, accompanied by the growth of the productive forces sufficient to ensure abundance of goods, enables the principle to be applied: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Labour will cease to be a burden. Everyone will recognise that to work for the benefit of the people is a necessity willingly performed as life’s first need. A new era in human history will open. The victory of socialism will ensure the eradication of all types of exploitation and oppression, a future of peace, friendship, well-being, and unlimited advance for all peoples of the earth. Selfishness, ignorance, superstition and other evils of the acquisitive society will disappear. Mankind will enter upon a greater freedom.

The working class must make its stand against the capitalist system – whose lust for profits and interest, for investments, markets and expanded capital, for raw materials and cheap exploitable labor, can mean only exploitation and abject slavery. It is just impossible to make the profit system work in the interests of the majority. The purpose of production remains the same – how much is there in it for the owners of capital. The profit system, you see, has one unshakable purpose: PRIVATE GAIN. Under capitalism or the profit system, it is necessary to maintain and, if possible, increase the gap between wages (or what it costs in labour power to produce goods) and price (or the exchange-value which those goods have on the market). This gap exists because the worker only receives the price of his or her labour power and no share in the values he creates. With socialism, there will be no wages at all and there will be no prices or market values in the sense of goods obtainable only on the basis of paying for them. Under capitalism, the worker the end of his work week, receives wages which simply go to refurbish him for another Monday. And so it goes on for the worker under capitalism – a continuous treadmill (broken only by unemployment), with the worker never quite catching up to his or her strength of the week before, but always forced to go to work on Monday. In socialism, all this is changed. Goods are produced for the use of men and NOT for the profits which they bring in to bosses. Labour power is no longer regarded as a commodity to be bought and sold. It is not purchased at all, let alone purchased at the lowest possible price to keep it alive and able to produce more value. Men and women, inside socialism, will work and produce useful goods. But they will produce these for their mutual needs and for their mutual development. The sufficiency of goods which people and machines can create will be given to members of the community to develop their bodies so that their minds can grow rich in the wealth of human knowledge, aesthetic appreciation and artistic creation. From day to day, from week to week, and from year to year, individual creativity will widen rather than narrow, as human productive and intellectual achievements increase. Mankind, no longer fettered by the necessity of working not only for their own material maintenance, but for the bosses’ even more material profits, will be freed to live more fully. The time that each must work will be small, yet the goods produced for all to enjoy will be plentiful. People will learn how to control the method of production and distribution that now controls us. Socialists will produce for use according to a reasonable plan and without a thought for the odious notion of profit. And with no insatiable parasitic class to maintain, socialist society will produce abundance for all. That's a fact. The global human family will arrange its standard of living as easily as affluent families do today. Humanity which has been freed from the capitalist system will also have been freed from wage labour, price and profit. That is why, instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” workers must inscribe on their banner the REVOLUTIONARY watchword: “Abolition of the wage system!” Socialism is the ONLY answer!

Socialism is no pipe-dream

“all things are held in common”

The Socialist Party seeks a change in the basis of society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities. Workers, although they produce all the wealth of society, have no control over its production or distribution: the people, are treated as a mere appendage to capital - as a part of the machine. We want a real revolution, a real change in society. The Socialist Party aims at the realisation of complete socialism, and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all lands. For us neither geographical boundaries, political history nor race makes rivals or enemies; for us there are no nations, but only fellow workers and friends, whose mutual sympathies are perverted by the master class whose interest it is to stir up rivalries and hatreds between peoples. We shall live a society not of enemies in a state a kind of armed truce but instead we shall live among friends and neighbours. People will regard work not as a means of living, but something to enjoy doing for society, not for themselves; individuals have developed with all-round capabilities, instead of narrow specialists; production will be abundant enough for everyone to have whatever he or she needs without any restriction as Marx says, “for society to inscribe on its banner from each according to his ability: to each according to his needs.”

Many on the Left are loud to claim that state-owned industries is socialism. But nationalisation of industries in a capitalist state does not lead to establishment of socialism. This is a hoax. The left especially those who pride themselves in having read Marx ought to understand that the character of the ownership, whether individual or state, does not by itself conclusively determine whether the system is capitalist or socialist. Marx characterised capitalism by its motive of production and the production relation: in capitalism the motive of production is to earn maximum profit and the production relation is the owner-worker relationship. Consider, for instance, the state-owned industries. In these the workers have no say in the employment policy or in the production planning. The workers do not decide how the industry would be managed or what would be the wage policy of the government. This means, the motive of production remains earning maximum profit as before, and the owner-worker relationship, too, remains unchanged. The workers would just continue to raise their demands and fight for them, as they used to do against individual owners. Nationalisation does not mean social ownership. When an injustice is perpetrated by the state-owned industries it is given a sugar coating by projecting these industries as national property, national wealth. People are exhorted to tighten their belts and accept hardship in the interest of national wealth -- because this wealth belongs to the nation. Engels said that state-owned industry in the capitalist society is the most inhuman, most ruthless exploiter. It is self-deception as well as deceiving others to hold that this state-capitalist social system and state structure should be something we should strive for.

The Socialist Party, founded in 1904, is up against the fact of life that a new generation has to be convinced afresh that socialism does in fact represent a better system for the people than capitalism, that Marx’s idea of the withering away of the state is not a pipe-dream, but a realistic (if very rough) sketch of the future state of human society. The establishment of a socialist, planned economy, based on the needs of the people, will mean the end to the chaos of capitalist production with its lack of planning, repeated crises, unemployment, and environmental destruction and waste. Socialism will unleash a level of productive forces unknown before in the history of mankind. Exploitation, oppression, and repression will not exist in socialism. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and intellectual labour will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away.

Socialism - The Rational Way of Living

Mankind is moving towards a showdown with all the forces of the old order. The new challenges of the new technological revolution is undermining the entire structure and old established relations. Nobody outside an insane asylum any longer believes that the Labour Party or their Leftist apologists are going to put an end to the capitalist system and usher in the cooperative commonwealth.

Socialism is not a religion but a method of understanding and changing the world. It is the complete democratisation of society, not merely its political forms. Socialism too often has been is widely identified with a command economy and a police state and not with democratic control by the people over all facets of life. In socialism, states, territories, or provinces will exist only as geographical expressions, and have no existence as sources of governmental power, though they may be seats of administrative bodies. The political territorial nation-state of capitalist society will have no place or function inside a socialist society. Therefore, measures which aim to place industry in the hands of, or under the control of, such a political state are in no sense steps towards that ideal. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation of mines, railways, steel, etc. in a capitalist class society is not socialism, nor does this constitutes “the socialist sector of a mixed economy”. Such nationalisation in a capitalist society is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. Socialism will certainly give high priority to health, education, art, science, and the social well-being of all its members but the welfare state is not socialism in action but to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, a form of state capitalism.

Many people today across the world are involved in issues and struggles to improve their conditions or stop injustices that they face. These struggles involve not just political activists but many different people, ordinary working people. These various struggles are important and can make a big difference for people. While reforms are important, we believe that no amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements, security or stability for the masses or fundamentally alter their position in society. While socialists as individuals fight for the immediate amelioration of the people’s misery, the Socialist Party fights for the long-term interests of the people and keep in mind that the goal is revolution. By revolution, we mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the social problems of this are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the wealth of society, a handful of capitalists control all the wealth – the factories, mines, transport and the fields, and all the profits that are produced. These capitalists prosper at the expense of the vast majority of the people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only more problems and suffering for the people. They will try to milk everything they can from working people to enrich or protect their own interests. Through education and in helping to sum up the experience of the day-to-day struggle, The Socialist Party is showing the nature of the system and the need for fundamental change. Our goal is the establishment of socialism, where classes are eliminated altogether.

The band-aid patches and piecemeal remedies of the reformers do no good. Reformists see socialism as something which comes ‘from above’. It is to be achieved, on workers’ behalf, by an enlightened minority –politicians and party cadres. ‘Leave it to us,’ they say and working people are expected to play a purely passive role, just looking on while others transform society for them. Only workers can liberate themselves. No one can do it for them. In Marx’s words, socialism is ‘the self-emancipation of the working class’

Capitalism organises workers collectively. Each and every day we work together co-operatively on a massive scale. Capitalism has in fact given workers tremendous collective power, power which runs factories, hospitals, schools, transport systems. This power creates all the things that we need as human beings but the capitalist class controls and uses this power for its own ends and its own profit. Our work is to organise on the basis of social co-operation to run society in the interests of the people themselves, to use their tremendous economic power to act collectively. That is socialism, people collectively running society. Our co-operative power would be controlled, not by a ruling class in the search for ever greater profits, but democratically and for the fulfilment of human need. With capitalism the underlying purpose, of production is the amassing of profits for capital; in the new, free society its sole purpose will be to meet the needs of humankind. In the place of the present anarchy, waste and inefficiency, production will be planned. This planning, contrary to the type now commonly envisaged by would-be-advisers of capital, requires common ownership of the economy. We would see our wealth as part of mankind’s common heritage. Reason and human solidarity will prevail.

World Socialism - World Solidarity

Thousands of campaigners took to the streets of Glasgow to condemn racism and voice their support for refugees. Protesters marched in the city centre before gathering for a rally and speeches at George Square. Police said about 2,000 people attended the march, while organisers said the figure was nearer 5,000.

Patrick Harvie MSP, co-convener of the Scottish Greens said: "Europe faces its biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War, and some of the responses have been shocking. There are those who seem happy to allow desperate people to drown in the Mediterranean and we see fences and walls being put up to deny fellow human beings safety.”

Speaking ahead of the event, Gary Christie of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: "This year we have witnessed ever greater numbers of people fleeing for their lives in pursuit of protection…Yet, across Europe we have seen increasing negative political rhetoric towards refugees.”

We shall be heard

In ‘The Sane Society’ Erich Fromm undertakes a study of the psychopathology of modern life. Fromm correctly takes issue with those analysts who proceed from the premise that capitalism is rational and the task of the individual is to “adjust”, that is, conform to its special requirements. On the contrary, Fromm asserts, the system is inherently irrational, as its effects demonstrate. If men and women are to live productively and at peace with themselves and one another, capitalism has to go. He makes many astute observations on the ways in which capitalism mangles human personalities. When the people get off their knees, the high and mighty rulers no longer loom so large. As the workers regain their self-confidence and feel their collective strength, their former prostration before fabricated idols vanishes. Marx emphasised that mankind cannot behave according to truly human standards until they live under truly human conditions. Only when the material conditions of their existence are radically transformed, when all their time becomes available for freely chosen pursuits, can they throw off the contradictory relations which have tormented humanity.

The socialist argument is once everyone’s primary needs are capable of satisfaction, abundance reigns, and the labour time required to produce the necessities of life is reduced to the minimum, then the stage will be set for the abolition of all forms of alienation and for the rounded development of all persons, not at the expense of one another. The abolition of private property must be followed by the wiping out of national barriers. The resultant increase in the productive capacities of society will prepare the way for the elimination of the traditional antagonisms between physical and intellectual workers, between the inhabitants of the city and the country, between the advanced and the undeveloped nations. Religion is primarily the product of mankind’s lack of control over the forces of nature and society. The power of the gods, indeed, their very existence, was at bottom derived from the powerlessness of the people in the face of society and nature. The socialist movement has as one of its objectives the abolition of the material conditions which permit such degrading fictions to stunt men’s outlooks and cramp their lives. These are the indispensable prerequisites for building a harmonious, integrated, inwardly stable and constantly developing system of social relations. When all compulsory inequalities in social status, in conditions of life and labour, and in access to the means of self-development are done away with, then the manifestations of these material inequalities in the alienation of one section of society from another will wither away. This in turn will foster the conditions for the formation of harmonious individuals no longer at war with each other—or within themselves. Such are the prospects held out by the socialist revolution and its reorganisation of society. The aim of socialism is to introduce the rule of reason into all human activities. For humanity the welfare of their fellows will be the first law of their own existence.

With knowledge and power thus acquired, humanity will become the freely creative species it has the potential of becoming. The universal elevation of living and educational standards will break down the opposition between workers and intellectuals so that all intelligence can be put to work and all work be performed with the utmost intelligence. In this new form of social production labour can become a joyous and significant enterprise instead of an ordeal. Under capitalism the wage worker is treated, not as a fellow human being, but as a mechanism useful for the production of surplus value. He is a prisoner with a lifetime sentence to hard labour. Wage workers who are obliged to create an ever-expanding surplus of value for the masters of capital. Compulsory labour is the mark of slavery and oppression. Free time for all is the characteristic of a truly human existence. Free time enjoyed by all will be the measure of wealth, and the guarantee of equality and harmony. This is the promise of socialism.

Air Sick (1985)

Air Sick (1985)

From the November 1985 issue of the SocialistStandard

In the wake of the Air India crash off Ireland, the Tristar accident in Dallas and the Japan Airline disaster, the victims lying in the makeshift mortuary of hangar no. 7 at Manchester Airport last month brought the total number of dead from air travel accidents this summer over the thousand mark.

Everyone hopes they can avoid just such a tragedy. But is luck all we have to rely on? Is our fate totally out with our control as one aviation specialist would have us believe: "God was not with that flight”? As the Chairman of the British Airline Pilots’ Association said:

. . . we have had a string of survivable accidents on all types of aircraft in which we believe the effects of smoke and fire have been critical for the people trapped in the fuselage . . .  a lot more people have died in these incidents than should have done.

(Guardian 29th August 1985)

So what factors are within our technical capacities; what safety measures are there available?

FUEL: ICI have developed a fuel additive which will prevent misting and so lessen the flammability of fuel. But to do this took seventeen years of research and ICI are waiting for funding before developing the lifesaving additive. Although undoubtedly safer, there is no guarantee that it will even be used—some airlines still use JP4 gasoline rather than the less flammable Jet A kerosene. A study by Cranfield Institute of Technology shows that, on average, five times as many passengers will be burnt to death before they can escape, if JP4 is used. JP4, though, is cheaper. (Flight International 14th September 1985)

MATERIALS: Most deaths in aircraft fires are due to the inhalation of toxic fumes from the combustion of the foam inside seats. Airlines have been slow to introduce new, safer upholstery, as regulations will require by 1987. The cost to the airline is $200 a seat, and will give passengers an extra ninety seconds to escape. Of course, even safer materials are available, but they are found only in the Space Shuttle as the cost of replacement by the airline companies is too large. (Newsnight, BBC 2, 22nd August 1985)

WEIGHT: “Every gramme of structure (is) a gramme of commercial payload lost” (The Safe Airline - J M Ramaden, 1976). Therefore light aluminium alloys are used for the aircraft body although they have very poor heat resistance. This argument has long been used by the airlines to counter the requests for more, or improved, safety equipment.

The standard Boeing 737 flight has one hundred and fourteen passengers in nineteen rows. A charter flight — like that which crashed at Manchester — packs in an extra three rows, giving three inches less of space for each person. The Air correspondent for BBC News asks,

Why were 130 of those souls crammed into seats spaced just thirty inches apart? . . . The answer, of course, is that the average passenger represents 140 lbs of high-value merchandise, and that if you can compress three additional rows of seats designed to provide comfort for one hundred and fifteen people, it means you can earn another £600 or so on a Mediterranean flight. Multiply that by ten aircraft making a couple of round trips a day during the peak summer and winter holidays, and you come out with substantial earnings approaching an additional million pounds a year. (The Listener, 5th September 1985)

So it is simply a case of the inexorable law of capitalism — payload and profits come a long way before safety. As David Vearmount of the Civil Aviation Authority said, "Airlines don’t mind applying the safety rules as long as all their competitors do so”. (Flight International, 14th September 1985) 

Considering the controversy that has surrounded the use of the emergency exits in the Manchester crash, it is important to note that British Airways are intending sealing two exits on their 747 Jumbo jets in order to increase seating capacity. (In case you had forgotten, BA are the airline that once claimed to “take more care of you”).

The risk, then, is quantified by the airline. Each passenger effectively has a price on their head — doubtless down to two decimal places. Under the facade of efficiency that is the accountants’ balance-sheets, the benefits of cost savings on cheaper fuel, or lighter planes, or more passengers is weighed against “acceptable” risks to safety:

It is on the definition of just what is an acceptable risk, however, that pilots and operators have some of their most bitter arguments, and many safety-conscious but disillusioned pilots have, perhaps unfairly, echoed Nevil Shute’s bitter comment, “of course operators are all for safety - just as long as it doesn’t cost them any money!” . . .  an airline may accept a risk, because to lessen it would put one or more particular departments over the allotted budget; while if a crash occurs, it is not the operator who foots the bill, but the insurer, (Pilot Error - A Professional Study of Contributory Factors, Ronald Aupt (Ed), 1976)

The definition of acceptable risk is rightly troublesome — whose risk is it, to fly (as passengers or crew) in a plane that could be safer? But who accepts the benefits?

The simple inequality, based on an inequality of ownership and control, explains why the interests of consumers (like the passengers flying on holiday) and of producers (like the cabin crew), are ignored in order to meet these needs of the minority class of owners, who don’t need to live on wages or salaries, and certainly don’t live for package flights to the Med once a year.

And as the bereaved families picked up their lives again, they were already being hounded by lawyers from America, who can get higher rewards — and a higher cut — from suits filed over there. One was reported to have booked into a hotel near Manchester Airport within 48 hours of the crash, fresh from a killing at Bhopal and now "ambulance-chasing” in Manchester. Definitely business as usual.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Br

The Common Sense Idea

Just as in the Arctic, the sharks are circling Antarctica. It's not just for scientists now. Although there is a treaty banning mining on Antarctica, a continent larger than Europe, many nations are getting ready by establishing bases. Russia has built an Orthodox Church there (maybe recruiting penguins for the pews!) and has blocked efforts to create one of the world's largest ocean sanctuaries. India, Turkey, China and Iran have all built or will build bases there and it's not for the sunshine. The sub heading to the title of the article in The New York Times says it all, "Nations Compete on a Continent rich in Oil, Gas, and Minerals." Since the days of the great explorations in the sixteenth century, competing nations have carved up the earth for their capitalists to benefit from the riches available and been ready to go to war for it. It's more than past due to put into reality the common sense idea that the world's resources belong to everyone on Earth. John Ayers.

Budgetary Concerns

Toronto's city council may shut down two 24-hour drop-in centres for the homeless because of budgetary concerns. One councillor said that the centres are needed for the people on the streets and council cannot let them down. Good to see someone standing up for those in need but we all have to realize that money for social programs comes from profits and therefore is kept to the bare minimum. Better to aim for a society where such needs are non existent and free access to all we need is in place for all. John Ayers.

Labour alone produces wealth

We are socialists out of conviction because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people, sets one group against another, and acts violently against people at home and around the world. Capital never stands still but invades more and more of our lives. The market has become universal. Capitalism has made men and women dependent for the satisfaction of almost all their needs on the ‘services’ of capitalist production. Whether it be leisure or sex, activities that formerly stood outside the sphere of capital are now dominated by it. No socialist movement whose aims do not include, centrally, the reorganisation of production and the  abolition of the distinction between ‘mental’ and ‘manual’ labour, can call itself revolutionary. Socialists can offer an alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. We see capitalism today as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few. Our movement is all about creating a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. We advocate and work for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good. Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society there can be no question of the democratic control of the conditions of life.

Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. When they sell similar goods, their competition is obvious. Even when they sell altogether different goods, like TV sets and houses, they still compete for the limited wage-packet of the worker. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. Others will grab his buyers. Competition means underselling and price-cuts on the one hand, and on the others, advertising wars.) Whoever can undersell or spend more money on advertising is sure to win and knock the others out of the running. In other words, the bigger the amount of capital under your control, the bigger it is going to become. Only the very big capitalists can afford the techniques of mass – and cheap – production (conveyor belts, breaking up highly-skilled jobs into many semi-skilled ones, automation, and so on). Only the big ones can buy raw materials in bulk at lower prices, or employ special staffs of lawyers, market researchers, advertising and so on. To become big the capitalist must first squeeze out his weaker competitors and add their capital to his – centralization of capital – or make as much profit as possible from his current sales and reinvest it – accumulation of capital. The first method is of no direct interest to the worker as it matters very little who the boss is. If the capitalists want to fight things out amongst themselves, it is their business. It is of little interest for another reason: it adds nothing to the productive powers of society; the national wealth does not grow as a result of it. In fact all it leads to is the concentration of the same amount of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. We are interested mainly in the second form of capitalist growth: the accumulation of capital. It is accumulation which has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. This is what affects the worker most directly.

How do capitalist firms accumulate? Where does the money which they reinvest come from?

In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi.finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value).

That part of the capitalist’s expenditure which is spent on machines, raw materials and unfinished goods goes the rounds from one capitalist to another in a perpetual circle – this is the social wealth that has already been created. If the productive forces of capitalism were to remain static and not increase, this expenditure would appear like a constant, fixed fund thrown from hand to hand in an endless relay race of production, each capitalist handing on to the next the exact amount required to renew his stock of machines and raw materials. No profit would be made on such sales as each capitalist would swap exactly that amount of machines, etc., for an equivalent amount, and, when all the exchanges were done with, everyone would be where he started.

There is, however, one item of expenditure which makes all the difference, namely, wages and salaries – the expenditure on labour-power. This expenditure is the only one which is not a transfer of goods already produced from one capitalist to another. It is the only item of expenditure which is productive in the dual sense of producing the wealth of society and in the sense of producing profits for the capitalist. Labour alone produces wealth.

The capitalist controls the physical means of production; the workers control nothing but themselves, the capacity to work. They are driven to work, to sell their labour–power to the capitalist, in order to keep themselves and their families. When they sell, they demand a ‘living wage’ for their labour-power, and, if unions are strong and there is not much unemployment, they usually get it. Of course there are exceptions, but by and large, for the working class as whole, this is true. If the worker produced exactly that amount of products which he could buy for his weekly wage plus what would replace the raw materials and machinery used up in its production, the capitalist would clearly not make a profit. Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

Trophy Hunting Industry

Once again the power of capital and the scramble to claim as much as possible of it has raised its ugly head, this time in the plains of Tanzania.

 Dr. Craig Packer, one of the world's foremost authorities on African lions, has run The Serengeti Lion project. His work on animal behaviour has shaped much of the world's scientific thinking regarding the big cats. But the esteemed scientist ran afoul of the Tanzanian wild life officials who withdrew his research permit accusing him of 'tarnishing the image of the government of Tanzania' by making derogatory statements about the trophy hunting industry in emails. Dr. Packer has been trying to get new laws to protect the animals for decades. Now, however, he has clashed with the interests of big money in the trophy industry.

 Profits before science is as insidious as profits before people, it seems. Making money never let truth and science get in the way! 

John Ayers.

In Its Own Special Way???

Three cheers for McDonald's Restaurants. Across Asia, in many big cities, the twenty-four hour restaurants have become home to an underclass of homeless people. Mr. Ding in Beijing said he liked the warmth and peace of McDonald's where he has lived for several years. He commented, "My family has begged for food since the Ming Dynasty." By night, the restaurants become sanctuaries of the downtrodden who pounce on half-eaten hamburgers and stale fries. A spokesperson for the global chain said that McDonald's welcomes everyone to visit our restaurants anytime. 

So you see corporations do have a heart and capitalism takes care of everybody in its own special way (???)

 John Ayers.

Connecting the Dots

The Socialist Party primarily concern itself with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. We do not advocate reformism or gradualism to solve workers’ problems but nor do we oppose workers trying to achieve reforms to improve their conditions. We fully understand that the capitalist system is not a consistent and perfectly regulated device. It is filled with economic contradictions. We find examples in the tendency of capitalism to eliminate competition on one hand, and to endeavor to maintain competition on the other — such as the corporate cabals which negate competition, and against this contradiction governments pass anti-monopoly laws which make it a penalty to form an agreement in restraint of trade. Among the many contradictory phases in the political and the economic life of capitalism, there may be found an opportunity to strengthen and benefit the working class without giving any corresponding advantage to the capitalist class. All measures which have a tendency to raise the standard of life of the working class through shorter hours, superior educational facilities and opportunities, through higher wages and a better opportunity to organize trade unions, help and assist the socialist movement because it strengthens those who are taking part therein and compose the bulk of its membership. We advocate trade unions because it is a class movement and because it is an economic weapon which maintains for the working men and women a higher standard of existence than if they were unorganised. There is no place in the socialist movement for a cataclysmic revolution.  Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great economic distress. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem. Of course, it may be true that the better paid worker may be a little slow in picking up socialist ideas due to the fact that their condition is an improvement economically on other workers and that they perhaps have less to complain about. To say that we must oppose all reforms until the Socialist Party has complete control will breed sterility.

What is the meaning of capitalism? Capitalism is an economic term. It is applied by political economists and sociologists to the economic system of our civilisation, by means of which men achieve economic independence and have the privilege of living idly upon the labour of others, who produce a surplus value above that which they receive for their own sustenance. Capitalism refers to the system. A capitalist is one who profits by the system. If he works himself, it does not alter the fact that he has an income apart from his labour sufficient to sustain him for life without toil, and therefore his is economically independent. The working class under capitalism live in hope of creating an income and of increasing it through the appropriation of the surplus products of others who labour. They would like to achieve economic independence in the same manner as the capitalist class. The working class includes those who are not able to do more than sustain life by means of selling their ability to work labor to the capitalist. Capitalism divides society into two antagonistic forces, because it is based upon two sets of conflicting economic interests. They each desire economic independence. One of these forces believes that it is justly entitled to the economic independence which it has, but which it manifestly did not create; the other force believes that it is being unjustly deprived of that which it creates and which it never possesses. Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is the seed of capitalism, of which wage slavery is the most revolting feature. This seed has now brought forth a bitter fruit in the class struggle, but the Social Party, championing the working class, declares its intention to abolish wage slavery by the establishment of system of cooperative industry, based upon the social or common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members and the complete emancipation of the socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism.

Why should people be opposed to common ownership of the land? How many of them today own the land they live upon? Why should we struggle through a lifetime to maintain private ownership of a few acres, to leave to our children, subject to all the vicissitudes of the capitalist system, when through the substitution of common ownership, we relieve ourselves of this  grapple with greed, make ourselves and our children the wards and defenders of society. Under the system of competition for the private ownership of capital, the most that can be claimed by the advocates of an increase in money is that it enable more individuals to compete and thus temporarily or permanently revive the middle strata of society , and that this revival  would lead to more regular employment and better wages for the working class. Assuming all of this to be true (which it is not), it means the perpetuation of wage slavery. Are the slaves to be blamed for voting against the proposal to perpetuate their slavery? Are men whose consciences revolt against the cruelty of the competitive system to blame because they vote against it? The wage class have never been in thorough sympathy with the redistribution of income advocates. Which is the working class most interested in: the possession of the property of the world which it created, or the possession of the money, which is a creation of capitalist laws and which is principally used to exchange property between capitalists that has been stolen from the workers? Ninety-eight percent of the wealth of the world is owned by the capitalist class. Two percent is owned by the working class. The chief function of money is as a medium for the exchange of property. The interest of the working class in the money question under capitalism cannot amount to more than the property which it has to exchange with the use of money. Inside socialism, private ownership and barter in capital being at an end, money would lose the functions which it possessed under capitalism and would be abolished. The Socialist Party is confident that it is making progress toward the abolition of wage slavery and establishment of the cooperative commonwealth.

Russia's capitalists (1985)

Russia's capitalists (1985)

Book Review from the November 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the nature of the ruling class in Russia? Who are they and what is the basis of their power and wealth? Obviously, the answers to these questions cannot be found by simply comparing the Russian rulers with the capitalist class in the west. For example, no one in Russia has legal title to any of the factories, mines, mills, transport and communications systems, and to underline this there is an absence of shareholding and stock exchanges. Nevertheless, there is a social class there whose members live privileged lives in comparison with the vast majority of Russian people. Indeed, the higher ranks of this class enjoy luxurious lifestyles and have an army of servants to look after their every comfort.

How can all this be in a supposedly “socialist" society and how does this privileged class get its wealth if not from legal ownership? These questions, and many more, are dealt with by a dissident Russian scholar, Michael Voslensky, in his book Nomenklatura - Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class, published by The Bodley Head (£12.95). This book was first published in German but the English edition has been brought right up to date to include the periods in office of both Andropov and Chernenko.

Nomenklatura is a Latin word meaning an index of names. A more meaningful definition is contained in Structures of the Party, a manual of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

The Nomenklatura is a list of the highest positions, the candidates for these positions are examined by the various party committees, recommended and confirmed. These Nomenklatura party committee members can be relieved of their positions only by authorisation of their committees. Persons elevated to the Nomenklatura are those in key positions (p 2).

Anyone admitted to this magic circle is issued with a document confirming his or her exalted status and membership is virtually guaranteed for life.

Voslensky, who now lives in the west, was himself an important figure in Russia and writes with insight about his subject. He identifies the Nomenklatura as the secretaries and heads of departments and divisions of the Communist Party, Komsomol (communist youth) and trade unions; the central committees of those organisations at both national level and in the various republics; the heads of state administration and their deputies at national and republic levels plus a host of representatives of the state security services, the armed forces, the KGB, the diplomatic services, education, science, industry and agriculture. According to Voslensky the Nomenklatura totals about 750,000 and together with their families at around 3 million, or 1½ per cent of the population. So it is only those who have reached a certain rung on the Communist Party ladder who can become members, and even the international fame and personal wealth of such as writers, artists and film stars do not gain them admission.

Even if we could not put our finger on the exact point in the Communist Party set-up where someone becomes a member of the Nomenklatura, this need not concern us any more than what is the exact amount of capital someone in Britain must have invested before becoming a member of the capitalist class - is it £100,000 or £1 million? The undeniable fact is that despite any grey areas there is a capitalist class in this country which, because of its legal ownership, monopolises the means of production and distribution. Similarly there is a class in Russia, the Nomenklatura, which, because of its monopoly of political power, does exactly the same there.

Voslensky argues that the Nomenklatura are in fact the collective owning class in Russia. He points out that ownership does not have to be by individuals with legal title and cites the nationalised industries in the west where the state undertakes their management on behalf of the national capitalist class. If those industries show a profit then the capitalists will get their “dividend” in the form of tax cuts or of not having to pay tax increases to finance them. At the very least they will get industries which, even if not profitable, they can use to service the enterprises they themselves own. The capitalists in this case own not as individuals but collectively, as a class.

And collective ownership exists not only in nationalised industries. The Roman Catholic church owns vast wealth in property, investments, art treasures, etc, but no individuals, not even the Pope, have legal title to any of it. This wealth is owned collectively by the church hierarchy who use it to protect and extend their power and influence and, incidentally, to live very well, but none of them could, for instance, sell St Peter’s. Any such decision would have to be taken collectively because that is the basis of their ownership.

It is the same with the Nomenklatura. They own as a class and the state manages the production of wealth on their behalf. Their pay-out comes in the form of inflated salaries, the free use of luxury apartments, Black Sea villas, country houses (dachas), more or less free food, free use of cars and many other perks. Also, many of them are allotted more than one official post and receive a separate salary for each. This may not compare with the huge incomes of some western capitalists but, what the Nomenklatura get is a fortune to the average Russian.

Of course the top ranking members of this class do have incomes on the scale of western capitalists. How else can we view the disclosure that a district committee first secretary paid 192,000 roubles (about 160 years’ pay for the average Russian worker) into his wife’s bank account? Moreover, they have an open account at the state bank which allows them to draw out any money they require. Even western capitalists cannot do that. Those at the very top have no need to touch their salaries as everyone at this level simply lives at the state's expense. Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, recalled how her father never touched his wages: “The drawers of his desk . . . were full of these sealed envelopes" (p 231). And yet the Nomenklatura denies its own existence as a class of exploiters and try to pass themselves off as “workers”.

This personal wealth is only a fraction of the surplus value which the Nomenklatura robs from the Russian workers. The entire state apparatus which keeps them in power is financed from this source. The armed forces, the arms industry and the spy and espionage systems which are used to protect their interests from the threat of their international rivals, the massive police force, prisons, labour camps, courts, militia, phony trade unions, all of which are employed in keeping the workers in line, are paid for from the proceeds of this robbery.

One significant similarity the Nomenklatura has with the capitalist class in the west is that it endeavours to hand on its privileges to its children. Although it is true that membership is not hereditary in any legal sense, in a practical sense it may as well be. Voslensky gives several examples of how the children of the Nomenklatura are as good as guaranteed important, well paid positions irrespective of their personal abilities and concludes that although entry to the Nomenklaturacan be obtained by ordinary careerists, "... the chance of entering it by that route are becoming more and more restricted, while the royal road of birth is more and more frequently used” (p 102).

The most important difference between the Russian rulers and the western capitalists is explained by Voslensky.

What matters to the Nomenklatura is not property but power. The bourgeoisie is a class of power owners and is the ruling class as a consequence of that. With the Nomenklatura it is the other way around; it is the ruling class and that makes it the property owning class. Capitalist magnates share their wealth with no one, but gladly share power with professional politicians. Nomenklaturists take care not to share the slightest degree of power with anyone. The head of a department in the Central Committee apparatus never objects to an academician’s or a writer’s having more money or worldly goods than he, but he will never allow either to disobey his orders, (p 72)

So, in the west it is money which is paramount. In Russia what counts is power of which privilege is the proof. This explains why the Nomenklatura apparently have no wish to actually own a dacha. What is more prized is having a state-owned dacha made available to them. That is a sign that they have really arrived, and to actually own a dacha is considered to be bad form.

On occasion Voslensky reveals a sound grasp of the theories of Karl Marx. For example, he approvingly quotes an old Bolshevik ruefully explaining to him, as a schoolboy, why Russia was not ripe for the socialist revolution.

You and your friends, Misha, would like to be airmen or arctic explorers, but with the best will in the world it is impossible because you are still children, and you can no more skip your age than I, unfortunately, can become a schoolboy again. It is not we who determine the various stages of our life, it is those various stages that determine us. And that is true not only of individual human beings, it also applies to human beings in general, to human society. Could Russia or any other country at the same stage of social development, by a mere act of will take a single leap that would put it ahead of the most advanced countries? Marx said it could not and it was obvious (p 15).

He denounces Leninism as not Marxist at all but merely “. . . a strategy and tactics for the seizure of power decked out in Marxist slogans” (p 289) and goes on to pour scorn on the idea that the Nomenklatura are Marxists - "Marx would have turned away in disgust from the system they have established” (p 290).

Voslensky’s own conception of socialist/ communist would seem to be the same as our own, for he says

I believe the idea of a classless communist society as a free association of producers of material and intellectual goods to be a fine one (p 347).

Against this he shows some weakness on Marx’s theory of surplus value, confusing surplus labour - which is present in any society - with surplus value, which is produced under the specific conditions of capitalism’s commodity production. He also shows a certain naiveness in stating that government ministers in the west "live on their pay, just like other people”, and that their wives do the cooking and housework themselves (p 178)!

We can easily forgive Voslensky’s slips. By throwing more light on Russia’s rulers and by highlighting the class divided nature of Russian society together with its repressive state, his valuable book is surely one more nail in the coffin of the idea that socialism or communism exists in that tortured land.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Br.

You Can Never Be Secure

If you think things could not get worse, economically, just reflect on these three cheering captions from the Toronto Star of December 30 - "Dupont will cut 1,700 jobs in its home state of Delaware and thousands more globally as it prepares for its merger with Dow Chemical", "If the trans-Pacific Partnership is ratified in 2016 it could lead to the loss of 20,000 jobs in Canada",. Those who think they have a secure job aren't getting off lightly, either. The University of Guelph's food institute said that with rising food costs and the sinking loonie, the average household in Canada will see an increase of $345 on their grocery expenditure in 2016. So, Crappy New Year, everybody. 

There is no such thing as security for the worker in capitalism where profit trumps people every time.

 John Ayers.

Lunatics Rule

Another of capitalism's wonderful necessities is war. 

The New York Times book review of the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s ("The Iran-Iraq War" by Peter Razoux) tells us that the eight-year conflict killed one million people. In one brief offensive in 1983, the Iranians are believed to have sustained 7,000 dead; thousands of men were electrocuted while wading across a swamp; Saddam Hussein sacrificed a whole battalion to test out a new nerve gas; the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a southern Iraq city to be 'a Persian Stalingrad'; Hussein commissioned a toy company to manufacture gold-colored plastic keys that children could wear around their necks "as a reminder that their detonation by mines or slaughter by machine gun fire would unlock the gates of paradise." 

 Clearly we are still in a very primitive state when lunatics like this can command and rule a country. Only a social and political revolution will rid the world of this type of behaviour.

 John Ayers.

who owns scotland

It has been claimed that 432 private land owners - 0.008% of the Scottish population - owned 50% of the private land in rural Scotland in 2012.

Scottish children and inequality

 Scottish children suffer some of the highest rates of health and social inequality in Europe and North America, new research has found. The World Health Organisation Europe (WHO) Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study found Scottish boys showed the highest level of inequality for multiple health complaints. Scottish girls have above average levels of inequality in regards to the same health complaints but also face more pressure from schoolwork than most others.

The report, which was led by academics at the University of St Andrews, presents new data on adolescent health, health behaviours and social determinants from 42 countries. It found young people in Scotland from the least affluent households (lowest 20%) report poorer results on a number of health indicators than those from the most affluent households (highest 20%).

As well as inequality with regards health complaints, the findings found Scottish boys showed the highest level of inequality for taking part in moderate physical activity and tobacco and cannabis use. Scottish girls showed the highest levels of inequality for ease of communication with their fathers and 15-year olds were more likely to report multiple health complaints compared to the average. The proportion of 15-year olds in Scotland who report feeling ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of schoolwork pressure was shown to be increasing. In 2014, Scottish 15-year olds ranked 2nd out of 41 countries on this measure.

While the prevalence of drunkenness among 15-year olds has been on a downward trajectory since 1998, Scotland remains one of the countries with the highest prevalence in this age group of around one third. Alcohol consumption is one of the few topics in the HBSC survey for which there are no socioeconomic differences in Scotland.

Dr Inchley, deputy director of the Child and Adolescent Health Research Unit based at St Andrews, said:  “Particularly concerning is the increase in school-related stress which may be contributing to poorer mental wellbeing especially among 15 year old girls. It is essential that we look at ways of providing support to young people to help them navigate the challenges they face during adolescence.”

Jamie Hepburn, minister for sport, health improvement and mental health, said although there were some positive findings, particularly with regards to 11-year-olds, the government acknowledged Scotland does face problems.

“We recognise that there are deeply ingrained health inequalities in Scotland - something which has existed for generations and which will not be solved overnight,” he said.

"At its root this is an issue of income inequality - and we need a shift in emphasis from dealing with the consequences to tackling the underlying causes, such as ending poverty, fair wages, supporting families and improving our physical and social environments…”

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/scots-children-face-some-of-the-worst-health-inequalities-in-europe