Confidence Trick?

In February we received the reassuring news from Factset that companies that buy their own shares are down a collective (if that word can be used to describe any capitalist activity) US$126 billion over the last three years. 

When a company buys its own shares, it makes its profitability look better and bolsters confidence in would-be investors. 

This just proves that the only confidence one can have is that things will go bad sooner or later. 

John Ayers.

Capitalism: they win, we lose

The Socialist Party contests elections on the single issue of capitalism (class ownership and production for profit) or socialism (common ownership, democratic control, and production to directly meet people's needs). Socialism is our priority and the only basis on which we want people to vote for us. In other words, we don't make promises to support particular measures within capitalism however desirable as we don't want people to vote for us on that basis -- even if, should we be elected, we might well vote for certain measures judged to further the cause of socialism or the interest of workers and their dependents.  Having said this, there is one pledge that, according to our Rulebook, all our candidates have to make:

"Candidates elected to a Political office shall be pledged to act on the instructions of their Branches locally, and by the Executive Committee nationally."

This, to ensure that any Socialist Party councillor or MPs remain mandated delegates, not leaders.

The Socialist Party stand in elections to raise awareness of the possibility of democratically establishing common ownership of the means of living. Enough resources, know-how and skills exist already to provide comfortably for everyone. It’s the profit system that prevents this. We need to do away with it and instead produce and access goods for needs. At a time when all other political parties are saying they have to make us all worse off in order to protect the wealth of the 1%, it's important that we each stand up to fight against this unnecessary impoverishment. The candidates of the Socialist Party if elected whilst quite prepared to use the powers for such small temporary benefits as may be forced from the capitalists' hands for the workers in those districts, nevertheless do not seek votes for this, which can only be a secondary business of the political party of the workers. The Socialist Party enters contests as a step in the work of capturing the whole political machinery. Fully realising, and pointing out to the workers, the strict limitations of the power, making no promises that are beyond our power to fulfil, we ask the members of our class, when (but not before) they have studied these facts and realised their correctness, to cast their votes for the candidates of the Socialist Party who alone stand on the above basis. Our candidates stand on a straight programme of socialism and nothing else and have no programme of ear-tickling, side-tracking, vote-catching palliatives and have not climbed into prominence on the backs of the workers, by posing as 'leaders'. We leave that to others.

What’s the point in complaining about the system and then voting for it to carry on? You’ve heard the Occupy people – you are the 99%, but the system is run by the 1%. The rich don’t create jobs and wealth, they create poverty. For the rich to be rich, millions of people have to be poor.  To get rich, they cut corners, rip off the world, fiddle, connive, cheat, lie and bribe. That’s the money system for you. That’s capitalism. There’s no such thing as an honest millionaire. There’s no such thing as honest business, or ‘fair trade’, or an ‘equitable share’. They win because you lose.

We have the technology and the know-how to run the world collectively, so that everybody can eat, have a place to live, and get access to a decent standard of living, but it is the money system that is making this impossible. If money makes you free, how come you’re tied down with debts, rents, mortgages, loans and bills, and doing some job you probably hate just to make ends meet? What kind of freedom is that? Is that a freedom you’d want to vote for?

The planet is being turned into a toxic waste dump, with poisoned air, warring factions and vanishing species, just so manufacturers can sell you more glossy trash that will break tomorrow, stuff you think you want because you can’t have the freedom you really want. Humanity is staring into the abyss, and our do-nothing politicians still cry ‘forward in the name of growth!’ Is that progress? Is that worth voting for?

This is a not an easy thing to explain to protestors but the fact is that under capitalism there is nothing that can be done to stop the cuts. All that can be achieved is a few concessions here and there and robbing one service to finance another. Of course people should protest at things getting worse but they shouldn't have any illusion that they can stop this. At most they can only slow it down a bit. Cuts are what the economic laws of capitalism require at the present time and no government can defy this. In fact they have to enforce it, as they did in 1984 when Ted Knight and Lambeth Council refused to make the cuts. Knight and the others were surcharged and bankrupted and banned for being councillors. Same in Liverpool with Derek Hatton. The cuts went through.  What this shows is that capitalism is a system that is not geared to meeting people's needs and ought to be replaced by one that is, one based the common ownership and democratic control. We are stand in elections with a view to raising awareness of this. Our candidates point out that capitalism can never be reformed so as to work in the interests of those who depend on having to work for a wage or a salary to live. We will advocating socialism as a society where there will be no banks and big business, and no profits, but where all productive resources will be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole community in the interests of all. This is the only basis on which to provide decent public services, transport, housing and education as it means there can be production geared to satisfying people's needs instead of for profit. People Not Profits, that's the real socialist slogan.

Why We Are Against Capitalism

Here is the Socialist Party’s definition of socialism:

Central to the meaning of socialism is common ownership. This means the resources of the world being owned in common by the entire global population. But does it really make sense for everybody to own everything in common? Of course, some goods tend to be for personal consumption, rather than to share—clothes, for example. People 'owning' certain personal possessions does not contradict the principle of a society based upon common ownership. In practice, common ownership will mean everybody having the right to participate in decisions on how global resources will be used. It means nobody being able to take personal control of resources, beyond their own personal possessions.

Democratic control is therefore also essential to the meaning of socialism. Socialism will be a society in which everybody will have the right to participate in the social decisions that affect them. These decisions could be on a wide range of issues—one of the most important kinds of decision, for example, would be how to organise the production of goods and services.

Production under socialism would be directly and solely for use. With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs. This would entail an end to buying, selling and money. Instead, we would take freely what we had communally produced. The old slogan of "from each according to ability, to each according to needs" would apply.

So how would we decide what human needs are? This question takes us back to the concept of democracy, for the choices of society will reflect their needs. These needs will, of course, vary among different cultures and with individual preferences—but the democratic system could easily be designed to provide for this variety.

We cannot, of course, predict the exact form that would be taken by this future global democracy. The democratic system will itself be the outcome of future democratic decisions. We can however say that it is likely that decisions will need to be taken at a number of different levels—from local to global. This would help to streamline the democratic participation of every individual towards the issues that concern them.

In socialism, everybody would have free access to the goods and services designed to directly meet their needs and there need be no system of payment for the work that each individual contributes to producing them. All work would be on a voluntary basis. Producing for needs means that people would engage in work that has a direct usefulness. The satisfaction that this would provide, along with the increased opportunity to shape working patterns and conditions, would bring about new attitudes to work.

As a world socialist who stands for a world without borders in which the Earth's resources will have become the common heritage of all, naturally we favour a welcoming treatment of fellow workers fleeing oppression. After all, Karl Marx was in this position himself

Profits before people that's how capitalism works and can only work. There is no alternative within capitalism and it's misleading and even dishonest to suggest that there could be. The real lesson is that, since all that capitalism has to offer is austerity and cuts, we should concentrate on organising to bring it to an end by political action aimed at ushering in a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production so that there can be produce for directly for use and not for profit, and distribution on the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Socialism.

It’s the system that’s to blame, not those elected to run it. That’s why changing the politicians in charge makes no difference. As the saying goes, “changing governments changes nothing”. It will be like this as long as the profit system lasts. So there is no point in voting for parties that accept this system. The alternative is to change to a new system based on satisfying our needs, where the places where wealth is produced will no longer be owned by profit-seeking businesses but will be owned and democratically controlled by us all. That’s what the Socialist Party stands for. We are contest elections to raise this issue, and to give those of you who agree a chance to be counted. Parties promising to do things for others is not our idea of politics, so we make no campaign or manifesto promises to do anything for anyone. The Socialist Party is standing to give people the chance to show they reject the capitalist system where making profits always comes first. Capitalism is going through one of its economic crises and the only way out for it is to restore profits by cutting the living standard of working people and their dependents. That’s why what our wages can buy has shrunk. It’s why benefits are being slashed. And it’s why local councils have been cutting local services. It’s councils everywhere, whichever party is in control. Politicians, local and national, are just running the system in the only way it can be. It’s the system that’s to blame, not those elected to run it. That’s why changing the politicians in charge makes no difference.  Instead of trusting in politicians we’ve have got to change the system ourselves, to one where the places where wealth is produced are no longer run as profit-seeking businesses but owned and democratically controlled by the community and used to provide a decent life for all. Public services and amenities are being cut and people shouldn't put up with this, but this is the fault of the capitalist profit system as it goes through one of its economic crises. So, it is misleading to blame those who administer this system rather than the system itself. The only way capitalism can get out of a crisis is by cutting living standards.  This is why the Socialist Party campaigns for the abolition of capitalism, not for a change in the people running it or trying to make it work in a way it just cannot.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE

When we speak of the commonwealth, we think of a confederation of free people united in one common bond - socialism. The trend is towards the cooperative commonwealth. It is the hope of the world. We in the Socialist Party will continue to seek the world wide advance toward the cooperative commonwealth. Our every step will be in the direction of the co-operative commonwealth where the motto, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs,” ceases to be an aspiration and becomes a reality.

The capitalistic system of production, under the rule of which we live, is the production of commodities for profit instead of for use for the private gain of those who own and control the tools and means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit spring all monopolies (arising from and following competition) and out of it, naturally, grow an overwhelming percentage of moral evils, and the entire problem of misery, want, and poverty that, as a deadly menace, now confronts civilisation.

To substitute common, for private or state, ownership in the means of production is what we say socialism means. It means a co-operative system of production and the extinction of the exploitation of the workers. The natural resources of the world are the property of the people as a whole. The abolition of the present system of production means substituting production for use for production for sale. Production for use, which is the social or co-operative production for the satisfaction of the wants of a commonwealth. Under the capitalist system, all products are produced for the market, they all become commodities. Capitalist society is based upon the exploitation of labour. A small minority owns everything; the working masses own nothing. The capitalists command. The workers obey. The capitalists exploit. The workers are exploited. The very essence of capitalist society is found in this merciless and ever-increasing exploitation. Until the present system of capitalist production (production for sale) was developed, co-operative production for common use was the leading form; it is as old as production itself. If any one system of production could be considered better adapted than any other to the nature of man, then co-operative production must be pronounced the natural one. In all probability for every thousand years of production for sale, cooperative production for use numbers tens of thousands. They all had certain essential features in common. Each satisfied its own wants, at least the most vital ones, with the product of its own labor; the instruments of production were the property of the community; its members worked together as free and equal individuals according to some plan inherited or devised, and administered by some power elected by themselves. The product of such co-operative labor was the property of the community and was applied either to the satisfaction of common wants, whether these were occasioned by production or consumption, or were distributed among the individuals or groups which composed the community. Socialist production will and must have certain features in common with the older systems of communal production, in so far, namely, as both are systems of co-operative production for use.

Whilst the Socialist Party share with many other organisations the general principles of democracy, co-operation and worldwide action, we see the problems facing the world as stemming from the ownership of the wealth of the world by a privileged class. We do not think the world's problems can be solved until the wealth of the world is taken into the common and direct democratic ownership of the whole of humanity. Specifically, we think this requires a self-conscious and active movement of people working together, worldwide, and we cannot allow this movement to be divided into nation states or rely on governments to help us. The present system can never be reformed to work in the interest of the majority. All the other candidates disagree and are promising to reform it in one way or another. But reform has been tried many times and look where we still are. The present system can only work by putting profits before people. That’s how capitalism works and can only work. It’s the economic system. And that’s what got to be changed. The Socialist Party seeks an essentially peaceful democratic majority revolution to replace capitalism with a system in which productive resources have become the common heritage of all to be used for the benefit of all.

Things are not produced today to meet people’s needs. They are produced to make a profit. And that’s the cause of the problems people face. Under the profit system profits always come first. Before providing basic services like health care and transport, before improving conditions at work, and before providing decent housing. It is profits first, people second. Under the profit system production is in the hands of profit-seeking business enterprises, all competing to maximise the rate of return on the money invested in them. Decisions as to what to produce and how much, and how and where to produce it, are not made in response to people’s needs but in response to market forces. As a result, the health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. The profit system can’t help doing this. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why it must go. Governments, whatever their political colour, have to cut their spending so as to give profits a chance to recover.

So, what’s the alternative? One thing is certain. The Tories and Labour have nothing to offer, nor the LibDems, UKIP or the nationalists. They all support the profit system and are only squabbling over which of them should have a go at running it. If we are going to improve things we are going to have to act for ourselves, without professional politicians or leaders of any kind. We are going to have to organise ourselves democratically to bring about a society geared to serving human needs not profits. Production to satisfy people’s needs. That’s the alternative. But this can only be done if we control production and the only basis for this is common ownership and democratic control. Supporting the Socialist Party registers your rejection of the profit system and your agreement with the alternative.

So, let's be clear: The Socialist Party doesn't want your vote to be in office. We're seeking to abolish a society in which people are made to work for the people who own all the property. We're in politics to call you to revolt. If you want a state-free, class-free, money-free society where we co-operate to produce the things we need, then you need to revolt. You need to say that that is your priority.  You need to tell your fellow workers that you want them to revolt too.  That is what putting a cross next to The Socialist Party candidate means, it means a rejection of the whole system of government and society, with no compromise. It's a big leap, let's see you make it.

Let us hoist our sails and sail straight for the cooperative commonwealth. The sun shines upon us and the wind blows our way.  The future is ours.

All Change for Socialism.

It’s all a bit overwhelming, isn’t it? Inequality is rising, and services are being cut to those who most need them. Our eco-system is teetering on the edge, and oil companies are controlling the climate agenda. Multinationals are booming off the labour of the poorest and racism is rife. Our current reality is an economic/political arrangement that is run by and for the richest people in the world. Effectively it is an oligarchical system of one dollar, one vote; certainly not a democracy based on one person, one vote. Power is global. The financial elite now float beyond national borders and no longer care about the common good. Hence, the ruling class make no concessions in their pursuits of power and profits where increased human misery is an acceptable price to be paid. They foster a new breed of politician who wages war on any viable notion of the welfare state.  Workers are demonised, criminalised or simply abandoned and discarded. A perpetual climate of fear and insecurity has been created. The propaganda and indoctrination we are fed are so disconnected from facts, evidence and logic that it has become laughable. Capitalism is a coercive economic system that creates persistent patterns of economic deprivation.  If capitalism makes workers’ lives miserable, for those who can’t work it is even worse. True freedom requires freedom from destitution and freedom from the demands of the employer. Capitalism ensures neither. But the ripples of dissent are very much there. All over the world people are standing up and being heard.

More and more people are identifying capitalism as the underlying cause of our social ills and crises. That’s certainly positive: the first step toward cure is a proper diagnosis. But most of what is being offered are placebos, an endless supply of ineffective remedies to “fix” or reform it, to make it “less greedy.” Getting the greed out of capitalism is impossible, and we’ll just waste precious time by trying. The faults of capitalism is integral to the way it works. Capital must expand, buy up or destroy competitors, reach into every corner of society to try to squeeze money out of it. It naturally accumulates, concentrating wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. That’s not a mistake. That’s what it does. There’s no other way it works. The problem isn’t extreme capitalism, corporate capitalism, crony capitalism, vulture capitalism or greedy capitalism. It’s just capitalism. Capital has its own relentless drive, never to be satisfied, feeding ever more hungrily on the life-force of the world while leaving mountains of destruction and misery in its wake. It can’t do otherwise. Forget trying to fix it. It needs to be ended.

If we want the socialist movement to grow then we have to create opportunities where the learning process is welcome and valued. We have to celebrate the new possibilities that each new individual brings. In practical terms, this means making sure our meetings are open to newcomers, and that quieter and introverted folks are given opportunities to speak. Folks who are good at talking and writing usually have the most power, while those who have less experience and are less vocal have the least.  It means that terminology is explained when necessary, and it means not using academic jargon to sound impressive. Refusing to explain yourself contributes to a form of discrimination in which people with less formal education and access to information are marginalised.  Obsession with “correct” language plays an enormous part in making socialist ideas inaccessible to many people. Having reading the ‘right’ books and blogs there are still disagreements between activists about which terms are and aren’t appropriate. Many in the socialist movement happen to be educated enough to understand varying levels of heavy jargon. Some don’t have any conditions that prevent them from reading for hours and they have the luxury of sufficient free time in which to do this. But most people don’t have that level of luxury. People are busy, you know, surviving themselves. They don’t necessarily have laptops, broadband, and ample time in which to make use of those things. There is also an unawareness of just how much there is to read out there. It also assumes that there are 'correct' resources to be reading that are available, and that the person in question will be able to find them among thousands of conflicting resources. Multiple lifetimes are required to really get to know in-depth all the topics, multiple entire academic careers of critical analysis.  We should accept that nobody gets things right 100% of the time. They’re still learning. It means having the humility to know that all of us are, in fact, still learning.

How do we discover and implement new tactics and methods?  Perhaps we return to basics like compassion, altruism, empathy, and communication.  Perhaps we learn to listen to and heed the voices most often drowned out.  Perhaps we do the work to cultivate authentic organisations in which everyone is held accountable for their behavior.  Perhaps we start refining and honing our own face-to-face social skills such as making eye contact. Speak the language you know. Many folk lack the gift of oration that moves people, yet our own words are often good enough. Working together offers the strength that comes from the fact that we are dreaming and longing and working together for all of us to be free. Freedom requires creativity, a little skill, and a daily dose of courage. Most of all, it requires us to share our stories of our own struggles with each other. “We are the 99%.” For decades, the Left had been trying to come up with a slogan that was both inclusive and oppositional. A slogan that put a relatively complex critique of class society in populist language.

Is it possible that a different system could be built without people first imagining it? Is imagining a better economic/political system a necessary step in making it happen? For those of us who believe human beings are in control of our own destiny, or at least the rules that govern our economic and political system, it is time to come together and imagine a better system, one that promotes environmental sustainability, equality and world-wide cooperation. It seems impossible to deny, at least for any reality-based thinker, that our current global capitalist economic/political system has created, and prevents us from fixing, the mess we are in. This is due to the powerful private profit engine of capitalism, which in turn incentivises the externalisation/socialisation of as many costs as possible. The owners of capital are driven to make ever greater profits -- the system rewards those who do and punishes those who don't -- which of course leads the profit seeker to reduce costs in any way possible. To survive, capitalists must try to avoid paying for the negative consequences of whatever is the source of their profits, be it the instruments of war, environmental destruction, global warming, over-consumption or an unhealthy food system. Protecting and maximising profit gives capitalists an incentive to deny the ill effects of their products, to fund global warming deniers and to promote war. The potential for governments to pass laws that may negatively affect profits is an incentive for capitalists to do whatever it takes to make sure the political system works in their narrow, immediate interests. This is the source of what some defenders of an abstract, idealised capitalism call cronyism, but which is, in fact, a logical outcome of a system that promotes greed and private profit.

What sort of economic/political system can be imagined and then built that will save us from global warming, other forms of environmental disaster and growing inequality; one that can come about relatively peacefully so that weapons of mass destruction are turned into ploughshares rather than destroy the planet? The new system we imagine must get rid of the perverse incentives that result in war, the devastation of our environment and inequality. Instead it must encourage environmental stewardship, cooperation and equality, both of responsibility and power. These must become foundational principles of our economy as well as our political system on the individual, local, regional, and world level. This imagined system must be achievable, because it is worse than pointless to dream about something that cannot happen, it is a waste of time we do not have. And to be achievable this new system must be something that can be built by the people. For change to happen peacefully it must be popular, supported by most people around the world. That, in turn, means the new system must ultimately be more democratic, because the most popular system is one in which most people feel they have a stake. Whatever the details of this new system of economic and political democracy, millions of us need to soon begin imagining it.

This new world is one we call socialism. Let’s get together as social beings and organise our society as we would like it. Let’s have production for use not profit and at the same time remove the evils of war and environmental destruction that threaten to eliminate our species altogether. Come on! Change for socialism.

Socialism in our hearts

The world we're living in right now won't allow fundamental change of the sort we need to eliminate all the social problems that make our lives a misery. You don’t get people to change by scaring them, or pointing fingers. Instead, give them an alternative that’s so compelling they want to have change. So let’s tell stories of our dreams and not the nightmares. A fear-based politics breeds cynicism, apathy or hopelessness. The more people start believing we can create a better society, the sooner we can start taking positive action. We should be planning for a future in which things get better. When you realise something’s wrong with the world, the first step has to focus on educating yourself about it. Then, when you begin to have a grasp on the issue, you step up and do something about it. We can change the world, but the key to doing so is in you and me and others all working together.

We live in extreme times. We are over-worked and undernourished. Those of us not caught in violence and poverty, are traumatised by its images. We are reaching our limits. People can't stand their jobs. People want out. You don't have to be in jail to feel imprisoned. People are wakening up and are realising how crazy it is to live in this society. Despite millions of years of evolution and fighting to stay alive, members of the most advanced species on the planet are now choosing to end their own life through lack of purpose and meaning. Seemingly disparate crises are not happening separately and accidentally. They are interrelated symptoms of our global capitalist system. The global elites have no intention of interfering with the profits they make. Those who are despoiling the planet do so for personal and corporate gain. Their worship of Mammon, the idol of power and greed, threatens to doom the human race. If we keep going the way we do, there won’t be a planet left.

Isn’t it very strange that the two most basic things needed to live, food and a home, are still not a right. To have a safe place to sleep and food to eat is the foundation of all life. Yet that costs money, which is created and hoarded by a tiny elite, in effect making all other rights void because people have to submit to all kinds of cruel and undignified ways to make enough money to simply stay alive. Automate whatever menial jobs can be automated, get rid of unnecessary jobs. Growing food can be a community service – each member working 4 hours a week. It might not be perfect but it’s a heck of a lot better than what we have going on now. Many people think money makes the world go around, or the global economy, at least. They consider it in a similar way that gravity holds the planet in orbit. But this is simply not fact. Money’s creation is no law of nature.

According to Kropotkin, anarchism (and for us in the Socialist Party, his definition is a valid description of socialism): “is a name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – harmony in such a society being obtained, not by the submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilised being.” It is a form of social organisation with a set of key principles, such as self-organisation, voluntary association, freedom, autonomy, solidarity, direct democracy, egalitarianism and mutual aid. It rejects both a capitalist economy and a nation state.

Resistance and struggle are not separate from the rest of life. Caring about politics is optional for too many people. As if it somehow doesn’t affect them. Political activity is not just someone’s hobby. Radical grassroots movements are the groundwork for the new world we carry in our hearts. At first they start as essential support lines for survival and small-scale resistance that are available to the weak. At the same time these networks and communities are the same ones in which we live, learn, play, work, invent and build alternative social and political structures. As a movement’s strength grows, and as crises expose weaknesses in its enemies, these networks become the infrastructure for open revolution.

The best way to give away your power is to think you don’t have any. Over and over, people say that they cared deeply about the need for social change, but were hesitant to speak since they weren’t experts. They deferred to others who knew more. But we need all voices — not just experts on Marxist theory. It is important to have all kinds of people, from all walks of life, be part of the socialist movement — whether you’re new to it or a many-year socialist veteran. More voices means more power to make change. You don’t have to be an expert to join in the call for a just future. Once you start learning about social justice, the learning never stops. We can’t afford to wait until we “know enough” to raise our voices. Socialism won’t be achieved without a movement that is big and diverse enough that everyone has a voice, regardless of the amount of knowledge they possess of Marx and Engels. 

Neither God nor Master

Banish gods from the sky and capitalists from the earth

More than half of people in Scotland now have no religion, according to findings from the Scottish Social Attitudes survey.

52% of people say they are not religious, compared with 40% in 1999 when the survey began.

The proportion who say they belong to the Church of Scotland has fallen from 35% in 1999 to just 20%. Other religious groups, including Roman Catholic (15%) and other Christian (11%) have remained steady. The number of non-Christians has remained at 2%.

Two-thirds of people living in Scotland who say they are religious "never or practically never" attend services.  Ian Montagu, researcher at ScotCen, said:"Today's findings show that Scottish commitment to religion, both in terms of our willingness to say we belong to a religion and to attend religious services, is in decline. As fewer Scots are acknowledging even a default religious identity, it is affiliation with the national church that is the hardest hit." 

Sweep Away Capitalism

 Occasionally in the course of human events, a new worldview emerges that transforms society. The Socialist Party is a political party dedicated to building class-consciousness from the bottom-up through education and discussion to achieve workers’ empowerment. It holds the promise of fulfilling the great aspirations of the past and heralds the advent of the next phase of our social evolution. For this to be successful it will require a movement of movements, an alliance of separate movements, including a coalition of the global social and environmental justice movements, environmentalists and so on. We will need to work together to find more sustainable ways of living on this planet. All of this begins by asking the right questions and making the attempt to understand. There is, of course, no guarantee of success.

For many people the idea of anti-capitalism seems ridiculous. After all, capitalist businesses and entrepreneurs have brought us fantastic technological innovations in recent years: from smartphones to driverless cars.  The array of consumer goods available and affordable for the average person, and even for the poor, has increased dramatically almost everywhere. There has been an improvement in basic standards of living in poorer regions of the world as well where the material standards of millions have risen. So, if you care about improving the lives of people, how can you be anti-capitalist? That is the story we are taught. Yet there is another story: the hallmark of capitalism is poverty in the midst of plenty. Alongside the economic growth, technological invention, increasing productivity, and a diffusion of consumer goods, comes, at the same time, destitution for those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the advance of capitalism, precariousness for those at the bottom of the labour market, and alienating and monotonous work for the rest of us. Capitalism has generated massive increases in productivity and extravagant wealth for some, yet many people still struggle to make ends meet. Capitalism is an inequality-enhancing machine as well as a growth machine. Not to mention that it is becoming clearer that capitalism, driven by the relentless search for profits, is destroying the environment. In a time when the old promises about technology are failing; when economies are collapsing and collective trust in public institutions is plummeting. Yet it is not an illusion that capitalism has transformed the material conditions of life in the world and enormously increased human productivity; many people have benefited from this. But equally, it is not an illusion that capitalism generates great harms and perpetuates unnecessary forms of human suffering.

 Many are now awakening to realise that change needs to take place on multiple levels- social, economic, environmental, and political. It is becoming increasingly apparent to many that our political and economic system is run and controlled by a network of economic elites and private interests. The fundamental essence of capitalism is that the needs to make a profit takes precedence over the well-being and needs of the people. The Socialist Party mission is to raise awareness of social, economic and political issues through dialogue with our fellow workers, creating the foundation for wide-scale change. Knowledge is a torch of freedom and the fundamental step towards liberation begins with individual understanding. We aim to build a people-powered revolution. Our objective is to create a society that benefits the many and not the few. It will take a collective effort of shared resources and ideas to restructure our world. But false solutions abound; almost all of the solutions put forth to solve the problems of capitalism continue it in another form.

All efforts to make life tolerable under capitalism will eventually fail. From time to time small reforms that improve the lives of people may be possible when popular forces are strong, but such improvements will always be fragile, vulnerable to attack and reversible. The idea that capitalism can be rendered a benign social order in which ordinary people can live flourishing, meaningful lives is ultimately an illusion because, at its core, capitalism cannot be reformed. The only hope is to sweep it away, and then build an alternative. As the workers’ anthem tune “Solidarity Forever” proclaim, “We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.”

For a Humanity without Division

The world we must seek for our children and grandchildren is surely not the world we have today. The planet is confronted a daunting array of problems challenging our ability to people’s well-being. If we are going to change things for the better, we must first understand the forces that brought us to this. We have problems because of fundamental flaws in our economic and political system. By understanding these flaws, we can end them and move forward to a new system. The capitalist system upon which our society runs is voracious in pursuing its economic interests without concern for the values of fairness, justice, or sustainability. Solutions cannot arise from within the structures of the capitalist system but must instead get at the root causes. The greatest problem we have is that we can’t imagine any alternative. And that is the challenge: to invent, create and think about how we will organise and for what.

  Capitalism cannot be reformed or made to be kinder and gentler to the working class. Capitalism's only objective is to generate profit/capital so the capitalist ruling class can continue to accumulate more and more capital. Capitalism does not have conscience and it was never intended to have a sense of right and wrong. Exploiting people and natural resources are simply ways to generate and accumulate more capital. Capitalism prioritises economic growth above all else. We think of growth as an unalloyed good, but this growth fetish is a big source of our problems. A capitalist system, whose prime directive is the production of capital, will work constantly to refine and improve its ability to do just that. It will continue until it is stopped by an external force of some kind.

Socialists believe that the problems facing the world, such as environmental despoliation, the systematic waste of public resources for private profit, persistent unemployment concentrated among women and racial minorities, and the mal-distribution of wealth, power, and income, are not mere aberrations of the capitalist system - they are the capitalist system. This is why Socialists are not impressed by political appeals based on the personal qualities or “charisma” of any individual politician. Socialists believe that it is the system — and the institutions which make up that system — that must be changed. What is now desperately needed is transformative change of the present profit system itself. We are confronted with a multifaceted, systemic crises born of the inability of our current system of political economy to sustain human and natural communities. It is a system that has always been rigged against people. The socialist goal is to provide a shared prosperity that meets human needs while preserving nature’s diversity, ecological integrity, and beauty—in short, a society nourishing people and nourishing nature. People must rise to the challenge of building a better world that demands we fundamentally transform our economic and political systems.

A growing number of people are already finding it impossible to accept the deteriorating conditions of life and living. They see the frightening gap between the world that is and the one that could be. So, our first step is to become teachers—to help bring our fellow workers to see the basic relationships: that the huge challenges we face are the result of the failure of capitalism, that it no longer deserves legitimacy because it doesn’t deliver on the promises it proclaims, and that, therefore, the path forward is to change the system. This is the core message of the Socialist Party.  The journey to the next system truly begins when enough people have come to see our challenge in this way. The crises—economic and  environmental, point to the underlying failure and raises questions which sends people searching for answers. It can wake people up and shake them up. However, we won’t be able to take advantage of positive opportunities and developments opened up by this rising popular disenchantment if the various movements remain fragmented and isolated. What’s needed is a unified identity, a common infrastructure capable of formulating clear policy objectives and strategic messages, a common platform, and a commitment to creating a powerful, coordinated campaign– in other words - a world socialist movement. Coming together is imperative because all workers and causes face the same reality. Our best hope is a fusion of all those concerned about environment, social justice, true democracy, and peace into one effective social force. By connecting ideas together, creative leaps can be made, producing breakthroughs. We have to recognise that we all have in common is a shared fate. We will rise or fall together.

A powerful part of the motivation for changing society must be a compelling vision of the world we want for our children and grandchildren. An important part of agitating for change is to paint a picture of what a better future might look like. As Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables: “There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.” We need to depict life in this desirable socialist future. These are an important part of banishing the myth that there is no feasible alternative to the current system. We are indeed the dreamers of John Lennon’s “Imagine” but we are dreamers with a plan that builds on much which already exists. Our goal is achievable, but, we freely admit, it will not be easy. In the end, it all comes down to the willingness and determination of people to make change for themselves by developing political and economic muscle for system change at to spur the necessary action at all levels. Socialists seek to plant the seeds of change. What socialists must also ask ourselves is why so many activists are increasingly accepting and working within the frame of global capitalism. We have lost many to the camp of reformism. Instead of dissent being born, individual life-style responsibility is urged to tackle issues that actually requires social political responses. Hopefully, many who are still trust in reformism will see the need for deep change and will join the World Socialist  Movement for a better world.

The Mission of Socialist Courier

The Socialist Courier blog has no great expectation of being able to take you by storm and make you all good socialists. Certainly, it would give the blog great pleasure to succeed in convincing any large number of you of the justice of the ideas of socialism, and of the necessity of putting its ideals into practice. Even today people imagine that we can instill whatever ideas we may choose into a person's mind; that we can influence at our own discretion the development of ideas at any given time in any given people. But it is precisely this that is impossible.

But what we are more eager to do, is to convince you how necessary and important it is for you, yourself, to take an interest in the socialist movement, to take that one step beyond so to open your eyes to the world around you, and for once to realize that what you have in all probability been told about socialism is to a large extent based on exaggeration, lack of understanding, or ignorance of the nature of the movement, and perhaps also on ill-will. Every man and woman should take an interest in politics and in socialism. From the very day that we enter into the world, politics begins to operate upon us and this continues all through our lives down to the grave.

In regard to socialism many have no doubt often been told that it consists of utopian attempts toward the destruction of every good thing that civilisation has called into being: as something which under no conditions can realise its ideal and is capable only of doing serious damage to society in general. How easy it would be to put an end to socialism if it were really only a matter of nonsensical theories. But has this occurred? Has it been demonstrated to be the case? No.

The fact that we cannot and do not think what we please to think; we think what we must think. And what obliges the individual to think in a certain way is the measure of his or her interests and opinions, which are in turn developed out of the social interests of a certain class in society. If our capitalist class stands opposed to socialism, we socialists are not in the least astonished by that. No one can expect a class to act against its interests.  Yet we are astounded that so many of our fellow-workers adopt the ideas and interests of the class that rules over them. If it had not been for this, socialism would certainly be established today. The very class in society, which is toiling in servitude, selling their labour power, and compelled to renounce the right of free disposal over their own persons accept the belief system of their masters. Socialist Courier thinks it is only natural that other thoughts will eventually awaken in their minds: "Is this right? Is it reasonable? Is it to remain so for ever? Are we always to be the oppressed and expropriated, to the end that those who appropriate to themselves out of our labour all the wealth and enjoyment that this world can offer may live in opulence and ease?" These pertinent questions are brought home to the consciousness of the working class by virtue of their labour, their intelligence and position as human beings, and so to this extent the socialist movement must expand and develop.

Not only can socialism and its demands be accepted as an ideal, they can also be realised. What do socialists demand? The abolition of every form of expropriation and oppression of man by man in social, political and economic life. Mankind shall be free and equal without exception and they shall be permitted to fulfil their mission in life as individuals with the opportunity of harmoniously developing and educating, in accordance with his or her needs, the physical and intellectual capacities which nature has given to him or her. From this arises the need for society to increase both the quantity and the quality of the means of life and of culture, so it shall prove adequate to meet the very highest demands that can be made upon it; and it follows, therefore, that it is the duty of every person to co-operate in accordance with their powers and capacities in the production of these means of culture and life.  We do not desire to "divide up," as people are in the habit of saying; we do not wish to throw humanity back into barbarism of barter; on the contrary, we desire to lift the whole of humanity to the highest thinkable plane of civilisation. We wish every individual without exception to have a share in the means of culture and education according to their capacities and needs. This ideal is possible today because we now possess all the means and possibilities to realise it. 

You can’t compromise your way to your goal

There are some who doubt the revolutionary potentiality of the workers and the validity of the struggle for a socialist society. The capitalist class itself, however, are not at all lulled by the apparent passivity of the workers and they constantly strive to disorient and confuse their thoughts. Socialism has been attacked throughout its existence. To prove socialism irrelevant, socialists are reproached with every kind of smear and slander. The learned men of history speak so disdainfully of socialism’s past and contemptuously of its future by caricaturing socialist thought so to present their case that socialism is sentenced by history as an unachievable utopian aspiration. But socialists are practical and realistic men and women.

Capitalism created the conditions and forces for the socialist movement: the necessary material basis and the working class itself.  Capitalism has created a world market, a world division of labour and world productive forces, it has also prepared the world economy as a whole for socialist transformation. Capitalism provokes the working class into action and is the involuntary promoter of the class struggle. Whilst capitalism dominates the world economy as a whole, inter-capitalist rivalry creates contradictions which aid the struggle for socialism. One capacity the working class has shown to the present day is that it can absorb the hardest blows and snap back after a while from the most terrible defeats. This is no mystical quality; its resilience and stamina spring from the material conditions of life in modern society. Capitalism creates the working class and depends upon it, as a parasite depends upon its host. Yet it cannot satisfy the demands or solve the problems of the working force it exploits and oppresses. Even in good times workers display their discontent and protest against insecurity by strikes and similar demonstrations; at more critical turning points their will to combat capitalism and cut through to a better life flares into insurrections and rebellions. The workers’ movement draws its inexhaustible strength from the indispensable part it plays as the principal force of production, the creator of all wealth and profit. It enhances that strength by its growing industrial organisation, by its political formations, by its cohesiveness and solidarity in struggle, by its developing awareness of itself as a decisive social power of growing importance compared to other classes. Finally, labour asserts itself as the only creative force in society that carries the future along with it as it rises. Having gained nothing but misery from capitalism, they are ready to fight it, instinctively, as a man is always ready to throw off someone who is sitting on his back and squeezing his life away.

The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves. There is no other way, they cannot be emancipated against their will. It is the direction of building up a class-conscious working-class that the Socialist Party bend our efforts. Agitate, Educate, Organise. Let us look to and eliminate the faults of our own organisation, for it may not be free from them. The causes of which have operated to prevent our success in rallying the whole working-class to our banner do not supply the reasons for the fact that so many avowed, earnest and active socialists remain outside our party. Let us enquire into the reasons and if possible remedy them. In some cases, doubtless, they are purely accidental, but this is not always the case. Are we, as is sometimes alleged by our critics, too narrow, too sectarian, too intolerant, too dogmatic? Are we too hostile, not to enemies, but to would-be comrades? Does the style of our criticisms antagonise people rather than win them over? These are searching questions to which it may be worthwhile to give some consideration. There should be no heresy-hunting; no nosing out of non-essential points of difference but rather a seeking for essential points of agreement – “In things doubtful, liberty; in things essential, unity; and in all things, charity.”

To strengthen our organisation we are required to muster fellow workers to our banner; to bring together all comrades into a united Socialist Party, an active, vigorous tool for the realisation of socialism - the emancipation of humanity. The Socialist Party holds to a great and far-reaching purpose; a purpose not immediately understood by everyone; a purpose which, in fact, is often misunderstood and therefore has to meet opposition, prejudice and hatred which can be overcome only through extended educational propaganda. When the mass of the workers themselves come into action the dividing line between the political and industrial methods of struggle disappears; they march upon the field of battle to a single, undivided warfare against capitalism, armed with the class-consciousness, the discipline, the intelligence and the power of action gained in all previous conflicts. The attitude of the Socialist Party toward the trade union movement, broadly endorsing and commending it, but stopping there, and allowing it to manage its own internal affairs is, without doubt, the correct one, as any meddling must result in harm with no possible hope of good.

The socialist revolution consists of the entire process, on a world scale, through which the socialist mode of production is established and supplants earlier modes of production. he goal of the socialist revolution – the abolition of capitalist private property, the abolition of all exploitation of man by man, the social ownership of the means of production and their planned use for the benefit of the whole of society, leading to abundance. The Socialist Party does not put forward this goal as a utopia, as a mere vision of what would ideally satisfy people’s needs and make them all happy, but as a goal the practical attainment of which is made necessary by the actual conditions of modern society. The goal of socialism is placed as a practical objective, that is because only under a socialist economy can the contradictions of modern capitalist society be solved and the great modern forces of production be fully utilised. Socialism will only be gained by waging the working-class struggle and to wage this struggle and achieve the conquest of power, the working class must have its own independent political party. It is clear to conclude that we my face new facts we have perhaps to guard against fixed ideas about the means for gaining socialism and for building it, that is, fixed ideas about the methods of working-class struggle. We may well have to review the application of some of our policies. The true aim of socialism is profoundly in accord with the sentiment for democracy and freedom – is, indeed, the only aim in which this sentiment can find fulfilment. The word ‘socialism’ is more than the name merely for a new system of economic relationships. So to restrict the meaning would be to kill the idea and aim. Socialism means the ending of exploitation of man by man, a society without class antagonisms, in which the people themselves control their means of life and use them for their own happiness. These are things we must above all make clear, breaking with and condemning everything which has contradicts our aim. Ideas cannot be produced to order; they must achieve their own growth in the minds and hearts of men and women. Nurtured and allowed to grow, they will truly and adequately express the experiences and aspirations of the people, the arguments, conflicts, sentiments and conclusions of people on the move for a better way of life.

The banner of world socialism is now carried on the shoulders of the World Socialist Movement which carries the slogan: “Workers of all lands unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win!” Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue. But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs, since man makes his own history and chooses what to do. What is determined is not his choice, but the conditions under which it is made, and the consequences when it is made. The meaning of scientific socialism is not that it tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to take .

A Planet without Borders

The world is in a deep economic, political and social crisis. It is not the result of natural catastrophes, or forces beyond our control, but of the capitalist system under which we live. The peoples of the world are confronted today by ever-growing poverty and widespread malnutrition and disease which afflict billions; war and the threat of nuclear bombs; and the environmental climate change time-bomb, giving rise to fears about the very survival of humanity and life on the planet. Today the utmost struggle is needed just to maintain living standards and we have lost hope of improving them. The trade unions, the main defence of working people, are under attack. Millions of women and black people suffer discrimination on a daily basis and new-comers to the UK are made the scapegoats for problems caused by capitalism. The quality of life is constantly under increasing attack. Town-centres become goldmines for property speculators rather than urban renewal developments. The countryside is despoiled. Public transport is sacrificed. Culture is commercialized.  People are denied the opportunity to develop their talents and abilities to the full. Human relationships are distorted and sex exploited for profit. There are frequent examples of corruption and financial scandals. Government is divorced from the people. Bureaucratic control by the state has increased as local democracy has been eroded. The ruling class tries to confine democracy to the right to vote in elections, and deny the people real participation in decision-making. Hard-won democratic rights are increasingly threatened by authoritarian trends.

The root cause of all those problems is an economic and political system in which effective power is in the hands of a tiny minority of the people - the capitalist class. Capitalism’s motive force is not production for the needs of society, but for the maximum private profit for the employers and bankers. The basis of the economy is the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class. The workers by hand and brain - the great majority of the population - own little but their labour power, their capacity to work. In modern society production is a social process, but ownership and control are predominantly private. Within the enterprise production is planned; but in society as a whole it is not planned. The capitalists always try to increase their profits, not just for their own personal consumption, but to enlarge their capital so as to get greater productive power and make still more profit. In general, the more they can cut costs and limit increases in wages and salaries, the more profit they can make, and the more capital they can accumulate. Capitalism’s contradictions are not only in the sphere of economics. All human activities are seen as a source of profit. While men and women are exploited at work, their cultural, sporting and leisure activities are commercialised, and they are held to ransom as consumers by the big business concerns which dominate the supply and distribution of the goods they buy. The development of science is distorted, with its use for the super-exploitation of workers, degradation of the environment and pollution, and the development of weapons of mass destruction. The economic crisis of capitalism is paralleled by a deep political, social and cultural crisis.

Capitalism’s legitimacy relies primarily on the fact that millions of people believe that the capitalist system is the natural way to organise society, that the present political system is truly democratic, and that there is no realistic or better alternative. Every new generation is influenced to accept this. The family and school often perpetuate and reinforce capitalist ideas among children, while among adolescents and adults the media and social and cultural activities increasingly assume importance. Most of those in charge of the main information, social, educational and cultural institutions of capitalist society accept its outlook and its values, and play an important part in securing acceptance of capitalist rule. But all these efforts have not been able to prevent millions of people entering into struggle against the effects of capitalism, as a result of which they have won improvements in the standard of life over the years. But these advances are then attributed to the virtues of the system, and the belief is encouraged that, despite temporary setbacks, people can continue in the long run to improve their conditions within it. Thus, as a result of a combination of the indoctrination efforts of the ruling class and of a seemingly rise in living standards there is a large measure of voluntary acceptance of capitalist rule. To challenge capitalist rule the working class and its organisations to overcome capitalist ideas. The Socialist Party need to raise their political consciousness and convince them of their common need to end capitalism and advance to socialism. Experience of past decades has also shown that capitalism’s crisis cannot be solved within the limits of capitalism. A new strategy of social change is needed. It must be a strategy for a socialist revolution. Only socialism can overcome the basic contradiction of capitalist society from which every aspect of the crisis flows.

Socialism replaces private ownership by social ownership. The social process of production is matched by social ownership of the means of production. Production for private profit is replaced by production for social needs. Socialism creates the best conditions for the development of democratic control and popular initiative. Industrial democracy becomes a reality with the development and extension of a new type of decision making and self-management participation, and the democratic planning of production makes possible the full use of modern scientific and technological advance to eradicate poverty and raise the standard of living. The scandalous contrast of extreme wealth for a few and hardship for millions can be ended. A new quality of life, in relationship to work, the family and the whole environment, and a common social purpose, can be achieved. Instead of power being in the hands of a tiny minority, it is in the hands of the overwhelming majority. This is what is meant by the socialist revolution. The advance to socialism can only take place through the active democratic struggle of the great majority of the people.

The ingenuity of humanity which could be used to improve the living conditions of working people are, instead, wasted in war preparations or used to expand the profits of the giant corporations and banks that dominate the economy and society. The Socialist Party is imbued with confidence in the ability of the working class to overcome all opposition and to transform our society and change the world. The essential feature of a socialist revolution is capturing the state machine by the working class. This can only be achieved when the great majority of people are convinced of its necessity and prepared to use their strength and organisation to bring it about. To achieve socialism, the working class must take political, economic and state power out of the hands of the capitalist class. 

At each stage of the class struggle, our aim must be to win the majority of the people open the way to socialism. The activity of the Socialist Party in parliament will need to be intimately linked with the mass struggles outside, each reacting on the other. To democratise power and extend democracy is not just a question of the freedom to express opinions and vote in elections, important though these are. Democracy concerns the extension of control by the people over every aspect of political, economic and social life. This can only be fully realised as socialism is built, but a start must be made in the process of fighting to achieve socialism. We are in a world in which social change is taking place on an unprecedented scale. We have the opportunity to carry out social transformation in conditions in which environmental destruction and endless wars can be prevented and without the social collapse and human destruction such catastrophes would bring. The advance to socialism can only take place through the active democratic involvement of the great majority of workers. 

We Are All Human

“Capital is dead labour that vampire-like only lives by sucking living labour and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” – Marx

The Socialist Party’s aim is socialism, because socialism is the only way to solve the problems of working people and end the class divisions in society. The Socialist Party aims to replace the crises, insecurity, profiteering, inequalities and social antagonisms of the capitalist society in which we live by a socialist society. In our lifetime great scientific advances and new technologies have opened up entirely new perspectives for mankind, make possible immense improvements in the life of people, creating possibilities of human progress which far surpass the dreams of the socialist pioneers. However, the capitalist society in which we live cannot release this potential. Automation, which could ease labour and bring great increases in production, leads to greater exploitation and unemployment. There is a constant struggle to maintain real wages. Many fellow workers live in dire poverty. The housing crisis grows worse. Social services are being cut instead of expanded. Instead of confidence in the future, there is a growing feeling of insecurity. Capitalism is a barrier to social advance, and a constant menace to peace. It is time for people to take things into their own hands and build a just society. A socialist world would be run for people, not for profit - for the benefit of the majority, not a handful of big businessmen and financiers. Production would be socially controlled and planned, and everyone would be guaranteed the right to a job, a home, education and leisure. Freedom would be rightly understood, not as the right of individuals to exploit others, but as the power of human beings, collectively, by controlling their environment, to develop their individual interests, abilities and talents to the full.

Most of the world’s productive resources—the farms and factories—are now owned by a small class of rich people. The capitalists draw their incomes, not from their own labour, but from the labour of others. Workers produce wealth far in excess of the wages they are paid, whether these wages are high or low. The surplus they produce above their wages is not paid for, but is taken as profit by the capitalists. This is exploitation, the source of all capitalist wealth. The capitalists use their profits not merely to live in luxury, but to pile up new capital, to grow richer year by year. The constant goal of the owners of capital is to increase their profits at the expense of the working class. They keep down wages, salaries and pensions and welfare benefits. They install new technology that displaces labour, in order to reduce their wages bill and make still larger profits. It is the very essence of capitalism to keep labour at a minimum point, just sufficiently above the starving point so that it can continue to produce – never enough above this point so that the worker could save for a period of not working. The boss has no other interest in the worker. Even when there is relative prosperity, in the background is the threat of widespread economic crisis, poverty in the midst of plenty, and the waste of human labour and skill that unemployment brings. The inequalities of wealth are extreme. The Socialist Party has always had as its objective to take the means of production and distribution out of the hands of individuals, and to transfer them to the ownership of the people as a whole, so that they can be used for the common good. Common ownership and production for use to meet the people’s needs instead of production for private profit.

Social ownership means an end to the chaos and wasteful competition. Socialism offers the opportunity to live our own lives free from the fear of want and war. Socialism does not mean the levelling down of living standards. Nor does it bring bureaucracy and tyranny. On the contrary, socialism draws more and more people into planning and making their own future, and frees their creative energies for great economic, social and cultural advances. A socialist society means above all a better future for everyone, the best education and training, the best opportunities for a fuller and happier life. Socialism means, in short, there will be neither masters nor servants. Socialism can only be built with power in the hands of the workers. Working class power is the essential condition for far-reaching social change. 

Experience has shown socialists that so long as the influence of capitalist ideas control the policy of the workers’ movement, no serious inroads can be made into the wealth and power of the capitalist class. It is only when workers are won over to a socialist outlook that they will be able to use their strength to bring about a complete social change. In spite of the great advances won by the people in their struggle for a better life, real power is still in the hands of the small group of the very rich. They control the greater part of the land, industry, finance and trade. Their representatives, educated in the outlook of the ruling class, fill the leading positions in the state—in the armed forces and police, the judiciary and the civil service. They also control the media. Working class power means an end to this privileged position of the wealthy few. The socialist message is one of hope and confidence. The working class, acting together, can take political power into their own hands, end the exploitation of man by man, and use natural resources to meet the increasing needs of the people. They can build world socialism where society is organised on the principle that “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.

Ice Cream Man Cometh (1985)

Ice Cream Man Cometh (1985)

From the January 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the night of April 16 last, petrol was poured through the letterbox of a top floor flat in Glasgow and then set on fire. The Doyle family was trapped in the blaze and six of its members, aged between 18 months and 50 years, died. Summing up at the end of what became Scotland's worst multiple murder trial, the judge provided the convenient scapegoat for the horrific incident: "No decent person could be other than appalled by such dastardly deeds. Those who set fire to the flat were wicked, depraved. inhuman and evil" (Scotsman, 9 October 1984).

But were these men just wanting to kill without reason? Evidently not, as they had had plenty of opportunities to do so simply with a shotgun and, according to one of the two men accused, the fire was only meant as "a frightener which went too far" (Scotsman, 20 September 1984). Indeed the court, in its hurry to find someone to blame, ignored the fact that people are not in real control of this competitive system: 

There was nothing wrong with competition during the normal dealings in day-to-day business. But when this developed into some kind of feud between rivals in which criminal offences were committed, it was totally unacceptable. The danger of such a matter is that it can escalate out of all proportion.

(Sheriff at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Scotsman, 3 August 1984.)

To find the real reason we have to look beyond that simplistic excuse "human nature" and examine a more dominant factor in determining the everyday actions of people — their everyday environment. All the time, people find that this society denies them access to food, clothing and housing by such things as cash registers, security guards and rent demands. The main concern for most people therefore is how they get money and how much they get — in the case of the two men convicted, they sold ice cream from a Fifti Ices van.

The events finally leading to the six week trial started in the summer of 1982 in the Cartyne and spread to other housing schemes in Glasgow. According to the Guardian, “Trouble began in Garthamlock when an ice cream van operating under the name of Fifti Ices appeared in September last year. It invaded the patch which a rival ice cream company, Marchetti Brothers, had held as a virtual monopoly for years (11 October 1984). This rivalry soon led to a spate of intimidation and violence, including a shotgun being fired at a 15-year-old salesgirl. However. according to the wife of one of the convicted "the people of Garthamlock wanted another van in the area because the Mar- chetti's was . . . overcharging them" (Scotsman 2 August 1984). The couple hired vans on hire-purchase from Fifti Ices and were able to undercut their rivals by selling stolen cigarettes and other goods. The traders get about 10 per cent of the weekly turnover which would rarely be more than £200. the rest going to the companies. Marchetti Brothers, on the other hand, by leasing all their 37 vans on a week-to-week basis only, also ensure that the traders buy all their stocks from them.

According to the Marchetti Brothers' accountant however, the subsequent loss of business from threats, abuse of customers and the “wedge" achieved by their rivals, had moved the company's profitability out of the black and into the red (Scotsman, 4 September 1984). This was obviously a far more serious situation than a few incidents of violence, so the firm put a third man into the battlefield. The unfortunate new employee — Andrew Doyle — was presumably chosen because, as theGlasgow Herald described him. he was "a young man of massive appearance but quiet disposition" (11 October 1984). In court, he was described as . . . not a hassle man. He was just a young boy from a nice family (Glasgow Herald, 7 September 1984). At one point in the war. according to the Herald, "the beleaguered company secretary of the van firm. Marchetti Brothers, asked a colleague What is it going to take to stop these people . . .  a body?"' But these six deaths have only stopped the activities of the men convicted. A social system based on conflict will not be restricted by the charred remains of a few human beings. Even as they were being sentenced, other members of their team were putting further ice cream vans on the road. This is despite the fact that "ever since the fire which killed the Doyles . . . Marchetti Brothers have tried to re-establish themselves in Haghill" (Glasgow Herald, 11 October 1984).

The war, it would seem, must go on. This is not an unfortunate little incident, a sad aberration in an otherwise acceptable society. St Tropez had its own ice cream war fought on the beaches of the Riviera this summer, with French police arresting one man for planting explosives in the sand ("Beaches mined in ice cream war", Guardian, 23 July 1984), and all over the world the same conflicts arise, initiated by the rivalry of a system of society in which access to wealth is controlled by a minority in conflict. rather than by the whole of humanity in co-operation.

But of course those who stand to gain most profit out of these battles are not those who do the fighting. Quite the opposite would seem to be true in this case. The Glasgow Herald considered it "a matter of considerable embarrassment" that the owners of the two rival companies were related through marriage and enjoyed harmonious relations. The fighting and dying then is left for the workers, whether it is Andrew Doyle or the two would-be entrepreneurs whose only mistake would appear to be that they did the job themselves. In fact, while denying in court that he was overheard in a pub offering "an easy £300" for help to "torch" the Doyle house, one said "if I wanted somebody assaulted. I would assault him . . ." (Glasgow Evening Times. 28 September 1984).

All violence under capitalism, from world war to muggings, is for property — be it the land and wealth within borders or the notes in a pensioner's purse. In each instance can be seen the effects of a society based on control and powerlessness; ownership and non-ownership. Capitalist society is no innocent bystander but rather the main determinant of human behaviour.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Br