Business gloom in Scotland

Official figures released last week that showed growth in the Scottish economy all but stalled in the last quarter of 2015. That was supported by two separate business surveys which have suggested the recent downturn in the Scottish economy may be intensifying.

The Bank of Scotland's latest PMI which measures changes in manufacturing and services output, posted 48.5 in March, falling from February's 49.2. Any figure below 50 indicates economic contraction. Output in the private sector declined last month, while the amount of new business continued to fall. Purchasing managers reported "harsher business conditions" in March.

Meanwhile, a survey by business advisers BDO suggested the slowing services sector was "knocking the confidence" of Scottish firms. It showed that business optimism had hit its lowest level in more than two years. BDO's latest Business Trends Report also painted a gloomy picture, suggesting that the slowing services industry was "taking its toll" on the Scottish economy. Martin Gill, head of BDO in Scotland, said: "These figures show that political and economic uncertainty is affecting optimism among Scotland's businesses.”

Who Owns Scotland, again?

Swathes of Scotland are owned by secretive companies registered in tax haven Panama. Thousands of acres of wilderness are controlled offshore, where the owners can avoid tax and scrutiny.

A Sunday Mail investigation uncovered 64,000 acres – equivalent to the size of Edinburgh. But experts believe 10 times as much land, which could be worth about £100million, is registered to businesses in tax havens including the British Virgin Islands and Grand Cayman.

Andy Wightman, a campaigner for land ownership reform and a Green Party candidate in Lothian, condemned the offshore ownership of Scotland and predicted more Scottish links will be revealed as more documents are released. He said: “The Panama Papers are a big data set, so I would hope it will help us find out some more about who is behind the ownership of Scottish land. We have never had this big a lid lifted on what goes on in tax havens. There will almost certainly be items of Scottish importance to come out from these leaked documents. It’s difficult to put an exact figure on the value of the land in question but we could be talking about £100million. There will be other properties that are registered in Panama that I have not identified – this is just the tip of the iceberg. Some of this will be involved in tax avoidance or evasion. There is no way that people go to those efforts to stash assets offshore purely because they don’t want their spouse knowing in case they get divorced, or they don’t want their neighbours knowing.

Wightman explains, “Ultimately, if anything happens on any parcel of land, that decision has to be consented to by the owner of the land. It’s in the public interest – for how we use all land for housing, industry and food growing – that those people should be known. There has to be a degree of accountability. That matters at a local level because people who want to consider land for housing come up against problems. There are bits of Scotland that have been offshore for the best part of 40 years and those bits of land have just stagnated. Nobody knows who owns them so they can’t take the initiative to do anything with them. There are big questions about transparency. We are entitled to know who has control over our country.”

Compania Financiera Waterville SA, are listed as the owners of three large estates in Perth. Dalnaspidal,Camusericht, and Corrievarkie total almost 30,000 acres. The company, based in El Dorado, Panama, are also the registered owners of Ben Alder lodge on the 27,000-acre Ben Alder estate in Inverness-shire. The director of the company is shrouded in secrecy. Another Panama company, listed as Chooky Corporation, own 4375-acre East Benula estate in Inverness-shire. And the Clova estate in Aberdeenshire is linked to Giant Properties Corporation, with a Panama post office box for law firm Quijano and Associates provided as their address.

Community Land Scotland chairman Lorne Macleod said: “We need as much transparency in land ownership in Scotland as possible.”

A 2014 report for the Scottish Government found 432 individuals own 50 per cent of rural Scotland.

Richard Scott, the Duke of Buccleuch, owns the largest chunk with his 241,887 acres, including Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire.

Businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed owns Balnagown Castle in Easter Ross along with 60,000 acres of surrounding land. He bought the property for £60,000 in 1972.

Sigrid Rausing, daughter of Swedish billionaire and Tetra Pak heir Hans, owns a 40,000-acre estate in the Monadhliath mountains in the Highlands. Her sister Lisbet owns 52,000 acres near Fort William, where she built a controversial six-storey granite lodge on the shores of Loch Ossian.

"yir arse is oot the windae"

The Socialist Party is not a part of the "left."  We are opposed to measures which tinker with and attempt to reform capitalism. The left on the other hand have kept their agenda well hidden, if it has a discernable revolutionary current, it isn't obvious , indeed , even their active supporters appear afraid to engage with any discussion about what socialism *is*. However , it has been a " left " tactic in the past where they are hypocritically asking workers to vote for a parliamentary party to get reforms which you know you can't get, on a road which they don’t support , to socialism ,which is not defined except , that it is recognisable as another state capitalism . The Socialist Party is opposed to such trickery of workers. Simply, the "left" are not socialists and to argue it is then "yir arse is oot the windae", as we say.  Even limited equality cannot be achieved, while retaining the profit motive - It is economically impossible.

 The Socialist on the other hand are quite explicit that socialism is, "the common ownership and democratic control of all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and on behalf of the whole population ". In other word a free access society. We stand for the original idea of socialism. Untrammelled by statist failures, indeed we predicted all of these failures. The "left" appear to want to administer capitalism. Far from splitting the " left ", we despise the "left " for its political cowardice, (being unable or unwilling to describe socialism to workers and nail their true colours to the socialist mast), of opportunism, (interference in workers struggles and grass roots movements to subvert them to their cause), and for its pretensions, (of assuming to know what socialism is, and presenting itself as a leadership towards it.)

The Socialist Party urges workers to "Abolish the wages system ". We insist that socialism as defined above is an immediate and practical possibility, requiring only a majority of workers who know what it is, who desire it and are willing to organise as equals, without a vanguard of political leaders forming an elite and a cadre of misinformed workers, as their expendable cannon fodder and irrelevant pawns , (our job is to inform , relay , and assist in this ) unlike the Leninist - Trotskyist , and former CP-er Stalinist Left , we don’t , as Lenin said , regard workers, "left to their own devices as being only capable of achieving trade union consciousness."

What exactly is the purpose of the SPGB standing in elections? To put the case for socialism, as no others do this, made by workers seizing control of their own destiny and working for socialism, without the leadership of vanguardist organisations or any other leadership. The Socialist Party does not look for support or supporters, rather we insist that on the contrary workers learn what socialism is, and join us as equals to bring it about. We don’t wish to lead them. They will not need leadership if they make themselves socialist. We don’t lie to workers by pretending, that by voting for reforms, or any other measure they are supporting socialism. We do not intervene in workers struggles, except as workers in struggle. We are stand against *all* the capitalist parties , this inevitably includes the “left” parties as they support a reformed capitalism with them as the new bosses, retaining wage labour capital, government control, and their platforms reflect this. The left ARE the forces of capitalism. Simply put, we are the only revolutionary alternative to capitalism. It is by insisting that left-wing reforms can ameliorate the conditions of workers , and that this equates to a "socialist " response , and who so mistrust the workers, that they can't describe the socialist alternative to them, are indeed the real reactionary element, leaving workers confusedly equating socialism with these tired and out-moded tried and failed remedies of the last century. (The Labour Party, The Communist Party, Social Democrat Parties of all stripes).

The Socialist Party has an honourable record since 1904 of never selling socialism short, and insisting it is an immediate and practical goal, requiring no other minimum demand, now that the vote has been won, that it can only be brought into existence by the workers themselves, comprising a majority, who know and understand what socialism is, a free access global society, without nation states. We don’t pander to nationalist sentiments, following slavishly Lenin's silly "Imperialism as the Highest Form of Capitalism" dogma. Our demand is the world for the workers and not for some new state-capitalist entity, or permissible level of wage slavery. In fact, many left-wing platforms to-day are even less radical than the Old Labour ones, where mistakenly they thought they were ushering in a new era, and piously mouthed phrases such as "we are the masters now " and "socialism will come like a thief in the night".

Wee Matt

Must Not Be Tolerated

LGBTQ students at the University of British Columbia say they no longer feel safe on campus after a pride rainbow flag was burned on Tuesday, February 9, that caused the cancellation of a march in support of transgender people A coordinator for UBC's Pride Collective said that emotions are running high for the student-run society after learning that the flag was set on fire. Capitalism is a society where pressure to conform is tremendous. Consistent with that is the divisiveness it creates as races, religions and non conformists are pitted against each other. There may be a million differences, but it simply means that at any given time or place, someone is superficially different and must not be tolerated. It is clearly evident that a society whose effects create hate is long overdue being put in the dumpster. A common purpose in in a common ownership society would be a good start. John Ayers.

From the Commons to Common Ownership

An American academic invented a new anti-socialist argument which he called the "Tragedy of the Commons" which has been doing the rounds ever since. It went like this: where you have common ownership of some natural resource, say grazing land, people with access to it, say to graze their cattle, will abuse it. Because it would be in the economic interest of each individual to use the common land to graze as big a herd of cattle as they could, they would all try to do this and eventually the land would be overgrazed. Conclusion: common ownership won't work and land and natural resources should be privately owned.

Socialists spotted the flaw in this straightaway. The academic assumed that only the land was owned in common whereas the cattle remained in the private ownership of individuals seeking to maximise their economic gains. Whereas, of course, socialism would mean the common ownership of both the cattle and the land and the aim of production would be to satisfy people's needs rather than to make profits. Having said this, the argument is quite a good description of what happens under capitalism when there's no ownership of some resource such as still today the oceans -- they get overfished.

But the argument was also completely unhistorical. The commons in England did not come to an end because they were over-exploited by the commoners taking too much firewood or trapping too many birds or rabbits or anything like that. They came to an end because some landlords wanted to extend their domains and used parliament and the law which they controlled to enclose the commons as their private property, either for agriculture or later for building houses on.

As a popular street ballad of the time put it:

"The law condemns the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common,

But lets the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from the goose."

The grasping landlords fortunately didn't always get their way, otherwise there'd be no public parks in London. Socialists stand for common ownership. Not just of land and other natural resources but also of human-made industrial resources. On this basis, we (society) could produce and distribute what was needed in accordance with the principle "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". That, in fact, is what socialism is. And to help get people to realise that this is the only basis on which wealth production can be geared to serving human welfare rather than profits. 

We make no promises. All we ask is that you join a democratic movement filled with conscious workers who understand and want common and democratic ownership of their own world, and are prepared to go and get it. So far as we're concerned, it's the quality not the quantity of the votes that count. Votes gained by leftist confusions of socialism, we can do without. We socialists are not advocating a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. That's not our programme at all (and doesn't and can't work anyway, given capitalism). What we are saying is that the means of wealth production should be owned in common by the whole community, i.e. shouldn't belong to anybody, but should simply be there to be used under democratic control to turn out what people need instead of as present to make a profit for the tiny minority who own and control then. That -- common ownership, democratic control, production for use not profit -- is what socialism means. It's the only framework in which current problems of transport, education, healthcare, insecurity and destitution can be tackled and cleared up. Trying to reform capitalism to make it work in the interests of all, as proposed by all the other candidates, is an exercise in futility.

Changing Everything

The class war is the basis and hallmark of socialist politics. The Labour Party has always shied away from accusations of class warfare, aiming to speak for the whole community. Socialists contend, though, that where the community is divided by class it cannot be treated as a whole. Inevitably, government policies will benefit one side or another in the struggle between the tiny minority who own the wealth of society, and the vast majority who only own their ability to work.

When we talk of class warfare, we are not talking about rioting in the streets, attacking ‘middle class’ people or anything of the sort, but the continual day to day struggle to secure access to the means of living for millions of people. So far as we are concerned, there is no middle class, no separate privileged mid-layer between the workers and the capitalists, only a vast army on different pay scales being exploited by the same bunch of owners.

Once we accept this, we cannot conscience co-operation with parties that advocate policies to the betterment of the ruling class. We are hostile to them - Labour, Liberals, Tories, nationalists - and seek to frustrate their ends by building a socialist movement to abolish the system they prop up. Workers run society from top to bottom, it's time they ran it in their own interest.

Capitalism can be seen as the mass production of the working class, by the working class for the benefit of a tiny minority of parasites, it is the domestication of humans into a working class. Socialists work for the time when there are no classes just humans. Socialists stand for a social revolution - that is a fundamental change in the way our society operates - where a tiny minority own the means of production and the rest of us slave upon them. There was a time when, if you mentioned revolution, people immediately thought of guillotines from the French revolution, or gulags from the Russian.

The modern world though, is changing that. Year on year we are being treated to popular uprisings and mass movements bringing down unpopular regimes. General strikes and streets full of demonstrators have been able to topple the mighty and powerful.  Of course, socialists are far from satisfied with these revolts - often instigated by splits within the ruling elite, or for nationalist causes - we want more. They are often hijacked by the professional politicians who take control and return to almost business as usual after the fireworks have died away. So long as they leave the fundamental aspect of ownership of the productive wealth in a tiny minority's hands, so the effects of these revolts will be a new elite.

But we take heart that they show that it can be done, that peaceful radical changes could be made. They are a part of the learning curve for all humankind, and we can look to the day when we take to the streets to secure democratic control over the means of production, to back up our democratic organisation, and we can do without elites entirely.

Today the Government uses new anti-terror legislation giving the authorities more powers of surveillance. They say they are motivated by their duty to protect citizens. The reality, though, is that irrespective of the legislation - which is dubious at best - state power can and will be used arbitrarily in the interests of the ruling elites anyway.  During the miners’ strike the Thatcher government established an unlawful national police force, unofficially suspended freedom of movement and used arbitrary arrests to break the miners.  Judges have never been any help in the past. Hide-bound and caught up in their support of deference and power, they defend the establishment - and are no more likely to protect people from arbitrary arrest than a Home Secretary would. These powers, though, are part of a war being fought between the capitalists of Britain and Middle-Eastern capitalists, wannabe capitalists and their respective camp followers. It is a war of power, control and oil. The threat of terrorism cannot be removed by ever greater use of power, but by removing the source of the conflict - greedy men seeking to own the riches of the Earth.

The Socialist Party unequivocally opposes the war. War is completely unnecessary. We are living in a world that has enough resources to provide plenty for all, to eliminate world poverty, ignorance and disease, to provide an adequate and comfortable life for everyone on the planet. Yet under capitalism resources are squandered on armaments, of individual as well as of mass destruction, and, as now, in actual war. We place on record our horror that capitalism has once again provoked the orgy of death and destruction known as war. We extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers in Iraq who our political masters have designated as targets for destruction. We pledge to do all within our means to bring the slaughter to an immediate end. We pledge ourselves to continue to work for the establishment of a world socialist society of peace and cooperation.  We call upon fellow workers everywhere to join in the struggle for world socialism. We believe that we can peacefully and democratically build a world of common ownership, and oppose all wars in capitalism as against the interest of the working class. Constant war only weakens the workers everywhere. We are against all rulers, all national boundaries, and are for a world co-operative commonwealth. You have the choice of supporting these aims, or supporting the slaughter of capitalism's wars.

Extortion?

Here is a nice confrontation to report. 

The ubiquitous use of ads on computers slows down their ability to operate efficiently, apart from being offensive to the brain of anything above an amoeba. Consequently, ad-blocking software grew by 41% last year to the consternation of the $50 billion advertising industry. A spokesperson for The Interactive Advertising Bureau had the unmitigated gall to describe the ad blockers as, "...an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes." and called the ad blockers action as 'extortion'.

 Presumable, he said this with tongue in cheek! 

 John Ayers

The crumbs or the bakery?

“Private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information. It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.” Albert Einstein.

Politics today is a game in which gangs of professional politicians compete with each other to attract votes, the gang securing a majority of seats in parliament assuming responsibility for running the political side of the profit system. To win votes the politicians have to promise -- and be believed -- to improve things both for the population in general, as by managing the economy so as to avoid slumps and crises, and for particular groups within the population.

When the economy is expanding or even just ticking over the incumbent party in power have the advantage. They can claim that this is due to their wise statesmanship and prudent management. Such claims are false as the economy goes its own way -- expanding or contracting as the prospect of profits rises or falls -- irrespective of which gang of politicians is in office. But making such claims can backfire as, when the economy falters, the Opposition can blame this on the incompetence and mismanagement on the Ins. But that's not true either since politicians don't control the way the economy works.

Throwing crumbs to the people (or to carefully targeted sections of the people whose votes could swing things) is not the main purpose of government. Marx once wrote that the government is "but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie". And it's still true. The function of any government is to manage the common affairs of the capitalist class as a whole. This involves a number of things. Sustaining a context in which profit-making can continue. Spending the money raised from taxes (that are ultimately a burden on the capitalist class) in a prudent way on things that will benefit the capitalist class as a whole, such as providing them with an educated, relatively healthy and so productive workforce. Maintaining -- and if need be using -- armed forces to protect sources of raw materials, trade routes, investment outlets and markets abroad. That's what most government spending goes on, and balancing this against income from taxes is what budgets are essentially about.

It is only because wage and salary workers, active or retired, have the vote that, occasionally if there's a small margin of money spare, a few crumbs are offered to some section or other of the electorate. No doubt, the pensioners, the home buyers and the families offered a few hundred extra pounds a year will accept these crumbs cast before them. Hopefully, they won't accept them as bribes to vote for his particular gang of politicians, but simply because it would be stupid not to pick them up.

Nowadays most people have learned by experience and are, rightly, just as cynical about the politicians and their promises -- and crumbs -- as are politicians about how they get people to vote for them. But cynicism is not enough. This should be turned into rejection. The politics game is to decide which gang of professional politicians should manage the common affairs of the capitalist class, only continues because most of us agree to take part in it. But by voting for them we in effect give them the power to keep the capitalist system going. And that, not which particular gang of politicians happens to be in office, is the cause of today’s problems since built-in to capitalism is putting making profits before satisfying people’s needs.

Socialists are only too well aware that most people put up with capitalism, and go along with its political game in the hope of getting a few crumbs out of it, because they see no practicable alternative. Politics should be more than individuals deciding which politicians to trust to deliver some crumbs that they think will benefit them individually. It should be about collective action to change society. About taking over the whole bakery.

You are again faced with a bunch of politicians who can only be distinguishable by the colour of their rosettes, and you may already be of the opinion that there is little that separates the mainstream parties and have no intention of voting. Millions of people are not prepared to support any of them. Indeed, recent elections have resulted in the lowest turnout since World War II and the trend is repeating itself across the globe. It is particularly to those members of the electorate who are not prepared to follow leaders, who think they are all tarred with the same brush, and unwilling to put their faith in the promises of politicians.

Many know little about The Socialist Party or our idea, unless you are a regular reader of our literature or visitor to our web site. Certainly many people have heard the word “socialist” and imagine it has something to do with the nationalised industries or with countries like China and the former Soviet Union. It is understandable that many people regard socialism as just another political cliché, once used by Labour politicians to win votes, but having very little meaning.

The Socialist Party stands solely for socialism because we do not think that the present social system – capitalism – can ever be made to work in the interests of the majority of the people. This is not the fault of government policies, but the present social system in which they are operating. Capitalism always puts the needs of a minority who own and control the factories, farms, offices, mines, media, the means of wealth production and distribution before the needs of ourselves, the working class.

It is a hard but undeniable fact that no political party – including The Socialist Party – can legislate to humanise capitalism or make it run in the interest of the working class. That is why it is important that the working class stops giving its support to politicians who support the profit system. None of them can solve unemployment or crime or any of the other social problems we face today, despite their proclaimed recipes for success. None of them will prevent tens of millions starving to death each year. None of them will provide decent housing for everyone. None of them will end the threat of human annihilation as a result of war, because militarism is inevitable within a system based upon the ferocious competition for resources, markets and trade. Why waste your time voting for parties that cannot make any of these urgently needed changes? Why go on in the hope that some miracle will happen and end the insanity of the profit system?

So what’s the alternative? We say that the resources of society must be taken into the hands of the whole community – and by that we do not mean the state, but all of us, organised together, consciously and democratically.

In a socialist society we will produce for use, not profit. This means producing food to feed the world’s population, not to dump in the sea if it cannot be sold profitably. Producing for use means ending the colossal waste of resources on armies, armaments, trade, banking and insurance and all the other social features which are only necessary within capitalism. By running society on the basis of common ownership, democratic control and production for use we can all have free access to all goods and services.

Two points should be clear by now:

Firstly, this is no ordinary political argument. We have made no false promises; we have not patronised you and neither do we beg for your support. Indeed we do not ask for your support unless you are convinced that the case for socialism is a rational one and in your interest Socialism, if it is to be the democratic and sane society that we envisage it will be, can only be established when a majority of the people understand it and want it, so there is no point in seeking support on any other basis.

Secondly, what we are advocating is different – it has never existed. The Tory have-beens have nothing new to offer. The Labour Party, if re-elected, will continue its futile exercise of trying to run a system based upon exploitation in the interest of the exploited.

Do you agree with the following statements:

1) Capitalism puts profits for the few before the needs of the many.

2) Labour governments, “Communist” states and proposals to reform the present system cannot establish socialism.

3) Socialism is yet to exist.

4) Socialism means a society of common ownership and democratic control, where production is solely for use.

5) Socialism means a world without buying or selling, where people give freely of their abilities and take according to their needs.

6) When a majority - including those who have previously abstained – understand and want socialism, the new system will be established.

If you think the above statements are correct then it is time for you to join us. 

Schools falling down

Seventeen schools in Edinburgh (plus a few other buildings) are to be closed indefinitely from Monday amid safety concerns about their construction. The schools were all built as part of the city's private finance programme around a decade ago.

It said Edinburgh Schools Partnership (ESP), which constructed the buildings and manages them on behalf of the council, was unable to give assurances that buildings built under the Public Private Partnership 1 (PPP1) were safe.

Council leader Andrew Burns said: "Clearly we have every right to expect these schools to have been built to a good standard and in accordance with industry practice. We now know this isn't the case. ESP have let the council down but more importantly they have the let children, parents and staff of this city down.

Signed in 2001, Edinburgh's Public Private Partnership deal for schools was worth £360m. In return for 30 years of fixed payments from the council, a private consortium designed, built and managed the schools. The four Edinburgh schools closed last month were all built by Miller Construction, which was acquired by Galliford Try in 2014. Inspections have been taking place in Glasgow, Fife and Inverclyde of other schools built by Miller Construction.

We can fully expect in the future various legal claims to take place in the courts with all the accompanying denials and counter-claims as those involve pass the blame and responsibility to others. But clearly at the root of the scandal will be business profits rather than safety being the prime concern.  

Say it loud, Say it proud

We in the Socialist Party only want the votes of those who want socialism (a worldwide society of common ownership and democratic control where things are produced to meet people's needs not to try to make a profit). If you are just against "illegal" wars and would be in favour of a "legal" one or if you are against war but not against capitalism (i.e., are against the symptom but not against the cause), please vote for one of the other candidates. But, be warned, in voting for them you'll be voting for capitalism and capitalism is the root cause of wars, preparations for war and threats of war because built-in to it are conflicts between rival groups of capitalists backed by their governments over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets and investment outlets. Normally, this competition is commercial and diplomatic but, when push comes to shove, the conflicts are settled by forces of arms. This is why Britain and America (or, rather, America and Britain) invaded Iraq where the former regime represented a threat to their supply of oil, a key raw material. Capitalism means war, so the only consistent anti-war stance is to work to get rid of capitalism.

Very few people would deny that the present state of the world leaves a lot to be desired. Humanity staggers from one crisis to the next -- from war to famine to slumps to repression.  Capitalism has developed a huge productive capability but its social organisation and relationships cause extremely serious problems and render it incapable of meeting the basic needs of its people.

A vast amount of the world's resources is expended in the production of weapons of war, from bullets and bayonets to nuclear and chemical weapons. Alongside these weapons are the armed forces which every state organises, clothes, feeds, trains and deploys. This is a massive waste of human effort; it is all intended to be destructive and none of it to create anything useful to human beings. In a world which could produce more than enough to feed and care for its population millions are homeless and tens of millions die each year because they don't have enough to eat or for lack of proper medical treatment. None of this is necessary. It happens while farmers in Europe and North America are being paid to take land out of cultivation; from time to time even food that has been produced is destroyed or allowed to rot. This makes sense to the profit motive; in terms of human interests it is wildly insane.

The environment is increasingly under threat from pollution and from the destruction of some of its natural, ecologically vital features. We hear well-informed warnings of an ultimate impending disaster unless we act to eradicate the problem but these warnings are always met with the objection that to save the environment can be a costly, profit-damaging business. Yet it is not necessary for industry and agriculture to pour out noxious effluents into the air, the earth, the rivers and the seas. They do this today because pollution is seen as being cheaper, which means more profit-friendly and to a society where profit is the dominant motive for production that is justification enough to override human welfare.

These are a few examples of how capitalism works against the interests of the world's people. In contrast, socialism -- real socialism, that is, not the obscene caricatures we've seen in Russia and elsewhere -- will have fundamentally different social relationships, motives for production and concepts about the interests and security of human beings.

All the programmes now being daily advanced by the professional politicians for dealing with the problems of capitalism through reforms must fail because of their essentially piecemeal approach. They attempt to treat symptoms instead of going for the basic cause. That is why, after a century or more of reformism the problems the politicians claim to deal with are still here. A far more radical, fundamental change is needed to create the framework within which they can be solved: the common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing wealth so that production can be geared to meeting people's needs, not making profits for a wealthy elite.

Because of we have endless problems of poverty, poor services and all the issues politicians love to spend time telling you they can solve, if only given the chance. We don't believe any politician can solve these problems, as long as the flawed basis of our society remains intact. In fact, we believe only you and your fellow workers can solve these problems. We believe that it will take a revolution in how we organise our lives, a fundamental change. We want to see a society based on the fact that you know how to run your lives, know your needs and have the skills and capacity to organise with your fellows to satisfy them.

You know yourselves and your lives better than a handful of bosses ever can. With democratic control of production we can ensure that looking after our communities becomes a priority, rather than something we do in our spare time. We all share fundamental needs, for food, clothing, housing and culture, and we have the capacity to ensure access to these for all, without exception. Together, we have the capacity to run our world for ourselves. We need to build a movement to effect that change, by organising deliberately to take control of the political offices which rule our lives, and bring them into our collective democratic control. We make no promises, offer no pat solutions, only to be the means by which you can remake society for the common good.

NEITHER LEADERS NOR FOLLOWERS.

NEITHER THE MARKET NOR THE STATE

No Resistance to Higher Profits.

Clean energy is progressing as we expect it to. That is, it's going backwards right now. The British Electric Company, SSE, has recently restarted a shuttered power plant that runs on fossil fuels because cheap fossil fuels are undercutting renewables, and the former is now more profitable. 

In other words, as we have said over and over again, capitalist production is incapable of resisting higher profits no matter what the human or environmental cost.

 John Ayers.

A New Competitor

Home Decor stores in Canada have a new competitor, the US on line retailer, Wayfair, that launched a Canadian web site in January. It claimed to offer more than seven million suppliers. The move into Canada will pit Wayfair against Ikea, Winners, Homesense, and Home Outfitters, owned by Hudson's Bay. Orders will be shipped form Wayfair centres in Kentucky and Utah. Shipping is free on orders over $75 and the average order is triple that according to a spokesperson. 

Such stiff competition will result in the loss of Canadian jobs, so another promising distribution idea that should benefit all society, simply brings problems to workers in some areas. 

John Ayers.

DIY Revolution

The Socialist Party is all in favour of workers organising to fight employers to defend and try to improve their pay and conditions. So, good luck to you. This is necessary under capitalism but it's like running up a downward moving escalator. It's never-ending. We would urge workers to look beyond this, and consider the case for a genuinely socialist society (which has never yet been tried) based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, where there'd be no employers and no working for wages but the application of the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". As Karl Marx urged trade unionists years ago: "Instead of the conservative motto: 'A fair day's pay for a fair day's work' they ought to inscribe on their banners the revolutionary watchwords: 'Abolition of the wages system' ".

Imagine that all the people in the world made a set of informed, collective and democratic decisions about what kind of system would best meet their needs and solve global problems. Would they choose a money and property system that forced nearly half their total number to try to survive on a dollar a day? Or would they prefer to organise production and distribution of goods and services on the basis of what they need, without the profit system? Would they, if and when given the chance to vote, do so overwhelmingly for candidates who -- whatever labels they attached to themselves or their parties -- stood for the continuation of some form of capitalism? Or would they elect delegates, from among their own number, to initiate the process of setting up and running a fundamentally new form of world society, a system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution? Would they embrace nationalism, involving armed forces paid to kill and injure other groups ("the enemy") with whom they have no quarrel? Or would they regard themselves and behave as citizens of the world, regardless of any geographical, cultural or philosophical attachments they may feel? Would they divide themselves into classes, rich and poor, leaders and led, privileged and unprivileged, dominant and submissive, superordinate and subordinate, master and servant, powerful and powerless? Or would they, despite individual differences in abilities, personalities, interests, tastes, likes and dislikes, think and behave as members of the one human race, not perfect, sometimes fallible or irrational, but never deliberately cruel or anti-social?

Whatever words they use to explain or sloganise their ideologies, all parties except the Socialist Party stand for the continuation of some form of capitalism. From their point of view, a vote for their own candidate is best; a vote for one of their competitors is second best. Not voting could be a worrying sign of alienation from the system. Worst of all, a vote for the Socialist Party candidate -- or, where none stands, writing "Socialism" across the ballot paper -- would indicate the beginning of a resolution to replace capitalism with socialism.

Support for socialism isn't a matter of campaigning to make the poor rich in today's terms of material consumption. That wouldn't be environmentally sustainable. The socialist aim isn’t even equality in the sense of sameness, like amounts of work contributed or goods and services consumed. Socialism is essentially about social equality, encouraging and enabling every human being to realise their full potential as giver and taker, not buyer and seller, in the context of society itself moving towards reaching its full potential.

We put forward an alternative to capitalism and the madness of the market – a society of common ownership and democratic control. We call it socialism. But real socialism. Not the elite-run dictatorships that collapsed some years ago in Russia and East Europe. And not the various schemes for state control put forward by the old Labour Party. For us socialism means something better than that. We're talking about:

 A world community without any frontiers where the Earth’s resources would be the common heritage of all.

Wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit

Everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money.

A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary.

World socialism, where all the resources of the Earth, natural and industrial, would have become the common heritage of all Humanity, is, quite literally, the only way to have a world without wars, the threat of war, and preparations for war. In such a world the resources now wasted in this way could be used to contribute to the satisfaction of people's needs, so that no man, woman or child in any part of the world goes without proper food, clothing, shelter, education or health care.

If you don't like present-day society ... if you are fed up with the way you are forced to live ... if you think the root cause of most social problems is the profit system, then your ideas echo closely with ours. We are not promising to deliver socialism to you. We are not putting ourselves forward as leaders. This new society can only be achieved if you join together to strive for it. If you want it, then it is something you have to bring about yourselves. Nobody can do it for you.

Don't support something you don't want

The Socialist Party is an independent political party that has been going since 1904. We stand for socialism as a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit. Socialism has never been established anywhere and certainly not in Russia. We are a single issue party and try to put information out to convince people of the merits of socialism. We're going to parliament as rebels and not reformers, changing one law here or there is ineffectual, especially and until we have a mass movement for the abolition of capitalism and the wages system. All politicians assume that capitalism is the only game in town, although they may criticise features of its unacceptable face, such as greedy bankers, or the worst of its excesses, such as unwinnable wars. They defend a society in which we, the majority of the population, must sell our capacity to work to the tiny handful who own most of the wealth. They defend a society in which jobs are offered only if there is a profit to be made.

The Socialist Party urges a truly democratic society in which people take all the decisions that affect them. This means a society without rich and poor, without owners and workers, without governments and governed, a society without leaders and led. In such a society people would cooperate to use all the world’s natural and industrial resources in their own interests. They would free production from the artificial restraint of profit and establish a system of society in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. Socialist society would consequently mean the end of buying, selling and exchange, an end to borders and frontiers, an end to organised violence and coercion, waste, want and war. You can support those parties who will work within the capitalist system and help keep it going. Or you can show you want to overturn it and end the problems it causes once and for all. When enough of us join together, determined to end inequality and deprivation, we can transform elections into a means of doing away with a society of minority rule in favour of a society of real democracy and social equality.

The most common reaction to elections is "it doesn't make any difference anyway who gets in". Which corresponds with our analysis and shows that workers are not stupid: a lot of them do realise what's going on. Only they don't think they can do anything about it, so they just abstain and don't bother to vote at all. It is highly likely that, tomorrow, the abstainers will be the absolute majority. So, why if it makes no difference who gets in, do we in the Socialist Party stand? First, to use a period of heightened interest in politics to put across our case for a society of common ownership, democratic control, production for use, and distribution on the basis of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". And, second, because if workers use their votes intelligently in their own interest they could change things, they could use the vote to help get rid of the profit system and bring in socialism.  It's voting for leaders to try to run the profit system in the interests of the majority that makes no difference, not voting in itself. That's why, where there's no socialist candidate, instead of abstaining we go to the polling station and vote, even if it's only a write-in vote. A way of keeping a potential weapon sharpened for the time when a majority are ready to use it in their own interest. Where there is a socialist candidate standing, we vote for them. Remember, we are the party that makes no promises - it's you that makes the promise when you cast your vote to say "I am a socialist, I will work for common and democratic ownership and control of the wealth of the world between me and my fellow workers." We don't want passive voters, but people to join us, or at least join the debate. Politics should be a two way process, not the passive spectator sport of the professionals in the mass media.

It's no wonder that people feel no pragmatic connection between their voting preferences and the outcomes; and no wonder that people feel so little connection with any of the parties. All these become are technocratic career structures for advancing politicians, a platform from which to project policy ideas to be reflected off the undifferentiated mass, which has no control over what is projected, beyond passive reflection. This process of “mass culture” has, of course, been assisted by the spread of the mass media. The social relationship is the same, a few technocratic broadcasters/media barons, projecting images and ideas to be passively reflected by a land mass of consumers. Indeed, representative politics follows the same course. Instead of abstractedly measuring response in terms of money, it reads response in terms of flat votes, formally equal but failing to register differences in value or quality.

Socialism is a world-wide community with common interests. Where the land, and all the means of production will be owned by mankind as a whole, with democratic control. Where the sole motive for production will be the satisfaction of your needs. Simply put, bread will be baked because people want to eat it—just that. Money will play no part at all in this society because there will be no need for money. Decisions by the community will be taken on their merits. The wages system will be abolished along with all the other stupid trappings of the present system. Socialism will be a system of co-operation; where each will give according to ability and take according to need. Mankind with its knowledge, harnessed to the riches of the earth, is capable of producing abundance. Why be satisfied with a world of shortages? Socialism cannot be introduced by waving a magic political wand. It will be the outcome of understanding and hard work; your understanding, your hard work.

Property Is Theft

On January 27, an article in "The Metro News" focused on the reappearance of an old crime, cattle rustling! Police say that it is on the rise in Alberta and Saskatchewan, driven largely by ranch hands stealing livestock when prices are high, "It's still a problem today. It's like any other property, if there is value to it people are going to steal it. In recent years the value of cattle has approximately doubled." said an RCMP spokesperson. The value of a cow varies from $1,500 to $2,000 and in 2015, six hundred were missing, presumed stolen in Alberta, and one thousand disappeared in Saskatchewan.

 So, clearly, nothing changes under capitalism and wherever there is private property there is value, hence theft. In fact, property is theft from the common ownership of the earth, so let's call it that and be done with it. 

John Ayers

Lack Of Commitment In Life's Natural Path

In 2015, the overall unemployment rate in Toronto fell by 0.5% whereas the that rate for youth rose from 18% to 22% according to Toronto Youth Employment Services. Their explanation was that when there is a lot of choice for employers they will choose older, more experienced workers over youth. Obviously, this makes getting experience a tougher job. It means that our youth face a bleak future unless they learn to organize for socialism and put an end to the capitalist system.

Against this backdrop, it is reported that many young women are disappointed with finding life partners these days. Not surprisingly, young men don't want the commitment of raising a family and buying a home in an uncertain world where well-paid jobs are scarce and companies come and go at the drop of a hat and job security is low. 

So, capitalism is not just adept at ruining existing marriages with the economic pressure of low pay and unemployment but is now preventing many even getting started on life's natural path. Great job! 

John Ayers

That Man to Man, the world o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that

Socialism can't promise infinite riches. Socialism isn't a magic wand. There exists a style of boss politics - vote for me and "I'll get things done for you." A kind of gift relation, we give our votes, they give us public service.  Someone once asked asked our candidate 'What are you going to do about the potholes in the roads?' It was suggested giving the guy a shovel. That's not far off our attitude, not necessarily dig it yourself, but you can organise yourselves, and if you have a problem, get it sorted, without asking the boss man to do it for you. Anyone can go around saying 'I'll do my best for you' and promise to nag officials to do their jobs but we're interested in that.  Our view on political power is so long as the mechanics are in place so that a majority of workers can organise to effect socialism, then it doesn't matter precisely how you count the votes. So far as we're concerned, it is the movement of the vast majority in the interest of the vast majority that matters. Getting a technical victory by counting one more nose than the rest isn't what we're about. What we remain more concerned about is the rights of minorities to try and become majorities, which are hampered by the mainstream media focusing on the existing parties and making it difficult for candidates to be heard on the stages where they need to be in order to make their case. We hold that there is a political decision to be made about the type of society we are living in, and that is the platform we stand on.

In a world that has the potential to produce enough food, clothes, housing and the other amenities of life for all, factories are closing down, workers are being laid off, unemployment is growing, houses are being repossessed and people are having to tighten their belts. And for once the main parties are being honest in offering more of the same, competing with each other as to which of them is going to impose the most “savage cuts”. Inconsistency and sacrifice of principle for the sake of votes marks most of the political parties. “Be all things to all men” might be the watchword of all the political leaders. All the other the parties serve capitalism, in one way or another.

Capitalism in relatively "good" times is bad enough, but capitalism in an economic crisis makes it plain for all to see that it is not a system geared to meeting people's needs. It’s a system based on the pursuit of profits, where the harsh economic law of "no profit, no production" prevails. The headlong pursuit of profits has led to a situation where the owners can't make profits at the same rate as before. The class who own and control the places where wealth is produced have gone on strike – refusing to allow these workplaces to be used to produce what people need, some desperately. So, as in the 1930s, it’s poverty in the midst of potential plenty again. Cutbacks in production and services alongside unmet needs. Why should we put up with this? There is an alternative.

But that's the way capitalism works, and must work. The politicians in charge of the governments don't really know what to do, not that they can do much to change the situation anyway. They are just hoping that the panic measures they have taken will work. But the slump won’t end until conditions for profitable production have come about again, and that requires real wages to fall and unprofitable firms to go out of business. So, there's no way that bankruptcies, cut-backs and lay-offs are going to be avoided, whatever governments do or whichever party is in power.

What can be done? Nothing within the profit system. It can‘t be mended, so it must be ended. But this is something we must do ourselves. The career politicians, with their empty promises and futile measures, can do nothing for us. We need to organise to bring in a new system where goods and services are produced to meet people's needs. But we can only produce what we need if we own and control the places where this is carried out. So these must be taken out of the hands of the rich individuals, private companies and states that now control them and become the common heritage of all, under our democratic control. In short, socialism in its original sense. This has nothing to do with the failed state capitalism that used to exist in Russia or with what still exists in China and Cuba.

African American ‘Soledad Brother’ George Jackson explains socialism:

"Consider the people's store, after full automation, the implementation of the theory of economic advantage. You dig, no waste makers, no harnesses on production. There is no intermediary, no money. The store, it stocks everything that the body or home could possibly use. Why won't the people hoard, how is an operation like that possible, how could the storing place keep its stores if its stock (merchandise) is free?

Men hoard against want, need, don't they? Aren’t they taught that tomorrow holds terror, pile up a surplus against this terror, be greedy and possessive if you want to succeed in this insecure world? Nuts hidden away for tomorrow's winter.

Change the environment, educate the man, he'll change. The people's store will work as long as people know that it will be there, and have in abundance the things they need and want (really want); when they are positive that the common effort has and will always produce an abundance, they won’t bother to take home more than they need.

Water is free, do people drink more than they need?"

What’s wrong with politics?

Mocking politicians is alright to a certain extent but it can give rise to the mistaken idea that it is because of corrupt and self-seeking politicians that we suffer from the social problems we do. It's not. It's the fault of capitalism. Even if all politicians were saints they still couldn't make capitalism work in our interest. Nor is it true that all elections are a joke and a waste of time. While what the professional politics who currently dominate politics get up to at Westminster and the antics they engage in to get votes do deserve to be mocked, especially as the media give them so much publicity, there is a serious side to elections.

Elections are ultimately about who controls the government and who gets to make the laws. Ever since most electors have been wage and salary workers the capitalist class has needed to persuade workers into voting for politicians who will support their system. This is what elections are about: tricking workers into voting for pro-capitalist politicians. It is right to expose this, but wrong to conclude that this means we should never have anything to do with elections. The response should be, as Marx once put it, to transform universal suffrage "from the instrument of fraud that it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation". Which is one of the points we are trying to make in contesting this and other elections.

Universal suffrage came into being partly as a result of pressure from below. From the 1760s the elections were associated with radical politics: demands for reform of the political system and protests against the economic hardships and lack of liberty for the labouring classes began to appear in the speeches. But what was reform of the political system if not the extension of the suffrage and its use to gain access to political power to try to improve the situation of the labouring class, such as the Chartists later campaigned for? And what did the Suffragettes want if not to extend the suffrage? Was this wrong? We say no, the extension of the vote to workers is a gain and is a crucial difference between today and the situation in 1700s. Certainly, at present the vote is not used wisely -- in fact it is used very unwisely -- but that doesn't mean that it can't be used when once workers have woken up to the fact that capitalism can never be made to work in their interests. To try to speed up this awareness is another reason why we contest elections.

Any suggestion to try to disrupt the elections, is completely irresponsible is probably just anarchist bombast. If anybody really tried it, they should remember the song "I fought the Law...And the Law Won".

Political parties invariably try to give us confidence that this time promises will be kept, regulations will be tightened and adhered to, unemployment will be tackled and reduced (figures can be manipulated). A minor change here, a cosmetic tweak there, but the status quo will endure regardless. When reading or listening to the election promises and then thinking back rationally to other, similar pledges by previous candidates and recalling the reality of U-turns, excuses and failure to deliver over the years, how could anyone doubt the absolute imperative of addressing the question of what’s gone wrong with politics with the utmost seriousness? If we simply moan and complain from our armchairs what will change? A compliant, too passive electorate is repeatedly defrauded.

If you think you've been cheated over the years, you're right; capitalism is nothing but a racket. The proof of the failure of the world capitalist system to meet the needs and aspirations of the majority of the population of every country of the world is there for all to see, clear and manifest, if only they will open their eyes wide and acknowledge the overwhelming evidence.  Politics, the activities associated with how a country or an area is run, is something which should engage the interest and activity of every citizen worldwide as it bears directly on all aspects of life. The reason for contempt or indifference towards politics comes from a history of being excluded, the expectation of being excluded and the acceptance of being excluded. To be heard, to be considered, to be represented honestly we need to be involved in the decision-making processes, not to be told what is in our best interest by self-serving professional politicians. We need a system that works for us all, of which we're all an integral part, a system we're prepared to work to attain. What we need is socialism.

Capitalism's Wild West

 In China, a mountain of debris collapsed into apartment buildings killing 69, reported the New York Times, January 24. On examination, it was discovered that duplicity, doctored documents, and approvals ignoring safety rules were the culprit in the tragedy. 

Not only is China NOT a communist country, it is the wild west of capitalism. 

John Ayers.

Equalilty, Just A Myth

A Toronto Star article of January 25 reports Milwaukee as the most segregated city in the US. Apart from strictly white and black neighbourhoods, the numbers tell a tale. White employment rate is 88%, Black 58%; white poverty rate 8%, black 39%; whites living in extreme poverty areas, `1.6%, black 33%; white incarceration rate 0.9%, black 12%; median white household income $62,100, black $26,036.

 One may think this is difficult to believe over 50 years on from the freedom marches but we can easily believe that any equality under capitalism is just a myth. 

John Ayers.