Self Destruction

The Washington Post revealed in February that alcohol is killing Americans at a rate not seen in thirty-five years. In 2014, 30,700 Americans died from alcohol-induced causes. 17.4% of US women binge drink, up from 15.7% in 2002. Seventy-four alcohol-based drinks a week are consumed on average by the top ten percent of American drinkers. Furthermore, in 2014, there were 28,647 deaths from heroin and prescription pain-killers. 

It must surely occur to some that something is seriously wrong with our society that causes people to destroy themselves. 

John Ayers.

Nothing can stop an idea that has come of age.

The main drive of capitalism demands a commodity market where everything is for sale with a view to profit. This drive is the profit motive. It is generally accepted and idealised as the best possible motive for producing what society needs. It operates in all countries of the world and every country has a ruling and subject class. There are no exceptions. The profit motive works — after a fashion and at a terrible cost to society. While we produce commodities that we may or may not need, we produce in the process huge piles of garbage and toxic waste, a polluted world, an endangered earth and a threat to all forms of life. The profit motive is a corruptive force. It cripples the spirit of co-operation while promoting competition which leads to either a cold or hot war.

It breeds false prophets who preach that monetary riches lead to security, success, and happiness. It divides people and cultivates hate, favours the few and condemns the many. It is outdated, unnecessary, unhealthy and must be replaced. The question is, “By what, how and by whom”? Modern technology harnessed by common sense can work for the common good of all people. This means replacing the profit motive and market economy, with a human motive and democratic economy, where the role of the individual will simply be, "From each according to ability, to each according to need".

We don't have to be saints or utopians but we must be politically informed, and to know our real interests. The popular concept of a democracy today is a farce, the propaganda of the ruling class and its supporters. We must desire, demand and build a real democracy. A real democracy can only be achieved on a worldwide basis. It cannot exist on a national level. The people, as a whole, must own and control the means of life and democratically make the decisions. We do not need leaders. We need only ourselves, the working class, and together with the tools of technology and the desire of a sane society we can complete the job. If we meet this challenge we can easily solve the pollution problems of the mind and the environment. Our reward will be a World without classes, just people living life to its fullest and getting along together. The only thing that can stop us is ourselves, and nothing can stop an idea that has come of age.

The Socialist Party single-mindedly pursues the establishment of a society freed from the constraints, contradictions and degradations of the market, commodity production, and the wages system. Because we are the only political party in this country advocating socialism, we reject any thought of compromise or alliance with other organisations. Socialists do not water down their principles in order to trawl in workers who support reform programmes or the anti-democratic doctrines of the Left. Neither do we seek advertising agencies or public relations consultants telling us what ought to be in our election manifestos or Party statements. When our candidates stand in local or parliamentary elections they are not first sent to image advisers to polish their style. Instead, we insist on workers attaining class-consciousness through argument, persuasion and their own experience, to the point where they understand capitalism and the need to abolish it altogether.

If, as a result, we are considered unfashionable and detached from the politics of "revolution" as understood by the Left, then so be it. We stand or fall on our insistence that democratic means must be in line with democratic ends. The politics of reform and compromise have left a trail of bitter failure throughout the twentieth century, with numerous and now largely forgotten casualties buried unceremoniously along the way. We only ever want votes from class-conscious socialists, for the purpose of organising to capture political power and introduce socialism. This means that the question of fashion or principles is an important one, for it is ultimately about the retention of capitalism or its abolition. Until the workers grasp the elementary facts of their wage-slavery and the utter hopelessness of any solution but socialism, all the social ills will continue to increase in aggravation.

Highland grouse (1978) - book review

Highland grouse (1978)

Book Review from the October 1978 issue of theSocialist Standard

Who Owns Scotland by John McEwen EUSBP £1.50 (paperback)

This book sets out to list those people who are the real landowners in Scotland. The author, who is over 90 years old, has worked in forestry in Scotland practically all his life and writes from the inside; the book is heart written in sorrow.

The work is in two sections. The first lists actual ownership of Scottish land, in terms of thousands of acres. McEwen starts by giving a league table of the top 100 landowners. At the head is the Duke of Buccleuch with what McEwen calls an “obscene” 277,000 acres. The Countess of Sutherland, whose ancestors were as ruthless as any in the last century’s highland clearances, owns only 185,000 acres, while poor old Lord Home has a mere 54,000 acres. Poverty indeed; he doesn’t know where the next grouse is coming from. This section then divides Scotland into areas, and looks at the ownership of each part of it. The results are pretty well what one would expect. The total area of Scotland is 19.068,807 acres ("Our land” as the author so childishly calls it). Of this, 16,500,000 are owned privately (as opposed to owned by the State) and of this figure 12,000,000 are in estates of 1000 acres or more. The chances are that many countries in the Western world would show a similar pattern.

The second part of the book consists of a series of essays under the general title of “Management and Husbandry of Our (sic) land”. Here McEwen ranges over his pet topics, complains about bad husbandry, the "sadistic anti-social-blood-sportsman”, the failures of the forestry commission etc.

It would be nice to welcome this analysis; but it is impossible to do so. To begin with the book contains many petty mistakes, revealing that the editing has been undertaken carelessly. This may not be important; but it makes one wonder just how carefully the tables have been checked.

More important is the fact that the author is a confused Labour Party supporter. This results in a book that is “all right” if all one wants to do is quote a few impressive sounding statistics (e.g.: in 1874 the Sinclairs held 187,000 of the 471,000 acres of Caithness, now they hold only 52,000 acres, etc), but useless if one wants to understand the basis of land ownership in a capitalist society, and its twin brother, rent. The author’s analysis of the cause of problems relating to land is, quite frankly, hopeless. For example, he claims that the formation of the Forestry Commission in 1919 “with the objective of establishing state-owned forests was one of the finest things which ever happened in land ownership and land use in Britain.” The Forestry Commission was formed as a result of the war time shortage of timber, and the need for what McEwen disarmingly calls ‘‘everyday domestic use”. But what he does not realise is that capitalism does not want timber for “everyday domestic use”; it wants timber for sale at a profit. How this elementary observation has escaped McEwen is quite baffling. As a result, his "solutions” become naive to the point of absurdity. So for example in calling for lower agriculture prices (the farmers will love him for that) he says this can be achieved by eliminating the “middle-man”.

The book concludes with a call for the Labour Party to do something. And what should they do? Why, establish a Royal Commission of course! This should “enquire deeply into the failure of private landlords in their so-called stewardship of land in Britain.” That will frighten them on the grouse moors and in the deer forests. And after the Royal Commission? — nationalisation of the land. Nationalisation of coal, or railways, or electricity etc has solved no workers’ problems. Why nationalisation of the land should do so McEwen can’t explain. He doesn’t even try. The book shows how pointless are “the facts” unless they are interpreted, through socialist understanding, in the interests of the majority.

Ronnie Warrington

PEOPLE OR PROFIT

Every few years you have your occasional ration of democracy with the opportunity to vote for a political representative. It's all very well having a vote - but are you normally given any real choice? Let's face it, if it wasn't for the picture on the front of the election leaflet, could you tell which party was which? It's tempting, in the absence of any real alternative, to get drawn into the phony war that is political debate today. It always amounts to the same thing – they offer no alternative to the present way of running society. Do you really think politicians make any difference to how you live? Do politicians (whether left-wing, nationalist or right-wing) actually have much real power anyway? OK, they get to open supermarkets, but it's capitalism and the market system which closes them down.

REALITY CHECK

Do any of the political parties address any of the real issues:

Why is there world hunger in a world of food surpluses?

Why are there unemployed nurses, alongside closed-down hospitals and waiting lists?

Why are there homeless people in the streets and empty houses with "for sale" signs?

Why do some people get stressed working long hours while others get stressed from the boredom of

unemployment?

SO WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

You have a real choice.  THE SOCIALIST PARTY puts 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 a few years ago in Russia and East Europe. And not the various failed schemes for state control once put forward by the Labour Party. For us socialism means something better than that.

 We're talking about a world community without any frontiers. About wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit. About 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.

SO WHAT NOW?

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 market system, then your ideas echo closely with ours. If you want to vote for our party we're delighted. But we don't really want votes based on a misreading of what we are about. We are not promising to deliver socialism to you. We'll be making the case for socialism. Nor is it the number of votes we get that counts, it's the number of people our message reaches. We are not putting ourselves forward as leaders. This new society can only be achieved if we join together to strive for it. If you want it, then it is something you have to bring about yourselves.

Food For Thought

Arlene Dickinson, that shining example of the 'anyone can make it in capitalism' bullshit recently wept crocodile-tears on the TV program, "Dragons' Den", saying, "it's unacceptable that any child in our country should be homeless." This is from a person who has worked extremely hard to perpetuate an economic system that makes children homeless. 

Perhaps she should be examining that system more closely. 

John Ayers.

They Don't Co-exist

China's economy is slowing down, as all economies must when in a given position in the 'business cycle'. Changchun, China is labelled 'the Detroit of China' because its auto plants are going down like pins in a bowling alley. The government has set aside $20 billion to assist unemployed workers in the industrial region but doubts are held that the 150,000 state run companies employing 30 million workers can continue subsidies or let market forces take over. As socialists know from the former USSR, market forces will have to be let loose. China is subject to world-wide economic forces and will be forced to take the capitalist route. 

Another reason why socialism and capitalism cannot co-exist. 

John Ayers.

We’re not going to do anything for anyone

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein

The Socialist Party argues the case that capitalism is well past its sell-by date. The world can now easily produce wealth sufficient to adequately house, feed, care for and educate the global population. Instead we see hunger, disease and homelessness around the world despite the concerns of governments, charities and pop-stars. Closer to home, in a "developed" nation like the UK, we see child poverty and an increasing gulf between rich and poor. Rates of depression and anxiety are becoming epidemic. Capitalism is failing: it now acts as a barrier, preventing production being geared to human need. Rather than keep trying to tinker with this system we should start looking beyond it to an alternative: a wages-free, money-free, class-free world community based on production for human need, not profit. This social change can only come about once the majority understand it and want it. It won't come about by following leaders or voting for someone else to do it.

Other political parties (whether openly pro-capitalist or avowedly socialist) are asking you to believe that they can run this society a little bit better. We’d argue that history shows that the money system actually ends up running them. Their election promises usually amount to nothing. So don’t vote for them - it only encourages the idea that capitalism can be made better. A vote for the Socialist Party in contrast, is a statement that you don’t want to live this way and that you think another world is possible. If you have confidence that humans can live and work co-operatively without the pressure of the wages system, or the rationing system of money.

What is apparent is the extent to which all the parties try and manage the agenda in an election. They all want to encourage the debate to be round the handful of high-profile “flagship” issues where they feel on strong ground. But it’s always phrased along the lines of “knocking on doors, we keep hearing that XXX is the real issue of the day”. Funnily enough, we never hear for example, “recent canvassing returns indicate that voters actually don’t give a damn about our policies one way or the other”. The assumption is that voters are stupid and can only remember 3 or 4 things at a time, so why give them more than that to consider. What it all means is that the campaign may centre around a handful of issues only. That may appear to appeal to the Socialist Party. After all we are the ultimate single issue party - Abolish capitalism. But while this is a single issue no-one is pretending that it is a simple case. Sure it’s not complicated, the case for putting human need ahead of profit, but sound-bites don’t do our case justice. We are also handicapped in the eyes of the modern voter by the fact that we are not in a position to make promises, and what’s more, we aren’t going to “do anything” for anyone. The other parties are falling over each other to be seen to be offering some immediate palliative.

What is important to recognise is that these so-called “local” issues that are high on the agenda (such as the NHS, education, and housing) are pressing issues everywhere else. But these are not really local issues after all. It’s just that many people (and all of our opponents) think the solution is usually a local one, so there is no point looking elsewhere for the answer. Unhappy with the plans for the local hospital? Well, don’t worry whoever gets elected will have a word with the local Health Board and try and clarify the situation. Concerned about lack of fire cover because of closed fire stations? Don’t worry, one of the politicians will make sure you are consulted about it. Losing sleep over global warming? No problem, I’ll just turn the thermostat down… (OK we made the last one up)

In fact the problem underpinning most of the supposed “local” issues is usually much broader. It’s not just specific local problems (like poor consultation or ill thought through proposals). The whole issue of provision of essential services such as health care and schools is dictated by the level of resources allocated. And whether it is in Livingston or Llannelli, the same picture emerges: social services are obviously extremely stretched. Public sector workers are under pressure to work harder, for less money and now for longer with the retirement ages raised increased.

The economic storm clouds are gathering which are likely to severely inhibit Prime Minister Brown’s room for manoeuvre. In reality, the government is in control of the economy the same way a duck bobbing around on the ocean is in control of the tides. Our opponents are making all sorts of promises to the voters. What will they do for the NHS? Will they remove prescription charges? What is a “fair living wage”? In so doing we’d say they are fighting over the crumbs from the rich man’s plate, rather than upsetting the whole table. The Socialist Party’s view is that this is the merciless logic of the market system. The capitalist class don’t want to pay any more than they have to. Or anything more than the bare minimum. The reason? – ultimately, these costs come off the profits of UK Capitalism.

Socialist sentiments lurk inside us all, often without us realising it. In the Socialist Party, we don’t just pay lip service to this basic principle though: for us it’s not just a nice idea - it’s the essence of our position. Only the Socialist Party has the practical case that is consistent with this idea. Let’s be in no doubt, despite the politicians platitudes, the reality is that profit does come before public welfare and safety. Somewhere in the local authority or Holyrood or Westminster, there is an accountant doing a cost-benefit analysis. They are working the cost savings.  

You don’t need to be told not to place too much faith in whichever politician gets elected - history would suggest that promises made before the election quickly get discarded when in office, and the pressure of trying to run the profit system in the interests of humanity become too difficult.

The Socialist Party advocates the abolition of buying and selling and money and wages. We want the replacement of the system where production is geared to profit, by a system where production is based on self-defined human needs. In the (admittedly) unlikely event that the Socialist Party is elected, we would very probably give our support to many reform demands, where we felt it would advance the interests or conditions of the working class. But it is reasonable for us to not want to allow this to divert us from the mandate we would have been elected on, to push for a world where the satisfaction of human need is the first and last and only consideration of society

Brian Gardner

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.