We can go forward

Socialism proposes wealth and abundance for all and the good things of life for everybody. No poverty anymore, no more filth and disease and crime. You say all this is a dream? No, not dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. Modern science have so increased the productive capacity of mankind that all men and women could have abundance of wealth by working only three or four hours a day, two or three times a week.  Socialism proposes to get this abundance for each and every one of us.

In order for this to happen, we must do something. What is it we require to do? It is this: Take to ourselves these vast new inventions and robotic machinery and use them for producing new wealth for all instead of producing it for a few. Mankind would no longer be the slave of the machine. The machine will become the servant of humanity. Every increase in productivity would bring with it two things:

1. an increase in the things required for the need, comfort and even luxury of all;

2. an increase in everyone’s leisure time, to devote to the free cultural and intellectual development of humankind. Man will not live primarily to work; he will work primarily to live.

This is our practical perspective. Even today, with all the restrictions that capitalism places upon production, there are specialists and experts who declare that industry, properly organised, can produce the necessities of life for all in a working day of four hours or less and a working week of only a few days. Organised on a socialist basis, even this figure could be cut down. As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant the differences between physical and mental labour, between town and country are eliminated. A rationally planned society, efficiently using our present productive equipment and the better equipment to come, could easily assure abundance to all. In return, society could confidently expect every citizen to contribute his best voluntarily. Announce a shortage of bread, and immediately a long line will form, with everyone racing to get there first. But if everyone knew that there is an ample supply of bread today, and there will be just as large a supply tomorrow and the next day, there would be no line. In the midst of abundance for all and with the changes it will imbue within members of society development that will accompany it, there is no reason to expect people to be still poisoned with the old spirit of greed, selfishness, cheating and other evils of a class society where only the few enjoy abundance and opportunity. What will there be to steal in the midst of abundance?

The only reason we are not all sharing in these advancements now is that a few people own these great modern tools and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves.  If we owned the factories, offices and mills ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear at once. The only thing that lies between us and the free access to the fruits of our labour is this private ownership of the means of producing wealth. The men and women who are denied the right to use their own machinery are the men who now work for wages, a bare living. They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. This is the working class. Socialism appeals to them on the ground of their self-interests, the ground on which all practical people base their appeals to others. We say to the workers: “Come with us, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power of government to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.”

The mission of the Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and to shut out of the parties the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system. We wage a war of ideas on the battlefield the ballots. Socialism, based upon the planned organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is the abolition of all classes and class differences. Many challenge us that this it is only an ideal which cannot be realised in practice. The Socialist Party declares it is a practical possibility and an urgent necessity.

Production should not be organised on the basis of the blind pull and push of the capitalist market, but in accordance with the needs of the people. Production for profit will give way to production for use. Capitalism’s motive of production was, is, and always will be profit. It is not the needs of the people that determines its production. If, however, production were carried on for use, to satisfy the needs of the people, the question immediately arises: Who is to decide what is useful and what would satisfy these needs? Will that be decided exclusively by a small board of planners? No matter how high-minded and wise they might be, they could not plan production for the needs of the people. Production for use, by its very nature, demands constant consultation of the people, constant control and direction by the people. The democratically-adopted decision of the people would have to guide the course of production and distribution. Democratic control of the means of production and distribution would have to be exercised by the people to see to it that their decision is being carried out. Production for use, aimed at satisfying the needs of society and of freeing all the people from class rule, would be impossible if production would be regulated by the autocratic, uncontrolled will of a bureaucracy. Democratic control, the continual extension of democracy, is therefore an indispensable necessity.

Socialism is not a utopian ideal, a blueprint for society that exists only in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity. It is the direction that people must in order to satisfy their social needs, take in order to save society from disintegration and destruction. The abolition of private ownership would remove the last barrier to the development of production. Production would be organised, planned and expanded, and aimed at satisfying the needs of society. To be a socialist, merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work in an organised manner for the achievement of the goal.

“Abundance for all? Freedom for all? A society without a state? Impossible!” No, it is, at long last, humanity coming to its senses. Men and women will prove that class division and oppression are not inevitable, poverty and hunger are not unavoidable and the state is not indispensable. In the socialist society we will show that abundance, freedom and equality are not only possible but the natural condition for the new history of the human race.

Workers Wake Up

Capitalism remains, for all the tinkering, a system of crisis. For more than a century the domination of the capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism. The crises arise out of the private ownership of the means of production and the private acquisi­tion of the goods produced by social labor for social consumption. Capitalism, while having developed the highest level of production, is a system of waste and inefficiency, through useless com­petition and the alienation of men and women. Socialists seek to change the economic laws governing society and human relations, by bringing order and plan into production. Once collectively in control of the means whereby we live via common ownership, we will develop more efficient means. Common ownership eliminates the crisis in society by removing all the areas of class conflict, since we would all be owners of the productive forces of the community. The only definitive solution to these problems is the elimination of capitalism and its institutions, and the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, rational economic and social planning. The fundamental task of The Socialist Party is the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Capitalism has developed as a world economic system. It is illusory to believe that the much higher development of the productive forces that socialism entails can be achieved within the framework of a single country. The division of the world into different states imposes a definite form on the revolutionary process. The proletariat must and can take power and begin to build socialism in the territories defined by different existing states. But the construction of socialism can be completed only on a world scale.

People live in a society racked with crisis. This society can neither guarantee them a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. The threat of environmental destruction or nuclear war casts a shadow over the lives of all of us . It is our generation that must end capitalism because future generations may not be around to do it. This society places a premium on wealth, not ability or dedication. The vast majority of our people work out their lives for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. Our world staggers from one crisis to another, increasing chronic unemployment—particularly among youth, a vicious and unending drive against the rights of labour, and a budget in which one-third of the funds are marked for weapons of mass murder—all these are hallmarks of the "system" we live under. The system is capitalism. Under it a small minority rule in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs come second—if at all. We live in a society which puts a price tag on everything. Even poets, writers and artists find the road to "success" demands that they shape their art to the whims of the wealthy and privileged.

Man is divided along class lines determined by his relations to the means of production—there are those who own means of production—capital—and those who only possess the ability to work at the means of production owned by others. Between these two forces there is a conflict over the division of the fruits of labor. This struggle is the class struggle. The class struggle is a fact. If it were not so there would be no need for trade unions. And if it were not so, there would be no basis for a socialist party. The Socialist Party holds out the possibility of a new society of production for use, not for profit. Freed from the clutches of the profit-gougers and their hangers-on, the major industries must be brought under common ownership and the economy must be planned by the people themselves in their own areas of work. The profit system cannot make use of automation for the benefit of society; socialism will! The future society that will be constructed under socialism will reduce work to an insignificant part of daily life and offer the individual the fullest possibilities to pursue his or her own abilities and interests. Our heritage is rich let everybody have the opportunity to freely access it. Despite the relative passivity and docility of the working people, it is clear that their very life situation forces them to come repeatedly into conflict with the system. They find themselves in daily conflict with the employers in the struggle for decent wages and security.

People are increasingly disillusioned and many seek new paths, new roads forward. They search for social change.  The world can be changed. For the sake of humanity it must be changed. Around the world humanity is saying "Enough" and is beginning to move. Though our lives and conditions be different; though we live in different parts of the world; though our struggles take different forms; ours is a common goal—an end to the oppression and exploitation of man by man. How can our planet be changed? Certainly no elite will serve the task. We do not want to replace one group of masters with another. Nor do we want the patronising assistance of those whose real interests lie with the present system. We must look to those whose interests lie in change—to working people, the people who work in the factories and offices of our society. They built the society—and they too are cut off from power and progress by the tiny minority that owns the wealth in Canada. The bosses need the working people—but the workers don’t need the bosses. For most people democracy remains a word without meaning. We are cut off from the ability to make decisions affecting our own lives. The giant corporations and the capitalist magnates determine all the key questions. Only when we have economic democracy, when production is planned for use and not for profit, when the right of all to share in the abundance of our country is established - only then will democracy be truly established.

When we say that we are revolutionary socialists we are not talking about a change in society that would take place when a small group takes over the local city council office and runs up the red flag. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of people consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way that the government operates to the way people relate to their jobs. We're out to change the whole system. We see that all the problems we face are intimately tied to the problems throughout the whole country, the continent, the world. And therefore if we are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the whole system. To be effective you have to build an organisation capable of doing that.

As socialists we believe in the great task of transforming this society—of building a new world. We stand for a world which can eliminate poverty and hunger and war; a world in which freedom is more than a word in a textbook; a world in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the producers themselves and the products of mankind are available to all. The potential of mankind virtually limitless, if it is freed from economic and social oppression. We stand for socialism. We have no illusions that the way will be easy, no visions of quick success. But the future belongs to humanity and socialism!

Raking in the cash on poverty

ANTI-poverty campaigner Sir Bob Geldof has charged Australian organisers $100,000 to give a speech about world suffering.     

  

Geldof, 54, spoke about the tragedy of Third World poverty and the failure of governments to combat the crisis at a Crown casino function in Melbourne on Thursday night.   But he charged about $100,000 for his troubles - a speakers fee that included the cost of luxury hotel rooms and first-class airfares.

Fellow activist, World Vision CEO the Reverend Tim Costello, spoke for free. An event insider said the Geldof payments, which included the costs of a minder, appeared hypocritical.   "It was an inspiring speech. But when you think he got paid $100,000 to talk about poverty it seems like a bit of a contradiction," the insider said:

http://bit.ly/1qCDkXY

How Green is my Capitalist Nonsense

TWENTY-ONE year old Ross Greer is celebrating a personal victory today after becoming the youngest-ever MSP at Holyrood.

The former Bearsden Academy student gained a seat for the West of Scotland region having first joined the party when he was just 15.

It used to be said, "there is no fool like an old fool", but the legacy of utopian reformism seems to be carrying on through even younger apologists,however well meaning and sincere they may be personally.

His posts on the Greens website appears to be in keeping with the Green party politics but more generally capitalist politics:

'Only the Scottish Green Party offered the practical solutions that I wanted, combining social justice and equality with sustainability and practical solutions to tackling climate change.'

All of the parties say this, with some variations on the theme and it is a nonsense in the context of a social system which depends upon the exploitation of a majority of wage enslaved workers, to produce for sale in the profitable interests of a minority parasite economic class.

Only a commonly owned, production for use ,free access society can deliver real social equality and do away with waged slavery, rationed access and governments 'over' the people.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/what-socialism

Yours in Struggle,

The Socialist Party proudly declares itself a party of revolutionary socialism. This mean we stand for the abolition of capitalism, nothing more and nothing less. We do not stand for the reform of any institution under capitalism. Our activities are directed towards the complete overthrow of capitalism, and, to that end, we have concentrated our attention upon the education of our fellow-workers who are engaged in wealth production and who are exploited in the process. We reject a political policy of reformism, campaigning in elections for palliatives and amelioration of our working and social conditions but if elected on the single issue platform of establishing socialism, our members would support legislation that would advance the interests of the working class and aid the workers in their class struggle against capitalism. Elected members under the instruction and direction of the Party as a whole would support specific measures that improved working conditions and the lives of our fellow workers. It is important to note that no one is saying that socialists should abstain from the class struggle or from participation in mass movements. Our policy is to make rebels and not philosophers. But for now, the world socialist movement is in a similar position to that of the child learning to walk. The movement has been born, it is at the crawling stage, it has taken a few steps and had a few falls and tumbles, but in the swift evolution of events, it will be walking. From every standpoint, the outlook for socialism looks promising. We will be up and running.

Capital is the God that rules the world today, and it does so with an iron fist. The world’s factories and workplaces are the temples of this modern god. Upon its altars are sacrificed daily a multitude of men, women and children in order that the sweet incense of profit may waft into the nostrils of this divine brute. The God – Capital – reigns, and slavery, rapine, and slaughter are the normal conditions under his beastly sway. Just how long it is going to be before the workers deny this God its divinity and cease their offerings to it.

"You are all dreamers!" is the accusation thrown at the Socialist Party by those who believe in so-called practical politics and pragmatic policies. It is a usual saying with those who are anti-socialist that "Socialists are impossibilists."  On the contrary, we are urging upon society a practical realisation of ideals based on reality. We resolve not to stay wage-slaves any longer, but to struggle unceasingly against the capitalist class until we conquer power and establish the rule of the workers. The object of the Socialist Party is to organise and prepare the working class for the Social Revolution.

The Socialist Party is dedicated to the struggle to abolish all exploitation of man by man through the establishment of socialism. We are confident that, with effective work on our part and through their own experience, the democratic majority of workers will come to recognise the need for such a fundamental change in the economic basis of our society. The times are ripe for socialism. On a world scale, the objective conditions are ripe, rotten ripe, for the growth of the revolutionary world party. Everywhere, capitalism is mired in the morass of its own creation. Unemployment increases, poverty, undernourishment and sickness spread, prices rise and wages sink. For working people the recession of 2007/8 has never ended and still drags the people into even deeper depths of misery. Governments can answer recession only with repression. Trade unions freedoms are threatened and civil liberties curbed. The workers are in desperate need of the necessities of life and of secure, guaranteed living standards. Yet the majority of our fellow-workers remain outside the ranks of socialism. Why are capitalist parties still returned to power by pauperised people? Why?

Reformism remains an agency of a certain section of the ruling class. Revolutionary socialists do not subscribe to the theory that the workers must necessarily go through the experiences of reformism before moving towards the revolution. Reformism is a barrier to the development of revolutionary consciousness the working class. Our biggest job is to put our party on the map. Mass distributions of our magazine and leaflets plus our public meetings, will not be sufficient to overcome our comparative isolation. We must demonstrate to the workers that we are a serious political party and it for this reason that we enter the political arena by running candidates in elections.  

We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty, it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests, the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people. We aim not to crush individuality but seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater and richer individual life for every citizen. The road to jobs for all, to prosperity and plenty for all, to peace, is the road to socialism. There is no other. The capitalist system is irreparable, and any programme that is based on any illusions on this score or has this in mind is bankrupt and will only lead to the demoralisation, disillusionment and open betrayal of those who count on it. The world needs a new system and it is the aim, the purpose, the intention of the Socialist Party. The society of human brotherhood, freedom, peace, that is socialism, is the noblest aim that man has ever aspired to. It has reason and truth on its side. It will eliminate all the pettiness, narrowness, conflict that now saps man’s potentialities. All will gain.

The Socialist Party does not worry about reorganising the trade union movement; we do not propose to fritter away our forces in guerrilla warfare with the capitalist class about better conditions under capitalism. It is inevitable that the workers will resist the conditions imposed upon them under capitalism and should seek some redress against their oppression. Thus the origin of trade unionism. It is our duty to point out the limitations of these means of defence and urge them to take offensive measures against capitalism. To say that by the general strike alone the workers can emancipate themselves is ridiculous—it is only part of the action necessary for the overthrow of capitalism. It is a common saying that the workers control in industry, their "economic power" and so on, but we must recognize that the workers, by refusing to work do not demonstrate their control of industry. They demonstrate the fact that they can destroy industry by refusing to work. To destroy a thing is one thing, to control it is another. A strike by the workers could make it impossible for the capitalist to extract profits—but that does not give the workers control of industry. The workers must not only make it impossible for the capitalist to rule—they must take over society and rule themselves. We cannot sit down and wait patiently for capitalism to collapse. Conditions call for action. Conditions were never so favourable as they are today for the unfurling of the red banner of socialism. The fight goes on and will only end with the establishment of world socialism. Rally to the call for complete emancipation! In answer to the oppression of the capitalist class let our battle cry be:

"Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a World to gain."

Capitalism is the Enemy

Only a socialist world can give us peace and plenty. Look how the capitalist world keeps tottering on the brink of destruction. War is a grim reality for millions. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the construction of socialism. The struggle for socialism will be an arduous one but only by wresting the state power from the capitalists can we begin the task of building world socialism. We, in the Socialist Party, refuse to join the reformists in leading the workers into the camp of capitalism and support palliatives. Now is the time for the working class to overthrow capitalism not to fix it. In the process of capital accumulation by the capitalists, wealth is constantly accumulated at one end and poverty is accumulated at the other. “This,” Marx said, “is an absolute and general law of capitalist accumulation.” (Capital, Vol. 1)

Socialists have always taught that war was not a question of the wickedness of individuals but the result of the conflicts caused by private ownership and profit and the existence of separate national states. There is only one class which loses in war and that is the working class. There is only one force stronger than any weapon of mass destruction and that is the international solidarity of the working class. Workers everywhere have their class interests in common. It is to them and not to the rulers of the world we must look to for peace. End the system that leads to war. Fight for world socialism.

 The first requirement for the workers in all countries of the world is to break cleanly from the capitalist class and their political parties, and any and all concepts of coalitions with their parties. It is time to overturn the putrid capitalist system in all lands. The Socialist Party does not preach conciliation and peaceful co-existence with capitalism but advocates class struggle against it. Only through an irreconcilable struggle against capitalism, towards its elimination and the establishment of socialism, will the people of the world find the full freedom, equality and democracy for which they aspire. Capitalism promises not the amelioration of all the social problems but austerity, oppression, and the eventual and inevitable destruction of mankind. Technological progress is reaping vast profits for the industrial and financial oligarchy while condemning many workers to permanent unemployment. Only through socialism can the benefits of technological change for the workers by established such as the shorter working hours and better working conditions.  A socialist society opens up tremendous possibilities for all the people. The only road is the socialist road. Today it is the ballot that we use as our weapon against capitalism. Vote, then, for socialism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary red banner unfurled. The downtrodden, submissive slaves humbly bowing before the omnipotence of the modern Mammon of capital are lifting their heads and raising their voices in defence of their interests.  

Workers don’t need a crystal ball to see their future. The capitalists and their state, in their never-ending grasp for higher profits, are intent upon making the world a hell-hole of misery for the people. Yet if the working class were united, we could not only stop the assault on our standard and quality of life but could turn this planet into a storehouse of plenty for all. The problem is that people accept capitalism and its logic and therefore see no alternative to the current misleaders who defend that system at all costs. Many workers mistakenly believe that capitalism’s reforms can deliver for them. The reformists display little sense of the realities of capitalism; many believe that the growth of the welfare state will turn into a socialistic state as time goes on. The faith that capitalism can be made more humane on behalf of the poor is an illusion. It is wishful thinking. The answer to poverty is not a welfare state and more taxes on the rich but a new society based on human needs, not profits, which will have real solutions. As socialists who are loyal to our class, we support every effort on the part of workers to better their situation and improve their conditions. However, we are open about the fact that we will not be the ones who build and lead such struggles. That is the purpose of the trade union and social activist movements. Such mobilisations can show our fellow workers the power the working class has when united. The mass actions of demonstrations and marches must come from the bottom up and not be used as a tool by political parties for partisan recruitment. 

Break our shackles

Socialism cannot be an abstraction or some ideal in the far-off distance. Capturing the State machine is not a goal in and of itself. It is only a means to realise the goal, which is the emancipation of labour, of all exploited, by the creation of a worldwide classless society. It is the only way to solve all the burning problems facing humanity and the only way to avoid its relapse into barbarism. The future is with the rule of the freely associated producers. The future is a socialist democracy. The future is with world socialism. People have the power to take control of the ways of creating wealth and to subordinate them to our decisions. New technology far from making our lives worse has the potential to make this control easier. Automated work processes could provide us with more leisure, with more time for creativity. Cybernetics could provide us with unparalleled information about the resources available to satisfy our needs and how to deploy them effectively. But this alternative cannot come from within the system, from the insane logic of the market. Those who advocate halfhearted reform of the existing system preach capitulation to capitalism.

Without food, shelter, and a few other basic necessities, no human individual can survive. Contrary to other animal species, humankind cannot get such necessities through purely individual nor through purely instinctive endeavours. In a slave society, a slave can only get food by submitting to his master’s will. In a feudal society, the serf can produce his own food, providing he obeys the rules imposed upon by his baron, such as work for him for nothing, for example. In our capitalist society, the average person can only get food in exchange for money, and he or she cannot get enough money to buy the basic necessities of life without selling their labour power, their ability to work. Generalised commodity production and a market (money) economy was imposed through institutional changes and specific economic processes (like the Enclosures) upon tens of millions of human beings on all continents, against their clearly expressed wishes and their successive revolts. This was the historical chain of events that led to the emergence of ruling classes, the production of surplus value by the working class (i.e., the constant reproduction of capital and of a capitalist class). If a serf works three days a week on his own patch of field and three days a week on the lord’s manor, the origin of the lord’s income is quite clear: unpaid labour by the serfs. Likewise, a worker adds value to that of machinery and raw material by applying his muscles, nerves and brains to them during a work day, the fact that he reproduces the equivalent of his wages (or the value of his labour power) in, say, four hours a day while actually working eight hours, means that he gives his employer half of his work week for nothing, exactly as the serf did. There you have the source of profits’ (or more accurately, rent, interest and profit). In the case of a slave or a serf, the process is crystal clear but in the case of a wage-earning industrial worker it is obscured by all kinds of successively intertwined money transactions and market relations that makes it more difficult to see. But it doesn’t make it any less real. The capitalist class is compelled by generalised commodity production, by privately owned means of production and the resulting market competition to maximise capital accumulation. This limitless drive for enrichment (production of exchange-values as an end in itself) is made possible by the fact that the social surplus product takes the form of money.

The task of socialists is not to patch up the system. It is for the workers, ‘the associated producers’, to take control of production into their own hands, and to subordinate it to their own consciously assessed collective needs. Only then will those who actually perform the labour of one sort or another have a motive for a correct and honest assessment of the amount of their own labour available for production, and an incentive to use it in the most efficient and least arduous fashion possible. The only alternative to the anarchy of capitalist accumulation and the market is genuine socialism. The job of socialists is not to identify with those who want reforms in order to hold it together capitalism but to find ways of putting our ideas across and stand for revolutionary socialism for real people power.

Birthday Greetings, Karl

Feasible socialism

There is no effective world socialist movement in the foreseeable future despite our own aspirations in the World Socialist Movement and therefore there is little hope of salvation for humanity. We advocate a decision-making process that must be resolutely democratised by interlocking networks of the councils and communes on a local, regional and world scale. We understand the utopian and unrealisable character of the idea of building of socialism in one country and understand the integrated worldwide character of economics, politics, and social contradictions in our epoch. We maintain that the class struggle is the motor of human history. The aim of socialism is to achieve total control over social forces which humanity itself has generated. Socialism, according to Marx, involves the creation of a society in which “socialised humanity, the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power”. Private and state property has to be transformed into social property by reorganising social life as a whole so that the producers have a real say not only in the production of social wealth but also its disposal. Humanity can never attain real freedom until a society has been built where no person has the freedom to exploit another person. The all-round development of the individual and the creation of opportunities for every person to express his or her talents to the full can only find ultimate expression in a society which dedicates itself to people rather than profit. Mankind’s resources will never be used for the good of humanity until they are in common ownership and under democratic control.

Let us describe workers, self-management and what possibly its main mechanisms and institutions could function. Let us assume for the sake of simplicity a global workers’ councils would determine the needs and how it should be divided starting from possibilities previously debated by all in the process of electing delegates for that congress. The choices and the main foreseeable consequences of each option –would be clearly spelt out: average workload (length of the working week); priority needs to be satisfied for all through guaranteed allocation of resources (‘free’ distribution); volume of resources devoted to future ‘growth’ (reserve stocks) The global framework of the economic plan would thereby be established on the basis of conscious choices by a majority of those affected by it. Starting from these choices, a coherent general plan would then be drawn up, utilising input-output tables and material balances, indicating the resources available for each separate branch of production (industrial sectors, transportation, agriculture and distribution) and social life (education, health, communications, etc). The congress would not go beyond these general instructions and would not lay out specifications for each branch or production unit or region. Self-managing bodies – for example, congresses of workers’ councils in the shoe, food, electronic equipment, steel or energy industries – would then divide up the work-load flowing from the general plan among the existing producer units and/or project the creation of additional producing units for the next period, if the implementation of output goals made that necessary under the given work-load. They would work out the technological average (gradually leading up to the technical optimum on the basis of existing knowledge) – that is, the average productivity of labour, or average ‘production costs’ – of the goods to be produced, but without suppressing the least productive units as long as total output elsewhere does not cover total needs, and as long as new jobs for the producers concerned are not guaranteed in conditions considered satisfactory by them.

In production units making equipment, the technical coefficients flowing from the previous steps would largely determine the product mix. In factories manufacturing consumer goods, the product mix would flow from a previous consultation between the workers’ councils and consumers’ conferences democratically elected by the mass of the citizens. Various models – for example, different fashions in shoes – would be submitted to them, which the consumers could test and criticise and replace by others. Showrooms and publicity sheets would be the main instruments of that testing. The latter could play the role of a ‘referendum’ – consumer research, having the right to receive six pairs of footwear a year, would cross six samples in a sheet containing a hundred or two hundred options. The model mix would then be determined by the outcome of such a referendum, with post-production corrective mechanisms reflecting subsequent consumer criticisms. Compared with the market mechanism, the great advantage of such a system would be the far greater consumer influence on the product mix and the suppression of over-production – the balancing out of consumer preference and actual production essentially occurring before production and not after sales, with a buffer stock of social reserves additionally produced – empirically (statistically) optimized after a few years. Factory workers’ councils would then be free to translate these branch decisions at the level of the producing unit as they liked – organising the production and labour process to realise all the economy of labour-times they could achieve. If they could reach the output target by working twenty instead of thirty hours a week after submitting their goods to a quality test, they would enjoy a reduction in work-load without any reduction of social consumption. It should be stressed at the outset that democratic self-management does not mean that everybody decides about everything. If one was to assume that, the conclusion would be obvious: socialism is not possible. Four billion human beings could not find the life-span to settle even the tiniest fraction of each other’s affairs, in that sense. But it is not necessary. Certain decisions can be best taken at work-shop level, others at the factory level, others again at neighbourhood, local, regional, national, continental and finally at world level. Decisions could – and should – be taken on a world scale.  Three spheres immediately present themselves. The first would be all those decisions necessitating a global redistribution of human and material resources to ensure the rapid disappearance of the social and cultural ills of underdevelopment – hunger, infant mortality, disease and illiteracy in the developing world. The second would cover priority allocation of genuinely scarce natural resources – those which could be depleted absolutely, and of which no minority of the human race has the right to dispossess the next generations; only the living population of the world in its totality has the right to decide here. The third would include everything affecting the natural environment and climate of the planet as a whole; all those processes which can pollute or disrupt oceans, poles or atmosphere, or destroy such world-wide bases of ecological balance as the Amazon Forest.

From these global determinations would flow constraints on regional or local resources available for planning and need-satisfaction, which would themselves be decided in each region or district. Thus, for example, once the total tonnage of steel that could be used in North America, Europe or Asia was set, the producers and consumers of these areas would be free to allocate it as they decided. If in spite of every environmental argument, they wanted to maintain the dominance of the private motor car and to continue polluting their cities, that would be their right. Changes in long-standing consumer orientations are generally slow – there can be few who believe that workers in the United States would abandon their attachment to the automobile the day after a socialist revolution. The notion of forcing people to change their consumption habits is far worse than that of another few decades of smog in Los Angeles. The emancipation of the working class – today, contrary to every received notion, for the first time in history the absolute majority of the earth’s population – can only be achieved by the workers themselves, as they are: not people out of another world, but human beings with their weaknesses like all of us.

Such an allocation of resources, of democratic planning and self-management, would be much more efficient than either a capitalist market economy or a state- capitalist command economy. For it would have a powerful built-in self-correcting mechanism, which both of the existing alternatives lack. We do not believe that the ‘majority is always right’, any more than we believe that the Pope is infallible. Everybody does make mistakes. This will certainly also be true of the majority of the citizens, of the majority of the producers, and of the majority of the consumers alike. But there will be one basic difference between them and their predecessors. In any system of unequal power – be it economic inequality, political monopoly or a combination of the two – those who make the wrong decisions about the allocation of resources are rarely those who pay the price for the consequences of their mistakes, and never those who pay the heaviest price. We witnessed that with the Great Recession of 2007 when the CEOs of the corporations were reduced to the unemployment lines. It was the workers who they laid off, and their communities, which suffered although they are completely innocent of the cause of the financial crisis. Likewise, members of Congress did not pay the price for their error in repealing banking regulations.

Provided there exist real democracy, real choice and information, it is hard to believe that the majority of people  would then prefer to see their forests die, their housing stock dwindling, or their hospitals understaffed, rather than rapidly to correct their mistaken allocation. Nor will there be uniformity. People will receive the equipment and tools to produce whatever they wanted for their own satisfaction or that of their families, friends or neighbours, in their leisure-time to put their imagination to work. The scope for practical do-it-yourself initiatives will be enormously enlarged.

Shall we remain chained to “market laws” or do we seize the potential to shape its own destiny. Do we break our shackles or do we allow self-emancipation for all to be forever an unfulfilled dream?

The message of the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party’s conviction about the revolutionary potential of our fellow-workers is based upon an analysis of the historical record and not on irrational faith. If the overwhelming historical evidence showed our assumptions were proven wrong, then we would have no choice but to accept the truth of it. But we contend that the evidence provided by history so far does not warrant any such conclusion. But, also, this also does not mean we wait passively for a victorious socialist revolution. Men and women are actors in history and what they think and do will determine the future of world revolution and, therefore, the future of humanity.

The Socialist Party has never claimed socialist society would be a utopia but we do say it will eliminate most of the waste and gross inequalities of capitalism.  For men and women to cease to be a commodity, it is necessary that they are no longer forced to sell themselves, but have "the right to live", so to speak. So it is necessary that the means of production are no longer controlled by an employing class, and not even by the state, but by society. The means of production are no longer to be instruments that pump out surplus-value, that suck up human labour to extract surplus-labour. They are used to perform a labour process required to produce a certain quantity of products which society needs. To end wage-labour means to remove the character of capital from the means of production. Socialist freedom is realised with the disappearance of the old social antagonisms. In socialism, there are neither measures of value nor value. There are no exchanges between men. Only one exchange remains: between human society and nature. There will be no more private property so no more classes or State. There will no longer be a separation between town and country, humanity will spread harmoniously over the earth's surface. The division between manual and intellectual labour will cease, a reflection of the end of class-struggle. The disconnection between private and public life will disappear. Politics in the conventional sense no longer exists, since there are no men or women to be governed. There is, instead, “the administration of things”. Consequently, there are no further leaders and led. As Marx wrote, “The category of the worker is not done away with, but extended to all men [and women].” It is generalised to all of society’s members.

Capitalists can find no solution to their social problems. This small clique of capitalist magnates stands in the way of abundance. To expand production and achieve full material abundance workers have to wrest control of the factories, banks, and other major means of production from the hands of the ruling class and establish their own rule over industry and society. Production for profit must be supplanted by production according to the needs of the entire people and directed by the associated producers themselves. This is the socialist remedy for capitalist anarchy, insecurity and misery. The wealthiest of capitalist nations cannot satisfy the basic needs of its working people for jobs at living wages, decent housing, adequate food and clothing. So long as the rich continue to coin profits out of the sweat and blood of the toilers, they do not care how many are out of work, go hungry and homeless, and lack all hope for the future.

The message of the Socialist Party is not that the worker could better adjust to the situation by demanding a higher price for his or her labour power – insofar as labour power is a mere commodity, he or she already receives the equivalent for it. The implication for socialist theory is that the worker should reject the status of a thing, of a commodity, and change the whole social framework of wage labour itself. The basic feature of the world socialist revolution is that requires a conscious effort by the working class who, through its social conditions, is capable of creating a planned economy and emancipated society, a “society of associated producers,” as Marx put it. World socialism can and will end all want and preventable illnesses and diseases for all human beings; restore the ecological balance and conserve scarce resources for future generations; introduce technology which will be subordinated to human needs. Equality among all peoples and races can become a reality only if it is based on equality in the access to material resources. Socialism will be the first social system in the history of mankind to be introduced by the conscious action of the majority in their own interests and not behind their backs for the benefit of a small minority. The Socialist Party stands by its political position that capitalism can absorb and integrate many reforms and automatically rejects all those reforms which run counter to the logic of the system. You can abolish capitalism only by overthrowing it, not by reforming it out of existence.

The goal of liberation: capitalism or socialism?

The overthrow of the capitalist system can free the tremendous potential energy of the people. The resurgence of the anti-capitalist movement has provoked important debates. Power resides in the ownership of capital where the capitalist elite controls the mass media, the educational system, and all the means of indoctrination in capitalist ideology. This ruling class exercises power through the state machine which they control — the army, the police, the courts, the upper echelons of the civil service, all tied to the corporate bosses by a thousand strings.

People are frequently fact-resistant and don't want to acknowledge reality. We face geo-political uncertainties, such as access to food, water security, and energy supplies. There are a whole series of other problems like the demographics of ageing. Those with power tend to defer problems, pushing them into the future. For example, climate change summits would rather postpone decisions than implement solutions to it. We're experiencing extreme weather conditions which impact on food production, and many other things. All we're doing is piling these problems up. And as we do this, the problems get bigger.

Today’s politicians such as Corbyn and Sanders attempt at “refashioning” socialism into “practical applicable” programmes to meet the needs of the times but it has resulted in the disappearance of basic principles by which the socialist movement was originally inspired. The Welfare State has nothing whatever to do with socialism and constitutes no revolution. It did not originate with the Labour Party and was not opposed by any party. It is not a party issue. That the Tories voted against the Welfare State is not true. Social reform in history has always been a process of tidying up when the cruder forms of exploitation have ceased to pay dividends. There is no exception to this. “The State is the people" is a popular misconception that lives on. It is still widely held that the State embodies the whole community. The illusion is fostered that it is “our” country, “our” government. In fact, the country is owned by a privileged minority. Nationally the State protects the interests of capitalism, and in doing so frequently has to over-ride sectional capitalist interests. To establish socialism, the working class must organise to win control of the state and turn it from the instrument of oppression which it is today into the agent of their emancipation. This principle asserts the conscious, majority, political nature of the socialist revolution. There are things that Parliament and political power can do and there are things they cannot do. Parliament does control the State; it does not control the economic forces that are capitalism. The working class doesn’t need political power to form a government and try to run capitalism but to force the capitalist class to surrender their privileges. The experience of the non-socialist, reformist, using political action is no argument against the conscious, majority applying political action for socialism.

The Socialist Party has no specific objection to particular reforms. We live in a capitalist world that must be allowed to work or we starve. But we do object to the substitution of reforms for what we are supposed to stand for and the consequent neglect of more fundamental things. Especially do we object to calling the social benefits system socialism. The fact is that the Welfare State implies the continued existence of the inherited and the disinherited—Disraeli’s “Two Nations.” It is made a substitute for socialism on the ground that it involves a redistribution of national income. But socialism is not the redistribution of money income. It is production for use and the distribution of that. Socialism cannot be properly garbed as capitalism.

At every election, the illusion is served up that here is a fresh opportunity at last to solve the problems which have been a burden for so long with a series of reform measures, legislation regulating capitalist practices. In spite of the enduring failure of all varieties of political parties to overcome such problems as war, poverty and the general chaos that is a constant feature of capitalism, the Labour and Tory, Democratic and Republican parties will go blindly and blandly into elections as if the experiences of the past had never occurred. Once again, there will be the cheap trade in promises. Once again, there will be the contrived differences between parties who are united in their defence of capitalism. Once again, there will be the complete failure to face up to the realities of life. Once again, the politics of personalities, gimmickry and opportunism will take precedence over a serious understanding of the difficulties besetting society. Their records make a mockery of their claims to be the way towards of social improvement. Their past policies are an indictment which no amount of hollow phrase-mongering can overcome. For all their talk of progress and modernisation, their ideas and actions are imprisoned by the limitations of the status quo—that is—capitalist society.

Although the life of the whole community depends on the way in which the means of production are utilised, all reformist politicians agree that they should be geared to the profit motive. They agree that the working class should continue to live only by selling their labour-power to the owners of industry. They are agreed on protecting the root cause of the problems facing mankind. So far as preserving the fundamental features of capitalist society are concerned, the Labour, Tory, Republican and Democratic parties are of one accord. There will be promises to solve the problems of housing, urban chaos, poverty and international conflict by those who have failed in the past and who cannot but fail in the future. At stake is whether or not the majority of the population will continue to acquiesce in a society of which they are victims. By voting for any of them, the working class will endorse their own exploited economic position. This is the basic conditioning factor of modern life. The trivial controversy between the large parties will avoid this fundamental issue.

The working class hold political power through the vote, they have yet to use it in their own interests. It is a power that can only be fully realised when the working class have the knowledge and determination to end capitalist society. The Socialist Party does not play at politics. It does not pander to prejudice; it does not flatter ignorance; it does not dilute its case in the pursuit of cheap popularity. The Socialist Party does not offer the corrupt relationship of the leader and the led; it offers an understanding of society and the fraternal association of men and women who are equipped with knowledge, and who know what they want and how to get it. We know that compromise will defeat the sane and rational ends to which we are committed. The message of the Socialist Party is a positive one. In addressing ourselves to working men and women, we embrace all those who make a contribution to the wealth and well-being of society, be they factory workers, doctors, technicians or labourers. Only they can rebuild the world to make it a fit place to live in, but not by electing a government to administer capitalism. For too long have their skills and talents been used by a privileged minority to create profit and private luxury. For too long has humanity been subject to the crippling limitations of production for sale. It is not enough to struggle to defend living standards under capitalism. These workers must join the World Socialist Movement to capture political power so to take over industry itself and convert all the means that society has developed for producing wealth to the property of the whole community. Thus commonly owned and democratically controlled, the means of production can serve the needs of the whole community. This action must presuppose any attempt to deal in a practical way with the problems of our time.

Anti-Nationalism 5/5

Socialists are utterly opposed to manifestations of nationalism. In fact, we find disturbing the revival of nationalism around the world.  A “nation” is a false community, and a dangerous illusion because of its divisive nature. Socialists recognise that workers have no country. We are not nationalists, in fact, we are implacably opposed to nationalism in whatever form it rears its ugly head. One of the last things the world needs at the moment is more states, with their own armed forces and divisive nationalist ideologies. Without the ideology of nationalism, capitalist states would be unstable since, being based on minority class rule, they need a minimum allegiance from those they rule over. Nationalism serves to achieve this by teaching the ruled to be loyal to "their" so-called "nation-state".

Nationalism is based on the illusion that all people who live in a particular geographical area have a common interest, against people in other areas. Hence, the supposed need for a separate state and a separate government to defend this separate interest. This flies in the face of the facts. All over the world, in all geographical areas, the population is divided into two basic classes, those who own the productive resources and those who don’t and have to work for those who do, and whose interests are antagonistic. The non-owning class have a common interest, not with the owning class who live in the same area, but with people like themselves wherever they live. Nationalists are spreading a divisive poison amongst people who socialists say should unite to establish a frontier-free world community, based on the world’s resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity, as the only framework within which the social problems which workers wherever they live face today. This is why Socialists and Nationalists are implacably opposed to each other. We are working in opposite directions. Us to unite workers. Them to divide them. We want people to change the economic and social basis of society and establish socialism in place of capitalism.

The problems of the working class of the working class of the world originate in the class stratification of capitalist society. Given capitalism, these problems are inevitable; they cannot be "planned" out of the system. They do not arise out of the "evil" intentions, nor the blundering or stupidity of governments, "home" or "foreign", no more than they could be planned, prayed or fought away by brave, sincere or wise men. They were the facts of capitalism and would continue to exist for as long as the working class, the only class with an economic interest in bringing about a real change, accepted that system. Members of the working class should realise that nationalism is the tool of capitalism. The working class have no country—they have the choice of enduring the miseries of capitalism within the confines of national frontiers or enjoying freedom in a world socialism. Socialist education demands that besides advocating the establishment of Socialism, the obstacles that stand in its path must be pointed out, in order that the workers can march along the road to political power.

As socialists, we refuse to pander to petty nationalism but work to promote a World without frontiers where the Earth’s resources have become the common heritage of all. The idea of "the nation" functions as supreme good, beyond the physical and mechanical functionings of the state, to which any cause may appeal. It is a fantasy which can be used to cover up for problems and contradictions in the practice of the state's daily life. Its function is to legitimise both the state and class rule and sustain a large quantity of support, through workers who identify with the ideas of nationhood and believe themselves to be the same as, and have the same interests as, their masters. An influential and well-funded nostalgia industry which has long been used to persuade workers that there is something great about being the nation's subject. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”, each competing to gain a place in the sun for its ruling class and each with killing machines at its disposal. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself. As socialists, we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states.

Anti-Nationalism 4/5

The lies that kill

The problem of nationalism cannot be wished away. To do away with it will mean to eliminate the present the system that fosters it. This system ensures that a minority owns and controls the means  which wealth is produced and distributed whilst the vast majority who actually does the production owns nothing. The resources and wealth of the world must be owned and controlled by all humanity. Under such an arrangement, no one will care who goes where or who belongs where. Then nationalism and its present brutalities would have been buried.

We are facing critical situations for which socialism is the sole remedy. The socialist movement strives to trample down national boundaries, recognising the common link between the workers of every land— their poverty and slavery indicts the ruling-class as a robber class, establishes the fact, that poverty need not exist, that slavery can be abolished by the workers themselves, and that the quarrels of the ruling class are of no concern to the working class. The working class of the world have a common bond that transcends every tie of race or nationality—their urgent need for emancipation. What matters the name of the country of your birth, if you are a slave in that country? If you look at the problems that affect the vast majority of the working class in every country, you soon realise that nationalism, and concern for artificial borders between people, hold no solutions. Without you the masters are helpless; without you, the State collapses.

 What bond is it that identifies you with your lordly capitalist? You are chained to his machines, in his factories and workshops, and driven by a need to produce wealth for him. You are the robbed, he is the robber; you are the slave, he is the master. A bond of shame, a tie that is a degradation to every wage-slave. If you are loyal to the class that exploits, you are a traitor to your own class. It is in the interest of your masters that you should be divided by national and religious barriers. It is up to you, then, to study your class position in society, which is cosmopolitan and anti-religious in character. For it is only by so doing that you will become free in the truest sense of the term. Socialists do not care whether the capitalist class divides the World among themselves by rivers and seas, or by the lines of latitude and longitude. What concerns him, is the class ownership, which he works and organises to abolish.

Nationalism is, therefore, an illusion that has no basis in reality and is nothing short of an ideology that seeks to enhance the profit-making interests of the capitalist class. The only real division that exists between human beings is their access to the resources and wealth of the world. In this money-dominated world, the minority ruling class (the capitalists) own and control these resources and wealth - the land, factories, the transport and communication network, etc. The working class has no access to these and has to sell their mental and physical labour power to the former in return for peanuts.

The concept of nationality, the idea that an area dominated by a privileged class which thrives on the enforced poverty of that area's productive class, should grant to the latter the right to live there providing its members accept their wage-slave status and endorse the right of the privileged to live on their backs is offensive to any intelligent working man or woman. Those who promote such nonsense are the real enemies of our class and there will be no lasting peace in the world until the workers refuse to line up behind all the various brands of nationalism.

The cause of Socialism is and must be universal. The working class cannot emancipate itself nationally. So long as you are living in a society that forces you to be a wage slave, you must, if you wish to be free, join hands with your fellow workers of all countries in the task of securing "the world for the workers." Members of the Socialist Party have long since turned a deaf ear to the empty phrases of nationalism, and, instead, look forward to the day when our planet shall be a land of peace and prosperity—its wealth owned and controlled by its workers. This object, we claim, is far more worthy of the attention and support of workers than the empty phrases and chimeras of the nationalists. 

Anti-Nationalism 3/5

“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.” Arundhati Roy

Nationalism is anathema to socialists. The Socialist Party has always argued that the workers of all countries have more in common with each other than with those representing the interests of capital. We ask that workers set aside the reaction of nationalism, religious bigotry, ethnic hatred, racism and join together to root out the real problem itself—capitalism. We are all faced with the fundamental problem of capitalism which forces worker against worker not for their own interests, but for the interest of profit. Nationalism is sold to voters as a movement to liberate us all. And sadly many workers will back it. Unique amongst all political parties, both left and right, The Socialist Party has no national axe to grind. We side with no particular state, no government. We have no time for borders. Once again the socialist assertion that nationalism can never serve the interests of the working class is being attested to daily amidst the horrors of the war around the world. Workers are always the victims. They have to do the fighting and the dying, they are raped and "ethnically cleansed".  It is their lives and homes that become "collateral damage" regardless of whether or not they swallow the nationalist filth of their leaders. Yet they find themselves fighting and dying together for what will be a capitalist state that exploits them. These wars are not the results of ancient hatreds but are the result of capitalism and can, therefore, happen anywhere in the world, even here.

We, the people, the power to invent the technology to create abundance. We, the people, have the power to make this life full of joy and happiness. Let us use that power and unite to fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men and women have an opportunity for useful work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason and science. It is impossible to imagine how capitalism would function so smoothly without the poison of nationalism.

Working class unity enables us to combine our tactics for defending our class with the strategy of liberating our class. Socialists do not fall into the trap of nationalism which does not strengthen the campaign for socialism or create a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it. Nationalism will not improve your condition one iota. Only the class struggle could do that and only with difficulty. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders. Most people do not get beyond the position of support for the country they are born in while some calling themselves ‘socialists’ progress no further than ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Until the hold of nationalist and racist poison on the minds of the world's workers is destroyed, it will not be possible to live the full and satisfying life of socialism. Stand up for yourself as a human being and fight for the only worthwhile end — the achievement of a free humanity. The Socialist Party’s object speaks of the means of production being owned and controlled ‘by and in the interest of the whole community’. This means what it says: all the people of the Earth will own the land, factories, offices and so on in common. And we will form a true community, one with shared interests but not distinct from or in opposition to anyone else or any other group. The global community of world socialism will truly be a positive notion, offering support and opportunity for all those who are part of it. Nationalism only bequeaths to the working class a change of hand which holds the whip.

Anti-Nationalism 2/5

What an extraordinary notion it is that so many members of the human race should be forced to remain on that small section of the earth's surface in which they happened to be born. Who gave the world's rulers the right to tell us which bit of land we should live on? Nationalism has indeed proved to be a more potent political force than class consciousness. The concept of the nation is a very real force in the minds of people today. The outlook of “us and them” is a strong notion in the lives of many people. The idea that the world is naturally divided into nations is widespread. But, in the face of its results, we re-assert the original socialist position that workers ought to act as a world-wide class with a common interest in working to establish a single world community without frontiers based on the world's resources being the common heritage of all humanity.

The phrase ‘Nation-State’ itself assumes that the states into which the world is divided are the political expression of pre-existing ‘nations’. In fact, it’s the other way round. It is the ‘nation’ that is the creation of the state. States inculcate into their subjects the idea that they form a community with a common interest and that the state represents that interest. The result is that people come to refer to themselves and other subjects of the same state as ‘we’ and ‘us’. Socialists do not speak of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in relation to so-called ‘Nation-States’ in which they happen to have been born or live. We know that, in every state, there are two classes with opposed interests: the class of those who own and control the means of production and the rest, the vast majority, who do not and, to live, have to sell their mental and physical energies to those who do for a wage or a salary.

Wars are not fought between ‘nations’ but between states, and states represent the interest of their ruling, owning class. Wars arise out of the conflict of economics between states, representing the owning class within them, over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic areas to protect these. Nationalism is used by states to win support – and cannon fodder – for wars. Our advice to fellow workers during any capitalist conflict is, first: Do not do anything, in word or deed, which might encourage further killings of your working-class brothers and sisters. And, secondly: Think carefully about the situation to see if the issue is worth a single drop of working-class blood. Is this an issue worth killing and being killed over? Socialists reply, a thousand times No! Nationalist feelings arise because of the incessant propaganda of the ruling class in each country to persuade the working majority that they are in some way essentially different from and superior to everyone from other countries. Without this propaganda, each country's government would find it very difficult to get its people to join up and fight in its unavoidable wars with foreign states. Historically, nationalism and national feeling have been the tool of the capitalist class for both winning and retaining power.

Workers, of course, do not share a common interest with their masters. It does not follow that if the "national wealth" increases, or if trade increases, or even if profit increases, that higher wages will be gained by workers. In fact, capitalists can only make a profit by appropriating the wealth produced by the workers to themselves; but in the topsy-turvy world of ideology, it seems that workers will only have good pay and wealth when the capitalists are doing well. So it appears that workers and capitalists share a common interest. In fact, the interest of workers is conditioned by the interest of the capitalist, in exactly the same manner as hostages held by a kidnapper: unless the kidnapper-capitalists's demands are met, they will not allow the hostage-workers to have what they need to live. There is a well-documented effect of hostage situations, called "The Stockholm Syndrome" in which hostages under duress began to identify with their kidnappers, and believe in their cause. Nationalism works in much the same way. It is the Stockholm Syndrome on a grand scale. The working class who are dependent (under the current system) on the capitalists, to whom they are bonded by state-boundaries across which they are not permitted to escape, begin to believe that they share an identity with them.

Nationalism is utterly opposed to socialism. Socialists, therefore, oppose nationalism in all its forms. The world of nationalism is full of contradictions, odd ideas and illogical notions. The idea that a line of a map, a so-called “national border”, should actually mean something concrete to the workers is laughable. Nations have taken a great deal of building. There is almost no nation-state that has not had its boundaries drawn in blood, its foundations dug out of human flesh. The illusions of nationality are yet another tool of the ruling class, intended to trick workers into thinking that this really is some kind of collective society, and to misplace their passions that could otherwise be directed into the class struggle. It's interesting that in a way people admit the logic of common ownership when they refer to “our country” as if it really does belong to all of us. It's this inescapable logic that will one day become clear in the minds of the workers, as they find all the meaning they need in socialism and put an end to class tyranny once and for all.

The socialist message is that working people everywhere must end the servitude, insecurity and poverty that capitalism is incapable of curing by embracing socialism, a world community without nations, class discrimination, production for profit or money. In socialist society to each according to their individual taste. We are all members of the world working class and have a common interest in working together to establish a World without frontiers in which the resources of the globe will have become the common heritage of all the people of the world and used for the benefit of all. It is clear, then, that socialists must oppose nationalism in all its forms: not just refusing to espouse their creed but defying the rituals, the anthem singing, flag saluting and other expressions of craven loyalty to the nation-state, that help enforce the idea of nation in our minds.

Anti-Nationalism 1/5

Across the world nationalism is rearing its ugly head again. Nationalists believe that all classes in society should hold allegiance to "The Nation". Socialists do not and point out how nations have always been the creation of a ruling group having nothing to do with working-class interests. What is a nation? It is simply the people and the territory which have been appropriated by a class of robbers at some point in history. It has less to do with a common language, religion, race, culture, and all the other things which nationalists imagine or pretend are essential ingredients in the making of nations. The presence of political nationalist ideas is an indication that some groups in society feel its real material interests are being frustrated by forces outside or even inside the nation. Of course, the desire to achieve their aims is never expressed in terms of their own needs only. In order to enlist the necessary working class support such arguments as “justice”, “freedom”, and “the nation” are used to justify the real bone of contention and to give it an aura of sanctity.

Socialism and nationalism are opposed. They are irreconcilable. For the socialist the propertyless working class have no country. The nationalist, on the other hand, ignores the class division of society and the class struggle. For him or her, the nation is all-important. The worker is encouraged to believe he or she has a country. Nationalism is, in fact, one of the means which capitalism uses to blinker the workers to class society. The Socialist Party urges workers to unite with workers elsewhere to set up a world socialist system where the peoples of the world will co-operate to produce for their needs on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. This will be a society without frontiers and without nations. Certainly, socialism will allow the fullest linguistic and cultural diversity, but to make this the basis of a political programme is something altogether different. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible.

Socialists explain how workers are exploited not as individuals or particular nationalities, but as members of a class. From this perspective, identifying with a class provides a rational basis for working class political action. We argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The “nation” is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history. One popular misconception about nationalism is that it's synonymous with fascism. This is inaccurate. Fascism is the most degenerate form of nationalism but any kind of patriotism no matter how soft or innocuous can only be defined as anti—working class. It not only diverts workers minds away from the problems that surround them.

Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation-states not only literally but ideologically. Today it is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to one extent or another—align themselves to their domestic ruling class. After all, the ideology of nationalism ultimately means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest. It has never been explained in what way capitalism administered by Scots from Edinburgh or by the Welsh in Cardiff will be better workers than capitalism administered from London. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one. Nationalists cannot will or legislate away those problems of capitalism. No country in the world, no matter how independent or rich in resources, has yet succeeded in eliminating poverty, unemployment, or insecurity. For the working class, there will be wages while they are working and pensions when they are too old or disabled.

Nationalists see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and now outmoded by the global nature of society. It is the Socialist Party who are the men and women of vision, who look forward to and struggle for a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society's resources, and uncluttered with the frontiers and class divisions which go hand-in-hand with "the nation".

The objective would be a stateless world community of free access. Given that nationalism does nothing to further this understanding it is an obstruction to world socialism. Because of the international nature of capitalism, workers are exploited everywhere and therefore the attack against exploitation must be on a broad front recognising no national barriers. Socialists say without any hesitation that there can be only one way to achieve lasting peace across this planet and that means an organised retreat from nationalism in all its forms and an escalation of the struggle for global working class emancipation. Workers own no country, so why should we care which section of the class of thieves owns which national portion of the world? Workers have a World to win, not nations to fight for.

May Day: Fellow Workers Joining Together

Once again we celebrate May Day, the international holiday of the working class. These May Day celebrations are small in comparison to the great numbers and strength of our class. But throughout the country, in every major industrial center, workers are uniting. Today is our great day, the day when the solidarity of the international proletariat is expressed throughout the world by demonstrations as the sign of solidarity. May Day is there for us to renew our bonds of international fellowship. Throughout the world, people today are adjusting themselves to the chaotic conditions created by world upheaval. Capitalism has left countries in ruins and made their peoples exiles and refugees. The capitalist world sinks ever deeper into the crisis. It heaps misery upon misery upon backs of the helpless and the vulnerable. For countless millions of human beings, life today is torturous hunger, unbearable toil, and dark boding anxiety. At the present time, war and pestilence and famine, started by capitalist rivalries, have got out of hand. Everywhere the reformers look for remedies. Yet the profits of the big corporations continue to pile up bigger than ever. Perhaps there has never been another May Day of such importance to the workers as the symbol of their international solidarity because there never was a May Day when capitalist interests were more solidly welded and soldered together in the international exploitation of the workers than they are at the present moment.

 When we come to see these events with clearer eyes, unclouded by media misinformation but instead with discerning insight and understanding in our hearts, we must realise that even the most adverse situations light the fires of revolt and foster the forces that feed the social revolution. We in the Socialist Party are not fooled into believing the working class is the midst of a "revolutionary upsurge" nor that the idea that they wallow in "docility". Our fellow-workers are not revolutionists as yet but there are fresh signs of hope appearing around the world. 

We revolutionary socialists, who celebrate May Day in the spirit of international comradeship throughout the world, are content to leave reforms to Tory and Labour Party mis-leaders. We know that the more the workers are organised politically and industrially on a revolutionary basis, the faster and the thicker will reforms be offered up. They are the desperate sandbags that defend the trenches of capitalism. But it will be a fight to the finish for the ending of capitalism. The drive for the establishment of a world socialism is unstoppable. 

On this May Day let us stand proud and upright to be counted. We need to get together. The world will always be against us if we are not for ourselves. We have been oppressed, we have suffered; we have endured, now let us unite and rise united against capitalism. “Why cannot we always be together?” is the thought in the mind of every active worker in the labour movement after the May Day demonstrations.

May Day is the preparation for social revolution, a trial mobilisation of the forces of the working class. When the workers of the world are united we are ready for battle.