Discovering the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party is an organisation of convinced socialists who believe that socialism can come only through the conscious and determined action of the working-class in this and other countries. Its members are pledged to do everything in their power to further the promotion and ultimate realisation of a socialist society. The Socialist Party runs online forums, study groups, discussion circles, etc., for the discussion of socialist ideas. It organises a Summer School for longer and more detailed discussion. It publishes books and pamphlets in order to stimulate opinion and action throughout the world socialist movement.

The working class in society holds a special position. It has no property. It is a propertyless class—dependent upon the class which owns property—the land, the factories, mills, mines, railways, transport. But the land cannot give forth its fullness unless workers plough and sow and reap. The earth cannot deliver its mineral wealth unless workers dig it. Factories, mills, mines, railways, etc., cannot work unless workers are employed to make them serve their purpose in the transformation of nature’s wealth into social wealth. It is this fact which compels the owners of the means of producing wealth to employ labour. They need that labour or their ownership ceases to be of value.

Socialism is the name given to that form of society in which there is no such thing as a propertyless class, but in which the whole community own the means of production—the land, factories, mills, mines, transport and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. It will be obvious at once that the basic principles of Socialist society are diametrically opposite to those of Capitalist society in which we live. Socialism stands for social or community property. Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the propertyless working class. We can easily understand, therefore, why the great majority of landlords, employers of labour, financiers and the like are opposed to socialism. Their very existence as the receivers of rent, interest and profit are at stake. They do not merely reject the theory of socialism, but actively and bitterly fight, in any way, the movement for socialism. Perhaps here and there an enlightened individual capitalist through moral and intellectual conviction is prepared to abandon the private property system and accept socialism, but the capitalist class as a class cannot. While it is to the individual and social interest of the propertyless class to fight against the private property system and for socialism. They do it every day, though as yet only a minority do it consciously for socialism. When trade unionists fight the employers on wages questions and the conditions of labour they are really fighting against consequences of the private property system. The existence of the private ownership of the means of production means also the private ownership of the things produced and their sale as commodities in competition one with another. Labour also is a commodity and those who sell their labour power, the members of the working class, manual and brain-worker alike, also compete like other commodities.   Trade Unionism really represents in one sense an attempt to organise monopolies of labour power in order to break down the competition between the workers who in the labour market are commodities for sale and to establish monopoly prices for labour. The more Trade Unionism advances in this direction the more difficult it becomes for the Capitalists to make a profit. Hence the everlasting cry of the capitalists for “lower production costs” and its opposite, the workers’ struggle for higher wages and improved conditions. This is the fundamental contradiction of Capitalist economy—a struggle between the two classes, the propertied class and the propertyless—which is inevitable so long as the private ownership of the means of production exists.

From this socialists draw the conclusion that the class primarily interested in the change from private property to social property is the working class. The goal of socialism as the classless society has its starting point in the propertyless condition of the working class which is also precisely the starting point of trade unionism. The Trade Unions represent the first weapons of the working class in the struggle against capitalist interests; the Socialist’s goal represents the consummation of the struggle of the working class—its emancipation from the system which gives rise to that struggle. Socialist parties represent the growing consciousness of the working class of its independent interests and aims—in short, its approach to the socialist conclusions arising from a recognition of the class divisions in society and the conflict arising therefrom. What was in its first stage an unconscious class struggle of the workers becomes increasingly a conscious class struggle. Trade unionism and socialism have thus a common origin and the aim of socialism is only possible of achievement by the working class becoming victorious in the struggle against Capitalism. Why then is it that trade unionists are not always socialists?

Trade unions were not formed to fight for socialism. The workers built them to defend and improve their immediate conditions of employment, their wages, their hours of labour and so on. This is clearly revealed by the way in which the Trade Unions have grown. Trade unions limit their industrial activities to measures on behalf of particular sections of workers and they adopted the method of striking bargains with particular groups of employers. To this has been given the name collective bargaining, the setting up of agreements between employers’ associations and trade unions for limited objectives. It involves the acceptance of capitalism as a permanent form of society and the unions will have to take just what the capitalists can afford to give them. Trade union policy is exclusively confined to bargain making and not directed to the socialist aim of abolishing the economic system which gives rise to the struggle between workers and employers. This deal-making outlook over employment contracts is in command of the unions.

The Socialist Party is not anti-trade union. On the contrary, we are the most ardent advocates of trade unionism. Socialists want their fellow trade unionists to recognise the cause of the struggle their unions are compelled to wage, recognising the cause as rooted in the private ownership of the means of production and the propertyless conditions of the working class. Socialists want all the struggles of the unions to be co-ordinated so that behind every industrial dispute there will be available the appropriate power of the working class. Socialists want sectionalism to be superceded by a united working class to one end—the securing of the victory of the working class over the capitalists. This means that the trade unions should recognise that all the efforts of the working class must be directed to the goal of the conquest of political power. Their fight in the industrial field must be linked with the fight to obtain the transfer the ownership of the means of production and distribution from private hands to social ownership. The socialist wants the trade Unionists to be instruments of struggle for this power and this aim, and not used for the retarding of the workers’ struggle. Trade unions should become transformed into industrial unions, i.e. one union for each industry, for the longer the delay in such a transformation the greater the impediments in the way of the conquest of power. To hasten this development Socialists call for the organisation of the workers at “the point of production” in shop stewards and workshop shop-floor committees. It is there where the divisions between workers are most fatal; it is there where they can be most quickly overcome; “unity on the job” is the key to the development of the solidarity of the working class in the struggle against capitalism. And that solidarity is the basis of class action in politics. With such a democratically controlled organisations, guided by the spirit of the class struggle and the socialist purpose, the working class will be able to fight for that victory over capitalism and the establishment of socialism on which the permanent improvement in the conditions of the workers without question depends.

The Futility Of Hoping Things Will Improve Under Capitalilsm.

An article by Jennifer Wells in the Toronto Star of April 23rd called attention to the fact that in the 3 years since the collapse of the garment factory in Bangladesh little has been done to improve the means of safety. To quote Wells, "the country is a long way from meeting its commitments under the sustainability compact it signed with the E.U. and the I.L.O. 3 months after Rana Plaza collapsed."

According to Phil Robertson, Deputy Director for the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, "the problem is Bangladesh's government is of the factory owners, by the factory owners, for the factory owners – and workers face intimidation, sexual harassment, long hours with low pay and hazardous and dangerous working conditions."

Shades of New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 killing 146 workers confirms the futility of hoping things will improve under capitalism. 

John Ayers.

Socialism Is the Goal We Must Strive For

“An injury to one is an injury to all”

In a climate of intense insecurity, cultivated by both the hostile corporate setting workers hesitate to speak out against their employers for fear of losing their jobs. The capitalist class has shown itself unfit to rule because it cannot even feed its wage slaves. But one thing is certain: the material conditions of life for the ordinary worker is drastically changing, and with them are changing the views and ideas of working men and women. A new and heartening sign of the fraternal mood that has been growing in the radical movement. The socialist alternative is beginning to appear realistic to many more working people. Such a perspective ought to appeal to the imagination of every genuine socialist.  

Vote for Corbyn (or Sanders) as many times as you like, and celebrate your supposed “victories,” but then when the next choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum” comes up, you are right back where you were. You have not advanced an inch, you are still at the mercy of the choice between the lesser and greater evil. BUT – take your own fate in your hands, break away from all capitalist exploiters, begin the union of the workers, on the political field, and THERE YOU HAVE THE REAL FRUIT OF THE BATTLE. “Every class struggle is a political struggle.”

Regardless of their claims to the contrary, the ruling class of the capitalist state and their apologists are the inveterate enemies of democracy. It must be recognised that the capitalists run the machinery of state and control its repressive agencies. They will honour the rights of the individual citizen and the people only so long as these do not cut deeply into their vital interests. None of the agents of the plutocracy can be relied upon to adhere even to their own legality. Our case for socialism is based on the unconquerable ideas of Marx and Engels, and you can never kill those ideas. We shall not retreat an inch. We shall recant nothing. We shall fight to the last ditch and with all our strength.

To establish democracy, not the fake limited we have today but real political and economic democracy that is the aim of socialism. Democracy is not merely a pathway to the socialist goal. It is an integral part of that goal. True democracy is possible only in a socialist society and that what we have now as democracy is an illusion. Not only is socialism impossible without democracy but that there is no other way to socialism except through democracy. Democracy is indissolubly bound up with socialism both as a means to an end and as an integral part of the final goal. The ruling classes know very well what democracy means to the wage-earning workers. Where its establishment has been compelled they readily avail themselves of every opportunity to limit it.

We of the Socialist Party have nothing to do with opportunism and class collaboration. We are orthodox Marxists because we know that Marxism is the only revolutionary socialism of the working class, and that is the only genuine socialism. History has demonstrated the spuriousness of every other brand. Marxism teaches that socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the good-will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters as some people still seem to think. Marxism is a theory of social evolution which affirms that capitalism is obsolete and bankrupt. Socialism can be realised only as the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. The class struggle is the motive force of history. Politics has no serious meaning except as the expression of conflicting class interests. There is an irreconcilable conflict of class interests between the workers and their capitalist exploiters. The political principles of a socialist party must be determined accordingly. All the political actions and judgments of a socialist party must always be directed against the capitalist class, and never be taken in collaboration with them. The class struggle is the central and governing principle of socialist politics. It is by carrying the class struggle to its necessary conclusion — that is, to the victory of the working class and the abolition of capitalism — that the socialist society will be realised. This is the teaching of Marxism. There is no other way. And every attempt to find another way, by supporting the capitalists, by conciliating them, by collaborating with them has led not toward the socialist goal but to defeat and disaster for the workers.

There can be no greater crime than to mis-inform or deceive fellow-workers upon which so much depends for the salvation of mankind. It is a crime to offer them a platform of reformism under the label of “socialism”.

The Party of Marx

By socialism, Marx meant a class-free, money-free, wage-free society. In Marx’s first published writing as a socialist (The Jewish Question, 1843) Marx made it clear that human emancipation “will only be obtained by doing away with the state and with money", a view he held for the rest of his life. Marxian socialism is based on associations of free individuals in a society with no commodity, no money, no wage labour, no state. Men and women will never be free from exploitation and oppression until all work is voluntary and access to all goods and services is free. Socialism means a world-wide society, democratically controlled, without profits, wages or money. This is a practical proposition now. We say that tinkering with administrative forms is of no use. Buying and selling must be abolished. The wage packet—the permission to live—must be abolished.

Misery is mounting among people who want freedom and a right to live, for some way out of this madhouse. The misery and desperation around the world has increased to the point where they desire at all costs a radical change. A political revolution, as called for by Bernie Sanders, can occur without any radical transformation of the underlying economic structure of society, the property basis of society, a “revolution” designed merely to change the ruling bureaucracy of the country and without touching the property system.  A social revolution, on the other hand, affects not only the government but affects the economic system. By social revolution, we mean a transformation, a political and economic transformation of society. It is fundamental and affects the property system and affects the method of production. Marx laid down as a law that no social system can be replaced by another until it has exhausted all its possibilities for development and advancement. That is, you may say, the fundamental prerequisite for a social revolution. There must also be a tremendous sympathy and support among the majority of people for socialist ideas and for a socialist revolution. The revolution can’t be stopped by suppression because the revolution is a tremendous social movement of great masses of people.

What we mean by “exploitation” is the employment of wage labour at a rate of pay less than the value of the product of the labour. When we speak of wage labour we speak of the average, and the general rule. Marxism deals in the general and not in the analysis of each and every individual worker. The workers, taken collectively and an average struck, produce an enormous amount of wealth for which they do not receive the equivalent wage. That is surplus value, according to Marx. That is profit that goes into the hands of the capitalists, not in return for labour but as profit on investment. The Socialist Party wants to eliminate the whole profit system. We want to have production for use, not for profit.

Socialism and communism are more or less interchangeable terms in the Marxist movement. Some make a distinction between them in this respect; for example, Lenin used the expression socialism as the first stage of communism, but he exercised only his own authority for that use. It was Lenin’s own particular idea picked up from currents within the Second International. The Socialist Party considers the terms socialism and communism interchangeable, and they relate to the classless society based on planned production for use as distinct from a system of capitalism based on private property and production for profit.

Marx was of the opinion that the social transformation could be effected by purely peaceful and legal means where a parliamentary system, its democratic processes, and civil political procedure existed. Engels qualified that by adding: “To be sure, Marx did not exclude the possibility of a proslavery rebellion on the part of the outmoded and dispossessed ruling class.” That is, after the transfer of power. We should also add to make clear that the conditions of Britain in Marx’s time exist no more and therefore his calculation is out of date and no longer applicable.  At any rate, Marxism, without a doubt, is the doctrine of revolutionary action. But it has nothing in common with terrorism by individuals or small groups”, or any other form of action wherein individuals or minorities attempt to substitute themselves for the working class. The revolutionary action which Marx contemplates is the action of the working class majority. It is a lot less romantic than that of impatient leftists who dream of shortcuts and miracles to be evoked by the magic word “action”. A party which lacks mass support and membership, which has yet to become widely known to the workers, must organise along the lines of propaganda and education, of patient explanations, and pay no attention to impatient demands for “action”. But neither did we represent ourselves as pacifists. “Peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary”.

“Dictatorship of the proletariat” is Marx’s definition of the state that will be in operation in the transitionary period between the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of the socialist society. In the opinion of the Marxists, it is to be a class dictatorship in that it will frankly represent the workers and will not even pretend to represent the economic interests of the capitalists but to dispossess the capitalist class. We will expropriate from the owning class the means of production and distribution—take them out of their hands and place them it in the hands of the people. The popular impression of dictatorship is a despot, one-man rule or a one-party state. This is not contemplated at all in the Marxian term dictatorship of the proletariat. This means the dictatorship of a class which is the majority. The position of the Socialist Party is that the most economical and preferable, the most desirable method of social transformation is to have it done peacefully via elections. If we can have the possibility of peaceful revolution by the registration of the will of the majority of the people, it seems to the Socialist Party it would be utterly absurd to reject that, because if we don’t have the support of the majority of the people, we can’t make a successful revolution anyhow.

Marx contended that present day society is divided into two main classes. One is the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie (the bourgeoisie is a French designation which is used by Marx interchangeably with the expression “the modern capitalist”.) The other main class is the working class, the proletariat. These are the two main classes in society. The workers are exploited by the capitalists. There is a constant conflict of interests between them, an unceasing struggle between these classes, which can only culminate in the eventual victory of the proletariat and the establishment of socialism. We believe that the modern world is an economic unit. No country is self-sufficient. It is impossible to solve the accumulated problems of the present day, except on a world scale; no nation is self-sufficient, and no nation can stand alone. The economy of the world now is all tied together as one whole, and because we think that the solution of the problem of the day—the establishment of socialism—is a world problem, we believe that the advanced workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We have, from the very beginning of our movement, collaborated with like-minded people in all other countries in trying to promote the socialist movement on a world scale. We have advocated the global organisation of the workers, and their mutual cooperation in all respects.  The Socialist Party has opposed all forms of nationalism, chauvinism, racism and sexism, and been against all prejudice, discrimination or denigration of fellow-workers. We believe that the wealth of the world, the raw materials of the world, and the natural resources of the world are so distributed over the earth that every region on the planet contributes something and lacks something for a rounded and harmonious development of the productive forces of mankind. We visualise the future society of mankind as world socialism in which will have a collaborative division of labour between the various regions according to their resources, a and production of the necessities and luxuries of mankind according to a coordinated world planning.

We view the trade-union movement as the basic organisation of the workers engaged in the class struggle to defend their interests from day to day. We are in favour of trade unions, recognising them as independent, autonomous organisations that should be outside the control of a political party and we support their efforts to strengthen themselves.  The trade unions help the workers to resist the extremes of exploitation, possibly to gain improvement of working conditions; that is for us are decisive reasons to support them because we are in favour of anything that benefits the workers. In general, we are in favour of industrial unionism. That is that form of unionism which organises all the workers in a given shop or given industry into one union. We consider that a more progressive and effective form of organisation than craft unionism, so we support the industrial-union principle. But we don’t condemn conventional mainstream trade unionism even though we do not accept craft unionism. The Party continually argues for improved democratic structures inside the unions, demanding the rights of the members to speak up, to have free elections, and frequent elections, and in general to have the unions under the control of its membership through the system of democracy.

Modern wars, in the opinion of our party, are caused by the conflict of competing rival nations for markets, colonies, sources of raw material, fields for investment, and spheres of influence. As long as the capitalist system remains, and with it those conditions which flow automatically from the operation of the capitalist system recurring wars are inevitable. Our party has always stated that it is impossible to prevent wars without abolishing the capitalist system which breeds war. It may be possible by public protests to delay a war for a while, but eventually, it is impossible to prevent wars while this profit system remains. The Socialist Party is of the opinion that wars are caused by international economic conflicts, and not by the good will or bad will of some people. That does not entirely eliminate the possibility of incidental attacks being caused by the acts of this or that ruling group of one country or another but fundamentally wars are caused by the efforts of all the capitalist powers to expand into other fields. The only way they can get them is by taking them away from some other power, because the whole world has been divided up among a small group of nationalist powers. That is what leads to war, regardless of the will of the people. Our party is unalterably opposed to all wars. By that, we mean that we do not give any support to any war. We do not vote for it; we do not vote for any person that promotes it; we do not speak for it; we do not write for it. We are in opposition to it. We write against it; we speak against it; we try to create sentiment against it. We carry out public political agitation against ALL war. We do not want all the bloodshed to make profits for Capital. We are going to oppose war; we are going to speak against it.

The government is the tool of the capitalists. It is the representative of the capitalists. We do not think capitalist political parties can or will solve the fundamental social problems which must be solved in order to save civilisation from the shipwreck. We believe that the necessary social transition from the present system of capitalism to the far more efficient order of socialism can only be brought about by the workers themselves who must organise themselves independently of the capitalist political parties. They must organise a great party of their own, develop an independent socialist party and oppose the capitalist parties. Our party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in election campaigns. The immediate purpose is to make full use of the democratic possibility afforded to popularise our ideas, to try to get elected wherever possible; and, from a long range view, to use the political power to capture the state machine.  We hold public lectures and educational meetings to advance the doctrines of the party. We publish a monthly journal and issue leaflets to present our ideas. The Socialist Party does not accept all of the statements found in all of the writings of Karl Marx. The party has never obligated itself to do that. We do not consider even Marx as infallible. The party accepts his basic ideas and theories as its own basic ideas and theories. That does not prohibit the party or members of the party from disagreeing with things said or written by Marx which does not strike at the fundamental basis of the movement, of the doctrine. We interpret and apply Marxian theories under conditions that prevail at the present time.

Marxism is not a dogma but a guide. As things are going now, and as they conceivably can in the near future, we, as a minority party, will keep preaching our case for socialism, recruiting members, doing our best to grow bigger, more popular, and get more support. If we have to rely solely on the effectiveness of our arguments, things remaining as they are, we will not grow very fast; but we, as Marxists, believe that historical development will come powerfully to the aid of our ideas. Continued bankruptcy of the present system, its inability to solve its problems, its worsening of the conditions of the people, will push them on the road in search of a solution of what seems to them an absolutely hopeless situation. Under those conditions, our goals can appear to the people more and more plausible, more and more reasonable, and we can begin to become a stronger party. It has happened before with parties of similar ideas. As our party grows, it in itself will be a reflection of the growth and development of the broad labour movement. Socialism is a democratic movement and can be realised only with the support of the majority. The party’s basic task, while it remains in the minority, is propaganda to win over the majority. At this moment in time, when the people of the world, when they are constantly fed on lies, need, more than anything else, is to know the truth. Our party is built on correct ideas and therefore is indestructible. Our comrades are devoted to each other and trust each other. That is an intangible source of power that will yield great results in the days to come. The socialist goal is no trifle ant o serve that goal that is enough reward.

Unequal Scotland

The economy gap between rich and poor in Renfrewshire is widening, making it one of the most unbalanced in Scotland. The Paisley Daily Express has analysed wage figures from the Office for National Statistics to find out just how big the difference is between top and bottom earners across the country.

In Renfrewshire the poorest fifth of full-time workers take home less than £355 a week, while the richest pocket at least £787 a week, in 2015. This means the poorest 20 per cent earn less than half – only 45 per cent – of what the richest punters rake in. That puts Paisley’s local authority area at 20th place out of the total 32 Scottish council areas in terms of the pay gap.

And the gap between rich and poor has been stretching in Renfrewshire over the last five years, where the bottom fifth earners have seen their earnings drop by 2.3 per cent, compared with the top 20 per cent of bread winners in the same period.

Across Scotland, the poorest fifth of earners took home 46.2 per cent of what the top 20 per cent made in 2015.

While only Edinburgh, Moray, Perth and Kinross, Aberdeenshire and our neighbouring authority of East Renfrewshire, are worse when it comes to the widening chasm between the haves and the have nots.

East Renfrewshire comes in as the most unequal area in Scotland where the poorest fifth of workers take home less than £401 a week while the richest 20 per cent of workers earn £972 – equivalent to the poorest fifth earning 41.2 per cent of what fat cats take home.

While East Lothian works out to be the most equal place in the country, where the poorest fifth of full-time workers take home less than £383 a week while the richest fifth rake in at least £715 a week. This means that the poorest fifth earn 53.6 per cent of what the richest fifth do.

Things Don't Get Better.

 SNC-Lavalin is eliminating 950 jobs around the world including 600 in Canada. The Montreal  based engineering and construction company says all of its employees affected have been notified, with most having already left.

The company said the downsizing in Canada mainly involves employees in Ontario and Alberta, followed by Quebec, and the trend follows the elimination of 4000 other jobs in 2014.

The company has 40,000 employees worldwide including 12,000 in Canada, most of whom are probably feeling very insecure. The above tends to confirm that there is no such thing as a secure job and that companies are forced to adapt to a weakening economy. Things don't get better under capitalism do they? 

John Ayers.

The Power of the People

Voting for the lesser of two evils is not the same as choosing to switch a runaway train to another track so it kills one person instead of five if you do nothing. In this hypothetical case, there are only two choices. But when faced with two repulsive candidates for office, there are other choices – abstain from voting or vote for a third party candidate, or write someone in. The rationale presented by those arguing for a vote for the lesser evil is that supporting an “independent” candidate should be seen to be a “spoiler” and instead their message make sure the least-worst of the capitalist politicians wins at all costs!

If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you’re compromising your political values and you’re sabotaging future real change. You’re guaranteeing the ruling class will put you in this position again and again. Lesser evilism proclaims “there is no alternative,” and works to enforce that claim, inducing people to knowingly vote for parties that do not represent their views or interests. Stampeded by revulsion and fear, we are left with the choice of voting for the mainstream and right-wing whose strategy then enables a further rightward drift. The more the “left” compromises and capitulates, the more boldly the conservatives express their vision and the further to the right the mainstream moves. Every year, the Left concedes more ground to the right, under the mistaken impression that this will bring everything closer to the centre to capture more votes. In fact, there is no centre. The Left tailor their appeal to undecided voters and narrows the terms of political debate. As long as voters engage in lesser evilism, workers miss out on the political opportunities that elections should present.

There are those liberals, progressives or populists, all concerned, well-meaning individuals who decry society’s illnesses but possess no clear idea of their fundamental cause. They see around them the unequal distribution of wealth, endless war, rampant racism, unemployment, and people's diminishing expectations yet hold no coherent analysis of how such injustices come about. They favour amending the current system, hoping that gradually, bit-by-bit, it can be converted into something fundamentally different.

Socialists understand that the drive for profits conflicts with the needs of humanity as a whole and to solve society’s fundamental problems, capitalism must go. Eliminating capitalism means placing industry under common ownership and workers control; building new institutions of democracy to replace the State and creating workplace- and community-based, regional and national committees of working people to democratically plan and run the economy. This perspective calls for replacing the current political and economic system from top to bottom with a new system, democratically run by working people which prioritises human needs and not profits.

Socialists are often asked to point to a single successful example where socialism has created the utopia that we advocate. If non-existence of an ideal result were grounds for declaring an approach a failure, then the capitalism can be condemned on those very grounds—doubly so, in fact, since promises and pledges of golden ages to come have resulted in only further injustice, violence and devastation that we see all around us and which has been implemented countless times through history. However, the unfortunate truth is that no socialist revolution has yet occurred.  

Working people are required to take over the management and running of the economy, and to do so they have to organize. They have to be on board with the socialist idea and be clear on the goal. They have to be willing and able to fight for political and economic power in their own name. Workers have to know as to who’s on which side, who their friends and who their enemies are. Forming a separate third ‘labour’ party is not enough. To truly break free of “lesser evilism” means to build a party of, by and for the working class – a socialist party. A “new party of the left” or “new party of the 99%” is too vague. Anyone envisioning such a party sees whatever they want to see in it and will inevitably provide the vehicle for every reformer who seeks to rearrange everything at the top without challenging the underlying economic system. Language is important because it can be used to enlighten or to deceive. Those who describe themselves as socialist and pretends to be in favour of some kind of revolution yet protects and defends the status quo are deceivers. We should remember that success is not measured by how many people you have marching behind your banner, but by the number of people marching behind your banner in the right direction.

The working class produces everything. Although its distribution is highly unequal, all of our society’s wealth has its origin in the labour of ordinary people. This gives us tremendous power.

Socialism: Building the New Society

Capitalism doesn’t see people as people. We are commodities to be bought and sold. Working people are hurting, and the only way to stop that suffering and win any long-term gains is to continue to build the grassroots working-class movement. Meanwhile, we must simultaneously begin the process of creating a viable socialist party. Such a plan is about as straightforward and pragmatic as it gets. Thinking we can reform or take over the Labour Party or the Democratic Party is fantasy. If people really believe in the idea of a political revolution and want to participate in the construction of a new world, we will have to work for it every day, not just every few years during an election campaign. We socialists are up against the fact of life that once more a new generation has to be convinced afresh that socialism does represent a superior system for the peoples, and that the idea of the withering away of the state is not a pipedream, but a realistic rough sketch of the future state of human society. New recruits for socialism will arise only when people believe these things again, and only by a reasoned argument can we hope to convince them. They will certainly never be won by repeating the old, tired slogans.

The Socialist Party has nothing to hide. We invite the most merciless criticism from our opponents; and, conscious of the soundness of our position we happily engage in public debate. Not so, however, other parties. Socialism is the only remedy and the only rational solution. If we are socialists, what are we actually fighting for? It is all about organising a society by means of a free federation from below upward, of workers associations, industrial and agricultural, first into a commune, then a federation communes into regions, and into international associations. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. The task of socialists, therefore, is to help and guide the transfer of political power from capitalists to working people, but not to decide for them what a classless society is to be like.

When we socialists talk of ending “exploitation,” there is great confusion in the world today over this question. Our aim is to try to clear some of this up. What we mean is that the process of capitalists not paying workers the full value of what they produce. The capitalists withhold as profits part of the wealth that workers produce, a process called “exploitation.” There is great confusion in the world today over this question. Our aim is to try to clear some of this up. Labour politicians talked about socialism, in practice, they carried on running capitalism. They did introduce certain reforms which ameliorated the effects of some of the worst features of capitalism in the spheres of health, housing, and family support. Collectively, these became known as the ‘Welfare State’ – but that was not socialism. The essential feature of capitalism, that very thing which makes the system one of exploitation and robbery of the mass of wage workers by the ruling class of capitalists, namely the private ownership of the means of production and exchange, this remained untouched. All the Labour Party’s ‘socialism’ amounted to was state capitalism, in which the state was controlled and run by the capitalist class.

Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. Socialism will be a higher level of social development because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transformative force. Socialism does not mean state ownership or government control. Instead, the means of production – the factories, mines, mills, workshops, offices, farms and fields, transportation system, media, communications, medical facilities, retailers, etc., will be transformed into common property. Private ownership of the main means of production will end. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. The vast creative potential of the millions of working people will be unleashed. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible. Rational economic coordination and planning will replace the present anarchic system. And will aim at building an economy that will be benefit the people. Socialism will open the way for great changes in society. The people will establish a genuine democracy for the people. The people will elect delegates and representatives at all levels of the administration of the economy. There will be the right of recall and referendum. Socialism will bring an end to the class struggle and usher in a new classless and stateless society of free brotherhood. Socialist society is the first society based upon the planned fulfillment of genuine human needs. Socialism will create a level of productive forces unknown before in the history of mankind.

We socialists are up against the fact of life that once more a new generation has to be convinced afresh that socialism does represent a superior system for the peoples, and that the idea of the withering away of the state is not a pipedream, but a realistic if very rough sketch of the future state of human society. New recruits for socialism will arise only when people believe these things again, and only by a reasoned argument can we hope to convince them. They will certainly never be won by repeating the old, tired slogans. Each step in the struggle of class society and every battle has been towards the aim of socialism. Exploitation, oppression, and degradation will not exist in a socialist society. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and intellectual labor will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will gradually have withered away.

Socialism or Reformism?

The Socialist Party is the only party that genuinely stands for socialism. Our main focus is we do not want to continue with capitalism. Capitalism has continued to throw up our problems such as with housing. The Socialist Party don’t have specific policies, because we are not a reformist group, but say capitalism is responsible for many existing problems and champion common ownership and democratic control as a replacement. We argue that the many social problems we face will only be solved by people taking democratic action to end capitalism and establishing the socialist principle ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’. A socialist society — call it communist if you like: names are not that important — producing to satisfy human needs, i.e. for socially useful purposes instead of for profit, will not have to waste and dissipate its resources on war and waste, nor will it have to worry about poverty problems. Let’s work to bring about a society where work will not be a four-letter word, due to the exploiting relationships of capitalism. Let’s help fellow-workers by building a movement for one world, a classless society where the dirty reality of profiteering from others’ sweat will have vanished and where humans will no longer be divided by man-made barriers of class, religion or racism. No longer the competitive rat-race, but the social cooperation of civilised homo sapiens: surely a worthy goal for anyone looking for socially useful political activity?

The working class should support the party that aimed at abolishing the problems that beset society as a whole and the working class in particular. Socialism would do this, so socialism must be defined. It must be a worldwide system in which there will be a community of interests. The privileges of ownership will disappear. There will be no production for profit, all goods will be produced for need. There will be no banks or insurance companies, no money, no profits, no rent, no interest. Poverty and other problems will continue as long as there are capitalist owners and most of the people are wage and salary earners. The competition between capitalists grows more intense and leads to greater wars. The Socialist Party is proud of its war record, it takes its stand on the basis of internationalism. Whilst wages continue, so will capitalism. Socialism is not merely the taking away of industry from the capitalist owners, it is the handing over of industry to the whole of mankind. Taking from one set of owners to give to another does not benefit the workers.

When the Labour Party came into existence it was to get socialism in a quicker way than the way advocated by the Socialist Party. It was going to do things in a hurry. Now it has not only slowed down the pace to a stand-still but and accuses the Socialist Party of being the ones in a hurry. The Socialist Party is small and its funds are but a tiny fraction compared to those of the massive Labour Party. If all those millions of pounds of funds and all that effort had been directed to the achievement of socialism we should have been much nearer the day of its establishment. While members of the working class remain in their present condition of political ignorance, leaving their affairs in the hands of “leaders,” there will continue to be desertion and betrayal. On the other hand, if they were conscious of their position as a class, if they had no leaders and refused to be followers, little or nothing would be gained by capitalism or lost to our class by the “ratting” of one of their number.

Many reformist liberals put forward ideas that seem to upset the capitalist class but totally fails to speak out in favour of socialism. Many do a great job of highlighting that capitalism won’t fix our problems, but for whatever reason fail to take up the position that we must abandon capitalism. Liberals advocate reforms as ways to preserve capitalism while socialism seeks to replace it. It is time to take the  revolutionary goal to the people and dismiss the idea that progress should be made in incremental steps. It is time for socialists to speak up and to rise up to the challenge of putting forth new ideas. The illusion of last resort for reformists is lesser evilism to defeat the greater evil. The argument against lesser evilism is that voting for the lesser evil paves the way for greater evils. The lesser evilists call it strategic voting. The most effective way to defeat the greater evil is to build support and power by organising and campaigning for its own distinct alternative. Socialism means a radical restructuring of society that socialises and democratises economic and political institutions. Without an independent workers movement to articulate this socialist vision, reformism, liberalism, progressivism will drown out the socialist message under a programme of palliatives and the voice of the socialists will be muted. Working class independence has been the first principle of socialist politics when workers found they could not count on the intellectual and “higher” classes to support their right to the franchise. They would have to fight themselves. The mass-membership working-class party was an invention of the socialists in the 19th century. It was how working people organised democratically to compete politically with the parties of the propertied elites. A popular socialist party has yet to re-emerge as a distinct and visible presence that matters in politics. There are no shortcuts to building such a mass party. A true opportunity for change has presented itself and the future of progress hinges on how we move forward. We are humans—we have great big brains that are hard-wired for all possible responses which makes us a unique species capable of infinite, illimitable choice. Let’s be wise about it. 

Revolution – the real thing – anyone?

These Entitlements Are Scarce For Workers

Under Ontario law 1.6 million workers in the province aren't entitled to a job-protected unpaid sick day. Small businesses with less than 50 employees don't have to give workers any sick days at all –paid or unpaid – leaving more than a million workers who are often already trapped in low-wage jobs without any protection, according to a recent report by the Workers' Action Centre.

Under the province's Employment Standards Act workers are entitled to 10 emergency leave days a year, but that leave is unpaid and bosses can, if they want, legally demand their employees provide a doctor's letter. Doctors complain that this clogs up the clinics with cold-ridden patients who could have recovered at home 

John Ayers.

Don’t let socialists starve – feed the revolution

Every now and again, we see flashes of resistance from people that captures the public’s imagination.  Too often for long-in-the-tooth socialists it's easy to become cynical. We witness those protests but not see very much change happening. Unable to sustain the political momentum many outbreaks of grassroots activism will die down and media attention disappears.

Thanks to the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, economic socialism has captured the attention of both the public and the media. The word "socialism" no longer possesses that scary connotation it once had. But the word “socialism” also has various meanings and it is incumbent upon us to examine those meanings. Socialists argue that society is structured in such a way that there can be no escape from persistent inequalities unless the class relationship is confronted directly and capitalism is abolished. Capital determines how our societies are organised, and we will not and cannot escape this unless and until capital's power is destroyed. Socialism is understood to mean the social ownership of society's productive wealth and democratic planning of economic activity. It means through class struggle the abolition of the wage system. It dissolves the entire complex web of market relationships  which produces brutal exploitation of both people and the natural world. Socialism intends an end the debilitating division of labour that guarantees most workers a lifetime of alienation and stultifying work. It demanded production for use and not for profit. It supposed, in other words, the abolition of capitalism. Others, to the contrary and this includes Bernie Sanders view socialism as reformist social democracy, with capitalism intact, although regulated by the oversight of a “progressive” government. The state will re-distribute wealth by taxation and social welfare benefits, providing more generous social services, health care, and education.

If we are serious about socialism, we must say, as often as possible, what it is. Through our organisations we must educate, explaining ourselves and our objectives, as well as offer the strategies and tactics to achieve our goals. The reality we face is that many on the left have very modest aims, believing that the most we can hope for are to be like the liberal social-democracies in Scandinavia despite the fact that these countries are still no nearer socialism after decades of palliative measures which are actually now being gradually dismantled. The most “radical” proposals from the left are an economy based on cooperatives where workers elect their managers while still competing ruthlessly against other worker–owned co-ops.

Socialists have to advocate the revolutionary change which will usher in a class-free society where we have common ownership of all the goods and services and we each have free access to all those. This is the socialist vision we must hold fast to. These are the socialist principles we must stand by.

It is incumbent upon us to combat the mischievous work of other bodies claiming to be socialist, which finds expression in the mental confusion of those who take the floor against us. For example, it is a common thing to hear it urged against us that a welfare state is socialism, and that many a reformist is a socialist. However, the red flag is still flying, the knowledge of our principles is spreading, and the future is full of promise. We shall be able to keep the uncompromising red flag flying. The Socialist Party presses sturdily along an undeviating path to the overthrow of capitalism and the realisation of the co-operative commonwealth. We plough a hard and lonely furrow to-day and the field of our endeavours is weed-encumbered and all but choked with stubble. Our work would be much easier if we had to sow socialist seed on virgin soil; but before we can do that we have to root up all the Labour and Left-wing weeds. But what a few can do to clear the ground and keep it clear that do we, and to-morrow we reap the harvest

"What is good for the hive, is good for the bee."

A Clear Demonstration

Actress Susan Sarandon recently made the following statement on MSNBC about Hillary Clinton accepting contributions from Wall Street, Big Pharma and Monsanto: "She's accepted money from all of those people. So what would make you think that once she gets in, she's going to suddenly go against the people that have given her millions and millions of dollars?" The answer being she isn't, nor would any successful Republican candidate.

This clearly demonstrates the connection between big business and elected politicians and how political office is bought. Therefore, the interests of the wealthy will always remain a priority for politicians, which is another excellent reason to abolish the system which creates both the privileged and the political toadies. 

John Ayers.

Post-capitalist free-access socialist society

Universal Benefit Income is not something the Socialist Party can agree with as we challenge the whole concept of a monetary income, i.e. with people having to buy what they need. We favour a post-capitalist society of common ownership and democratic control, where people wouldn't have "incomes" but have free access to what they needed. There are also some reformists who argue that even under capitalism it is better to let people have some things free (e.g. health care, transport, phone calls) rather than give them money to buy these services. But a post-capitalist free access socialist society in effect means effectively that we will all own and control the means of production and distribution and can abolish wages and prices into the museums of antiquity.

Many proponents assume that if the government gives everybody, working or not, a regular income this is going to have no effect on wage levels? They seem to be assuming that this would be in addition to income from work whereas what is likely to happen is that it would exert a huge downward pressure on wages and that over time real wages would on average fall by the amount of the "basic" income. In other words, that it would be essentially a subsidy to employers. It would be "basic" in the sense of being a minimum income that employers would top up to the level people needed to be able to reproduce and maintain their particular working skill. Don't they understand how their much-vaunted law of supply and demand works? Reformists do come up with some crackpot ideas. Capitalism cannot be reformed to eliminate poverty, either absolute or relative. The poor are an essential component of capitalism and must be kept in relative or absolute poverty to compel them into waged slavery in order to produce wealth for the capitalist owners of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth. Why subsidise employers in their rationed exploitation of wage slaves when we could abolish wages and prices altogether and the real wealth creators and producers (all of us) own the world in common?

The Labour Party has never been a socialist party. The new society has to be made by ourselves and we can dissolve all governments 'over' us and elect ourselves to run a commonly owned world:

"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.” (1879 Marx and Engels).

There is no country can exist independently of the rest of the world. If you wish sustainability, we have to proceed from production for sale in an intensely profit oriented, competitive ,wasteful , minority-owned coercive waged slavery, war machined system, into a free access production for use, commonly owned one. A democratic world economy where we all own and share resources, based on the tenet of, "from each according to their ability to each according to their needs." Once we have a common ownership, production for use, money-free, post-capitalist free-access society and have abolished the wages and prices rationing system, we can all volunteer our contributions to the social pot.

The problem is actual and relative poverty are essential components of capitalism in order to keep the majority wage-slaving away in a production for sale economy for the profit of a minority social class. Capitalism has to be replaced by a production for use society which is owned by all and has free access to the wealth produced in conditions of real social equality.

A post-capitalist society will dissolve the governments 'over' us and elect the people, with delegated responsibility where necessary, over resources. Abolish wages and prices systems and end poverty at a stroke.  It is the poor who create wealth and not the other way around.

It is a naive belief that capitalism could be reformed in a way in which poverty could be eliminated. Poverty, absolute and relative are essential conditions of capitalism. It requires a working class which is relatively poorer than the owning class to induce it into waged slavery in order to create all of the world’s wealth for the owning parasite capitalist class. Poverty and war are essential concomitants of capitalism and will remain so, until it is replaced by a post-capitalist, production for use, moneyless, free access society, run by us all in conditions of real social and economic equality.

The market does not satisfy human needs. The market is not the answer. There is only one way to escape for workers from the detrimental effects of capitalism and that is for the economy to be run by the immediate producers themselves. Once in control of the process of production they would have no interest in wasting effort on producing goods that no one wants, on turning out goods of low quality, or resisting innovations that would make their work easier. The price mechanism does not let firms know what to produce in advance any more than the free associated producers are able to foresee all needs and all links in the production process. But they would be quite capable of working out what their main needs are likely to be, if only because they can calculate what is needed in the same way that capitalism does – by seeing what was needed in the past – and then adjust it according to their own democratically expressed preference. Supply can be made to correspond to demand.

Socialism is a system of planning and management in which the workers allocate resources and democratically determine priorities themselves. Such a system demands that the people themselves articulate their needs as producers, consumers and citizens, in other words, that they become the masters of their conditions of work and life, that they progressively liberate themselves from despotism and diktat of the market and its tyranny of the wallet.

Socialism will be a delegatory democracy of various diverse workers and community councils. The rule of bureaucracy or technocracy is irreconcilable with the conscious control and direction, through planned democratic association of self-managing producers. All wealth comes from the application of labour to raw materials. It was all still produced by the workers. Regardless of how production proceeds, by hand or brain, or in modernised facilities.

The question is that of ownership and control of wealth production, effectively at present it is for the enrichment of the minority owners of production and distribution mechanisms, as production is for sale to that end. With common ownership and production for use, then all wealth is available and production can be ratcheted up efficiently to satisfy human needs rather than choked off to satisfy market demand.

The capitalist class have been superfluous to the productive process since the start of the last century as educated workers generally run capitalism from top to bottom. They (the parasite class) are an unnecessary burden upon the productive process. The satisfaction of the capitalist need for profit ensures that they are engaged in competition with each other (even to the extent of war over raw materials etc.) and production is switched on and off, to satisfy profit requirements, rather than cooperatively engaged upon to satisfy human needs.

"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor" Voltaire

Wee Matt

The Glasgow Effect

A report by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, University of the West of Scotland, NHS Scotland and University College of London – claims to offer evidenced reasons for so-called 'Glasgow effect' - the phenomenon which sees more people die prematurely in Glasgow than can be accounted for by poverty alone, in comparison to the rest of the UK. The mortality rate is 15 percent higher in Glasgow across all social classes and ages, while premature mortality (dying under 65) is 30 percent higher, and much higher among the poorest in the city. The so-called 'Glasgow effect' means more people die from the cancer, heart disease, strokes as well as drugs, alcohol and suicide than do in other comparable cities.

Researchers, who spent years working on the project and examined 40 different theories, claim that radical urban planning in the 1960s and 70s, aimed at promoting economic growth, was a key factor which made Glaswegians vulnerable to the devastating effects of deprivation and bad housing. The report notes that Scottish Office documents – released under the 30 year rule – show that the creation of new towns, populated by Glasgow's skilled workforce and young families, which attracted investment, led to a situation where the city was left with "the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable". Another document admits to "skimming off the cream" of Glasgow to be rehoused in new towns such as Bishopbriggs, East Kilbride and Houston. However the policy continued to be rolled out regardless, a decision which fuelled the break-up of communities and a chronic lack of investment in housing or repairs in housing schemes such as Easterhouse, Drumchapel and Castlemilk.

As well as Westminster social engineering, the report finds that a range of other factors also made Glaswegians more vulnerable to the effects of poverty and deprivation when compared with data from Liverpool and Manchester, which in the earlier part of the 20th century had similar levels of mortality to Glasgow. The Scottish city started to fall behind considerably in later years. Researchers found that the historic effect of overcrowding was an important factor and highlighted the strategies of local government, which prioritised the regeneration of the city centre over investment in the cities housing schemes as having a significant impact on the health of Glaswegians. Data shows that Glasgow authorities spent far less on housing repairs, leaving people's homes poorly maintained and subject to damp.

David Walsh, of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, said that their work proved that poor health had political causes and could not simply be attributed to individual lifestyle choices. He added: "The principal reasons for poor health in Glasgow are poverty and deprivation, and this shouldn’t be forgotten. However, even given its very high levels of deprivation, Glasgow has much, much worse health than it should have, and much worse than in comparably deprived cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Belfast – cities that been through the same processes of de-industrialisation. Until now this has been an unexplained phenomenon: but this new research is based on assessment of a huge amount of evidence and is not speculation-based." The Scottish Office documents were particularly revealing, he claimed. "The Scottish Office embarked on a series of policies that effectively wrote off the city - they designated it a ‘declining city’ and their plans focused on economic growth elsewhere," he added. "This was a policy that went on for decades despite an awareness that this was having a massively negative impact in socio-economic terms and therefore on health."

Co-author Chik Collins, of the University of the West of Scotland said that this made Glasgow more vulnerable to the policies introduced by the Conservative Government after 1979, leaving the city with weakened industry, loss of skilled labour and very large numbers of problematic council houses in peripheral estates and high rises. He claimed Glasgow city and regional council responses further impacted on health. "It was a Scottish variant of trickle-down economics that focussed on retail and tourism, ultimately at the expense of other parts of the community which did not benefit and which did not get the help they needed from elsewhere," he added. "Glasgow got a double-dose of neoliberalism – the UK Thatcherite version, and the more local version led by the Scottish Development Agency and the Council. The ‘excess mortality’ affects the best off as well as the worst off and so all socioeconomic groups in Glasgow have reason to feel some urgency about getting to the root of that problem."

Professor Tom Devine, historian at Edinburgh University, said: "This new report is by far the most thorough and convincing attempt to date to resolve the conundrum. As a historian it is satisfying to read that many of the new explanations lie in its historical analysis of the recent past. However, the conclusions are chilling. They reveal that to a considerable extent the key causes were in the realms of public policy, housing, overspill initiatives and urban regeneration. In other words, higher death rates could have been avoided if different decisions had been made by politicians and planners at the time. Indeed, a stark warning for the future."

Satwat Rehman, Director of One Parent Families Scotland said: "Families headed by a single parent make up a quarter of families in Glasgow and sadly children in single parent families are twice as likely to live in poverty as those in two parent families. To reverse this we firmly believe in the importance of progressive policies to tackle poverty, exclusion and reduce inequality.”

Cathy McCormack, an anti-poverty campaigner from Easterhouse, first made the link between poor housing and health as a young mother. "I brought my babies home from hospital and they were bouncing with health," she recalled. "And though they were breastfed they started to get sick all the time. The health visitor couldn't understand it." In those days, she said, she was told simply to wash the black mould off the walls, which she did on a regular basis, going to war with the various fungi that sprouted all over the damp bedrooms where the family slept. "We didn't understand the damaging effect of the spores and the way they colonise your lungs," she said.

The new report into the systemic and political causes affecting the health of Glaswegians have left her "heart-broken" she told the Sunday Herald and made her angry that she had to sacrifice so much to fight what she describes as "a war against the poor". In 2005 McCormack, who is now in her early sixties, was diagnosed with chronic lung disease and in January this year suffered a heart attack. "I just can't believe that people have been so demonised," she said. "It's hard enough being poor without being blamed for it. There has been a lot of emphasis on people's health being affected by smoking and drinking. But when you've been born into poverty and oppression you're immune system is rundown. Amongst all this talk about jogging and brown bread we need to remember that this issue is really about public health. That's what this report shows and it can be easy to forget."

When the revolution comes, we’ll be ready.

Too many workers have embraced the cul-de-sac of nationalism. Nobody is born as a patriot. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it little wonder that workers fall for the nationalists and the quick fix they offer? The real evil in this world is caused by the rival gangs of ruling class hoodlums who control all media outlets, and the ignorance of the masses who support them and the divisiveness of class, race, nationalism and religion. These are the factors preventing us from working together to repair our environmentally damaged planet. Nationalism is the political form of property consciousness. It asserts that a group of people cannot exist as such unless defined by their ownership of a particular quarter of the world – the relations between “peoples” are actually the relations between patches of land, rather than the people upon them. It was the predominate form of ideology for the rising capitalist class in the 19th century, a way of understanding the world in terms of conflicting properties, and is now a tool for conning the working class into believing that there is some communal interest between themselves and their capitalist masters in where the boundaries of their state are drawn. The nation and nationalism are not an eternal and essential characteristic of human beings as some would have it, but are solely a tool for pursuing the further interests of sections of the master class at given points in history. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers'; submission is taught, not conceived. That its workers should be patriotic is vital to each national ruling class and this, fertilised by official lies, is exploited by all governments.

Workers have no country. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country. Workers who do not own or control Britain have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who similarly have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours and which we will never benefit from? On the contrary, our object is to obtain what is not now the possession of our class - the earth and its natural and industrial resources. The only war which needs to concern us is the class war between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce over the ownership and control of the Earth's resources. Nationalist conflicts has raged for years. What, in all honesty, have any of the victors gained? What is the “independence” they yearn after if it means being trapped within borders, prisons - inside of the bigger prison of capitalism? As long as workers are deceived into viewing the world from a 'national' perspective, they will fail to understand their condition in capitalism. The working class is deluded by nationalism. Such beliefs actively encourage people to co-operate with their 'national' exploiters operating within boundaries determined purely by historical accident. Nationalism conceals the real nature of capitalism, turns worker against worker and serves to impede working- class solidarity. The world's working class have no reason to be antagonistic to other workers but must unite against their common class enemy: the world's capitalist class. It underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a World without nations and nationalism, bosses and workers.

The view that all who live in the same country have a common interest against all those who live in other states is part of a political ideology that seeks to mobilise the producing class to line up behind the owning class in its contest with the owning classes of other countries. But the interest of the wage and salary working class in all countries is to reject all nationalism, to reject in fact the very idea of “foreigner”, and to recognise that they have a common interest with people in other countries in the same economic situation of being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies in order to get a living. That interest lies in working together to establish a world-wide society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use, not for profit. We advocate a World without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments or armies. A World devoid of money or wages, exchange, buying or selling. The working class is international: so is its cause. Our cry is "Workers of all countries unite!"

The inexorable process of globalisation has increasingly made redundant the question of "national sovereignty". Many of the most important decisions are now made, not by politicians, but in the boardrooms of these multinationals. The proliferation of trading links between different states has effectively blurred the lines of demarcation between nominally separate national economies. It would be more realistic now to speak of there being a single global economy. Yet regional nationalists imagine they can buck the trend without even being against capitalism. The Socialist Party opposes all nationalism. Workers have no country. None to live for. None to die for. Workers should refuse to fight, for every drop of working-class blood spilt in battles within capitalism is wasted. 

The facts of working-class life are poverty, insecurity, unemployment, homelessness, slums, as well as disease.These miseries did not originate in "foreign" rule any more than they can be assuaged or eradicated by "home" rule. The French, English, German or Russian worker under his "own" government, lived with these problems in the same way as the Irish worker or the Indian worker, living under a "foreign" government. They did not arise out of the "evil" intentions, nor the blundering or stupidity of governments, "home" or "foreign". Workers have nothing to gain from the redrawing of the boundaries, but regional entrepreneurs and bureaucrats certainly do have a chance of making good if only they can persuade the electorate to back them. Capitalism knows no boundaries, money has no accent. 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.

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 socialist world.

Socialism will be an association of free and equal producers

Although Marx did not leave us with a detailed description of a communist society his new mode of social production would in essence be an association of free and equal producers. It will not be the state which is director and administrator of production and distribution, but rather it will be the producers and consumers themselves to whom these functions would fall. Reformists have turned this theory completely upside down. The struggle for social reforms and the steady transformation of the various branches of industry into state or municipal enterprises meant for them a steady approach towards socialism. Social Democracy conceived of realising socialism through a continuous and gradual process of nationalisation.

Socialisation is the genuine authentic organisation of the economy. Undoubtedly the economy has to be organised; but not according to the old methods. The working class, in order to accomplish its purpose, must, first of all, secure entire political control of the state. But to the Socialist Party political power is only a means to an end. It is the instrument with which labour will achieve the complete, fundamental reconstruction of our entire industrial system. To-day all wealth, the land, the mines, the mills and the factories belong to a small group of capitalists. From them, the toilers receive a scanty wage in return for long hours of arduous labour, hardly enough for a decent livelihood. The enrichment of a small class of parasitic idlers is the purpose and end of present-day society. To give to modern society and to modern production a new impulse and a new purpose – that is the foremost duty of the revolutionary working class. To this end, all social wealth the land and all that it produces, the factories and the mills must be taken from their exploiting owners to become the common property of the entire people. Production is to be carried on for the sole purpose of securing to all a more humane existence, of providing for all plentiful food, clothing and other cultural means of subsistence. In the interest of general welfare, society will become more economical, more rational in the utilisation of its commodities, its means of production and its labour power. Waste such as we find to-day on every hand, will cease. In a Socialist society, where all work together for their own well-being, the health of the individual worker, and his or her joy in work must be conscientiously fostered and sustained. Short hours of labour not in excess of the normal human capacity must be established: recreation and rest periods must be introduced into the workday, so all may do their share, willingly and joyously.

Today the capitalist with his whip stands behind the worker, in person or in the form of a manager or overseer. Hunger drives the worker to the factory, into the business office. Everywhere the employer sees to it that no time is wasted, no material squandered, that good, efficient work is done. In socialism, the capitalist with his whip disappears. Here all workingmen and women are free and on an equal footing, working for benefit and enjoyment, tolerating no waste of social wealth, rendering honest and punctual service. To be sure, every workplace needs its technicians who understand its workings, who are able to supervise production so that everything runs smoothly. As far as economic functions are concerned, each factory will have its own factory council elected by the workers; this will have a part to play in the socialisation and subsequent management of the plant in accordance with suitable criteria. Workers must show that they can work without slave-drivers behind their back.

Socialism is the only salvation for humanity. The establishment of the socialist society is the mightiest task which has ever fallen to a class and to a revolution in the history of the world. This task requires a complete abolition of the state and a complete overthrow of the economic and social foundations of society. This cannot be decreed by any bureau, committee, or parliament. It can be begun and carried out only by the masses of people themselves. In all previous revolutions, a small minority of the people led the revolutionary struggle, gave it aim and direction, and used the mass only as an instrument to carry its interests, the interests of the minority, through to victory. The socialist revolution is the first which is in the interests of the great majority and can be brought to victory only by the great majority of the working people themselves. Workers must do more than stake out clearly the aims and direction of the revolution. It must also personally, by its own activity, bring socialism into life. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. The socialist revolution requires no terror for its aims; it hates and despises killing. It does not need these weapons because it does not combat individuals but institutions. It is not the desperate attempt of a minority to mould the world forcibly according to its ideal, but the action of the great majority of people.