Free Access Socialism

The Socialist Party often describes socialism as a world of free access, but what does this mean? It does not mean a system based upon a free-for-all, free-to-grab-all society without rules. But there will be no private property other than personal possessions, no buying and sell hence no prices and no money. No artificial barriers to people having what they’ve decided they want. It doesn’t matter whether they’ll be called shops, stores or warehouses, but there will be places where people will go to collect necessities and luxuries. There will be choice, and probably more real choice than exists today when you can ‘pick’ from near-identical products. Everything provided will be better quality, as production for use means there would be no point in producing shoddy or disposable goods, practices which will be completely alien in socialism. A sensible use of resources would involve making things to last and as repairable and recyclable as possible. The reason why things are made to wear out is not because of the attitudes of the people involved. The management may think it’s criminal but they are paid to optimise profits. If they produced razor blades to last for decades, the firm would go broke. It is not the attitudes which are crucial, but economic interests. The rule will be “fit for purpose”

We are not advocating the abolition of money alone which would solve no problems and undoubtedly create many difficulties. But what we do propose is, that the whole system of money and exchange, buying and selling, profit-making and wage-earning be entirely abolished and that instead the community as a whole should organise and administer the productions of goods for use only, and that there will be the free distribution of these goods to all members of the community according to each person’s needs. Wealth will not be measured in terms of money since no person could say that he or she owned a share of such-and-such value in the people’s means of production. In fact, all the world’s means of production such as land, factories, mines, machines, etc, would belong to the whole of the people of the world who would co-operate in using them. Those things which mankind needs as the means of life will belong to the whole people .The world must be regarded as one country and humanity as one people where all the people will co-operate to produce and distribute all the goods and services which are needed by mankind, each person willingly and freely, taking part in the way he or she feels they can do best. All goods and services will be produced for use only, and having been produced, will be distributed, free to the people so that each person’s needs are fully satisfied.

A very common objection to socialist free access is based on a view of human nature which asserts that people would selfishly take and take without giving. The Socialist Party considers such a pessimistic perspective as one which suggests that if given the right economic framework, then, in fact, humans cannot consciously co-operate, work and consume together. Such an outlook lacks confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all, or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production and distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of rationing. It remains fixated to the lazy person, greedy individual critique of human nature. The Socialist Party, however, will continue to struggle to create a structured society where people have accepted socially mutual obligations and recognise the realisation of universal interdependency. We understand that decisions arising from this would profoundly affect people’s choices and attitudes, and greatly influence their behaviour, economically or otherwise. Human behaviour reflects society. Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in.

Critics of free access project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism, paying no heed to the changes in social outlook that would occur when people's needs are met and people feel secure, when the world is no longer based upon dog-eat-dog that in distrust, where the ostentatious accumulation of material goods cannot validate an individual's personal worth or their status since access is unrestricted. Goods and services made freely available for individuals to take without requiring these individuals to offer something in direct exchange creates a sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would change people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society. And let us not forget that the establishment of socialism through the struggles of a mass socialist movement it is reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the pre-requisite conscious understanding of what it entails and involves, will influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. So why would most people want to undermine the new society they had just helped to create?

And what of our socialist revolution? The Socialist Party does not believe in achieving socialism through coercion or through violent seizure of power by a revolutionary vanguard. That's no basis upon which to build a fair and democratic society. No, the only way that socialism, as we understand it, could be set up and run is through the consent and cooperation of an overwhelming majority of the world's population. And the only way we will know once there is such a majority is when it says so via the ballot. It is then, and only then, that we will know that the time is ripe for socialist revolution. It is then that we can start dismantling the coercive machinery of government and start taking control of the things we need to make society function in our own interests. That the socialist revolution can only be international, creating a world-wide society where production is carried out solely to meet the needs and desires of its inhabitants.

Having got rid of the worst relics of the old order, production would then be adjusted so that enough is turned out to satisfy fully the needs of everyone making due provision by storing of buffer stocks for the contingencies of natural calamities such as local droughts or earthquakes. A new social system such as we envisage socialism to be, requires that the great mass of people having already learnt what responsibilities and obligations have to be met and understand the means of the necessary action to bring it about. But it also incumbent upon us all to carry on with our usual duties for the time being , except all those whose tasks being of an unnecessary nature to the new system are rendered idle: for example, cashiers, ticket collectors and so on. These people would, in due course, be slotted into more socially productive occupations for which they considered themselves suitable.

Having produced all that is required, all that is necessary is to distribute it to the people so that each person’s needs are fully satisfied. In the case of perishable goods it would merely be a matter of transport from factory or farm direct to the local distributing centres, and in the case of other goods to large regional or city stores or warehouses. From there it is but a step to the local distributing stores which would stock the whole range of necessary goods - a kind of show-room or warehouse - and from which goods could be delivered to the homes of people or collected by them if so preferred. After all, the daily, weekly, and monthly needs of any given number of people in a district are easily worked out, so it should not be very difficult to find out what stocks the local stores would require. Goods will be “distributed” not “exchanged” , neither “exported” nor “imported”; just as if the whole world’s goods were pooled and then each region drew what is required.

Simply put, in a free access society, there would be no barter economy or monetary system. It would be an economy based on need. Therefore, a consumer would have a need, and there would be a communication system set in place that relays that need to the producer. The producer create the product, and then send the product back to the consumer, and the need would be satisfied. We use the supply chain tools and logistic systems that capitalism bequeaths us, which will be suitably modified and adapted and transformed for the new conditions. Decisions will be made at different levels of organisation: global, regional and local but with the bulk of decision-making being made at the local level. A free access economy would be a polycentric not a centrally planned economy. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilised at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. This has been called by some economists a “steady-state economy.”

Replacing the exchange economy by common ownership and free access basically means that wealth would cease to take the form of exchange value, so that all the expressions of this social relationship peculiar to an exchange economy, such as money and prices, would automatically disappear. In other words, goods would cease to have an economic value and would become simply physical objects which human beings could use to satisfy some want or other. The disappearance of economic value would mean the end of economic calculation in the sense of calculation in units of value whether measured by money or directly in some unit of labour-time. Free access socialism is a moneyless society in which use values would be produced from other use values, there would be no need to have a universal unit of account but could calculate exclusively in kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other side the amount of the good produced, together with any by-products. This, of course, is done under capitalism but it is doubled by an exchange value calculation: the exchange value of the resources used up is recorded as the cost of production while the exchange value of the output (after it has been realised on the market) is recorded as sales receipts. If the latter is greater than the former, then a profit has been made; if it is less, then a loss is recorded. Such profit-and-loss accounting has no place in socialism and would, once again, be quite meaningless.

Calculation-in-kind entails the counting or measurement of physical quantities of different kinds of factors of production. There is no general unit of accounting involved in this process such as money or labour hours or energy units. In fact, every conceivable kind of economic system has to rely on calculation in kind, including capitalism. Without it, the physical organisation of production (e.g. maintaining inventories) would be literally impossible. But where capitalism relies on monetary accounting as well as calculation-in-kind, socialism relies solely on the latter. This is one reason why socialism holds a decisive productive advantage over capitalism by eliminating the need to tie up vast quantities of resources and labour implicated in a system of monetary/pricing accounting.

The message of the Socialist Party is for all members of the class which owns little more than its ability to work and is therefore forced to sell its labour power to an employer in order to live. Revolution is a mysterious term. Most of us understand it in relation to the capitalist revolutions of the past: barricades, bayonets and blood, rousing slogans and heroic leaders leading to a new regime, one that is not really much different from the old one. However, that is not what socialists mean by revolution. When we talk of revolution we mean a conscious change in social relationships from those based upon private or state ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution to common ownership and democratic control of the world around us. The socialist revolution will mean the instant abolition of class divisions, the wages system, private property, and the need for money. It is a big aim, but it presents the only alternative to the present world system of capitalism.

The Socialist Party states as a matter of principle that the establishment of the new social order can only be possible when a majority of the world’s workers consciously understand and want it. Once majority consciousness arises, nothing can stop the conquest of power by the working class. The tensions and contradictions of working class life under capitalism tend to lead more and more workers to question the status quo. This critical thought is essential, for once you start to formulate questions, you are half way to knowing the answers. But capitalism has an immense capacity for accommodating working class discontent and dissent and it is often able to convert challenging resistance into sterile rebelliousness. Socialist consciousness cannot be accommodated within capitalism: not until we have a system of society run in the human interest will socialists be content. Socialism will open up the new possibility: the right to be different, to assert individuality, to be eccentric and to be visionaries.

The Socialist Party will continue to do everything in our power to persuade the world’s working class that their interest is not served, and can never be served by support for a system that treats them as inferior, dispensable beings and puts a permanent barrier between themselves and the fruits of their labour. It can only be brought about when members of that vast majority of the population in the economically advanced countries of the world, the working class, decide they want to bring it about and then take conscious political action to do so. And by “conscious political action” we mean going to the ballot box and voting for candidates with a revolutionary mandate to dissolve capitalism and establish socialism. This democratically established society will itself be fully democratic and in it the means of life will be produced in abundance and used freely by everyone.

Glasgow homeless

This letter appeared in the current issue of Weekly Worker and Socialist Courier see no reason to give it a wider audience. 

The number of homelessness care providers in Glasgow is being reduced from five down to one or two between now and November. There is a competitive tendering process going on at the moment. This is open to all providers at a UK level. It is part of the process of the Labour-controlled Glasgow council passing on cuts to services, following big cuts to its budget from the Scottish National Party government and, ultimately, budget cuts from the Tories to the Scottish government.

Pressure is being applied to the workforces ‘to do more with less’- ie, do more work, do it better than now and with far fewer workers. Subtle pressure is being applied - if your company is to win the tender, you may have to think about doing things you don’t do now: shift work, compulsory weekend and evening work, personal care, more community link projects, etc. If you object, then the tender will go to the providers that are willing to dramatically increase their workloads and be totally flexible and you will probably be out of a job.

Back in planet real world, this will mean workers who provide vital services to the homeless finding themselves being made redundant (and potentially homeless themselves) and facing an ever stricter work programme. It will also mean increased worker turnover and absenteeism. It will certainly lead to poorer-quality services to the public. All the current areas of support will reduce in quality - support with finding permanent accommodation, mental health problems and addiction issues not being addressed, more social isolation and exclusion. There will be greater poverty and debt-related issues. All these problems and many more will not be addressed to the same level of quality in Glasgow as they have been up until now. The care side of homelessness in Glasgow has worked so far. The cuts could see a wasteland created, as we go down more and more of an American-type road - more visible homeless, more begging, more people on the streets with mental and addiction issues, as more people fall through the current safety net.

It will lead to increased crime, family stress and break-up and shorter life expectancy. And even on cost grounds alone it will be the council that has to pick up the tab for all of this.

These services have already experienced redundancies on a wide scale in the years since the Tories were elected in 2010, resulting in increased workloads for existing workers. Casework teams who are responsible for moving homeless on to permanent accommodation when they are ‘tenancy-ready’ are in crises now and have been for over a year. Redundancies and new procedures that lengthened the waiting time for homeless people to be moved on have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Many homeless now have to wait to get a caseworker allocated and, even once this takes place, the new procedures combined with less social housing stock can mean a long wait for permanent housing.

Those classed as homeless living in temporary accommodation have very high rents - on average about £180 per week. In the past homeless people who worked paid £60 per week from their wages towards the rent and the rest would be paid in housing benefit - fairly straightforward and unbureaucratic. Now a ‘revenue and property’ team calculates to the exact pound what they want in rent and council tax based on proof of all income supplied. Every time income adjusts - eg, a person gets some extra hours or an additional benefit - there has to be a readjustment of the claim. There is a delay between housing benefit processing claims and changes to claims and the revenue and property receiving money, leading to demand letters to the homeless for exorbitant rents and council tax.

If the homeless try not to work while they are in temporary accommodation to get 100% housing benefit and council tax benefit, they are hit with the ‘work programme’, so the council knows it can hound the working homeless for more and more rent and council tax. There is a scam in the midst of this that is causing real hardship. Temporary furnished flats (TFFs) that charge £180 per week rent on average are around £225 to £250 per month in rent if they are permanent and unfurnished for the same type of tenancies. This looks awfully like the council trying to line its coffers with state housing benefit money. It has been going on for years, but the removal of the cap means some of the working homeless are now being made destitute.

The attack on the sick is also causing huge stress. If a homeless person on employment and support allowance is assessed as ‘fit for work’, they are not only kicked off employment and support allowance (ESA), but also lose housing benefit. However, it is rare for the homeless person to be informed of this. Housing benefit are immediately informed, so the homeless individual is often unknowingly accumulating rent arrears, as housing benefit has been stopped at soon as their ESA was stopped. They can accumulate large arrears very quickly through no fault of their own. And rent arrears in one of the key reasons housing associations will not move people on from temporary accommodation to permanent accommodation.

And there are queuing systems now for everything. It used to be just the department for work and pensions where it was difficult to get a human voice on the line; now it’s everything - asylum and refugee teams, casework ... There is now a queuing system for housing and council tax benefit problems. A year ago a support worker could get straight through to them on the phone. Now the homeless person has to go into the city centre to deal with any housing/council tax issues, incurring transport costs, as there can be up to a 30-minute wait on the phone.

Glasgow council has moved from a ‘two reasonable offers’ policy of housing to ‘one reasonable offer’ - it’s take it or leave it. If the one offer is refused they ‘discharge duty’ - meaning the homeless are on their own, having to look for a private let. The person has to leave the temporary accommodation or face huge rent arrears and eviction. Many housing associations are now demanding one month rent in advance from people who sometimes only receive £73 per week jobseeker’s allowance.

Even people who are successful at moving on to permanent accommodation will not get a decision about receiving goods to furnish the permanent tenancy for three weeks after they have signed the missives for the permanent tenancy - meaning three weeks of rent arrears on the temporary flat if they have not moved out of it into a completely unfurnished permanent tenancy (and for people with family and young children this is a horrendous state of affairs, raising serious health and safety issues).

The cuts to caseworker numbers, cuts to council workers working on housing and council tax benefit claims, benefit cuts, cuts to support agencies such as translation, are all creating a perfect storm. There are fewer and fewer resources with more and more demand, leading to increased stress, frustration, anger and in some cases sadly intolerance. Immigrants are not responsible for austerity. The rich are.

The Defend Glasgow Services campaign ought to oppose the latest ‘race to the bottom’ cuts by the council with deputations, lobbies, demos, council surgery pickets and putting up anti-cuts candidates for next May’s council elections. The council ought to put forward a needs-led budget. We need an end to austerity!

Glasgow homeless support worker

Understanding socialism

Ever had that feeling that the world doesn´t work the way they say it should? It’s an insane world, a rat race. Everybody running around as fast as they can – produce, consume, produce, consume. It is a dog-eat-dog world. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and deepening in different parts of the world, mainly due to social injustice. Some of us think we need a major change to another kind of society that prioritises collaboration instead of competition. We are here not to repair the system. We are here, instead to replace it. It is not our job to mend a broken system but to end it. The problem is not Clinton or Trump. Nor is it May or Corbyn. The problem is capitalism. There is only one revolution and it is to fight for all of the oppressed and exploited. Our country is the Earth. We are citizens of the world.

The issue of ‘socialism’ is surrounded by confusion. One of the reasons for that is that different people use the same word to mean different things. There are people for whom ‘socialism’ means the ‘communist’ dictatorships that used to exist in Russia and other countries. Under these regimes, everything was owned by the state and controlled by government officials. For other people like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn ‘socialism’ means a series of reforms to make society fairer and more democratic—more like what exists in Scandinavia. Capitalists are expected to pay more taxes to finance a better welfare system and there will be stronger and more effective government regulation of their business activity. But there is no need to replace capitalism by a fundamentally different system. Some thinkers would now prefer to abandon the word 'socialism' and instead substitute another word for it that would save the ideal and concept once attached to the term. Even in the past, some writers employs what they considered synonyms – cooperative commonwealth or industrial democracy. An alternative word, however, would just have its meaning corrupted in the same manner as the old one. Changing the name would not solve any problem. The real need today is gaining an understanding of socialism rather than changing the word 'socialism.'

There are those who feel that socialism is a long way off and, in the meantime, propose immediate demands to solve the hardships and difficulties that we must face. They consider their policies as realistic and pragmatic thus advocate either palliatives such as either government legislation or even ownership as gradual steps to socialism. Some consider state capitalism (often called state socialism) as a form of socialism, if not socialism itself. Necessarily, these are efforts to administer capitalism. All this leads to mistaken ideas about the nature of socialism identifying it with capitalist relationships. The socialist objective no longer becomes the aim or goal to be pursued. The means becomes the end. And the attitude towards those who understand that the purpose of political activities must be associated with the socialist objective is to accuse them of being purists, sectarians or dogmatists. But the result of being freed from ‘theory’ and given free rein to practical politics has meant workers are bewildered by the deceptions and disappointments of the 'socialist' election 'victories' in all corners of the globe, disillusioned because of their false hopes in so-called socialist reforms.

However, there exists another tradition of socialist thought in which socialism means neither the reform of capitalism nor state ownership. It means social (or communal) ownership—that is, democratic control of the means of life by and for the whole of society (or the whole community). It also means production for use, not profit. Socialism is a worldwide society. The interconnected nature of today’s world makes it impossible to create a new society in a single country. Capitalism is a world system, so socialism too must be a world system. The aspiration of a socialist is to achieve a society from which exploitation will be banished and in which the unfolding of each individual would be the condition of the freedom of all. This is the basic idea of socialism which can serve as a rallying cry to muster support.

Socialism is a classless society is one in which the use of the means of production is controlled by all members of society on an equal basis, and not just by a section of them to the exclusion of the rest. For a society to be free of classes would mean that within society there would be no group (with the exception, perhaps, of temporary delegate bodies, freely elected by the community and subject always to recall) which would exercise, as a group, any special control over access to the instruments of production; and no group receiving, as a group, preferential treatment in distribution. Every member is in a position to take part, on equal terms with every other member, in deciding how the means of production should be used. Every member of society is socially equal, standing in exactly the same relationship to the means of production as every other member. Similarly, every member of society has access to the fruits of production on an equal footing. Once the use of the means of production is under the democratic control of all members of society, class ownership has been abolished. The means of production can still be said to belong to those who control and benefit from their use, in this case to the whole population organised on a democratic basis, and so to be 'commonly owned' by them.

 Common ownership is defined as a situation in which no person is excluded from the possibility of controlling, using and managing the means of production, distribution and consumption. Each member of society can acquire the capacity, that is to say, has the opportunity to realise a variety of goals, for example, to consume what they want, to use means of production for the purposes of socially necessary or unnecessary work, to administer production and distribution, to plan to allocate resources, and to make decisions about short term and long term collective goals. Common ownership, then, refers to every individual’s potential ability to benefit from the wealth of society and to participate in its running.

The use the word 'ownership' may be misleading in that this does not fully bring out the fact that the transfer to all members of society of the power to control the production of wealth makes the very concept of private property redundant. With common ownership, no one is excluded from the possibility of controlling or benefiting from the use of the means of production, so that with reference to them the concept of property in the sense of exclusive possession is meaningless: no one is excluded, there are no non-owners. We could talk of “no-ownership” and how the classless alternative society to capitalism is a 'no-ownership' society, but the same idea can be expressed without having to do this if common ownership is understood as being a social relationship and not a form of property ownership. This social relationship—equality between human beings with regard to the control of the use of the means of production—can equally accurately be described by the terms 'classless society' and 'democratic control' as by 'common ownership' since these three terms are only different ways of describing it from different angles. The use of the term 'common ownership' to refer to the basic social relationship of the alternative society to capitalism is not to be taken to imply therefore that common ownership of the means of production could exist without democratic control. Common ownership means democratic control means a classless society. When we refer to the society based on common ownership, generally we use the term “socialism”, though we have no objection to others using 'communism' since for us these terms mean exactly the same and are interchangeable.

Common ownership is not to be confused with state ownership (or nationalisation), since an organ of coercion, or state, has no place in socialism. A class society is a society with a state because sectional control over the means of production and the exclusion of the rest of the population cannot be asserted without coercion, and so without a special organ to exercise this coercion. On the other hand, a classless society is free of a state because such an organ of coercion becomes unnecessary as soon as all members of society stand in the same relationship with regard to the control of the use of the means of production. The existence of a state as an instrument of class political control and coercion is quite incompatible with the existence of the social relationship of common ownership. State ownership is a form of exclusive property ownership which implies a social relationship which is totally different from socialism. Common ownership is a social relationship of equality and democracy which makes the concept of property redundant because there are no longer any excluded non-owners. State ownership, on the other hand, presupposes the existence of a government machine, a legal system, armed forces and the other features of an institutionalised organ of coercion. State-owned means of production belong to an institution which confronts the members of society, coerces them and dominates them, both as individuals and as a collectivity. Under state ownership the answer to the question 'Who owns the means of production?' is not 'everybody' or 'nobody' as with common ownership; it is 'the state'. In other words, when a state owns the means of production, the members of society remain non-owners, excluded from control. Both legally and socially, the means of production belong not to them, but to the state, which stands as an independent power between them and the means of production.

The state is not an abstraction floating above society and its members; it is a social institution, and, as such, a group of human beings, a section of society, organised in a particular way. This is why, strictly speaking, we should have written above that the state confronts most members of society and excludes most of them from control of the means of production. For wherever there is a state, there is always a group of human beings who stand in a different relationship to it from most members of society: not as the dominated, nor as the excluded, but as the dominators and the excluders. Under state ownership, this group controls the use of the means of production to the exclusion of the other members of society. In this sense, it owns the means of production, whether or not this is formally and legally recognised.

Deprived districts in Scotland

Ferguslie Park in Paisley has been identified as the area of Scotland with the greatest level of deprivation. It is the second successive time the area has been at the bottom of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), which is published every four years. Lower Whitecraigs in East Renfrewshire is classed as the least deprived. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-37230405

Statisticians rate almost 7,000 areas in Scotland by standards including income, employability and health. The statisticians say "deprived" does not just mean "poor" or "low income". It can also mean people have fewer resources and opportunities, for example in health and education.

Glasgow has 56 of the 100 most deprived areas. Edinburgh has six.

The 10 most deprived areas in Scotland:

1. Ferguslie Park, Paisley

2. Carntyne West and Haghill, Glasgow City

3. North Barlanark and Easterhouse South (Area 1), Glasgow City

4. Old Shettleston and Parkhead North, Glasgow City

5. Nitshill, Glasgow City

6. Muirhouse, City of Edinburgh

7. Possil Park, Glasgow City

8. Cliftonville, North Lanarkshire

9. Drumchapel North, Glasgow City

10. North Barlanark and Easterhouse South (Area 2), Glasgow City

The 10 least deprived areas in Scotland:

1. Lower Whitecraigs and South Giffnock, East Renfrewshire

2. Midstocket, Aberdeen City

3. Marchmont West (Area 1), City of Edinburgh

4. St Andrews South West, Fife

5. Comely Bank, City of Edinburgh

6. Joppa, City of Edinburgh

7. Marchmont West (Area 2),City of Edinburgh

8. Hilton, Aberdeen City

9. Kilmardinny East, East Dunbartonshire

10. Bruntsfield, City of Edinburgh

Poverty begets poverty

Poorer people in Scotland are paying more than others for essential services, according to research from the Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS). Those on low incomes often paid above average for energy, telecoms and financial services. Bigger bills makes their financial situation worse which further affects health and relationships, CAS said.

Researchers found that lower income Scots were more likely to use expensive pre-payment meters. Less than a quarter of those who used the meters had switched their energy supplier in the last three years. Those living in the most deprived areas of the country were even less likely to switch suppliers, according to the report.

They were also more likely to use mobile phones on pricier pay-as-you-go plans, researchers said. In addition, poorer people in Scotland were less likely to switch phone suppliers and more likely to be without a mobile at all - and so were hardest hit by the rise in landline costs.

CAS said low income consumers would often take out credit or loans without understanding the full costs involved.

The poor had no home contents insurance because they found it unaffordable.

CAS spokesman Patrick Hogan said: "Our new research today shows that many individuals' financial situations are made even worse because poverty levels limit their choices when it comes to accessing consumer services. So, if you are poor in Scotland today you pay more for basic services, and so become even poorer.” Mr Hogan added: " Poverty should not breed even more poverty."

Capitalism cannot be reformed

We are offended by applying the description of 'socialism' to any of the Trotskyite parties, or even to the Labour Party. The Labour party has never been a socialist party.

“The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it – a bit like Christians in the Church of England.” (Tony Benn)

It is grossly unjust also to smear people who have joined the Labour Party in this way, some of them might be, a small minority, not significant in respect of numbers and those will be practising 'entry-ism' but can easily be expelled later.

Supporting either the top-down machinations of Leninist control freaks who would only establish a state-capitalist dictatorship over the workers ,or the 'business friendly Labour party, or any parties of the left, right, centre of capitalism, who would govern over the workers, is a deluded choice. Leftist, rightist, centrist, are all manifestations of types of capitalism and that the term 'leftist' is devoid of any particular significance.

Capitalism cannot be reformed despite the well-meaning intentions of decent people in any of those political parties and has to be replaced by a new system of; production for use; democratic delegation, free access; and common ownership of all the means and instruments for creating and distributing wealth run by ourselves. Socialism is a post-capitalist society which will need to be established by the workers of the world, by themselves and for themselves.

Labour's infamous Clause 4 reflected their confused understanding of what socialism is, entails and constitutes. First, it equates common ownership with state ownership. i.e. Nationalisation. State intervention is not socialism. The state exists to help manage the affairs of the ruling class and may indeed intervene in their general interests, nationalising, welfare, to keep the workers fit for future exploitation etc. Secondly it calls for the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. (our emphasis.) But a real commonly owned society would not require a means of rationing access to commonly owned wealth. It is a free access society.

No, the emancipation of the working class is freedom from waged slavery, common ownership of all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, production for use, utilising technological and informational infrastructure to provide self-regulation stock control systems and free access for all within a delegatory democratic administration over resources and not people by the people themselves and not a government.

We have a world to make and win and the organising societal ethos which will percolate through this, which proceeds from the organising tenet, "From each according to their ability to each according to their needs" will provide the social framework which will shape human behaviour, self-determinedly.

Capitalism cannot be reformed. However, well-intentioned politicians may be it is not in their gift to bestow upon us more “humble mortals”.

"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)

It is a post-capitalist society and damn all to do with nationalisation or the state-capitalism imposed by the feudal conditions of Russian experience or the state management over people and resources envisaged by the Labour Party.

The whole point of capitalism is to keep a relatively impoverished class of workers toiling away to produce an immense accumulated source of wealth for the parasite capitalist class and banks are just a money changing part of this.

"If money, according to Augier, “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." (Marx)

Dissolve the governments and politicians, elect yourselves into building a socialist world.

Wee Matt

Digest August 2016

• Why we need a socialist revolution
• To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists ...
• To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists ...
• To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists ...
• To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists ...
• The Socialist Party’s Social Revolution
• Common Ownership and the Commons
• Capitalism's golden rule, those with the gold rule...
• The Govanhill Slums (2)
• The Govanhill slums (1)
• Educate! Agitate! Organise!
• Two anti-war songs (music video)
• Seeking sanity
• Who Owns the North Pole - Part 89
• Getting the sack (1980)
• The Curse of Religion
• Swiss bankroll (1980)
• Tracks That Lead Nowhere
• Crapitalism because capitalism is shit
• A World To Re-Build
• Ideas Transform Movements
• The Cold War Has Begun Again.
• Capitalism - a malignant cancer
• Minorities in Scotland
• Women Soldiers A Reflection!
• The enemy is capitalism.
• Bothies not profits
• Most Single Representative American
• Strategies That Have Failed
• None Of This Affects The Wealthy
• Marxist-Humanism
• Under Constant Attack
• To-day Capitalism, To-morrow Socialism
• Principles First, Methods Afterwards.
• Socialism Now or Apocalypse Now?
• Gun Viiolence And Poverty
• Educate that you may be free
• The Inglorious 12th
• Which Chaotic World Do You Think You Prefer?
• Working-class” is not a dirty word
• Harmony?
• Climate Change Has Claimed Its First Victim!.
• The Times Are Changing
• Brexit - A Socialist Comments.
• 'Green' Capitalism
• Something Fundamentally Should Be Done About It.
• This is Socialism
• Forward to the socialist revolution
• The Calton Weaver (music video)
• Eight years of CND (1966)
• The Socialist Party will not falter
• We follow ideas, not men
• The People’s Platform
• Workers Can Build a Better World
• Break the Chains of Wage Slavery - Fight for Socia...
• Time for revolution

Why we need a socialist revolution

For years the Socialist Party has strived to be the expression of the class-conscious workers. Years of dedicated work has not had the desired result we expected. We took our stand upon the fundamental antagonism of interests between the two classes in society, and we have kept ourselves clear of the crushing influences of both reformism and nationalism. Our vision has always been to fundamentally change the system. We offer a clear class analysis. The world today is a class society, and there is a basic contradiction between the working class and the capitalist class. The social forces which can bring about revolution can be clearly defined. The main social forces capable of creating fundamental social change is the working class. Who are the one class that no society can do without? Those who work. For the working class to assume this crucial role it must be organised, it must have its own political party for the struggle for its empowerment, just as other classes have theirs to enable them to wage political struggle. We must strive to empower the working class because it represents the revolutionary class in society. It is the motor for change in the real world because of its size, its position in society and its relation to the productive process. Today it is those who work who have the responsibility together with the opportunity to reorganise our world. It is going to be difficult, but it is essential. Therefore it must be done. We believe that the clear target of our revolution is the capitalist class.  The Socialist Party states forthrightly that we are fighting for socialism and to fundamentally alter property relations. Revolution means changing property relations. Our socialism will be democratic where the wealth of society will go primarily to those who produce it.

The world is going through some important and momentous changes. The world about us is falling to pieces. Despite the gloating about the failure to bring about socialism, the planet is in deep trouble. All the evils of capitalism have been allowed to flourish openly. The need for some sort of change or in other words, a revolution, is widely realised. The gap between rich and poor is the greatest since the 1930’s. The welfare state and social services created to help the poor are being all but eliminated. Education is failing millions. Racism and hate crime is on the rise. Our environment is being pillaged and plundered for profit. People understand that the world seems to be collapsing, but they do not know what to do about it. We think that we have a clear and more accurate analysis of capitalist society, and an explanation for the tremendous social problems it inflicts upon us. The Socialist Party proposes a clear objective to the people. Being an openly socialist organisation enables us to make more rapid progress in our work. We present a clear view of socialism and advocate a social change which is in the best interest of all people. We explain WHAT we are trying to build, WHERE it is we wish to head and HOW we seek to go. We proudly advocate people not profits. We offer a viable alternative for achieving peace, justice and equality. We advocate peace, justice, equality and socialism.

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. They made no attempt to proclaim in advance how a socialist society is to be developed. From the days of the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels proclaimed on the contrary that the makers of a socialist society will be the workers (proletarians) and that it is the task of socialists (or communists) to help the workers to power but not to decide for them or to lead them. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. State ownership of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism, nor does this constitutes “the socialist sector of a mixed economy”. Such nationalisation is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. The task of the Socialist Party, therefore, is to help and guide the transfer of power from capitalists to working people. Nor is the “Welfare State” socialist. A socialism will certainly give high priority to health, education, art, science, and the social well-being of all its members. That is why it exists, that is the purpose of its economy. But “welfare” in a capitalist state, to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, is not socialism but another form of state capitalism. It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. (A “Welfare State” also inevitably turns into the means tested state, as we have seen.)

The organised workers have been for the past century or more, in a position to capture the machinery of the state, on the one condition that they themselves wish to do so, i.e. that they understand that this is both necessary and possible. The political lessons are clear as could be to anyone who understands the threat and consequences of leaving capitalist in the dominant position of the state. Capitalism is maintained by class power and will only be displaced by other class power. We do not think it any longer necessary to attempt proof of the need for revolution if we are to achieve socialism, i.e. to develop an increasingly classless society. If the working people want power they will have to take it. It will not be given to them. The time is ripe for a worldwide liberation movement that defends and promotes the freedoms of all humanity from the ravaging of the 1%.

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.” — Eugene Victor Debs

To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists and Freethinkers (4/4)

The only reasonable position to adopt towards any religion is one of atheism: unbelief. There is a presumption in favour of not believing fantastic claims. It is up to the believer to present proof for the existence of God or life after death. After all, few are agnostic about Father Christmas, fairies or unicorns; we know they don't exist. The same scepticism should also apply to the extraordinary beliefs of religion. With religious believers, however, there is a willingness to believe despite the lack of evidence. And it is this gullibility which socialists find to be dangerous and objectionable. Faith is the last refuge of a believer. Religious faith, however, would only make sense if what was believed in were plausible. Neither the existence of a God nor life after death are plausible, though faith in them undoubtedly offers solace to many. It can make the unbearable seem bearable. But why should an all-loving God allow so much suffering, so much pain in this world – including the so-called "Acts of God" – earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and the rest? If God really did exist, we have no reason for supposing that he cares for us. For some in recent years, religion has combined with New Age beliefs, largely at the expense of the traditional religions whose emphasis on personal guilt, sexual repression and the inferiority of women have become unacceptable. This pick and mix approach can combine elements from the New Testament, Buddhism, psychoanalysis, paganism, astrology and various other bits of the occult. So why, the persistence of religious belief?

The socialist analysis of religion derives from our basic materialism (not in the acquisitive sense, but how we view the production of wealth in society and the sort of ideas it gives rise to). Historical materialism traces how religions have evolved, from their beginnings in ancestor worship and private property in primitive societies, to established social institutions. For the materialist, in other words, society is not really under human control and humans really are at the mercy of blind, impersonal forces – in ancient times the forces of nature, in the modern world the economic forces of capitalism. Under capitalism people feel, rightly, that they are governed by forces they can't control but attribute this, wrongly, to forces operating from outside the world of experience. Churches of all types are then at hand for the sustaining of fear and superstition. For the socialist alternative to our lives being controlled by impersonal forces, we must bring about a society in which humans consciously control the forces of production. It is on this basis that we can say, rather than being abolished, religion can be expected to (as Engels put it in another context) "wither away". And it can be seen that the socialist case against religion differs from the usual humanist position: there are rationalist superstitions as well as religious. For humanists, criticism of religion is a process towards the eventual "triumph of reason". But they ignore the material circumstances which give rise to superstition.

Some folk claim that it cannot be said that it is a scientific fact that “God does not exist”, on the grounds that it cannot be proved that a non-interventionist god does not exist. Maybe but this depends on what is meant by “exist”.  A non-interventionist god, precisely because it did not intervene in the world of observable phenomena, could not be detected and so to all intents and purposes does not exist in any meaningful sense of the word. As to an interventionist god, science does not need that hypothesis to explain the world of phenomena. Socialists try to operate in the same way that scientists do, by looking dispassionately at the evidence without prejudging the conclusions, by testing theories with prediction, and by challenging assumptions, including their own. It’s not always easy to do, but it’s not that hard either. Socialists are not on an anti-religious crusade but campaign to see the world through our eyes rather than someone else's. Religion is a class issue. We must understand our world as it is, make our own generalisations about it, come to our own conclusions. Religions are not deserving of respect just because they are religions; they must be subject to the same scrutiny as any other belief and cannot hide behind the notion that they are personal beliefs.

Atheists see themselves as defenders of the Enlightenment tradition of respect for reason and evidence against its traditional foe, religion. But they see nothing wrong about capitalism. Socialists share in the Enlightenment inheritance but recognise that the main source of irrationality in the modern world is to be found in the capitalist system of society. For socialists, therefore, the struggle against religion cannot be separated from the struggle for socialism. We fight religious superstition wherever it is an obstacle to socialism, but we are opposed to religion only insofar as it is an obstacle to socialism. Capitalism has many opiates to offer the unwary. Reject the pedlars, reject the product, but above all, reject a society which can create such an unhealthy psychological dependency. We need people that realise that the way society is structured is the result of people’s actions as they come together to produce the material things they need to exist, nothing more and nothing less. Belief in some super-natural force that steers it all would be counterproductive, to say the least. We need people who can critically understand the world and not get led along by conmen with their own agendas.

To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists and Freethinkers (3/4)

The Preacher and the Slave

Long-haired preachers come out ev’ry night,

Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right:

But when asked about something to eat,

They will answer with voices so sweet;

You will eat (you will eat) bye and bye (bye and bye)

In that glorious land above the sky (way up high)

Work and pray (work and pray), live on hay (live on hay),

You’ll get pie in the sky when you die (that’s a lie)

Joe Hill

Jared Diamond in his ‘The World Until Yesterday’:

'A set of traits distinguishing a human social group sharing those traits from other groups not sharing those traits in identical form. Included among those shared traits is one or more, often all three, out of three traits: supernatural explanation, defusing anxiety about uncontrollable dangers through ritual, and offering comfort for life's pains and the prospect of death. Religions other than early ones became co-opted to promote standardized organization, political obedience, tolerance of strangers belonging to one's own religion, and justification of wars against groups holding other religions.'

Religion, then, involves belief in supernatural forces (gods, saints, and so on) but also serves functions such as providing consolation against the harshness of class society and justifying particular political views.

A frustration shared by socialists and atheists is the persistence of belief in a god to explain the world. This is partly because ‘god’ is such a quick and easy answer to so many important questions: How did we get here? Why should I behave morally? Why am I here? While science has provided a comprehensive explanation of how and when we got here, and what we are made of, it is less certain when answering the question, why? Human beings seem to have a need for religion, maybe it's a kind of security blanket in a troubled world. Socialists don't seek to ban religion since it would do little good and would probably be counter-productive. Why create martyrs?

There are two ways of opposing religion. One is to refute it as untrue, to show that there are no rational grounds, because there is no convincing evidence, for believing either in “the persistence of life after death” or in “the existence of supernatural beings”. This is the approach of the Secularists and Freethinkers and of course what they say, is true, but this leaves the impression that religion is merely an erroneous belief It leads to concentrating on refuting religious beliefs as such in a purely ideological battle while leaving everything else, including class society and capitalist relations of production, unchanged.

The second way to oppose religion is to explain its origins, development and role in materialist terms as an ideological product of the changing material economic and social conditions under which people have lived. This approach reveals religion to be a reflection of people’s lack of control over the conditions governing the production of their material means of survival and that it survives precisely because people lack this control. On this analysis, opposition to religion cannot be separated from opposition to the economic and social conditions that give rise to it. Religion won’t disappear simply because secularists and freethinkers, or for that matter socialists, refute it as untrue. It will only disappear when people are in a position to control the production of their means of life. This requires the end of the class ownership of the means of production and the end of production for the market with a view to profit and their replacement by common ownership and production directly and exclusively for use. In other words, religion cannot disappear until the conditions of which it is an ideological reflection disappear.

Belief in religion – any religion – warps and hampers the ability to think objectively, particularly about social and political issues such as those now filling the newspapers (Islam, immigration, cultural clashes, etc.). In order to grasp the urgent need for and the possibility of achieving major social change one must first be able to think clearly and to understand just how capitalism works – or, quite often, doesn't. This is something men and women are much less able to do if their heads are full of religious fantasy and their thinking is correspondingly irrational. The disappearance of all religious beliefs, whether “We poor sinners here below” or “Allah's will be done!” should be seen as an essential part of our struggle for socialism and not just as a fringe irrelevance. The first phase in the struggle to end the political and economic exploitation of our class is to learn to question the thoughts we inherit from well-intentioned parents and teachers; to challenge the strictures of the priests, parsons, rabbis and mullahs

Richard Dawkins’ approach to the question of religion is, like religion itself, an idealist one: religion is false, rationally unsustainable; morally enfeebling and a basis for hatred and division. Presumably Dawkins sees the death or meaningful diminution of religion by means of secularist persuasion just as religion hopes to resist secularisation by what it sees as ethical persuasion. Unlike Dawkins, the pioneers of scientific socialism sought to show religion as a reflex of the social organisation of society. It wasn’t simply a question of religion being false, or brutal or divisive; it was a weapon of the ruling class, a bulwark in the way of the emancipation of the working class, a hurdle to be overcome in the progress to socialism nor could it be overcome while the conditions that nourished it continued to exist. Thus, the socialist sees religion as an integral part of the class struggle while the secularist sees it simply as a harmful, false premise on which to base a system of moral rectitude. Dawkins sings the praises of science and in a general sense socialists join in the

chorus. But science, possibly more than most other disciplines, is a prisoner of capitalism. The scientists have to beg at the table of the system for funding to pursue their projects; their sponsors are usually largely mammoth capitalist enterprises bent on discerning means of further enriching their directors and shareholders or capitalist governments dedicated to the overall concerns of national capitalism. Just like the rest of us, the scientist is a prisoner of the crazy logic of the system and just like the rest of us if his or her dedicated function does not hold promise of profit for those who directly or indirectly employ them, irrespective of the potential social benefits of their work, it will be denied funding.

To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists and Freethinkers (2/4)

Religion inherently anti-working-class because:

A. It offers salvation from externally

B. Its 'truths' are illusory

C. It teaches discredited non-scientific methods of inquiry

D. It pretends to piety

E. It divides the working-class

As a belief, religion is a manifestation of man’s ignorance of Nature’s workings. Today the spread of atheism is inexorable but much slower in some parts of the world than to be expected. The working class, although not as yet hostile to religion, are nevertheless becoming increasingly indifferent to it. It appears there has been a recent proliferation of books published on the subject of defending or promoting atheism or giving the case against religion and an even greater number of words written about them in reviews, newspaper articles, and journals. It is not the case that men and women first stopped believing in God and in the authority of the church, and then subsequently started behaving differently. It seems clear that people, first of all, lost any overall social agreement as to the right ways to live together, and so ceased to be able to make sense of any claims to moral authority. Social change happened prior to the loss of religious belief. The atomisation and shattering of community (and the education) which result from capitalism forbid the existence of any widely-accepted and consistent view of the world in terms of human values.  Thus, the staying-power of religion can be attributed to the lack of any alternative. Some religions are providing a retreat from the harsh conditions of secular life. Religion is the ideological expression of a long-gone world and its ancient social conditions, a world of superstition, slavery and little education. Far from providing an answer to today’s problems, it tells us to put our faith in the supernatural hopes of a past age. The history of religion is a deeply interesting subject, for the association of certain phases of religion with certain political interests is by no means accidental.

Socialism traces all the phenomena with which it concerns itself to natural causes, and relies on purely secular forces for its realization, while religion cannot combine with any system in which the belief in God does not rank as an essential feature. Socialism is the application of science to the relations among mankind. Socialism, as the science of society, is an essential part of a scientific view of all phenomena regarded as an interdependent whole; and such a Monistic view of the universe, with each part in inseparable causal relation to the rest, can leave no nook or cranny for God. The consistent socialist, therefore, cannot be religious and socialism implies the rejection of superstition cannot be disputed. Those whose standpoint is that of the welfare of the working class can make no appeal on the grounds of religion; for religion is an instrument of domination which cannot be used as an agent of emancipation at this stage of social development. The great theoretic weapon of the workers in their fight for emancipation is science, not religion; and religion and science are as incompatible as oil and water. Religion tends to live on through newer conditions in so far as it serves some interest. So the successive modifications of religion have been the response to changed conditions and interests.

Atheism is gaining in popularity and that their criticism of religion has struck a chord with so many people becoming converts. Atheists have been coming out of the closet in recent years. Atheists have pointed out the ill effects of religion on society and exposed the errors and outright stupidity of religious thought. But will these freethinkers also embrace the “heresy” of criticizing capitalism? Many atheists extend their criticism to the point that religion seems to be the fundamental cause of many—if not most—of the society’s ills, effectively detaching religion (evil) and science (good) from the society in which they exist and function. They overlook capitalism and the role that religion and science play within this system of production for profit. Neither religion nor science exists in a vacuum, isolated from society at large. The pursuit of science, for instance, is hardly exempt from the life-or-death struggle to accumulate capital that is all around us. Indeed, the main force that is narrowing the directions that scientific research can take is not religion but the capitalist system of production itself. Under capitalism, the development of science and technology is driven forward by the unceasing competition to raise the productivity of labour as a means of augmenting profit—not a desire to better satisfy human needs—so the potential of science to improve the quality of our lives is severely curtailed. Atheists thus do science no great favour in letting capitalism off the hook and presenting religion as the primary obstacle to the free development of science. To abolish religion is not to end exploitation. The supreme aim of the workers must be their emancipation from wage-slavery, and the fight against superstition is but one phase of this great fight.

Rather than pointing out for the thousand-and-first time that religion is bunk, or describing its negative impact on society, socialists would pose the more interesting question: Why does religious thought continue to exist (and even flourish) in modern capitalist society? That is to say: Why does “God”—who has been declared dead on so many occasions—keep cropping up in people’s imaginations? To answer that question we need to consider the relationship between religion and society. More specifically: What is the usefulness of religion as far as capitalism is concerned, and what aspects of life in capitalist society make religious thought appealing to individuals?

In a class-divided society, religious thought comes in handy for those in positions of wealth and power. It promises workers—who happen to form the bulk of the population—that we will get some pie in the sky (after we die), as a reward for our suffering here on earth. Religious leaders encourage their working class “flock” to stoically accept their existence as wage slaves, going on about how “the meek shall inherit the earth.” The benefits to the ruling class of inculcating workers with such a masochistic outlook goes without saying. Granted, the rich are lambasted in most “Holy Books” and told that they should give up their wealth if they hope to enter heaven. In reality, the religious criticism of the rich and powerful, far from threatening their social position, only serves to reinforce their rule. Religion may promise that the filthy rich will be punished but the court date is in the hereafter, not the here-and-now. While religious ideology is no doubt a useful means of dampening social discontent it would seem safe to say that the key ideology propagated by capitalists is not religion, but nationalism, which is more effective in blinding workers to their class interests and chaining them to a system that turns their blood and sweat into profits. Capitalists, however, do not have to choose between religion and nationalism. Both come in handy as far as distorting the nature of the problems we face and offering false solutions. They also complement each other nicely: religion encouraging patient suffering, while nationalism offers a way to channel frustrations. The point to note here is simply that one important reason why religion continues to exist and to be enthusiastically propagated, is that a religious outlook—particularly its focus on a better life after death instead of here on earth—serves the interests of the minority ruling class.

Explaining the benefits of religious ideology for the capitalist class, however, does not account for why individuals actually believe in religion. Religion can diminish the frustrations we experience in class society, offering the hope (illusion) of divine reward and retribution in an afterlife. Perhaps some souls do invest in religious faith in the hope of later gain, or out of fear of eternal damnation, but that does not adequately explain the stubborn charms of religion in modern-day capitalism. More than the temptation of immortality it offers, much of religion’s power seems to come from its view of the real world in which we live and the answers it provides to baffled and worried minds. By offering a criticism of the status quo, and suggestions for social improvements, religion is able to attract some of the vast majority of people who are frustrated with life under capitalism. But the superficial criticism that religion offers only serves to bolster capitalism, suggesting that the problem is our “sinful” behaviour rather than a social system that encourages and rewards such behaviour. Religion holds out the hope that life on earth could be better.

As long as its social foundation remains intact, religion will continue to exist—no matter how many times it has been refuted. Atheists who only fight against religion—turning a blind eye to the hell of capitalism—thus ironically end up prolonging the life of their bête noire.

To Atheists, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists and Freethinkers (1/4)

The socialist point of view rests solidly on the materialist conception of history, a way of looking at things that focus on how human communities meet their actual survival needs by producing what they need to live (their economic systems, in other words). Out of this process, the human brain weaves its ideas, which eventually exert their own influence on the cycle, causing it to become more and more complex as society evolves. This approach, known as historical materialism, is a scientific method for helping us understand how and why capitalism does what it does. Armed with this understanding, socialists realise that capitalism can never deliver the goods for the vast majority of people. Other approaches, lacking this focus and overlooking the basis of capitalist society, can easily miss this point, so that their advocates get bogged down in vain efforts to make capitalism work for the majority.

The Socialist Party takes a non-theistic, materialist approach to things, in particular to society and social change. Religious people believe in the existence of at least one supernatural entity that intervenes in nature and human affairs. Socialists hold that we only live once. Religious people believe in some afterlife. Clearly, the two are incompatible. In short, the belief in a creator stands in direct opposition to the materialist conception of history. The Socialist Party is a materialist party, grounded in an approach that says humans make history and create their own institutions.  Essentially the materialist conception of history suggests that any historical period is to be understood by the way in which men set about satisfying their needs at that time – in other words by the mode of production in operation. It also goes further than this and it suggests that the superstructure of society (that is its culture, its conception of legality, its religious and scientific ideas and so on) is rooted in the mode of production. It follows, of course, that in a period of social revolution, when one mode of production is being replaced by another (feudalism by capitalism, for example) there will be a correspondingly massive upheaval in men’s ideas and in the ways in which they interpret the world. It is in this sort of way that Marxists explain a phenomenon such as the Reformation. We point out that the protestant ethic is brilliantly adapted to the needs of the rising capitalist class, in the same way that the ideology of the Catholic church formed one of the mainstays of feudal society. Thus Reformation and Catholic backlash represented the struggle between feudalism and capitalism being fought out on the battlefield of ideas, with religious interpretation and dogma as the weapons.

This approach as a matter of course precludes any approach to the world that involves intervention by transcendent entities, be they God, D'jinn or Faeries. If all human ideas emerge from material conditions, then that is where the idea of god originated too. Remove the "supernatural" and there is no religion. What is religion without the idea of a god that intervenes in the lives of human beings? The Epicureans didn't contest that the gods existed somewhere in the ether but denied that they had any influence on human affairs and so didn't need worshipping or placating. Were they religious? Religions exist that do not believe in higher powers, or afterlives, or are personal, or are organised so I think these are all red herrings of a definition. What characterises all religion is that the process that it makes assertions (generally not restricted to metaphysics) is not strictly through reason, rationalisation, deduction, observation or testing.

Socialists hold that materialist explanations of human society and the rest of nature supersede supernatural ones. A religious perspective won't necessarily prevent anyone from striving to abolish capitalism and its evils, and the ethical elements of religious teachings may even be what first make many people aware of the injustices of a class-divided society. But they don't in themselves lead to an understanding of the causes of such injustices. (More often than not, religious institutions themselves justify and commit them.) The world socialist perspective is in any case essentially post-religious because the case for socialism hinges on the scientific use of evidence. Socialists, therefore, look on supernatural explanations as obsolete.

Socialists see it as pointless to demolish religion with rational and logical criticism. The kind of change in society that the socialist party is proposing then mere atheism is not enough. All members of the socialist party are "atheists" (we do not permit people with religious viewpoints to join) though they may not self-describe as such. But mere atheism on its own is not enough. Prominent "new atheists" such as Sam Harris are just an apologist for the present order. It is said that Unitarian Christians is the last step before atheism.

Putting aside organised religion or "life after death", atheists realise any religion is essentially by definition irrational reasoning but don't necessarily say it is harmful to society. What atheists fail to effectively explain is why irrational ideas arise and become powerful at holding back society. Socialists avoid taking up absolute or, as you might say, supra-historical positions. We do not argue that religion has always been reactionary. Over long periods it did represent a progressive force. We must try to look at religion in terms of the social function it fulfils. One important reason why we cannot afford to lower our guard towards religion is that not all peoples have reached a similar level of religious understanding and scepticism. Around the world,  religion is still very much a weapon wielded by the present ruling class and since we are world socialists and do not just restrict our vision tour own shores, we must actively confront religion in these areas – as far as we can. 

The Socialist Party’s Social Revolution

The Socialist Party is a political organisation whose mission is to carry forth the social revolution. No one person, no leader, can alone accomplish what must be done. We all must do our part. The Socialist Party’s role is to inspire other people to want to stand up and have a voice of their own. That’s basically what the World Socialist Movement – to just get people to fight for what’s right. Don’t be afraid to come out and have your voices heard. We work so hard, just to live and survive, yet we can’t even have a decent life because we’re struggling so much.

The Socialist Party since it was established has consistently held aloft the banner of socialism. For the first time in the history of this country a party of working men and women has put forward a delegate for parliament on one issue alone—to capture the powers of government for the sole purpose of dispossessing the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of production and establishing Socialism in place of the present social order.

 Despite the wiles of the pro-capitalist class politicians and anti-socialists, the Socialist Party has not deviated from the Socialist principles or changed its policy. Our case is clear, direct and simple and is the only one in the interests of the workers. The only thing that matters is the development of a consciousness of working-class solidarity. Socialism is the answer to every social question importance. Socialism knows no frontier. It matters nothing that the UK may be peopled by any or all nationalities on the capitalist globe. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing co-operative commonwealth. The workers of all nations make common cause against the common capitalist exploiter.

At our public meetings, we stressed the fact that voters who are not in favour of sweeping revolution should not vote for our delegate. We also stress our opposition to reform policies and point out that we could do nothing for the workers: that socialism was something the workers must accomplish themselves. Over the years we have been told that if we wait until the workers understand socialism we would have to wait hundreds of years. As workers, we repudiated this smear at the intelligence of our class. We have at our disposal, the best of all weapons, the only solution to working class poverty and misery, and working class brains, energy and enthusiasm with which to put it forward. Workers are at last turning away from the sterile policies that have befogged them and are now willing to listen to the case for socialism.

Marx talked about alienation as a separation from the fruits of one's labour. While that is certainly truer than ever, the separation and isolation now is more extensive and governs the entirety of social life in a consumer-based society run by the demands of commerce and the financialisation of everything which has created a new kind of social formation and social order in which it becomes difficult to form communal bonds, deep connections, a sense of intimacy, and long-term commitments. Rather than suffering alone individuals need to be able to identify -- see themselves and their daily lives -- collectively. The Socialist Party is working to change consciousness, making education central to politics itself, exposing the cheerleaders for the capitalist elite and the corporations who destroy every vestige of solidarity in the interest of amassing huge amounts of wealth and power.  Humans count for little more than machines.