Make socialism a threat again

“Socialism, for Marx, is a society which permits the actualization of man's essence, by overcoming his alienation. It is nothing less than creating the conditions for the truly free, rational, active and independent man; it is the fulfillment of the prophetic aim: the destruction of the idols”. - Erich Fromm, Marx' Concept of Man, 1961

Reforms are the stock and trade of politicians. Any social legislation which really has teeth are to sink into the throat of the labour movement. The Socialist Party asks no favours of capitalism and grants it none. The Socialist Party has always held that the essential principle upon which the political party of the working class must be based is the principle of the class struggle. The implications of this are several. The first is that only the class-conscious may be admitted to membership in the organisation since only those who are conscious of the working-class position in society can understand the class struggle and only those who understand the class struggle can intelligently prosecute it on the political field. The second implication of the principle of the class struggle is that the political party of the working class must be uncompromisingly hostile to all other parties, for the reason that political parties are the expression of class interests, and the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class.

The Socialist Party do not give fellow-workers the illusion that their problems can be solved simply by reforming an abuse of the capitalist system. We state clearly that there are no solutions within the capitalist system. The workers and capitalists do constant battle over the level of wages, the price of labour-power. Working people are not content to remain wage slaves of the capitalists. The weak spot of all trade unionism that every worker must realise is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the cause which is capitalism but only its symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system and not against the system itself. The capitalists would love to perpetuate this situation. That is why some clever capitalist support trade unions and enter into all sorts of agreements with them. When we fight for a demand like a wage increase, we are merely fighting against the effects of capitalism. Not merely that. We are demanding it from the capitalists. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. That is why they very often, in the end, bolster up capitalism. Every wage increase that is won by the workers can be offset by the employers by more intensive work, by stricter supervision etc. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he or she started. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it by socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles. We do not, of course, oppose trade union struggles or refuse to participate in them. But we must agitate even more for abolition the wage system itself.

How is profit made from producing wealth?  It is created within the process of production itself.

The capitalist with money to invest in production must first convert a part of it into means and instruments of production (raw materials. machinery, a factory); the other part will be needed for hiring workers to come and work in the factory on the raw materials that have been supplied. When the employees have worked up the raw materials into a finished product, new wealth will have been created. This will belong to the capitalist but because we are in an exchange economy, not only new wealth but new value has been created. However, the capitalists are not interested in new value in the abstract, nor even in new value in the form of a portion of the newly produced goods; they are only interested in it in the form of money. To realise this, they must, therefore, sell the products. Once they have done this they have a larger sum of money than they started with; their capital has increased and value has expanded itself. However, not all the money realised from the sale of the product is their profit, as part will represent the value of the raw materials and wear and tear of their machines as well as the upkeep of the factory. It is therefore merely a part of the original capital in a different form. A second part will replace the amount of capital used in hiring the workers to enable a repeat of the operation. It is the third part which is now profit.

The source of this profit is clear: it is the labour of the workers who transformed the raw materials into finished products. In an exchange economy labour, as well as creating wealth, also creates value: where the producer does not own the means of production and where the product of labour belongs to the employer, the new value created also belongs to the employer. A part of this is repaid to the producer in the form of wages, but the rest — what Marx called surplus value — is profit for the capitalist.

The exploitation (for there is no other word for it) of the wage workers takes place fully in accordance with the normal rules of exchange: an equal value is exchanged for an equal value. For what the workers sell to the capitalist is not their labour (the product of labour, or what has been produced) but their ability to work, their mental and physical energy — what Marx called Labour Power. Under capitalism labour power, like everything else is a commodity and has an exchange value. The exchange value of labour power is roughly the cost of training, maintaining and replacing the particular kind of labour power (skilled or unskilled; bricklayer or engineer, clerk or schoolteacher) involved. Wages are the price of labour power or the monetary expression of its value.

Yet today the Left-wing of the workers' movement are less preoccupied with the abolition of the wages system than ever. The old cry for a fair day’s pay echoes itself time and again in our ears, sometimes with different words but always with the same intention.

The Vanguard Elite

Lenin is rightly known for having stood for a "centralised hierarchical vanguard party to lead the masses" Up until the First World War Lenin was a left-wing Social Democrat who argued that, under the autocratic political conditions of Tsarism, Social Democrats there had to organise as a hierarchical centralised party in order to overthrow the Tsarist regime, but that for Western Europe,  he accepted the German party's model of an open, democratic party pursing a maximum programme (of socialism) and a minimum programme of reforms of capitalism, contesting elections, etc. The trouble is that he changed his position after 1917. He now said that the organisational form and tactics that he had advocated for the overthrow of Tsarism (which was not in fact how Tsarism ended as it collapsed more or less of its own accord; his tactics only worked to overthrow the weak government that emerged following this) should also be applied in Western Europe for the overthrow of capitalism. This is when he would have ceased to be a Social Democrat and became a Bolshevik. The organisation of such groups of followers of Bolshevism are certainly centralised, but has little to do with any democratic process. Leninists imagine that workers are only capable of reaching a trade union consciousness and flatter themselves that their consciousness as a vanguard is higher. Actually, it’s the other way round. Most trade unions have democratic constitutions, even if largely these days only on paper. The Leninist theory of organisation is a throw-back to political conditions such as existed in Tsarist Russia, and its introduction into more politically-developed Western Europe following the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in Russia has been an unmitigated disaster for the working class and socialism. As a theory of leadership it is anti-socialist and to be rejected on political grounds. In practice it can easily lead to such aberrations such as personality cults and so is to be rejected on grounds of human dignity too.

Alex Callinicos of the present-day Socialist Workers Party, a hierarchical organisation which is dominated by a self-perpetuating Central Committee and which prides itself on ruthlessly banning all internal factions and organised dissension, expressed the vanguard party`s creed:

"A revolutionary situation places a premium on effective organisation and leadership. Events move very quickly, and on a snap decision may hang the fate of the entire revolution. What is needed is a cool and clear head, a firm sense of the ultimate objective, the ability to make rapid tactical judgements, and an organisation capable not only of making decisions, but of carrying them out." (The Revolutionary Road to Socialism)

Under democratic centralism, the party leadership is nominally elected by the members, but an outgoing leadership will propose to a conference the new leadership and central committee by means of a "slate" (or list) of candidates. Members do not vote for individuals but for such a slate and it is rare indeed for an alternative slate to be proposed. This explains the "remarkable continuity of the leaders of Leninist parties over the years. It should also be noted that this process of a self-perpetuating leadership explains the enormous power and prestige such a leadership has relative to its own organisation.

The Socialist Party is against leadership, and yet we elect an executive committee, stand candidates in elections, and have 'leading' members, i.e some individuals who have more influence, though not more power, than others. A crucial difference between that of electing delegates and representatives is  that delegates only have as much power as is mandated to them and can be recalled. Representatives have power abdicated to them wholesale. Writers or speakers are NOT leaders. Their function is to spread knowledge and understanding, as teachers. Quite different from that we must have leaders (great men) to direct their followers (blind supporters) into a socialist society. Socialism is not the result of blind faith, followers, or, by the same token, vanguard parties. Despite some very charismatic writers and speakers in the past, no personality has held undue influence over the Socialist Party. Simply check the two published histories of the Party to see on just how many occasions and on how many issues those so-called leaders have not gained a majority at conferences or in referendums.

 We actually have a test for membership.  This does not mean that the Socialist Party has set itself up as an intellectual elite into which only those well versed in Marxist scholarship may enter. One purpose of it is to place all members on an even basis. The Socialist Party's reason is to ensure that only conscious socialists enter its ranks, for, once admitted, all members are equal and it would clearly not be in the interest of the Party to offer equality of power to those who are not able to demonstrate equality of basic socialist understanding. Once a member, s/he have the same rights as the oldest member to sit on any committee, vote, speak, and have access to all information. Thanks to this test all members are conscious socialists and there is genuine internal democracy, and of that we are fiercely proud. Consider what happens when people join other groups which don't have this test. The new applicant has to be approved as being "all right". The individual is therefore judged by the group according to a range of what might be called "credential indicators". Hard work (often, paper selling) and obedience by new members is the main criterion of trustworthiness in the organisation. In these hierarchical, "top-down" groups the leaders strive at all costs to remain as the leadership, and reward only those with proven commitment to the "party line" with preferential treatment, more responsibility and more say. New members who present the wrong indicators remain peripheral to the party structure, and finding themselves unable to influence decision-making at any level, eventually give up and leave, often embittered by the hard work they put in and the hollowness of the party's claims of equality and democracy.

The Socialist Party is a leader-free political party where its executive committee is solely for housekeeping admin duties and cannot determine policy. An EC that is not even permitted to submit resolutions to conference. All conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership. The General Secretary has no position of power or authority over any other member being simply a dogsbody. Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership referendums are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organisation control that organisation – and as such key procedures in any organisation genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organised democratically – without leaders, but with mandated delegates – to achieve it. In rejecting these procedures what is being declared is that the working class should not organise itself democratically.

What is at stake here is not a question of tactics or strategy but principle. We believe, to use Lenin's words but reverse their meaning, that workers, exclusively by their own efforts, are capable of a socialist consciousness. Workers are human beings and individuals in themselves; they are not dumb masses to be tricked, led, deceived, and lied to, for the greater good. That's why, actually, we are not sectarian and the left are. We join workers struggles as workers. We take part in the democratic process as equals with our fellows. We do not join for purposes of our own; we have no programme of demands hidden up our sleeves to be produced at a later date, nor a one-party dictatorship to produce as a nasty surprise at an even later date. That's why, when we join workers struggles as individuals and not as a leadership party, and reject the left, we are not being sectarian -- quite the opposite. We are being principled socialists. Workers do not need any advice or leadership from socialists when it comes to struggling to defend their own interests within capitalism. They do it all by themselves all the time. However, such struggles have their limits within capitalism: they cannot go beyond the law of value, and the combined forces of the capitalists and the state can almost always defeat them if they put their mind to it. Workers who realise this tend to become socialists. As they become socialists, they see the necessity for going beyond such day to day struggles (these unavoidable and incessant guerrilla battles, as Marx put it) and the need for a political party aimed solely for socialism. This political party must not advocate reforms, not because it is against reforms (how on earth could a working class party be against reforms in the working class interest?), but because it wants to build support for socialism, and not for reforms.

Leaders? Not Here

Many workers think we cannot function without leaders. This is a fallacy and one perpetuated by the master class to help them maintain their rule over our lives. Indeed, so prevalent is this philosophy, that from the cradle to the grave we are taught to mistrust out own intelligence and to look up to our ‘betters and superiors’ (schools, church, politicians, parents etc) and to accept without question the plans they draw up for our future.

It is assumed leaders run the world. Well, we think it is we, the workers who run the world. Politicians might make government policy, which becomes law, but it is we who build and man the hospitals and schools. It is we who build the bridges, roads and railways, ports and airports, all the products that humans need to survive. It is we who produce everything from a pin to an oil-rig and provide humanity with all the services it needs – we the working class. We don’t depend on leaders for these skills or for their guidance. They have no monopoly on our knowledge and intelligence and the inventions we dream up, but benefit from them the most. If all the world’s leaders died tomorrow, few would really miss them and society would function as before. If all the bosses decided not to turn up at their factories, their business would still function because it is we who see to it that they function. Do you need a boss standing over you all day in the office or workplace, showing you how to work? Are you constantly in search of the guidance of a more superior individual to tell you how to run your life?

The concept of leadership has emerged as a result of class society and will end when we abolish class society, when abolish the capitalist mode of production and all that goes with it. The master class have been allowed to lead because of their control over the means of living, because of their control of the education system and their monopoly of the media and other and information processes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The greatest weapons we possess are our class unity, our intelligence, and our ability to question the status quo and to imagine a world fashioned in our own interests. The master class perceives all of this to be a threat and so will do anything to keep us in a state of oblivion, dejection and dependency. Our apathy is the victory they celebrate each day. Our unwillingness to unite as a globally exploited majority and to confront them on the battlefield of ideas is the subject of their champagne toasts.

Only sheep need leaders, and if workers want to be sheep then they can expect to get fleeced. The truth is, we have been led for so long by idiots that we have forgotten our own collective strength and lost sight of just what we, as a species, working together, are capable of.

The WSM has no leaders and has existed for over a hundred years without one. If someone can lead you into socialism, there will always be someone who can lead you out again. Socialism must be the free and conscious decision of the majority, otherwise it will never work. Our position is now as it was in 1904 at our inception – there is nothing that we can do for the working class that it is not already capable of doing for itself. For Socialism to be a success, it must be established without leaders and followers. It must be established by ordinary people all over the world uniting and working together to establish a new system peacefully and democratically – a world in which the exploited at last regain control of their own destiny.

John Bissett

Is it democracy?

In the run up to their annual conference, the Socialist Workers Party, publishes Pre-conference bulletins. One such bulletin from 2012 bulletin contains the SWP constitution.  Some snippets:

“Branches and/or districts elect delegates to Conference on a basis proportional to their membership, as determined by the Central Committee.[...]

(5) Central Committee The CC consists of members elected by the Conference according to the following procedure: The outgoing Central Committee selects and circulates a provisional slate for the new CC at the beginning of the period for pre-Conference discussion. This is then discussed at the district aggregates where comrades can propose alternative slates.

At the Conference the outgoing CC proposes a final slate (which may have changed as a result of the pre-Conference discussion). This slate, along with any other that is supported by a minimum of five delegates, is discussed and voted on by Conference.

Between Conferences the CC is entrusted with the political leadership of the organisation and is responsible for the national direction of all political and organisational work, subject to the decision- making powers of Conference.”

Note: there is no specification of the size of the CC, so they can always co-opt oppositionists to the official slate.  Also note the CC controls the size of conference, which can make it more manageable.

This is justified thus:

“The necessity of a revolutionary party flows from the fact that although the working class must collectively emancipate itself, the ideological domination of the ruling class means there is considerable uneveness within the working class in terms of its confidence, organisation and ideas. The role of a revolutionary party is to draw together the militant minority who understand the need for revolution, not to substitute for the class, but to constantly seek ways to act to increase workers’ combativity and confidence and in the process win wider layers of workers to socialist ideas.[...] And the existence of a leadership is a necessity. Uneveness in terms of experience, confidence and clarity of ideas exists not just inside the working class as a whole, but also within the revolutionary party. The more roots the party has inside the working class, the more it is able to intervene in the class struggle, the greater this uneveness will be.” (CC statement). 

Note, it assumes that the leadership is the pinnacle of this uneven consciousness, and instead of seeking to challenge the "unevenness" seeks to work within it, and in effect justifies a technocratic/theocratic elite dictating to the ignorant, rather than a two way dialogue between revolutionaries and workers.  After all, for all we (naturally) assume that we are right, we enter into debate, and have to withstand the possibility that we may be proved wrong.

Little has changed since the Socialist Party published a educational document on the SWP in 1995. Here's an extract on Conference Procedure from section III:

The main item on the agenda is a report by the Central Committee on the political “perspectives” which is usually a document of pamphlet-length. The Central Committee also submits other reports – on work in special areas of activity (industry, students, women,) internal organisation, finance – for the Conference to discuss. In the SWP, branches still have the formal right to submit motions, but they are strongly discouraged from doing so. As an explanatory note intended for new members, accompanying documents submitted for the party’s 1983 Conference put it:

“Branches can submit resolutions if they wish and these may [sic] be voted on. But in recent years the practice of sending resolutions to conference has virtually ceased” (Socialist Review, September 1983).

What this means is that it is the Central Committee – the leadership – which quite literally sets the agenda for the Conference. The branch delegates meet, therefore, to discuss only what is put before them by the Central Committee. Not that the delegates are delegates in the proper sense of the term as instructed representatives of the branches sending them:

“Delegates should not be mandated . . . Mandating is a trade union practice, with no place in a revolutionary party”.

Since voting on motions submitted by branches is dismissed as a “trade union practice”, another procedure, more open to manipulation by the leadership, is operated:

“At the end of each session of conference commissions are elected to draw up a report on the session detailing the points made. In the event of disagreement two or more commissions can be elected by the opposing delegates. The reports are submitted to conference and delegates then vote in favour of one of the commissions. The advantage of this procedure is that conference does not have to proceed by resolution like a trade union conference”.

No branch motions, no mandated delegates, what else? No ballots of the entire membership either. In the first volume of his political biography of Lenin, Cliff records in shocked terms that “in January 1907 Lenin went so far as to argue for the institution of a referendum of all party members on the issues facing the party”, commenting “certainly a suggestion which ran counter to the whole idea of democratic centralism” (Lenin, Building the Party, p. 280)

In fact no official of the SWP above branch level is directly elected by a vote of the members. One power that the branches do retain is the right to nominate members for election, by the Conference delegates, to the National Committee, but, as over presenting motions, they are discouraged from nominating people who do not accept the “perspectives” espoused by the Central Committee. So elections do take place to the National Committee but on the basis of personalities rather than politics. However, it is the way that the Central Committee is elected that is really novel: the nominations for election to new central committee are proposed not by branches but . . . by the outgoing central committee! Once again, in theory, branches can present other names but they never do.

It is easy to see how this means that the central committee – the supreme leadership of the organisation – is a self-perpetuating body renewal in effect only by co-optation. This is justified on the grounds of continuity and efficiency – it takes time to gain the experience necessary to become a good leader, so that it would be a waste of the experienced gained if some leader were to be voted off by the vagaries of a democratic vote. Choosing the leadership by a competitive vote is evidently something else “with no place in a revolutionary party” any more than in an army.”

This, incidentally, is how the Politburo was (s)elected in the USSR which the SWP admits was state-capitalism. In particular, the slate system of electing (in effect co-opting) the "leadership". This was the practice of Communist Parties everywhere, including those in power. As far as I know, it is still practised in China, Cuba and North Korea. The thing is of course that for the SWP this would still continue after "the revolution", a recipe for the sort of state capitalism they rightly criticise in the old USSR. But then they always did support state capitalism in Russia under Lenin and up until Trotsky was exiled in 1928.

Note the way the SWP avoids votes.  The CC slate is circulated, and ambitious members who come forward will just be added, there are no votes at conference just summaries of debate.  There is no way to quantify dissent (an important tool for anyone seeking to build a new majority). Of course, SWPers condemn nose counting, asking why the vote of one person should determine the outcome; and I've seen in practice a reluctance to just settle arguments with a vote, with the 'leading' member able to drag out debate in order to try and get their way. This could be sold, we suppose, as an attempt to build consensus (indeed, wasn't that how occupy worked as well), but we soon see that without the right to be outvoted, a determined minority can come to dominate discussion.

Other Leninist organisations are criticising the SWP for not applying "democratic centralism" properly. Our criticism is more fundamental: we are critcising "democratic centralism" as such.

The Alliance for Woerkers Liberty’s constitution clearly spells out what "democratic centralism" means in practice -- a hierarchical organisation dominated by its leaders:

“To be effective, our organisation must be democratic; geared to the maximum clarity of politics; and able to respond promptly to events and opportunities with all its strength, through disciplined implementation of the decisions of the elected and accountable committees which provide political leadership”.(emphasis added)

Below the "leadership", there are two levels of membership: "candidates" and "activists":

“Members will normally be admitted as candidates, to go through six months of education, training and disciplined activity before being admitted as full activists. A branch or fraction may, at the end of six months, extend the candidate period if it judges that the above requirements have not been fulfilled adequately. In such a case the candidate has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee. Candidates do not have the right to vote in the AWL”

On promotion to "activist", members are required to, among other things:

“2. Engage in regular political activity under the discipline of the organisation;

4. Sell the literature of the AWL regularly;”

They have to ask "leave of absence" if they can't do this for some reason:

“A member suffering from illness or other distress may be granted a total or partial leave of absence from activity for up to two months; but the leave of absence must be ratified in writing by the Executive Committee, and the activist must continue to pay financial contributions to the AWL.”

If they stop selling the AWL's paper without this permission, then they are in trouble:

“Where activists have become inactive or failed to meet their commitments to the AWL without adequate cause such as illness, and there is no dispute about this fact, branches, fractions, or appropriate committees may lapse them from membership with no more formality than a week's written notice. Activists who allege invalid lapsing may appeal to the National Committee.”

They can even be fined:

“Branches, fractions, and appropriate elected committees may impose fines or reprimands for lesser breaches of discipline. Any activist has the right to defend himself or herself before a decision on disciplinary action is taken on him or her, except in the case of fines for absence or suspensions where the AWL's security or integrity are at risk.”

As to branches and "fractions" (AWL members boring from within other organisations), they can elect their own organisers but these are responsible to the leadership not to those who elected them:

“Each branch or fraction shall elect an organiser and other officers. The organiser is responsible to the AWL and is subject to the political and administrative supervision of its leading committees for the functioning of the branch or fraction and for ensuring that AWL policy is carried out.”

They can even give orders to those who elected them:

“Branch or fraction organisers can give binding instructions to activists in their areas on all day today matters.”

But if they step out of line the leadership can remove them and replace them with someone of their choice::

“The Executive Committee and the National Committee have the right in extreme cases, and after written notice and a fair hearing, to remove branch or fraction organisers from their posts and impose replacements.”

What self-respecting person would want to be a member of such an organisation? 

The Leader Cult

Unlike most other political parties, ours is wholly democratic with policy decisions developed within branches and presented at our conferences and then passed to the membership as a whole in a party poll to ratify, and not by any leadership. The internal democratic culture of the Socialist Party is probably one of the things the party can be most proud of. We object to leadership because we see it as an obstacle to the spread of socialist ideas. As yet most workers haven't seen the possibility of a world without bosses or masters, the world which would be run in the interests of all. However, there are no leaders in the World Socialist Movement for there will be no leaders in socialism—there can be no privileged persons in a society based on equality of status and the willing co-operation of all in production solely for use. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has existed for 112 years without a leader and is a strong example that such a form of organisation is possible and resilient.

To speak for the Socialist Party is usually enough for some to view you its leader as the teacher in the class-room; the lecturer at college; the captain of a ship, or the conductor of an orchestra. Aren't they leaders? "A single violinist is his own Conductor. An orchestra requires a separate one"  said Karl Marx. In most job-processes involving group co-operation a supervisor to coordinate. What about the surgeon in the operating theatre? Isn’t he a leader? Even the SPGB has a General Secretary so  isn't he you’re your leader? Doesn’t the SPGB elevate Marx to the position of a leader?

Socialists are interested in leadership from a number of different perspectives. Capitalism as a class society engenders owners of the means of wealth production, the privileged, the leaders; and non-owners, the unprivileged, the followers. Most of the followers don't oppose the system, which is why it persists. They elect leaders to get the best deal they can from the system. Socialism as a classless society based on social and political equality (though not on the absence of difference) is inconsistent with leadership. However, socialism is not inconsistent with some functions associated with leadership such as organisation, co-ordination – and even inspiration. There are those who perceive the necessity and inevitability of leadership as an objection to socialism - “There will always be leaders and followers and you can't change human nature.” This objection needs to be met.

Leadership only makes sense when there is a ruling class and a ruled class, and it implies that most people are incapable of organising affairs in their own interest and so must accept the dictates of a few. Ours differs from all previous revolutionary movements in that it doesn’t aim to replace one ruling class by another but to abolish classes altogether. All leaders are placed in a privileged position by their followers, who either agree with the policies laid down or think they can do nothing about them. By contrast, socialism means that nobody will be placed in a position of governing others. If there are leaders then there must be the led, but there cannot be much difference between their ideas since a leader can only offer to lead where he is likely to be followed. He is not really in advance of his followers because if he stops leading them in the direction they think is the best open to them they will soon desert him for another who will. It may be a bit clichéd now but there is a saying “Where the masses go, the leaders will follow!“ People who are easily persuaded to think one way by a powerful personality can usually be persuaded by a more powerful one to change their minds. Socialist ideas do not depend on such barren methods for their growth. The blunt truth is that if people want leaders they want class society, and if they want class society they cannot want socialism. We do our utmost to sign-post the road to socialism and to encourage others along the way but there can be no substitute for their knowledge of what is needed to take that path. We are always eager to help people to understand our case and to discuss with them the difficulties and objections they have concerning it. From our understanding of the past and the needs of the present, we try to show what the destination of the socialist movement will look like. But we cannot work out all the details in advance. If we did that, however, we should be acting no differently from the reformers who offer to lead the working class to better conditions and consistently fail to do so. The lesson is that no matter how well-meaning you may be, once you are given political power you must follow where events lead and, without a majority of socialists, that cannot be to socialism. To think in terms of political power without political knowledge on the part of those who make up that power is to oppose all that socialism means.

In socialism,  there will have to be administrators. Hopefully, people with a flair for organising, and their job will be to help a socialist society to run smoothly, ensuring that production and free distribution of the good things of life take place to the benefit of all. But they will not have the power to dictate to, to coerce, or give promises to the rest of the population as leaders do at present. They will be the agents—not the masters—of the people. In socialism, there will be not leaders but delegates—the difference being that delegates carry out the instructions of—not give orders to—the people who voted for them.

On 16 June 1836, the London Working Men's Association was formed and its first secretary, William Lovett, explained:

"We had seen enough of the contentions of leaders and the battles of factions; to convince us, that no sound Public Opinion, and consequently no just Government, could be formed in this country as long as men's attention was constantly directed to the useless warfare of pulling down, and setting up, of one Idol of Party after another…The masses, in their political organisations, were taught to look up to "Great Men" (or to men professing "greatness") rather than to great Principles. We wished therefore to establish a political school of self-instruction among them, in which they should accustom themselves to examine great social and political principles, and by their publicity and free discussion, help to form a sound and healthful public opinion throughout the country...We have not wished, neither do we desire to be, Leaders, as we believe that the principles we advocate have been retarded, injured or betrayed by Leadership, more than by the open hostility of opponents. Leadership too often generates confiding bigotry, or political indifference on the one hand, or selfish ambition, on the other. The principles WE advocate are those of the peoples' happiness, and for these to be justly established, each man must Know and feel his Rights and Duties. He must be prepared to guard the one; and perform the other with cheerfulness. And if Nature has given to one Man superior faculties, to express or execute the general wish, he only performs his Duty at the Mandate of his bretheren; he is therefore the "Leader" of none, but the equal of ALL."

"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." - ANON

The Curse of Xawara (1998)

 From the June 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The tragedy being enacted in Northern Brazil appears to be moving towards its last act. It is a tragedy that has been enacted throughout the history of private property.

The fate of indigenous people invaded by a more economically developed society makes a sorrowful catalogue of human misery. The Native Americans slaughtered in the United States in the last century, the butchery of the Aborigines in Australia and now the destruction of the Yanomami people in Brazil.

It has been estimated that there were over 100,000 Yanomami roaming the watershed of the Rio Branco and Orinoco rivers in the Northern Amazon basis when the Spanish colonises reached the New World. It is reckoned that they have lived in these tropical rain forests for something like 40,000 years but it is now though that only 22,000 of them survive, 9,400 in Brazil and the rest in Venezuela.

Unlike many other tribal groups, the Yanomami have managed to resist integration with modern capitalism. Portuguese exploiters, who attracted indigenous people into their settlements and into slavery, failed to lure the Yanomami from their traditional communal culture. Likewise, early missionaries failed to convert them to their guilt-ridden religious opium. The Yanomami preferred inhaling the Yakuna (a hallucinogenic tree extract) and practising their traditional rites and ceremonies. Modern anthropologists consider them to be one of the last remaining societies on earth that still live in kinship groups and inhabit "malocas" (communal huts). They exist on a staple diet of cassava gathered from their manioc plantations and game from the jungle, such as monkeys and turtles. They live the semi-nomadic life that once was the norm for all of humankind. They are a living example of humanity's communal past. Tragically, they appear doomed. Modern capitalism will probably see to that.

Many of them were killed in the 1970s when the Brazilian military government, in an attempt to open up the amazon to gold speculators and cattle barons, built the first highway through the Yanomami's terrain. The road was never finished but thousands of the Yanomami were. They were killed by the infections, such as Yellow Fever, brought by the road builders. The 1990s were to see an increase in the encroachment of capitalism in their way of life. Their reservation of 9,000 square kilometres was reduced to 2,000 and the government allowed another 256 square kilometres of their land to be exploited for gold mining in 1990. Little attention is paid to "human rights" when capital becomes involved. Some 45,000 gold miners have poured into their land, polluting their rivers with mercury, blowing up villages, and shooting children (they call them "monkeys") out of the trees for sport.

The recent forest fires have devastated even more of their forests. Many of these fires were started deliberately to clear land for cattle. The Yanomami must have to forest to live, without it they must die. There are laws in Brazil that debar the exploitation of the shrinking rain forest area that the Yanomami inhabit, but these are largely ignored by a government desperate to advance the development of capitalism in Brazil.

These last remnants of a former stage of human society have at present little chance of survival. Neldo Campos, the state governor, voiced the insatiable voice of modern capitalism when he said; "There is too much land for the Indians, and the devastating economy of the state will make it inevitable that hungry colonisers will want to move in on the indigenous reserves."

The Yanomami language is a linguistically isolated one with many dialects, making anthropologists believe that they once occupied a much larger area than at present. Their word for disease and epidemics is "Xawara" which they see as an evil spirit that lives in the bottom of the world. They have the same word for gold. They see the "nabebe" (white men") as having an insane desire to bring disease and gold from the bottom of the world.

The working class of the so-called "civilised" world must establish World Socialism very soon, otherwise, the men, women and children of the Yanomami people have little hope of survival. After all, as workers, we also suffer from the curse of Xawara.

Richard Donnelly

The emancipation of the working class is an act of self-emancipation.

“If you fight you won't always win. If you don't fight you will always lose.” – Bob Crow

It seems bad for socialists. It looks as if we live in is an age of inhumanity. All around, there are world crises with men and women appearing to be unable to do much about it. Resources that should be used to house the homeless and feed the hungry are squandered on ever more costly wars. Our present society is founded upon the exploitation of the propertyless class by the propertied. This exploitation is such that the propertied (capitalists) take for themselves, i.e., steal the amount of new values (products) which exceeds the price of the wage-labourer. The owning class sucks the body and soul from the propertyless, for the price of the mere cost of existence (wages).

While the workers are not class-conscious – that is, knowing and understanding their class subjection and its cause, and therefore knowing and understanding their class interest in overthrowing the institutions which keep them so – this is not so with the capitalist. They are thoroughly class-conscious. And as Warren Buffet has pointed out, it is they who are winning the class-war. But all is not yet lost. Although the idea of socialism is presently confined to a small minority in the working-class movement, at times of great crises and upheavals, when people are thrown into confrontations with their ruling class and strive to seek a way out of a world of despair and desperation they will look towards the revolutionary alternative of socialism. But socialism is not something which comes ‘from above’. It will not be achieved, on workers’ behalf, by an enlightened elite in a vanguard party engaging in minority action. Working people will play a purely passive role, looking on while others transform society for them. Only workers can liberate themselves. No one can do it for them. In Marx’s words, socialism is ‘the self-emancipation of the working class’.

Socialism involves the transfer from present day private ownership to common ownership of all those agencies of wealth production necessary for supply of life’s necessaries for the whole people. The root basis of this is found in the fact that private ownership of the means of wealth production fails most lamentably to provide all the people with the commodities of life. Let that fact never be forgotten, private enterprise utterly fails men and women in obtaining for themselves a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. Capitalists own and control industrial establishments in every manufacturing country, and the means of obtaining trade is by competing in the world’s market against all other capitalists in the same trade also seeking a share of the market; to compete effectively, they must place the commodity on the market as cheaply as, or cheaper than, other competitors. In order to do this they must ever have regard to cheapening the cost of production.

The mission of socialism is so to organise production that wealth can be so abundantly produced as to free mankind from want and the fear of want, from the brute necessity of a life of arduous toil in the production of necessaries of life. We want the people to directly and collectively own the industries, utilities, transport systems, natural resources etc., and democratically decide how these vital means of living should be used. With genuine socialism, workers aren’t exploited, because production is purely for use—not profits, which force employees to work much longer and harder than necessary, often in unwanted jobs. With production for use, there is free access to food, goods, electricity, trains, health care etc. as the means for providing these then belong to the people. You don’t buy what you already own! With genuine socialism, there’d be no inequality, no unemployment, no homeless, no poverty, no debts, no lack of much-needed health care, and no deceitful politicians! Food can be of the highest quality. The competition for profits drags standards down since firms must cut workers and corners, which, inevitably, means the cheapest ingredients and most vile practices end up being used.

Some say socialist ideas as Utopian, a good idea but people are too greedy, too selfish for it to work in practice. They forget that each and every day we work together co-operatively on a massive scale. They forget all the solidarity that is expressed in our daily lives. Socialists are concerned with enlarging and developing the individuality and the potentiality of every human being. The capture of political power should not be regarded as an end in itself, but rather as a means of freeing and emancipating human beings from the poverty, suffering, and the oppression. In order to acquire the basic democratic socialist values of liberty, equality, and fraternity into terms of practical politics, we will require to break away from the practice of clinging to outmoded concepts and outdated dogmas. We have to reconstruct socialism as a vision of freedom. Our politics cannot be confined to revolutionary rhetoric.

Socialism — Our Hope for the World

Despair, worry, and anxiety about the future are taking a toll on millions. An economic recession and the accompanying deterioration of the working and living conditions for people fosters the potential renewal of the combat readiness of the workers in the class war and represents a favourable terrain for the birth of a political class consciousness. But the absence of a strong solid socialist movement creates a vacuum and facilitates the diversion of workers into the cul-de-sac of reformist palliatives. Even worse, it can permit a rise in nationalistic racism and xenophobia.  In this way workers militancy and the potential of increased class consciousness is dissipated and political policies misrepresent the real interests of the workers. Communicating with fellow-workers is clearly a priority for socialists. Class unity cannot be realised by any chance fashion. It must be carried out through a long process of debate and discussion. It is essential to determine political objectives and an orientation, and no less essential to develop correct tactics and strategies. We require to build bridges to connect us with our fellow-workers. Linking with our fellow-workers is a necessity. The struggles they are primarily involved in are economic struggles or struggles of social resistance. Our role as a political party is to instill the consciousness that their struggles are only part of the class struggle, which has to be political. A socialist party’s participation is to clarify and provide an ideological explanation of work-place and community struggles. It is a job of agitation and propaganda.

The Socialist Party has nothing to retract, nothing to apologise for, in connection with our stand over the many years of our existence. Our opposition to capitalism and war has been as consistent and emphatic. We are not a party of mere patchwork reform, nor a party of sham revolutionary phrases, but a party of social democracy, with our roots firmly in the working class movement, and conducting a campaign of education and organisation in the economic and political struggle. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its “inevitability” consists in this - that only through socialism can human progress continue. But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs since man makes his own history and chooses what to do. What is determined is not his choice, but the conditions under which it is made, and the consequences when it is made. The meaning of “scientific” socialism is not that it tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to life.

The Socialist Party is as yet an insignificant factor in the political and social life of our fellow-workers. Its importance lies in the future. We are criticised for our supposed sectarianism and dogmatic principled stand but over the decades we have witnessed the merging and unification of political parties and seen the futility of such ventures. We are fully convinced of the correctness and soundness of the Socialist Party principles and tactics, and therefore most emphatically disapprove of and condemn any attempt to lead our Party into fusion and confusion with so-called “socialist” reformist parties, thereby disrupting the Socialist Party. Better to have rival numerically small organisations, each homogeneous and harmonious within itself, than to have one big party torn apart by dissensions and squabbles, an impotent monument built upon foundations of clay. Let the comrades on all sides do the next best thing and freely without rancour organise and work in its own way, and make such contribution to the socialist movement as they can. Yet unfortunate that the energies of the workers’ movement should be dissipated in acrimonious and fruitless controversies over events of a hundred years ago that have long been dissected and disowned by all.

Millions of working people in every corner of the world know that they can solve the fundamental problems of their class only by making a revolution. History shows the story of how they have struggled to rid themselves of the social ills of capitalist society.  Socialism would not be an idea on the workers’ agenda today without the international socialist movement of the past 150 years, and the titanic class battles against capitalist exploitation. We are socialists out of conviction because we see capitalism as damaging to the vast majority of the world’s people and harmful to our environment. Capitalism is a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds working people, sets one group against another and acts violently against people when they resist. We see in socialism the seeds and the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Socialists offer an alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation and general, productive and fulfilling employment. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. As our movement grows, we will be nearer to creating a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs.

The Socialist Party advocates and works only for socialism – that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.). We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

Millions for doing nothing

An Aberdeen farmer tops the league of those receiving European Union subsidies through the Scottish Government under the controversial Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Frank Smart raked-in nearly £3m in EU hand-outs last year - making him the biggest recipient of farm subsidies in the UK. He inherited his 400-acre family farm at Torphins, near Banchory on Royal Deeside, pocketed grants totalling £2,963,732.77 last year. He is benefiting from European– so-called naked acres – to trigger payments on them, without producing crops or keeping livestock. The only condition they have to meet is that the land they use is kept in good agricultural and environmental condition.

With entitlements to fields on farms from his Easter Tolmauds (CORR) business base on Deeside to Harris in the Western Isles Smart has harvested almost £12 million in just four years. 

Scott Walker, the chief executive of NFU Scotland, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: "There's one or two individuals that use the system and found loopholes in the system to maximise their returns, but as I say, it's a million miles away from the situation that most farmers and crofters find themselves in."

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-farmer-pockets-nearly-3m-8942046

Resistance, unity and mass consciousness

It is always advisable to take a look around at the socialist movement, to take stock and to consider where we have arrived at and where we are going. What does the Socialist Party exist for? Nothing less than for social revolution, which is the complete transformation of human society from top to bottom. No little task. It is the biggest objective that anybody has ever tried. And what are the means at our disposal to do this work? None other than fellow-workers just like us. So it is not surprising that to forge a mass proletarian political party, with members fully conscious of their present class subjection and aware of their future potential our efforts have not been particularly successful. It is in the direction of building up a class-conscious working-class socialist party that we have still to bend our efforts with renewed energy. Agitate, Educate, Organise. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves, they cannot be emancipated against their will. There is no other way. And thus far, they have not willed it to happen. Let us enquire into these reasons so many avowed, earnest and active socialists are outside our party and if possible remedy it. Let us bring together all genuine comrades into a united Socialist Party for the realisation of the emancipation of humanity.

The goal of the labour movement, the conquest of political power, can be accomplished only by the working class organized as a political party. The more the great body of workers take part in the war on capitalism, the more will class conflicts become social cataclysms and great political events. Our struggle for political supremacy is not merely between political parties but a life and death struggle between two hostile economic classes, the one, the capitalist, and the other, the working class. In this struggle the Socialist Party tries to represent working-men and women and children. The Socialist party is the party of the working class, the party of emancipation, and it is made up of men and women who scorn to compromise with their oppressors; who want no votes and no support under any false pretense whatsoever. The Socialist party is not, and does not pretend to be a capitalist party. It does not ask, nor does it expect the votes of the capitalist class or their apologists. The call of the Socialist Party is to the exploited class. The Socialist Party stands squarely upon its Declaration of Principles and relies upon the education of the working class. Ignorance alone stands in the way of socialist success. Ignorance is essential to industrial slavery. The ignorant worker who supports the parties of the employers forges his or her own fetters and is the unconscious author of his or her own misery. They are voting into power the class enemies of labour and are morally responsible for the crimes thus perpetrated upon their fellow-workers and sooner or later they will have to suffer the consequences of their acts. We can and must be made to see and think and act with fellow workers in supporting the party of our class and this work of education is the purpose of the socialist movement.

All working-men and women owe it to themselves, their class and their children to take an active and intelligent interest in political affairs. The ballot expresses the people’s will. The ballot means that workers have a voice to be heard and to be heeded. Centuries of struggle and sacrifice were required to wrest this weapon of freedom from tyranny and place it in the hands of workers as the shield for defence and a sword of attack. The abuse, its misuse, not the use of it, is responsible for its weakness. The Socialist party is a revolutionary working class party, whose mission it is to conquer capitalism on the political battle-field, take control of the State machine and take possession of the means of wealth production, abolish wage-slavery and emancipate all workers and all humanity. The Socialist Party understands the magnitude of its task and has the patience of preliminary and temporary set-backs and defeat but trusts in ultimate victory. The working class will be liberated by the working class. Society must be reconstructed by the working class. The fruits of their labour will be enjoyed by the working class. Poverty and war will cease when the working class defeats the ruling class. These are the principles and objects of the Socialist Party and we proclaim them to our fellow-workers. We know our cause is just and that it must prevail. With hope and courage and with a dauntless spirit the working class will march from capitalism to socialism, from slavery to freedom, from barbarism to civilisation.

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to gather together workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and vote ourselves into power so to use that power of government to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from us. We will then get all that abundance which modern technology entitles us to. Real socialism is the only alternative to capitalism. Conditions are now ripe for socialism, i.e. production for use and where all mankind cooperate in the common social interests. In a sane world fit for human beings the social forces breeding wars, hunger and disease disappear. Socialism is possible, necessary and practical today the moment the great majority become conscious of their interests. The task of the Socialist Party is to act as a catalyst, the triggering agent that transforms fellow-workers ideas from prevailing capitalist ones to revolutionary ones.

No man is good enough to be another's master

A socialist society is the aim of the Socialist Party’s struggle for the emancipation of the working people of all lands. The goal of the Socialist Party is to replace the world capitalist economy by world socialism which is mankind’s only way out, for it alone can abolish the contradictions of the capitalist system which threaten to degrade and destroy the humanity. Socialism will abolish the class division of society, and it will also abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a united commonwealth of labour. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its energy to the struggle against the forces of nature, to the development and strengthening of its own collective might.

A world system of socialism will replace the elemental forces of the world market, competitive and blind processes of social production, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying rapidly growing social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of the colossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society there will be a planned utilisation of all material resources and a painless economic development on the basis of unrestricted, smooth and rapid development of productive forces. The abolition of private property and the disappearance of classes will do away with the exploitation of man by man. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy: instead of being merely a means of livelihood it will become a necessity of life: want and economic inequality, the misery of enslaved classes, and a wretched standard of life generally will disappear; the hierarchy created in the division of labour system will be abolished together with the antagonism between mental and manual labour; and the last vestige of the social inequality of the sexes will be removed. Culture will become the acquirement of all. At the same time, the organs of class domination, and the State in the first place will disappear also. The State, being the embodiment of class domination, will die out in so far as classes die out, and with it all measures of coercion will expire.

 In a socialist society, no social restrictions will be imposed upon the growth of the forces of production. Private ownership of the means of production, the selfish lust for profits, the artificial retention of the masses in a state of ignorance, poverty-which retards technical progress in capitalist society, and unproductive expenditures will have no place in socialism. The most expedient utilisation of the forces of nature and of the natural conditions of production in the various parts of the world, the removal of the antagonism between town and country, that under capitalism results from the low technical level of agriculture and its systematic lagging behind industry; the closest possible co-operation between science and technique, the utmost encouragement of research work and the practical application of its results on the widest possible social scale; planned organisation of scientific work; the application of the most perfect methods of statistical accounting and, planned regulation of economy; the rapid growth of social needs, which is the most powerful internal driving force of the whole system all these will secure the maximum productivity of social labour, which in turn will release human energy for the powerful development of science and art.

Socialism will bury, once and for all, mysticism, religion, prejudice and superstition. As with the state, with religion. It will not be "abolished". God will not be "dethroned", religion will not be "torn out of the hearts of people"; nor will any other of the foolish accusations against socialist materialism materialise.

The development of the productive forces of world socialism will make it possible to raise the well-being of the whole of humanity and to reduce to a minimum the time devoted to material production and, consequently, will enable culture to flourish as never before in history. This new culture of a humanity that is united for the first time in history, and has abolished all State boundaries, will, unlike capitalist culture, be based upon clear and transparent human relationships.

Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?

Capitalism is completely incapable of solving the problems of the world peoples. A capitalist system is inevitably marked by sharp social contrasts, gross inequality of opportunity. Capitalism attacks all the essential rights and liberties that have been won over many years of struggle by the working people. The wealth is produced by those who work by hand and brain, far in excess of the wages they are paid. The surplus goes to the capitalist owners or shareholders as profit. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production, distribution and communication. The working class owns none of these, and therefore workers must sell their labour power to the capitalist for wages in order to live. The worker creates a product of value, part of which is returned to him as wage, and the rest of which is taken from him by the capitalists as profit. Thus is created the basic antagonistic contradiction between worker and capitalist, since the interest of one is, and has to be, directly opposed to the interest of the other. This most fundamental of contradictions will not end until capitalism with its private ownership and/or control of the means of production is itself ended and replaced with socialism. This is capitalist exploitation, the basis of all forms of rent and interest.

People are divorced from the process of decision-making or control in the affairs of their daily lives, livelihoods and communities. Political power must be taken out of the hands of the capitalist class and put into the hands of the people. Two courses are open. Either the present system prevails and will continue. Or steps must be taken to progress towards socialism. The economic basis of socialism is the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution. Socialism will enable the community as a whole to benefit from all increases in productivity, all advances in science and application of technological discoveries. That is why socialism has been the aim, the aim of establishing the rule of the working people in place of rule by the owners of property. Socialism is not an “improved”, “more just” version of the system of wage labour, but a wholly new mode of production. The fight for socialism is to consciously struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the institutions of state designed and created to maintain the economic and political dominance of the few who own capital over the many who have only their own labour power. The only way to abolish the capitalist exploitation of labour is to deny the state power to the exploiting ruling class. In socialism, all means of production will be common property. There will be no classes and no class struggle. There will be no distinction between mental and manual work. Socialism will be a life of material and cultural abundance. There will be no wars, no armies, and no need for weapons of war, which will become historical curiosities.

The prospects look dire for the existing system – and for the seven billion people who live under it. Attempts to reform the system have repeatedly proved unsuccessful. We are facing a future of barbarism, if not the final destruction of the whole of humanity because of the failure of capitalism to provide even minimally satisfactory lives for the majority of the world’s population. If there is no alternative to this system, then there is no hope for mankind. But the Socialist Party says there is an alternative. People have the power to take control of the ways of creating wealth and to subordinate them to our choices and our decisions. We do not have to leave production to the blind caprice of the market and the madness of rival owners of wealth in their race to keep ahead of each other. The new technologies that are available today, far from making our lives worse, have the potential to making our lives a lot better and easier. Automation could provide us with more leisure, with more time for creativity and more chance to deliberate on where the world is going. Computers provide us with unparalleled information about the resources available to satisfy our needs and how to deploy them effectively. But this alternative cannot arise from accepting the insane logic of the market, of commercial competition. The alternative can only come from fighting against the capitalist system. We want a humane rational society and the replacement of capitalism by a new economic mechanism based on human cooperation.

With socialism, cooperation replaces competitive chaos. With socialism, the welfare of the whole and of each individual within it replaces the welfare of a privileged select class. The elimination of the profit-seeking motive makes room for the higher motive of service. The rational organisation of production and distribution of wealth welcomes science and technology as an ally and transfers the emphasis from scarcity to abundance. Seek the permanent improvement of your condition by the establishment of the cooperative industrial system, in which crises, with their frightful train of woe and misery, will be impossible. Learn from the experience of the past. Whosoever desires the object must also adopt the means necessary for its attainment. Socialists hate capitalism with our heads and with our hearts because we see in it a redundant social system holding back wonderful developments in new technology that the present state of our knowledge could turn to the well-being of the people. We see in it a social system that carries within itself slumps and wars, poverty amidst plenty. We want to end it as soon as possible. We aim at replacing the present capitalist system by socialism, where there will be common ownership of the means of production and distribution, where wealth will be in the hands of those who produce it, where the exploitation of man by man will be ended, where production will be used not for private profit, where a new relationship of fraternity will develop between people based on equality and where individual men and women will find totally new possibilities to develop their talents and skills.

The important difference between a member of the capitalist class and a worker is that the former is able to identify his own best interests. The capitalist joins with his wealthy colleagues in shaping laws to protect his business. For sure, workers are forever pointing the finger at who to blame for his or her predicament – invariably a fellow worker - but rarely do they joining with fellow workers in the ranks of a union so that they can deal as equals with their employers. They prefer to believe the slogans of the demagogues who single out the scapegoats.

Misleading Mis-leaders

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

As to the necessity for working-class progress, its organisation has to exist. Of that, there can be no question. The point to be decided is: how shall the workers organise? Some advocate armed insurrection; and some industrial unionism or revolutionary syndicalism. But most support the ballot and palliative reforms sought through parliamentary action.  If our fellow-workers allow themselves to be misled and tricked into following those roads they will fail to free themselves from wage-slavery or even to better their condition, but will be put further into the power of our masters, and much valuable time and energy will be lost and discouragement and despair will be the result. Far better no organisation at all than a fake form which divides the workers against themselves and misleads between their interests and those of the ruling class. Capitalism gives to the worker the right to choose his or her master but insists that the fact of the master/slave relationship shall remain unquestioned.

Trade unions are organised by workers so they can successfully fight their industrial battles and advance their economic interests in their every-day struggles with capitalists. Trade unionism is an action of the workers which does not go beyond the limits of capitalism. Its aim is not to replace capitalism by another form of production, but to secure good living conditions within capitalism. Certainly, trade union activity is class struggle. There is a class antagonism in capitalism capitalists and workers have opposing interests. Not only in the question of the conservation of capitalism, but also within capitalism itself, with regard to the division of the total product. The capitalists attempt to increase their profits, the surplus value, as much as possible, by cutting down wages and increasing the hours or the intensity of labour. On the other hand, the workers attempt to increase their wages and to shorten their hours of work. Thus the antagonism becomes the object of a contest, the real class struggle. It is the task, the function of the trade unions to carry on this fight.

Capitalism is world-wide. It pays little attention to national boundary lines. The modern wage worker has neither property nor country. Ties of birth and sentiment which connect him or her with any particular country are slight and unimportant. It makes little difference what country he or she exists in, but they must have a job. Capital seeks the most profitable investment. If an American capitalist can invest more profitably in a Chinese business than an American he invests in China though he knows full well his money will finance the rival manufacturers to send American workers to the unemployment line. Capitalists often try to cover up their crimes with a cloak of patriotism, but the only patriotism they know is that of the dollar. The trade unions must not confine themselves to geographical divisions or national boundary lines but must follow the world-embracing lines of industry. The workers of all countries co-operate to carry on industry regardless of national boundary lines, and they must organise in the same way to control industry. To promote the unity of thought and action among the world’s workers, international cooperation and collaboration must be the order of the day.

A socialist party is organised to overthrow capitalism. All intelligent workers realise the capitalist system fails to supply the needs of the vast majority of the human race, and that it must be overthrown before the workers can have freedom.  When the workers are educated to the real nature of the profit system they lose all respect for the masters and their property. They see the capitalists in their true colours as thieves and parasites, and their "sacred" property rights as plunder and pillage. They see the State and the media as tools of the exploiters and they look on these institutions with contempt. They begin to understand the identity of interests of all wage workers. Organised politically, the workers are in a position to strike at the very heart of capitalism. At the polling booth, we are many and they are few.

In the socialist society, the means of production will be free to provide for the needs of the people. The capitalist profit-makers will have passed into history. Working people will be in control of industry and society. They will make poverty amid plenty impossible. The taking-over of the means of production of wealth, the factories, land, owned by a tiny handful, would banish the spectre of war, unemployment and poverty. It would mean a high standard of living for all.

Many struggles – but one war

The progress of mankind requires the cooperation of men and women. The inevitable outcome will be that the people must take possession collectively of the means of production and distribution. And this is called socialism. In order for the society working people will create to be just and egalitarian, it must embody socialist ideology. The fundamental change we envisage does not preserve capitalism. Our compass for where we are headed should have socialism set as its destination.

Capitalism inevitably produces exploitation and poverty, war, oppression, the poisoning of the environment, and a waste of human and natural resources, none of which can be consistently eliminated without the socialist transformation of society. It is an economic law, proven by the history of production under slavery and feudalism, that when an industrial system becomes a hamper upon the productive potentialities of the ever-improving science and technology, it has outlived its day and is ready to give way to a new economic system. Capitalism, instead of using the existing productive forces to supply the necessities and wants of society, is limiting our productive powers. We find that capitalism does not dare use to their fullest extent the productive forces of our present age. Its very existence depends upon retardation of these forces.

Under capitalism, the production of wealth is carried on for profit. The desire for profits is the motive force which drives the capitalist class to use its capital in the production of wealth. In order to secure profits,the workers must be exploited. Part of the product of their labour must be turned over to the capitalist class in the shape of interest and dividends. Capitalism restricts the production of wealth by keeping millions of workers in unemployment.  If these workers were allowed to use their brains and muscle in the production of wealth we could materially add to the amount produced. But this constraint on production by denying employment is necessary to the continuance of capitalism. The army of unemployed is a weapon in the hands of the master class with which the workers are kept in submission. If there were no unemployed, no strike would be lost. The workers could dictate their own terms to the capitalist and their terms would be that they receive for their labour the equivalent of what they produce. The reserve army of unemployed, however, gives the capitalist power to enforce his terms and continue the exploitation of the workers. The capitalists must, therefore, keep part of the workers in unemployment and deny society the benefit of their productive power.

Capitalism is preventing the complete socialisation of the production of wealth. We can today produce more than we could ever have imagined and produce it with less expenditure of labour-power than we could have ever fathomed. Only through common ownership can society secure for all its members the benefit of the improved method of economic organisation. Once we establish common  ownership of our industries we will throw off the checks of our productive powers and will be able to produce more than enough not only to supply every human being food, clothing, and homes to live in but the opportunity for education and culture which can make life worth living. But mere economic development in itself cannot bring the cooperative commonwealth.

The Socialist Party is primarily concerned with analyzing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. Socialism is not necessarily advanced in response to or because of economic recessions. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem.

Capital does not hinge on individual will. The main role of capital is not the degree of personal benefit in consumption and enjoyment at the expense of others. Yes, the capitalist can have that. He can use his money any way he wants—he can spend it all, eat it up, drink it up, or even burn it. But that bundle of money ceases to be capital. The basis for capital is the return of the money to circulation, for reinvestment based on exploitation. Used for one’s own consumption or enjoyment, it is just individual wealth; it is not capital. Capitalists not only do not direct the capital but in fact are themselves directed by and enslaved by capital. Capital spontaneously flows wherever the most profit can be made. There is no society-wide overall planning under capitalism, nor can a capitalist economy as a whole be a planned economy. The interests of the capitalists are individual interests. Under the system of private ownership of the means of production, the capitalists all fight for their own immediate interests, the interests of a particular company or sector. By their very nature, that is their sole consideration. Thus they come into antagonistic conflict with other capitalists, other sectors, and other industries. Under capitalism, there is nothing to prevent anyone with capital from producing identical products as long as the goods can be sold. Conflicts and waste inherently exist because products are duplicated. And there is even a contradiction in artificially creating demand and falsely advertising simply to sell these hyped products. So it is clear the private ownership precludes planning. This is true within each sector as well as for any sector’s relation to other sectors. Capitalists don’t sit down together and plan (except to monopolise pricing and markets, which further destroys the basis for capitalism), and there’s no interest for them to do so. For example, the car manufacturers and transportation industry in general, and the big oil companies and the energy industry as a whole, are obviously interdependent. It would seem in the best interest of the auto and other transportation manufacturers to plan with the big oil and energy companies to keep prices down so that sales of vehicles would increase. But that is not the case. Their lack of cooperation clearly undermines the car industry. Even if a finance capitalist owns both General Motors and Exxon, for example, and has overlapping interests, he still cannot plan and coordinate policies with other capitalists. Why? Because as long as many different oil corporations exist, there is competition among them. As long as there are different domestic and foreign auto manufacturers, some producing more fuel-efficient cars than others, the manufacturers are constantly driven to compete with each other. This adds to the independent momentum which prevents them from coordinating different sectors. For example, if Exxon were to raise the price of gas, but Texaco wanted to lower the price to help the American auto industry, it could not do so. Texaco would not get enough windfall profits to attract investors, or to invest in new oil fields and explorations. Without the profits, they cannot compete. In the long haul, they would be swallowed up by their competitors in the energy field. Texaco capitalists would not be able to diversify as much as their competitors in order to survive in the coming period. Nor could they increase their productivity and lessen their vulnerability by swallowing up smaller companies in the economic crisis. Nor would they be able to concentrate efforts to monopolize other sectors, having reaped windfall profits in one sector (such as gasoline), and force their competitors out of other sectors (such as diesel, plastics, and other petro-products). Even if two companies in two interdependent sectors want to cooperate, they cannot, because of the competition within the sector. This is just one example of why there cannot be a planned economy as a whole under capitalism.

Anti-fracking comes to Scotland

A tanker carrying 27,500 cubic meters of ethane from U.S. shale fields had reached Grangemouth, the site of the petrochemicals plant owned by multinational corporation Ineos who plan to eventually transport more than 800,000 tons of ethane, using eight specially built ships, across the Atlantic every year. Anti-fracking activists in Scotland and in Pennsylvania—where the fracked gas originated—oppose the delivery.

"Americans are being sacrificed by having this production near their homes, schools and farms," read a statement from Citizens for Clean Water a group based in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.  "I have witnessed first-hand how the fracking industry has brought permanent damage across the Pennsylvania region, polluted our air, land, and water and is destroying our livelihoods," Ron Gulla, a former resident of Hickory, Pennsylvania, who leased his own land for fracking in 2002, explained. "Those living near drilling, infrastructure, or waste sites have suffered water contamination, spills, wastewater dumping, and gas leaks, as well as multiple health impacts”

"It is completely unacceptable to attempt to prop up the Grangemouth plant on the back of environmental destruction across the Atlantic," said Mary Church, head of campaigns for Friends of the Earth Scotland. "Only today we have heard from the U.K. Climate Change Committee that global warming is already impacting Scotland, and that we should expect to see an increase in extreme weather events like last year's floods. To pursue a future for the Ineos plant based on the consumption of ever more fossil fuels is utterly irresponsible in the context of what we know about the devastating impacts of climate change…Fracking should not happen here in Scotland," said Church, "and our country should not profit from it happening anywhere else."

Mark Lichty, executive producer of the cautionary documentary Groundswell Rising, declared in a statement:

“The arrival of the Ineos Dragon ships in the U.K. is not an event to celebrated, but rather to be mourned. The event means the message and commitments made in Paris, go virtually unheeded. Fracked gas with its methane and carbon dioxide emissions fuels the climate crises. The earth speaks resoundingly of its climate-induced pain through unprecedented heat waves, floods, forest fires, etc.  The infrastructure to process the gas is a black hole sucking money into it that could be spent on a bright, job-producing, alternative future. Voices are beginning to be heard that we must have a WWII style mobilization effort to rise to the climate crises. Then as now this is an enemy we can combat. Let the U.K. and U.S. stand together. United we stand, divided we fall. “