Vic Vanni

The funeral of Comrade Vic Vanni will take place on Tuesday January 10th at 10 a.m.  in the Linn Crematorium Glasgow G45 9SP Map Peter Hendrie, Glasgow branch secretary.

World View: 'USA: The Fallacy of the Free Market' and 'Middle East: Thirsting for Conflict'

1. 'USA: The Fallacy of the Free Market' 

2. 'Middle East: Thirsting for Conflict'

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USA: The fallacy of the free market

The illusion that is peddled by sharp-suited government spokesmen on television about the benefits of the free market system is just that—an illusion. Every government in the world is in favour of free trade when their owning class is in a favourable position to compete and in favour of protectionism when some competitor from another country has the drop on them.
The British toadies of capitalism are bad enough but, in the USA the hypocritical posturing of the worshippers of the market system is truly nauseating. As the foremost industrial and commercial power in the world, the USA is loud in its praise of free trade as the cure-all for social problems. In practice, though, it often favours the strictest protectionism and some recent examples from the Press starkly prove this.
The notion that it is the soundest economic wisdom to "buy in the cheapest market" may be all very well for American academic economists to expound in the ivory towers of university and business schools, but in the USA when they find that their home produced commodities are being undercut in price the capitalists appeal to their government to protect US products from "unfair" competition. They call any competition at which they are losing "dumping":
"Anti-dumping duties are a frequent recourse of the US government when faced with a trade problem. As the US trade deficit has mounted, pressure for duties has mounted, pressure for duties has increased rapidly and 36 petitions for anti-dumping have been received by the government so far in 1998, compared with 16 for the whole of last year. Most concerned imports of steel products . . . Ominously, William Daly, the US Commerce Secretary, has invited US manufacturers to make his anti-dumping staff 'the busiest people in town' . . . ." (Independent on Sunday, 22 November.)
The US exporters of Chiquita bananas, produced in Central America, used their political muscle to combat the European Union's favourable trade terms for Caribbean bananas, and got the US government to slap 100 percent duties on such products as sheep's cheese from the EU to the US. The American Financial Group, who own Chiquita, have recently given $1 million to Democratic and Republican politicians to fight the Caribbean preference which the they claim has lost Chiquita $1,000 million in earnings since the EC ruling of 1983 in favour of Caribbean bananas.
Behind the threats and counter-threats of a trade war the US and the EU are playing for higher stakes than are represented by bananas and sheep's cheese:
"Andrew Hughes Hallett, professor of economics at Strathclyde University, believes we need to peel back the skin on this row to understand it. 'I suspect it isn't about bananas at all and it isn't about protecting poor farmers either in St. Lucia or Honduras. It's about political pressure in Washington and Brussels . . . In the EU this dispute is tied up with the power of the agricultural lobby. It's like a bargaining chip. France is prepared to support Britain which is keen to get a favourable deal for its former colonies, so Britain will be more supportive of France on other issues affecting French farmers'." (The Herald, 24 December.)
All over the world the US government pursues a policy of free trade or protectionism, whichever is most beneficial to US economic interests, but it is from New Zealand that we learn of the naked power of the US being used to force its products down the throats of unsuspecting consumers.
As the world's biggest producer of genetically modified food, the US does everything in its power to protect the global ambitions of the agri-chemical firm Monsanto. It is increasingly concerned about European reluctance to accept genetically modified foodstuffs without proper labelling and testing.
In reply to criticisms of the British government that it was being pressured to accept US-produced genetically modified foodstuff, Tony Blair hid behind the cloak of secrecy when he replied:
"By convention it is not the practice of governments to make information on such meetings, or their contents, publicly available."
In New Zealand no such convention applies and it was revealed in cabinet minutes that economic pressure was being applied to the New Zealand government to accept genetically modified food:
"The Cabinet Minutes, dated 19 February 1998, state: 'The United States, and Canada to a lesser extent, are concerned in principle about the kind of approach advocated by Anzfa [part of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Council], and the demonstration effect this may have on others, including the European Union. The United States have told us that such an approach could impact negatively on the bilateral trade relationship and potentially end any chance of a New Zealand-United States Free Trade Agreement.'" (Independent on Sunday, 22 November.)
So there you have it. Blatant economic threats, undisguised self-interest, and no recourse to such fine rhetoric, so beloved by US politicians, as the "free world", or hypocritical cant about "democracy and the freedom of choice".
Capitalism is a horrible society—let's get rid of it.

RICHARD DONNELLY

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Middle East: Thirsting for conflict

Ismail Seageldin, vice-president of the World Bank, made a disturbing prediction in 1995: "Many of the wars this century were about oil, but the wars of the next century will be about water." It was a comment that was to find many echoes at a meeting of UN hydrologists and meteorologists, convened by UNESCO in London back in November.
According to scientists, 7 percent of the world's people do not have enough water to survive. With the world's population set to rise by an India every ten years, by the year 2050, with a global population in excess of 10 billion, 70 percent will have an insufficient supply of water.
With similar facts in front of them, the London meeting agreed to a decade-long campaign to highlight the case for urgent action. UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) has already started the ball rolling and committed itself to making water disputes a priority, currently mediating in disputes in the Zambezi river basin and in the stand-off between Peru and Bolivia over access to Lake Titicaca.
From Africa, which has 19 of the 25 countries with the greatest number of people lacking access to clean water, to Central Asia, where 5 countries contest the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, conflict could indeed break out at any moment, and ironically over the world's most abundant resource.
There is so much water that, shared out, each person could have 100 billion litres. Of course, 97 percent of this is sea water, and of the remainder only 0.8 percent is accessible. Still, taking into account that a person's annual requirement is one million litres, there is still enough. The point is that it is not evenly distributed throughout the world and some countries control much greater resources than others. If we add to this the fact that three-quarters goes on growing food, and that a lot is lost through drainage, poorly constructed channels and evaporation, then we really understand UNEP spokesman Klaus Topfer when he declares that the "potential for water disputes is great and the issue needs urgent political action" (Guardian, 2 November 1998).
Egypt anticipates that its population will double to 110 million within 35 years. Even now it is faced with a water shortage and has for some time imported "virtual water"—grain and other foodstuffs which removes the necessity to use water for home-grown food. Egypt finds itself in the unique position of being totally dependent on the Nile, a river whose flow and tributaries are controlled by 8 other countries.
Already, Egypt has rattled its sabre at Ethiopia, which controls 80 percent of the supply and which has embarked upon a series of dams and irrigation schemes along the Blue Nile and, which if extended, would also interfere with Sudan's supply.
With Egypt looking to irrigate reclaimed desert along its northern coast and needing to increase its share of Nile water by 15 billion cubic metres per year, and with a further 8 countries seeking to increase their share, it takes no great leap in the imagination to see how water is increasingly dominating Egypt's foreign policy and why Egypt sees the taking of more water by its neighbours as an act of war.
At the other end of the scale, Turkey possesses an abundance of water and has primary control over the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates—rivers that both Syria and Iraq are heavily dependent on.
In 1984, Turkey began the South Eastern Antollia Project at a cost of £20 billion—a mammoth effort to construct 22 dams, 19 hydro-electric plants and thousands of miles of irrigation channels.
As Turkey directs more and more water for its own use, Syria and Iraq feel that should they upset their northern neighbour, water could be used as a weapon, and thus are anxious not to upset the controller of their water supply. Turkey has already used its control of Syria's water to great effect, forcing Syria to withdraw its support for the Turkish Guerrilla movement, the PKK. And it's a fair bet that Turkey's political might will be felt further in the region when the 1984-begun project nears its completion in 2005.
Forty percent of Israel's water depends on territory occupied in 1967 and still not handed back. Studies of hydrologists' maps further reveal a pattern of settlement construction in the "occupied territories" along the ridges of aquifers suggesting a wider Israeli game plan to control an increasing share of the region's water.
Interestingly, at a time when Israel is losing interest in Gaza, it can be found that Gaza's groundwater is sinking by 8 inches per year. Just as it's a fact that Israel controls 80 percent of the Palestinian water supply, so too do we find 26 percent of Palestinians with no access to clean water while the average Israeli consumes three-and-a-half times as much water as those Palestinians fortunate to have access.
Meanwhile, Israel's continuing control of the Golan Heights and south eastern Lebanon enables it to guard a series of pumps and pipelines which moves the Jordan's water throughout Israel and as far north as the Negev desert.
Israel's case is echoed the world over. In the former Soviet Union, while the Aral sea continues to shrink because of HEP plants and irrigation, five countries are becoming increasingly dependent on its diminishing waters.
Sensing trouble ahead, the UN adopted a convention on international waters in 1997—basically a framework for sharing rivers and lakes. Before it can become operational it requires 35 signatories. So far only 11 have signed—such is the reluctance of governments to sign such a valuable resource away.
In an age when we have the scientific and technological know how to enable us to solve almost all our problems, it is indeed an indictment on capitalism that so many humans, living on a planet, seven eighths of which is covered in water, have so little access to it. With the ever-present drive to cut costs and make profits, it is little wonder that better irrigation and improved channels are as rare as desalination plants and reservoirs? What wars our master will plunge us into in the coming millennium is anyone's guess, but among them don't be alarmed if the cause of many is water and its control by a profit-crazed élite.

JOHN BISSETT


Edited from a Socialist Standard February 1999


 

The Capitalist

 The Capitalist is a frequently misunderstood person. He is often portrayed in something less than glowing terms. Not that his clothing is shoddy. Usually it is shown to be carefully tailored and made of costly materials. But he is offered to us as a smirking, pear-shaped specimen, lips folded over a fat cigar, whose weight is mainly encompassed by his belt. Sometimes he appears as a banker, a big bad banker, who has corralled all the money and won't let the rest of us have any except at impossible rates of interest. Sometimes he turns up as a munition maker who plots to keep the world at war so that he may sell his guns and tanks and other wares and keep the profits flowing in. Then, again, he may be a landlord whose girth is gained from high rents on slum dwellings inhabited by poor people.

 He may be found in any of these categories, or he may be found in any of a number of other categories equally distasteful. Indignant people are the ones who portray him in these terms. People who believe that more of the good things of life could come to those in need if more money or cheaper money were made available, or that wars could be reduced in number or intensity if profits were removed from the sale of arms, or that better or cheaper housing would be possible if curbs were placed on his bad habits. Indignant people, rebellious people, people who see wrongs in society that must be righted, and who see in the capitalist the source of so many of these wrongs.

 Then there are other people who portray the capitalist differently. They see in him a public benefactor, a philanthropist, a captain of industry, a financial genius, an all-round fine fellow. Press reporters and politicians often tell of his benefactions and sterling qualities. Preachers and elderly ladies dote on his philanthropies. Educators discourse on his industrial and financial greatness.
In the eyes of these good people he brings grace, goodness and distinction to a society which, with all its faults, already scintillates with fine features. The way people look upon society has much to do with the way they look upon the capitalist. Those who see evils about them tend to place these evils at his door.
  Those who observe instead blessings in modern life tend to credit him with these blessings. He is truly the object of much attention.

 And most of it is undeserved. It is unquestionably true that he picks up a dollar here and there through colourful banking operations, the sale of guns, the renting of rat traps and other indiscreet activities. And it is equally true that his industries provide jobs for people, that he contributes generously to churches and charities, that he gives his support to all kinds of groups engaged in social uplifting and public improvement, activities widely conceded to be of worth. But he is really not much different from the rest of us. There may not be patches on his britches or holes in his socks, or callouses where ours are. He may have better clothing, a finer home, a more attractive bank balance. But he could walk along the road with any of us - and who could determine which one owned the alarm clock?

 The thing that makes him a capitalist is not the thing that makes him good or bad in people's eyes. Most people don't even give a thought to the thing that makes him a capitalist. They content themselves with some particular feature of his activities and judge him accordingly.
He is a wicked banker, a blood-stained munitions maker, a thieving landlord. Or else he is the embodiment of many virtues.

 The most important thing to note about the capitalist is that he is a member of an economic category. He belongs to a class in society - the capitalist class. As such he shares with his fellow capitalists in the ownership of the mills, mines, factories, in fact, all the means that exist in society for producing and distributing the food, clothing, shelter and other things needed for the preservation and enjoyment of human life. He and his kind own all these things: the rest of society don't own them. It is this fact of ownership that determines in the long run what he thinks and does and how he lives, and how the rest of us live.

 Consider the position of the capitalist and his factory. Into the factory go raw materials and workers and out of it come products that are sold in the market places to bring him a profit. The profit does not originate in the market places. People who manipulate wealth in market places do not in that way create profit; they simply shuffle it around in such a way that some capitalists benefit at the expense of others. The profit is created by the workers in the factory. It exists in that portion of the wealth which the workers produce in excess of their own wages.

 Not all of it is profit but there is no profit to be found elsewhere. To increase the amount of his profit the capitalist must improve the methods of production, or he must induce the workers to work longer hours or at greater speed, or to accept lower wages. And unless he is prepared to sweat in the factory beside the workers, a thought that is usually repellent to him, there is not much else he can personally do about the profit except spend it. This he does with all the assurance of one who is entitled to it.

 The capitalist is a parasite. He lives without working. He lives on the results of other men's toil and he is able to do this because he owns the means of production and distribution, a condition that is neither necessary nor desirable but is allowed to continue because people have not yet seen in it the source of most of the harm in modem society. For even those who rise indignantly to condemn the capitalists, in most cases condemn only the 'wicked' ones.

 To replace wicked capitalists with worthy ones will not end the exploitation of labour. The workers will continue to live in need, in insecurity, in fear of the future, no matter what may be the quality of those who occupy the high places.

 What is wrong in society is not the wickedness of the capitalists but the wickedness of the capitalist system; and until this system is replaced by one in which there are no capitalists, society can have no hope for a better life. It is not proposed here to imprison or exterminate the capitalist; it is proposed simply to put him in overalls and make him a useful member of the community.

(Adapted from the pamphlet 

* The Capitalist * The Worker * The Class Struggle * Wages * Depression * Politics )

Scots wha hae not

The number of children relying on food banks in one council area has jumped by almost a quarter in just three months.

Statistics compiled by Renfrewshire Council show the number of children receiving food bank help rose from 355 to 437 between July and September.
It said the rise coincided with benefit changes and payment delays and called for help from the Scottish government.
The Scottish government said it would continue to protect the most vulnerable from UK government cuts.
In the same three months, 947 food bank vouchers were issued by the council to 72 families and 149 single parents.

 

This is on top of figures which showed more than 7000 Scots were forced to use food banks in the week before Christmas.

Low income was the biggest factor in 27 per cent of cases, while benefit delays were a factor in 24 per cent and 15 per cent were due to a benefit change.

Ewan Gurr, Scotland network manager for the Trussell Trust, said:

“The message we are clearly hearing in our food banks is not so much that people are struggling with a low income but with no income. This is not about misplaced spending priorities but families struggling on tight budgets where increased winter fuel bills and the absence of free school meals can mean having to make a decision between a warm home and a warm meal. Many individuals and families are simply experiencing a financial famine.”

This is to be set in context with the fact that the 62 richest people on the planet are worth more than the combined wealth of half the world’s population and the richest 1% now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, according to Oxfam. Poverty is not just absolute, but relative, to the collective wealth produced.

Leninspeak

(This article by our comrade Vic Vanni who died this afternoon appeared in the Socialist Standard No. 995 of May 1983)

  It really is ironic that those members of the Militant group who face expulsion from the Labour Party should complain about the lack of democracy and tolerance which they allege is being shown to them. After all, as worshippers of Lenin they must know that their hero was no democrat and showed little tolerance of his opponents
outside or inside Bolshevik ranks. We have yet to hear them condemn this.

 One of the most amazing legacies of the Russian revolution and its aftermath is Lenin's image as a humane, even saintly figure, despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary. To this day thousands of people all over the world will revile Stalin but revere Lenin, yet the truth is that it was the latter who commenced the reign of terror after November l9l7 and who deserves his own place in history as a brutal, lying, ruthless dictator.


 Right up till the Bolshevik seizure of power Lenin had been agitating for .the abolition of the state apparatus including the army, police and bureaucracy. Every official, he said, should be elected and subject to recall at any time. He was all for freedom of the press and the right to demonstrate for "any party, any group"'

 Immediately on gaining power he even promised to uphold the verdict of the coming elections for the Constituent Assembly
As a democratic government 'we cannot ignore the decision of the rank and file of the people, even though we may disagree with it ...and even if the peasants continue to follow the Social-Revolutionaries, even if they give this party a majority in the Constituent Assembly, we shall still say, be it so'
(Report on the Land Question,8 November 1917') All of this was, of course, mere window dressing, for Lenin knew that the Russian people would never have supported what he really had in mind for them.  Far from abolishing the state apparatus he set about strengthening it, especially the secret police (Cheka), in order to impose the Bolchevik dictatorship. And instead of officials being elected and recallable the Bolsheviks simply appointed their own men who were answerable to them alone'


 Gradually all opposition press was outlawed and their demonstrations forbidden' When the long-called-for elections for the Constituent Assembly resulted
in a humiliating defeat for the Bolsheviks. Lenin dissolved the Assembly by force.Later on he explained away those earlier promises on the grounds that
'This was an essential period in the beginning of the revolution; without it we would not have risen on the crest of the revolutionary wave, we should have
dragged in its wake' (Report of the Central Committee to the 11th Congress of the Russian Communist Party 27 March 1922.)


 In the run-up to the November coup Lenin and the Bolsheviks had won widespread support with their slogan "peace, bread and land". Of course the
promises of politicians are always easier to make than to fulfill, as the Russian workers and peasants very soon discovered. The peasants, having got rid of the landlord, now had their grain and cattle forcibly taken from them in return for worthless paper money. Those who resisted were shot and many villages were burnt. Lenin claimed that his policy of robbing the peasants was necessary to avoid famine but inevitably, the peasants retaliated by burning their crops and killing their cattle and so Lenin's policy produced famine anyway. In the cities and towns unemployment was rife and the workers, in or out of a job, were starving.

 Lenin's response to the plight of the Petrograd workers was to tell them to ...set out in their tens of thousands for the Urals, the Volga and the south,
where there is an abundance of grain, where they can feed themselves and their families . . ( To The Workers of Petrograd, 12 July 1918.)

How the workers and their families were go get to these areas in view of the fact that the civil war had broken out in each of them, Lenin didn't say.


 Early in 1919 many strikes and protest demonstrations were crushed with great loss of life. Starvation continued to be the workers' lot for several more years but anyone who argued that the chronic food scarcity could be eased by allowing the peasants to trade their produce instead of having it stolen by the state should, said Lenin, be shot. This argument was "counter-revolutionary" - until Lenin himself made it official policy early in l92l.


 Another myth surrounding the period of Lenin's dictatorship is that at least there was democracy within the Communist Party. This is the so-called "democratic centralism", but Lenin no more welcomed opposition from his own comrades than he did from anyone else' Communists who criticised him or his policies were denounced as "unsound elements", "deviationists" or worse' and their arguments “mere chatter", "phrase mongering" and “dangerous rubbish".
 Lenin's anger boiled over at those communists who wanted free trade unions independent of party control' He raged at the *loudmouths" and demanded complete loyalty or else they would throw away the revolution because 'Undoubtedly, the capitalists of the Entente will take advantage of our party’s
sickness to organise a new invasion, and the Social Revolutionaries will take advantage of it for the purpose of organising conspiracies and rebellions'. (The Party Crisis, 19 January 1921 )

He also complained that the debate on the trade unions had been . . an excessive luxury. Speaking for myself I cannot but add that in my
opinion this luxury was really absolutely impermissible' (Report on the political activities of the Central-Committee to the l1th Congress of the Russian
Communist Party, 8 March 1921.)

 In short, shut-up and don't rock the boat. Faced with this attitude the dissidents had no chance. Their various groups, such as "Workers' Opposition",
were expelled (even when they agreed to abide by majority decisions against them) and many of their leaders and members were jailed or exiled.


 All Lenin's actions were the result of his single-minded determination to seize power and hold on to it, even if it meant that millions of Russian workers and
peasants died in famine and repression. The seizure of power was' given the chaotic condition of Russia at the time, comparatively simple: to hold on to power he had to create a state apparatus which, under his personal direction, was used to terrorise all opposition into submission.


 The Leninists of today will argue that all of this was a case of the end justifying the means, that it was done in order to bring about socialism. But
undemocratic means can never bring about democratic ends; any minority which seizes power can only retain it by violent, undemocratic methods. In any case, even before 1917 the Mensheviks and many European social democrats had used Karl Marx's theory of social development to demolish the idea that socialism could be established in a backward country like Russia.

 The absence of larger-scale industry and the consequent smallness of the working class, both of which are essential ingredients for socialism, plus the presence of a vast, reactionary peasantry made socialism impossible. This earned them Lenin's undying hatred, a hatred which only increased as he saw their view justified by events. All that was left to Lenin in the circumstances was to commence building up state-capitalism.The Russia of today is
a grim reminder of how well he succeeded.  Vic Vanni

U.B.I. (Again)

Two councils, Fife and Glasgow, are investigating idea of offering everyone a fixed income regardless of earnings. Scotland looks set to be the first part of the UK to pilot a basic income for every citizen, as councils in Fife and Glasgow investigate trial schemes in 2017.

 The concept of a universal basic income revolves around the idea of offering every individual, regardless of existing welfare benefits or earned income, a non-conditional flat-rate payment, with any income earned above that taxed progressively.

 The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has suggested that it is likely to appear in his party’s next manifesto, while there has been a groundswell of interest among anti-poverty groups who see it as a means of changing not only the relationship between people and the state, but between workers and increasingly insecure employment in the gig economy.

This idea is an old one it was the first Muslim caliph, Abu Bakr (573-634 CE), who introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams.

 Thomas Paine advocated a citizen's dividend to all US citizens as compensation for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property" (Agrarian Justice, 1795).

 Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine's sentiments and commented that 'man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence'.

In recent years it has always been localised trials or feasability studies which the media then blow up into a major story. 

 If the UBI is introduced it will be in the form that is acceptable to the ruling class and for the purpose of mitigating the cost of the up-keep of the increasing and unavoidable numbers of casualties of the class war, automation being one field of battle. The capitalists and their State need us to be impoverished, indebted and enslaved. Would a basic income remove this or just create a new form of dependency? 

 Any UBI will always be framed within the tight parameters that capitalism will permit a reform which will only be passed if it fits in with the agenda of the employing class, will have sufficient built-in constraints  that it will fail to satisfy the expectations and hopes of our fellow workers.

 In the recent Swiss referendum on the issue for a proposed Basic Income referendum the pro campaign literature said that, with the introduction of Basic Income, wages would be reduced by its amount:

“Wages are going to adapt themselves to become a complement to Basic Income. For example with a Basic Income of 2500 Swiss Francs, someone who at present gets 8000 Swiss francs from his employer will not get more than 5500 or so wages which will come to be added to his Basic Income.”

 So, anyone with a wage above the poverty line is not going to be better off: their income will be exactly the same, with instead of it all being paid by the employer, a part will be paid by the State and a part by the employer. It would lead to a massive downward pressure on wages. In fact, it's part of the scheme. They have openly and explicitly said that their scheme involves a wage reduction for all workers above the poverty line even if their total income is to remain the same, i.e. will make no financial difference to the vast majority of workers.

The Swiss voters rejected this proposal.

  What UBI proposes is a reform of the welfare system that would benefit only those on benefits, allowing them to receive these as of right without means testing or the obligation to try to find work. For many supporters, it only makes sense that the budget for UBI would come from cannibalising existing welfare.

 UBI would not exist as an add-on benefit. The logic is to shut down housing benefit and the rest and replace them with a single cheque. The welfare system can finally be eliminated.  Nice if you could get it but hardly likely as long as capitalism lasts.

Now’s the Hour, Now’s the Day and Now's the Year

On behalf of all members the World Socialist Movement, we send our good wishes to the world’s working class for the New Year2017, wishing them all the best of success in the struggle against capitalism.  We believe that next year could indeed be a decisive one in the establishment of socialism. We face the new year of struggle in conditions where the socialist cause is beginning to revive after decades of setbacks and confusion. We also salute our fellow-workers around the globe and express our solidarity in their just struggles. We pay tribute to their sacrifices. A new year is beginning and we hope that it will be one of re-newed growth of the socialist movement internationally.

It is important in clarifying the tasks that we face as we enter 2017 when our fellow workers are confronted by an uncertain future and dismal employment prospects. It is necessary to make plans for the new year, according to tradition. Our vision should not be of a limited horizon that others wish to impose upon us.

We must increase the political work and improve our educational efforts but sadly the signs of a socialist New Year are none too plentiful. All over the world capitalism is daily taking its toll. The ruling class have so succeeded in familiarising people with scenes of slaughter and bloodshed that watching dying workers on the news no longer raises the heart-beat or races the pulse. We intend 2017 to be a year of growing class consciousness. Our brightest hope for the coming New Year is that our work for socialism can take root and bear fruit. Those of us in the Socialist Party are hoping that we will celebrate the establishment of a free, equal and humane society in the next New Year.

A guid New Year tae yin an’ a’.

Gustav's Gems

Usually we have a section called, ''Karl's Quotes'', but why not give him a rest for a while and quote from one of his most brilliant students, Gustav Bang? This gent, (1871-1915), was a Professor of history at Copenhagen University and in 1901 gave a series of lectures about famous historical events, all of which he analysed in relation to economic conditions. It is to be regretted that only a few were translated into English, one of which was about the French Revolution, which is still relevant. Professor Bang showed how the emerging capitalist class used the lower classes to break the political power of the nobility, and once firmly in the saddle, did nothing for them. However these lower classes, for they were not yet an industrialized working class, were smart enough to realize they had been used.

''The sentiment in the lower classes grew more and more bitter through these acts of treachery. What the meaning of it all was began to dawn on them; they began to see through that mesh of phrases and big words with which the spokesmen and writers for the bourgeoisie tried to veil the real motives of their politics, not only for others but for themselves; they began to realize the role they were intended for - a ladder on which the possessing classes could climb to the top, from there to turn and grind the classes below under the iron heel of exploitation so effectively. It was the first manifestation of the class - consciousness of the proletariat.

As yet the proletariat was to weak, too few in numbers and too heterogeneous in its composition to start an independent war leading to victory.''

Today the situation is the reverse. The working class is in a position to overthrow capitalism if it wanted, but unlike the French, doesn't realize its being fooled. Lets hope it will soon realize it and, who knows, with the effects of the election of a total jackass as American President, it may be soon. John Ayers.

Merry Marxmas

 On this day a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton who arrived in this world on December 25, 1642.

The signs of the Festive season are all around us. We are exhorted to join in the Christmas spirit (more often than not by the makers of the alcoholic spirits.) Christmas is a time for rejoicing yet for many it is merely another grim day in the struggle for survival. Just how can a rapacious system such as capitalism bring about that peace and good will so ardently desired by humanity? Socialists appreciate the significance of the ritual and symbolism and acknowledge the value that people attach to holidays, acts of remembrance and commemoration. We no more wanted to abolish Christmas than we do Hogmanay. Christmas possesses within it the solidarity principle of mutual aid. Friends exchange gifts. Fellow-workers share in a dinner. Grown-ups become children at the fun of the pantomine. 

 But most of all, we socialists want to extend that one-time-a-year sharing to every day, making it our way of life for society. 

From the Xmas cracker

QUESTION: This year, what do all the world's Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists call December 25th?

ANSWER: Sunday

Everything is possible

The dominant capitalist interests are not concerned primarily with the development or the welfare of people. The opposition to the dominion of capitalism is confronted by its global power.  When the industrial crisis was raging throughout the world, when factories and plant were standing idle, when machines rusting, when the wholesale destruction of “superfluous” foodstuffs was taking place while millions of people were starving, it becomes plain that capitalist development had led humanity to the brink of a precipice. Is there an alternative? Either we have change or we have barbarism, economic collapse and moral decay where climate change and war may well destroy civilisation. This then is the alternative which the ruling classes may bring about. The mission of building society on a basis of social justice to-day rests with the labour movement. Fundamental change is imperative. Our vision is of a better, socialist society and to end the days where the poor and needy – the billions of them – have to endure drab and dismal lives. The quest for solutions — sometimes irrational, always erratic, never coordinated — dominates world politics.

The working class require a shift in consciousness, and need to reject the old values fostered by the ruling class through its social and political institutions and to gain a general awareness that these values do not serve the interests of working people It is an awakening to the fact that have interests separate from and opposed to those of the employers and the government that sides with the employers. Workers are locked in the two-party political system, where they remain to this day, the greater and lesser evils. The unions have been under sustained attack and there are no signs of any let-up. The only weapon embattled workers have is their ability to strike, and the employers have extracted a heavy toll for the small concessions they have been obliged to make. The unions are composed of workers, were created to represent the interests of workers, and cannot exist without worker support. Under pressures of the economic crisis and the heavy blows of the employers, the unions will have to be transformed by their members in the struggle against the employers, or they will be neutralised by the combined assault of the employers and government. This can only be accomplished by action, and it may well not be accomplished at all.

The principal task of the Socialist Party right now is to try to restore the credibility of socialism in the minds of millions of men and women having had decades of distortion from mistaken interpretations of the Russian Revolution and Lenin. Our starting point starting point in our engagement and exchanges with our fellow-workers should have been their immediate needs, to eliminate hunger, house the homeless, to give a dignified life to everyone, to save the lives of those who die for lack of proper medical attention, to generalise free access to necessary goods and services. None of this is dogmatic or utopian although fellow-workers are not yet ready to fight for the socialist revolution. We have spent much of our energy and resources in correcting misconceptions rather than presenting the genuine socialist vision. To-day, the stakes are literally a question of the survival of humanity. Hunger, epidemics, nuclear power, environmental destruction and climate change are the fundamental reality of capitalism’s new world disorder.

We defend socialism as being totally emancipatory in all areas of life. The producers must hold the real decision making power over what they produce. This power must be exercised in a completely democratic manner; that is, it must express the real aspirations of the working class.

Pricey Streets

A street which leads to the first tee of the Old Course at St

Andrews has been named the most expensive in Scotland. The Scores knocked addresses in Edinburgh off the top spot, with an average house price of £2,179,000.

Ten of Scotland's most expensive streets are in Edinburgh. Aberdeen has five streets in the top 20, while Glasgow has three. Balmoral Court in Auchterarder, Perthshire, is the only other location in the top 20 outside the main cities. House prices there average £1,298,000.

Edinburgh's most expensive residential street is Ettrick Road in Merchiston, where homes are a mixture of late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian villas and Victorian tenements which command an average price of £1,899,000. At more than £500,000 less, Northumberland Street and Heriot Row in New Town are Edinburgh's next most expensive streets, with average prices of £1,390,000 and £1,374,000 respectively.

In Aberdeen, streets in the AB15 postcode area are the most expensive. Researchers said buyers seeking a property in Rubislaw Den North or Rubislaw Den South should expect to spend at least £1,516,000.

Baroness Drive in Thortonhall is Glasgow's most expensive street (£1,037,000), closely followed by nearby Baron Court (£1,035,000), and Grange Road in Bearsden (£1,033,000).

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-38404268

Now Let's Think A Moment.

In October, continuing an 800 year old tradition, the city of London paid Queen Elizabeth rent owed on two pieces of property. these transactions are so old the exact locations of the properties are unclear. The payments called, ''Quit Rents'', once had a meaning, but are now ceremonial. In other words they pay our beloved Britannic Majesty rent on property that doesn't exist.

 This is perfectly logical, in fact just as logical as the gilded coach she rides in, the horse guards, the life guards, the beefeaters, orb and sceptres and all the other trappings of pomp and circumcision. Just as logical as the intellectual giants who line the route and wave and cheer for her. This nitwit wonders what pearls of wisdom they could enlighten us with. They should all be singing, ''Rule Brittania, Marmalade and Jam, three Chinese crackers up your rear end, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham wham.'' 

And just to think some people want to abolish the monarchy!

 If you think that's bad you ain't heard nuttin yet. Some want to go farther and abolish the cause of it ! Wow, there's some bad dudes out there - the nerve of these people. Now lets think a moment folks - if the monarchy is abolished, what we do for laughs?

 John Ayers.

Socialism is not dead

The coming year ahead is very promising for socialists and very challenging for the whole working class. People not only want change, they want a vision of a better society. Many people these days will tell you ‘Socialism is dead’. For many, the issue of socialism is now closed: you can’t beat the system and for proof, they point to the demise of the Soviet Union and the creation of Chinese billionaires. Intellectuals tell us there is now no longer a way out for us and present dystopian futures of catastrophe and apocalypses, while the life-style gurus offer up spiritual strategies of how best to cope with the ‘real’ world.  However, if you looked at the problems of the world, whether from a factory floor or from a university lecture hall, the alternative to capitalism other than socialism is a phantasm. 

The Socialist Party’s central aim is the emancipation of humanity and we endeavour to find a path to a world without exploitation or oppression, in which men and women developed their human potential as free individuals in a free society, without the distortion of money or state power. We are committed to the principle of the working class liberating itself and are opposed to the idea of self-appointed leaders, no matter how well-intentioned and we are firmly against the concept of setting up a spurious workers’ state. In the words of the Communist Manifesto, ‘the movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority’. Only the working class can achieve its own emancipation. Nobody can make the socialist revolution for them. Marx and Engels argued that socialism could only come about through the action of the entire class, which in advanced countries was the mass of society. The state which oppressed the exploited on behalf of the exploiters would be destroyed and replaced, not by a new, ‘workers’ state’, but by a body which would at once begin to dissolve itself into the community. Socialism wasn’t state-ownership and nationalisation but associations of producers. Marx’s conception of socialist society as ‘an association of free human beings, working with communal means of production, and self-consciously expending their many individual labour powers as a single social labour power’. Individuals will freely, collectively and consciously construct their social relationships.

There can be no blueprint to give us a clear description of the future socialist system, much to some folk’s chagrin who see themselves as clever experts in the creation of all sorts of new social relations and economic models yet consider the existing rough sketch of socialism as a world in which we will transcend such things as property, money, and state are treated as utopianism.

 Rather than using technological advances and our ability to understand and transform the natural world, it ought to be easy to make ourselves reasonably comfortable, capitalism has turned technology into instruments of exploitation of both nature and people. Over many decades, a major part of scientific and industrial activity has been devoted to fabricating the means to kill, torture and maim human beings with great efficiency: millions perished miserably in wars. Capitalism is like an uncontrollable demon compelling us to tear our world apart, turning our own human productive powers against ourselves, transforming them into forces of self-destruction. We devote a huge part of our energy and ingenuity to lying and cheating, to hurting or killing each other. Nationalism and religion feed upon our fears. Set against one another, we are reduced to a state of powerlessness, mere spectators of our own actions. This is what makes the world appear so strange to us. In every part of the world, there has been a global drive to expand industry and trade. The consequences, however, have never been what was intended. They include the destruction, not only of natural ecological systems but also of older forms of cultural life that has sparked a reactionary back-lash. Millions of people try to lead decent lives amidst all this confusion, bringing up their children in the best way they can, but every day another bit of communal life disappears to be replaced by the impersonal market. And so the world becomes less and less comprehensible to its inhabitants. People are deprived of decent housing, education, and health care, condemned to a life of unemployment or of the most degrading sweat-shop work. From politics to sport, from music to the media, every activity is driven by the thirst for money. Human beings, equipped with the means to control the world, lack the power to control their own lives. Is it no wonder that substance abuse and mental ill-health are so rife?

By liberating today's society, socialism makes it possible for humanity to see its true relationship with Nature as ‘a process between man and nature’. A socialist future guarantees the rational use of human creativity and resources. Socialism addresses and answers such vital core questions as “What is it to be human?”, “In what ways are we estranged from our humanity?”, “How can we live humanly?” and “What must we do to make this possible?”

Training torturers and executioners

Scottish Police provided training to senior officers from the Saudi and Bahraini police forces without carrying out any human rights checks international human rights organisation Reprieve and BBC Scotland have revealed. Under UK Government policy, a formal assessment is meant to be carried out before justice or security assistance is provided to states where it could contribute to the death penalty.  However, Police Scotland and the UK College of Policing, who provided the Saudi and Bahraini training, found that no information was held on such assessments.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain both use the death penalty and torture against people accused of involvement in protests.  The Saudi authorities have also sentenced significant numbers of children to death – at least three of whom are currently on death row and could face execution at any time.

When asked for a full list of overseas assistance delivered in or by Scotland, both Police Scotland and the UK College of Policing omitted the training provided to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – even though a public reference to it had previously been published on the Police Scotland website. Such policing assistance could leave the UK complicit in death penalty cases such as that of Mohammed Ramadan, a Bahraini father and police officer who faces execution due to his involvement in protests calling for reform; and the cases of Ali al Nimr, Dawood al Marhoon and Abdullah al Zaher, all of whom were sentenced to death after being arrested as children in the wake of protests in Saudi Arabia.

Commenting, Maya Foa, a director at Reprieve said: “At best this is incompetence, at worst a cover-up; either way, the result is that this training risks rendering the UK complicit in the death penalty.  It is shocking that neither Police Scotland nor the UK College of Policing hold any information about what human rights assessments were undertaken before this training went ahead.  The conclusion is that once again, the UK’s policy on the death penalty has been ignored.  Support to police forces in death penalty states such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain must be suspended until they can show real progress – starting with scrapping the death sentences handed down to children and political protesters.”

Socialists – Makers of a New World

People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. Peace and prosperity is the common aspiration of humanity. Socialists seek the unity of the people throughout the world and cooperation among them for the victory of their common cause of creating a new world. Today, the Socialist Party is working hard to build a genuine society for the people in which men and women’s complete independence will be realised. But we live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind.  It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources and causes the devastation of our natural environment.  Either we get rid of this outmoded system or it will destroy humanity.  The only way forward is a revolutionary struggle to achieve socialism, a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create world socialism it is necessary to replace the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through revolution and establish a system of real, popular social democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society. It is essential to generate interest in revolutionary Marxism. This can happen only if you join us in the struggle against capitalism and for revolution. The hour is late. The Socialist Party expresses its solidarity with the struggles of their fellow-workers all over the world for the end of the exploitation of man by man.

Class struggles arise out of a form of production which divides society into classes, one of which carries out the actual process of production (slave, serf, wage-worker), while the other (slave-owner, lord, capitalist employer) enjoys a part of the product without having to work to produce it. Marx saw the aim of the working-class as the preparation for and organisation of revolution – the overthrow of the ruling class of capitalist – and the organisation of a new system of production, socialism. But when the working class takes power it does so in order to end the class divisions – to bring in a new form of production in which there is no longer any class living on the labour of another class; in other words, to bring about a class-free society. There will be no class conflict because there are no classes with separate interests, and therefore there will be no need of a State – an apparatus of force – to protect one set of interests against another. The State will “wither away”. As Engels put it: “Government over persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production.”

A revolution is the work of a class which has gained political power in order to transform society to suit its interests; a reform is carried out only within the framework of the social system. Reforms cannot end capitalism; they can modify it to some extent, but they leave its basis untouched. To establish socialism, a revolution—a complete transformation of private property into social property—is necessary. We do not deny that certain reforms won by the working class have helped to improve our general living and working conditions. Indeed, we see little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives, and some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as 'successful' (we also recognise that such 'successes' have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and rarely managed to remove the problem completely.) What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be made palatable with the right reforms, We oppose those organisations that promise to deliver a programme of reforms on behalf of the working class in order that they gain a position of power (some groups, especially those of the left-wing, often have real aims quite different to the reform programme they peddle. In this, they are being as dishonest as any other politician, from the left or right.) The ultimate result of this is disillusionment with the possibility of radical change. The struggle for reforms cannot alter the slave position of the working class, it ends by bringing indifference to the workers who look to reforms for emancipation.

Life Is Getting More Dangerous And Disgusting Every Day

An article in the Toronto Star of November 11 reported on the high levels of pollution in New Delhi. Levels of the most dangerous particles, called PM 2.5, reached 700 micrograms per cubic metre on November 7, but on the previous weekend reached 1000 which is 16 times the limit the federal government considers safe. One resident said, ''You can literally see smoke in the air and when you breathe you can smell it too.''

The problem for environmentalists is that decisions to be made for dealing with it fall under the authority of several city, state and federal government bodies which are at odds with each other politically. 

This is just another example of how life under capitalism gets more dangerous and disgusting every day.

 John Ayers.

No Forced Lay-offs

On November 18 Volkswagen said it will cut 30,000 jobs globally as it tries to claw back from the emission - cheating scandal. The company agreed to hold off from forced lay-offs till 2025. The job cuts will come from early retirements and not replacing workers that leave voluntarily.

 So you won't see newspaper headlines blaring, ''Volkswagen Lay-Offs Thousands'', but it still means the same thing - some poor schnook who needs a job remains unemployed.

 John Ayers.

The Invergordon Mutiny

 On the morning of Tuesday 15 September, 1931, the Cromarty Firth rang to cheers from the Royal Navy ships lying off Invergordon. This was the sound of thousands of sailors coming out on strike - the Invergordon Mutiny had begun. It's called a mutiny, but it's more accurate to call it an industrial dispute carried out by servicemen.

In 1931, the Great Depression was two years old and had eight yet to run. Britain's new National Government was making massive austerity-driven cuts to public sector pay. Some of the worst hit of all were the older ratings of the Royal Navy. They faced a 25% pay cut at a time when they barely earned more than men on the dole.

The cuts spelled ruin for them and their families. They had only one weapon - to strike - but that would be called mutiny, and mutiny could mean death. But with no alternative, they went ahead. Planning their action in canteen meetings ashore, the men decided to strike. When four ships were set to sail, HMS Valiant, the first due to depart, her men assembled on her fo'c's'le and they cheered and they cheered and the other striking ships answered back. Although it's not known how many sailors were actively involved, it was enough: the strike was on. As the mutiny stretched into its second day, it struck utter existential fear into the British establishment. The Admiralty finally came up with a face saving solution. They ordered the ships to sail for home ports down south, promising to help hardship cases, but even though it ended the strike, it did nothing to damp down the terror which had seized the government - and crucially the security services. They were convinced that communist agitators lay behind the mutiny and that they were plotting to strike again. Naval intelligence sent agents to the ports, some posing as radical sailors, looking for agitator. The Communist Party, shocked that they'd missed the mutiny, sent its men to the Portsmouth bars also hunting for radical sailors. They soon bumbled into each other. The secret agents sprang a trap on the Communists and charged them with incitement to mutiny. The efforts of the Communist Party to recruit serving sailors in the naval ports in the 1930s produced very little effect.

Twenty four so-called ringleaders of the strike were unceremoniously kicked out of the Navy. A further 93 men were groundlessly discharged. Some of these men, previously no radicals, were now destitute and turned to the Communist Party. One, Able Seaman Len Wincott, went to Russia as a hero of the mutiny (although he would later spend 11 years in a Stalinist Labour camp), but no communism lay behind the mutiny.

From

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-38340159

But also see

http://libcom.org/history/1931-invergordon-mutiny

http://libcom.org/files/invergordon-mutiny-liz-willis.pdf

Revolution Will Surely Triumph

The socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Exploitation and oppression will not exist in a socialist society. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and intellectual labour will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will gradually have withered away. We believe that people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny. The goal of the Socialist Party is to abolish the existing mode of production (the wage system) and to allow the means of production to be converted into the common property of society. The Socialist Party calls upon all the workers to join it in its struggle to reach this goal, and thus bring into the world a new society in which peace, fraternity, and human brotherhood will be the dominant ideals. The struggle against the capitalist class and against all exploitation can only end in all that is produced by the workers must benefit the people themselves.

The ruling class puts forth the claim, in one form or another, that it has the right to rule, to govern; to own, manage and control. At one time the method is blandishment and wooing of the working class, at another chicanery and conspiracy, at another use of the police power of the state, and force. One of the aims of the ruling class is to conceal the fact that political, social and economic power is in the hands of a small minority. The ruling class, in the course of the decades, has come to accept, grudgingly the trade unions of the working class. On the whole, capitalism can live side by side with the unions. The ruling class ensures its ideas prevail in the trade unions. The ruling class schemes and conspires in all manner of ways to accomplish this. But when workers begin moving toward political organization and action as a class that is going too far. All political organization and action has or should have one main practical aim: to take control of the state to achieve social power for the class which the particular political organization represents. The role of the ruling class is to head off any real independent political direction of labour and to keep the workers’ parties inside the framework of bourgeois politics and subordinate to the bourgeois parties. A working class organised politically would inevitably be forced into a political struggle with the capitalists. The sacred property rights of the capitalist class would be placed in jeopardy, the dictatorship of capital would be revealed. What transpires in capitalist society is not apparent to workers, hence, they are enticed into class collaboration, full of compromise and concessions, enmeshed in a process subservience and docility. The main reason is not the lack of militancy but of political consciousness. The militancy of the workers remains on the bread-and-butter level. It is not necessary that the ruling class be identical in every country. It is sufficient that they conform to the requirements of the ruling class, in any country and any era, that they perpetuate their class and protect their property relations. A government may change but the class and property relations remain unchanged. Different bottoms may sit in the same seat of power.

Unless we in the Socialist Party carry out a mass campaign of education among our fellow-workers based upon clear, keen, socialist analysis of social, economic and political conditions and events, unless we build on sound revolutionary socialist principles, a Trump or Farage will invariably will win out taking advantage of workers’ feelings of hopelessness. Right now, we need to turn the tide for the workers of the world on their march to world socialism.

Welcome to socialism (video animation)