Bonuses for Failure

Loss-making Royal Bank of Scotland has awarded bonuses in shares to its top management team worth almost £16m. Since RBS’s £45bn taxpayer bailout during the financial crisis, it has reported nine consecutive years of losses amounting to more than £58bn.

The bank revealed the bonus awards to nine executives an hour after Philip Hammond delivered his budget and said he was “uncertain” as to when the Treasury would be able to sell off any of its 73% stake in the bailed-out bank.

Last month, when RBS reported losses of £8bn for 2016, the bank’s chairman, Sir Howard Davies, had attempted to justify the need to pay bonuses by saying staff should not be penalised for the “sins of the past”. A year ago, the management team were awarded bonuses worth £17.4m.

 Chris Marks, the head of the investment banking operation, NatWest Markets, who was awarded shares of more than £2m. Other awards include £1.8m to Alison Rose, who runs the commercial bank, and £1.2m for Les Matheson, the head of the high street banking business. The pay of Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, was disclosed last month at more than £3m for 2016. He was also awarded nearly £3m in shares that he will start to receive from 2021, provided performance criteria are reached. McEwan, has received 512,000 shares as part of a £5.9 million equity payout to nine executives despite slumping £7 billion into the red last year as part of a package of incentive awards.

Slum Edinburgh

6 Beaumont Place had threatened to fall down for decades. It was situated in St Leonards, a district of the city, which, along with neighbouring Dumbiedykes, had long been regarded as a slum. Even the building’s landlord, D. Rosie, knew it was doomed. He had attempted to sell it to a local MP for one penny after being faced with hefty repair order.

At 5am on the morning of 21 November 1959 the back wall of the Penny Tenement came down with a tremendous crash. Only by fortuitous luck that there was no deaths or serious injuries

One day after the accident, a complaint was sent to the Secretary of State for Scotland by Edinburgh’s Labour representatives. It placed the blame squarely on the city’s Tory majority for “procrastinating” for too long over the question of slum clearance.

Edinburgh’s authorities realised enough was enough, especially when told the Corporation would be liable if there were any deaths from collapsing buildings. Within a matter of months, 6,000 slum properties were cleared. One by one, the slum dwellings of St Leonards and Dumbiedykes would be demolished, with communities dispersed en masse to new peripheral housing estates dotted across the city.
http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/the-penny-tenement-collapse-that-changed-edinburgh-forever-1-4386368


But this blogger was a newspaper delivery-boy during the 60s in the area and can safely say that many dilapidated tenement room and kitchens with shared stair toilets did remain and lasted well into the 70s.

For more on Edinburgh housing from the period see this 1961 article

Our Demands

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party makes its appeal to all workers to join in promoting the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of a commonwealth of workers throughout the world. Today's society is dictated by modern capitalist production where the means of life are concentrated in the hands of a small privileged class, which exploits the propertyless working class, appropriates all the product of their labour reduces them to the lowest and most servile level of existence that will permit them to continue working and reproducing their kind, and in addition obtains, by virtue of that economic supremacy, control of the entire State. This regime has brought mankind into unprecedented conflict, misery, and chaos – a veritable abomination of desolation and terror. But it is fast approaching its overthrow by the a politically victorious working class, where the eventual outcome of which will be an emancipated world, a society of economic and social equals where class divisions and privileges will for the first time in history be impossible; a system of social ownership of the means of production administered by the workers under the motto “All for each and each for All”. 

This social revolution is the essential objective of the World Socialist Movement, the end towards which every step it takes must directly tend.  We hold aloft the crimson banner of the World Socialist Commune, when the class war shall have been forever stamped out, when mankind shall no longer cower under the oppressor, when the necessaries and amenities of life, the comfort, and the culture shall not be for who exploits and is called master but shall be for all fellow-workers in common. The Socialist Party calls upon the workers to muster under its red banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change, building class-consciousness among workers and projecting a program of organisation that the workers could implement toward this end. The Socialist Party calls upon all who realise the critical nature of our times, and who may be increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on socialist principles. Join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. 

How capitalism works today strengthens the case for socialism. We need a different form of society, one in which working people get together to decide collectively and democratically how the world’s resources should best be used. Productive resources shouldn’t be controlled by cliques and their cronies but by the people who actually do the work of producing the goods and services on which we all depend. Rather than an economic system that relies on capitalists betting on which way the market will go, we need one based on democratic planning whose aim is to match resources to the real needs of ordinary people.

The spirit of our time is revolutionary and growing more so every day. A new social system is struggling into existence. The old economic foundation of society is breaking up and the social fabric is beginning to totter. The capitalist system is doomed. The signs of change confront us upon everywhere. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails the toilers will be struggling in the hell of poverty. 

The Socialist Party is absolutely the only party which faces conditions as they are and declares unhesitatingly that it has a definite and concrete goal for dealing with these conditions. The workers who have made the world and who support the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and trained minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental, moral and physical achievement. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people.

An Inanimate Debt

I listened to Phillip Hammond the Chancellor talking to Andrew Marr on Sunday the 5^th of March 1917 in which he said "our" debt was £1.7 trillion and it cost £50 trillion to pay the interest on this debt. This payment he said was more than the cost of total military budget. 

He calls it "our" debt but in the local newspaper 'The East Kilbride News' of the 1^st March 2017 it had an article under the title of "Drowning in Debt" in which it claimed that families with kids are on average £19k in red. The article went on to Comparing the family in East Kilbride with Central Scotland's family which it claims has an average debt being £13,753. 

I can relate to the "Drowning in Debt" article. People get into debt mortgaging a home, losing employment can be a factor. Illness and accidents can reduce income. The debt is theirs, should they not be able to continue payments on the mortgage they can be evicted. They must find the money someway, employment being the only way in most cases. A lottery win would be welcome but remote.

The Chancellor, of course,  will correct himself and point out it is the "country's debt" and this inanimate object must be paid by raising taxes and cutting benefits and clearing these debts by paying not this inanimate object but the people who the government borrowed it from. 

Who are these people? Well in case you didn't know, they are the people who own the means of production and of course the country as well.

 Spouvrier.

GUSTAV'S GEMS

In his work, "The Rise of Capitalism", Dr. Bang effectively deals with the myth that capitalist and worker have anything in common, economically.

"The claim is false, as are all the claims by which the capitalist class justifies its right to existence. Ignored is the fact that labour power is a nature-endowed possession that cannot be separated from the person of the worker, whereas, capital is dependent and in flux, never attached to any particular person. Labour power and its possessor, the worker, cannot be separated, while on the contrary, capital is only accidentally attached to the person of the individual capitalist. Under the present system of capitalism, the workers cannot do without capital, that is, the means of production. But, they can quite well do without the capitalists!

The latter, however, are powerless without the workers, that is, workers who produce surplus value for them. Every struggle by the workers against the introduction of improved means of production is reactionary and doomed to defeat in advance. The struggle against their capitalist application, however, is a natural and essential characteristic of the modern class struggle. The magnitude of surplus value points to the limitations within which the workers can achieve gains under the capitalist system. The socializing of the means of production points the road to their ultimate emancipation."

For socialism, 

Steve and John.

The Vanishing Posts On The Labour's Web Site

We've all heard about the allegations that the Russians interfered with the U.S. election and we know that Trump fired two guys in his cabinet. What the media haven't covered much is what he's done for the "little guy" who voted for him, considering, his was a populist victory.

Farmers and ranchers, though not little guys, did vote for him in hopes of less regulation and lower taxes. Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have reduced tariffs and strengthened economic ties with the capitalist class in eleven other countries, will cost the agriculture industry $4.4 billion a year in potential sales, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the biggest U.S. farmer group. As for the "real" little guy, let's hear from California-Based Worker's Rights advocate, Carmen Rojas, who says "If we had been living in an overcast period for working people in the U.S., we are about to enter into a dark, dark, period." Gone is Trump's first pick for labour, Secretary, Andrew Pudzer, who withdrew his nomination on February 16th, after hearing Trump trash minimum wage hikes and overtime protections.

A review of the Department of Labour's website reveal that many posts about protecting precarious workers, enforcing labour laws and cracking down on wage theft, have vanished from the website. Other disappearances are an executive order from the Obama administration that would have raised the minimum wage of Federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. This would have given 200,00 low wage workers a raise. Other links to the Department of Labor blog posts, also appear to be broken, especially on issues related to wage theft and employee misclassification, which is the practice of wrongly classifying workers as independent contractors to avoid legal obligations, like paying minimum wage. 

No one at the White House has asked why these pages have vanished. One thing you can be sure of, is that, the self-styled champion of the forgotten American, has forgotten him.

Steve and John.

In The Final Analysis

On April 16th, Turkey is set to hold a referendum on switching to a presidential system - a move critics fear would put too much power into the hands of Mr. Erdogan. The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said Turkey's lack of media freedoms and freedom of expression has reached "alarming levels." He also criticized the imprisonment of journalists, the erosion of the independence of the judiciary, the use of defamation laws used to silence critics, censorship on the internet and the use of state resources to favour pro-government media. Shades of Hitler and his thugs, subverting the Weimar Republic . . .

Though political and parliamentary democracy has its uses, in the final analysis, there is only one form of democracy worth working for - economic democracy. To achieve that, you must first abolish capitalism.

Steve and John.

Forlorn hopes in Govanhill

SOUTHSIDE Central contains what are two of the most notorious areas of the city – the Gorbals and Govanhill.

With high levels of poverty, overcrowding and fly tipping, it’s easy to overlook the many positives - community spirit, excellent amenities, great transport links. Jim Monaghan is a community campaigner who works for Govanhill Community Baths said: “The best thing about Govanhill is the mix of people. You’ve got the kind of hipster artists and working class people who have been in the area for decades and migrants who have just come here. The diversity is not just in terms of race but also social cultures, which makes it a really interesting place to be a place that no matter what your community or culture is, whether ethnic or social, you’ll find someone like you.” 

On the other hand, Jim says poverty is a huge issue.

He said: “What I like least is the poverty, which you see in the overcrowded housing. Because of the mix of housing here being low rent, poor quality and easy to get, people who struggle to get references or deposits gravitate here and so it becomes a cycle. 

“Poverty, lack of opportunity, poor housing – everything is linked. People will say the problem is the Roma or landlords but the issues are linked to the same thing: poverty.”

To fix the problems in Govanhill, and the ward more widely, Jim believes a joined-up political approach is necessary.

He said: “The ward needs housing. It needs people to be serious about it. People use the area as a political football most of the time...'

Looking to the future, Jim believes things can get better.“There’s an opportunity to make it that 20 years from now people will say ‘Look at that wonderful place’.”

Jim understands the problem but does he realise the cure? Can he trust that the capitalist system can fulfil what he hopes for.

Understanding socialism

The first condition of success for socialism is that its adherents should explain its aim and its essential characteristics clearly, so that they can be understood by every one. We must do away with many misunderstandings created by our adversaries and some created by ourselves. The idea of socialism is simple.

The Socialist Party proclaim its dedication to the cooperative commonwealth and has set out its alternative to the grinding poverty and stark injustices that confront our fellow-workers. We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent inhumanity, by a social system where exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated.Few can deny that the world today is in a constant state of upheaval. Never have we stood in greater need of fundamental solutions faced by a world in the grips of social, economic, environmental and political crises. The Socialist Party goal is a socialist world, based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of our people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty and exploitation. The socialist option is the only alternative. The deepening of the world social problems is inevitable as long as profits dictate the course of humanity.  The half-measures of offered by Big Business cannot meet the challenge. The stock-in-trade of government legislation—tinkering with monetary and fiscal policy has proven futile. Welfare state policies have done nothing to correct deep-seated structural inequality. Regulatory reforms, aimed at the most blatant abuses of corporate power, have not succeeded. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That failure puts a campaign for the socialist alternative on the immediate agenda. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society.

A multitude of human beings possesses nothing. They can only live by their work, and since, in order to work, they need an expensive equipment, which they have not got, and raw materials and capital, which they have not got, they are forced to put themselves in the hands of another class that owns the means of production, the land, the factories, the machines, the raw material, and accumulated capital in the form of money. And naturally, the capitalist and possessing class, taking advantage of its power, makes the non-owning class pay a heavy price.  It may be said that the worker does not even own his or her own body outright.  If labour is to be really free, all the workers should be called upon to take part in the management of the work rather than be mere  “hands” of the capitalist system, whose only use it is to put into operation the schemes which the capitalist has decided upon. All this misery and all this injustice results from the fact that one class monopolises the means of production and of life, and imposes its laws on another class and on society as a whole. The thing to do, therefore, is to break down this supremacy of one class.

  Socialism recognises no distinction between the various nations or “races” comprising the modern world. “My country, right or wrong,” is an expression that is the very antithesis of socialism. The position of the Socialist Party is one of hostility to the existing political order.  We are now poor and enslaved not because of lack of reforms made by politicians, but because the employing class own and control the means of production, without access to which we cannot live. So long as others control the means whereby we live so long shall we be slaves.

Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new society must be organised on the same basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism.

The Market Fails Again

There has been a further deterioration in home affordability in Scottish cities with prices up 3%.

The average price in cities has now risen from £181,061 in 2016 to £186,002 in 2017, according to the figures from the Bank of Scotland and this has resulted in average home affordability in Scotland’s cities worsening in the last 12 months from 5.2 to 5.3 times gross average earnings. It is the fourth successive annual decline in home affordability and affordability in Scottish cities is, on average, now at its worst level since 2009.

Edinburgh is once again Scotland’s least affordable city with an average house price of £236,136 which is six times annual gross average earnings. Other expensive cities include Aberdeen and Perth at 5.7, and Dundee and Inverness at 5.5. Perth has recorded the biggest price rise of any Scottish city over the past decade with a gain of 31% between 2007 and 2017, compared to the UK cities average of 21%. Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen had the next highest price rise, with all seeing a gain of 16%. Perth house prices have seen the strongest recover since the economic downturn. Over the past five years, Perth has recorded the highest house price growth with a rise of 27%. Dundee has the second highest increase in average house price with growth of 25%, closely followed by Glasgow at 23%.

Stirling is the most affordable city for home buyers in both Scotland and the UK with an average price of £173,848 which is 3.7 times average gross annual earnings. This is much lower than the UK cities average of 6.9.

 ‘Rents and house prices are continuing to rise as demand outstrips supply, meaning many individuals and families are facing growing pressures and aspirations are being stifled,’ said Homes for Scotland, chief executive Nicola Barclay. ‘With housing production having fallen by 40% since 2007, but the number of households rising, it is vital that we see the bold action and investment needed to provide enough homes of the right types in the right locations to meet the diverse housing needs of our growing population.’

Bigotry in Scotland

Sectarianism still exists in Scotland, a new report says, and there is culture of denial about the extent of problems.

 The report, by Dr Duncan Morrow, said the focus should be on ending the behaviours, attitudes and structures which underpinned sectarianism rather than naming and shaming any individual or group. He also said there had been a disappointing lack of urgency from local authorities. Dr Morrow said football was only one part of the jigsaw of sectarianism.

He said he was sceptical as to whether government proposals to tackle the problem were sufficient to change the evident sectarian behaviour in Scottish football.

"I remain seriously concerned that the primary concern of the authorities remains to avoid responsibility rather than to take action."

"That Atrocious System"

On February 14, 2017, Toronto judge, Edward Belobaba, found in favour of survivors of the round-up of Indian children, in their suit against the Federal Government. Between 1965 and 1984, 16,000 Indian children on reserves, were placed in non-indigenous care. In his report, Belobaba said, "The uncontroverted evidence of the plaintiff's experts, is that the loss of their aboriginal identity left the children fundamentally disoriented, with a reduced ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. The loss of identity resulted in psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, unemployment, violence and numerous suicides."

Belobaba's next step will be to "assess the damages the government owes to the plaintiff." The real damage has already been done. The capitalist class forces everyone to conform to their scheme of things, regardless of the misery it causes. 

When Robert Tressel referred to capitalism as, "That atrocious system," it was a masterpiece of under-statement. 

Steve and John.

A Moral Question? Or A Fact.

On Valentine's Day, the RCMP appropriately warned anyone using APPS or websites in their search for love, to be cautious. Last year, 748 people lost more than $17 million to on-line dating scams. Some were cheated out of more than $100,000 and many were too embarrassed to report it.

Scammers create on-line profiles to gain someone's trust, then ask for money, often claiming to be faced with an emergency, the RCMP said.

It is despicable that the de-humanizing aspects of life under capitalism, would make anyone so devoid of conscience, they would prey on people's loneliness and then hurt them, but nevertheless, let's bear in mind that this is illegal robbery - there's enough legal robbery going on, every moment of every day.

 Steve and John

A Fast Way Oiut Of A Job.

In July, commuters in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, will still be taking taxis, but those that fly. Passenger drones capable of carrying a single rider will fly above the skyscrapers at the push of a button. This is part of the city's plan to increase driver-less technology. The city already operates the

world's longest driverless subway system. In October, the city signed a deal with the Los Angeles-based, "Hyperloop One", to study the potential for a Hyperloop, which is a vacuum-like tube, through which a vehicle travels faster than airliners, between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

It sounds great and the technology is great, but its effect won't be when, like so many of capitalism's inventions, it puts the working guy out of a job.

Steve and John.

Capitalism is a failed system

Many argue that poverty and climate change are being solved by capitalism, making the current system the best way for the world to continue to grow in a sustainable manner. In fact, those issues are a direct result of the capitalist system. Capitalism is the source of many structural issues in society as it promotes economic expansion – capital accumulation- at the expense of the well-being of society. The pursuit of profit is the capitalist's prime objective. Capitalism as an economic system relies on profit to the point where welfare falls to the wayside. Money begets money. Poverty begets poverty.   Capitalism promotes the idea of profit as the bottom line while ignoring the realities of poverty and failing to promote social welfare.

 In theory, profit and wage are set through competition so that both firms and labourers profit. However, theory does not necessarily represent reality. Firms can increase their profits by slashing wages as much as possible. While the basic rules of supply and demand clearly affect wages, the competitive equilibrium does not necessarily guarantee a livable wage. When the government does not provide protections like a minimum wage, companies will inevitably exploit workers through lower wages in order to increase their profits. The basic tenet of the capitalist system is that workers and companies have competing interests.

Before unions were widespread and established within the U.S., employees could not bargain collectively for wages that would allow them to live comfortably. In order to justify exploitative wages, capitalist society, especially in the U.S., encourages the narrative hard work and dedication as conducive to economic success. However, the vast majority of people will end up in the same income bracket as their parents. 

 Protecting the environment does not inherently lead to profit, so it is not a desirable goal for most companies. The Keystone and Dakota Access pipeline are predicted to cause massive damage to the environment, not to mention a massive amount of distress to indigenous groups, but are being implemented despite those facts for company profit. Similarly, Volkswagen was found to have created technology to lower carbon emissions while cars were being tested. This enabled the company to market their cars as environmentally friendly without investing in sustainable technologies, which would presumably increase costs. Many more major corporations actively ignore the environmental repercussions of their actions in order to profit, exemplifying the way capitalism prioritizes profit over long term sustainability.

If companies willingly shared their research, there could be huge beneficial implications for scientific and medical research. However, most companies cannot afford to lose the money spent researching by not patenting profitable intellectual property, be it in the form of lifesaving drugs or more efficient technology. A research culture that is not based off of the capitalist pursuit of profit could allow for a greater degree of knowledge sharing and innovation and increase the speed of progress.

Capitalism is not harmless nor progressive, and society must recognise the failings and inequalities inherent in the current system.

Adapted from here

Life expectancy on hold

Life expectancy in Scotland has failed to rise for the first time since records were established in 1861, research has found. 

It is the first time in more than 150 years life expectancy has not increased.

Statistics show that in three years from 2012-2015 the ages at which women and men could expect to live remained static at 81.1 and 77.1 years respectively.

Austerity measures introduced by the coalition and Conservative governments since 2010 may have contributed.

Scotland needs foreign workers

Scottish Chambers of Commerce chief executive Liz Cameron highlighted the need for 11,000 new vacancies each year in Scotland's digital and IT sector. She warned that they could not be filled entirely by British workers.

Cameron called for a migration system that responded to Scotland's lower population growth rate. She said Scotland's projected population growth to 2024 was only 3.1%, compared with a projected 7.5% increase for England over the same period.

"Dying from Inequality"

The poorest Scots are three times more likely to commit suicide than the richest, according to a new report by Samaritans.

The charity is calling for more to be done to tackle inequality which it says is an important factor when it comes to people taking their own lives.

The Samaritans said poor housing, debt, and bleak employment prospects were all factors in the suicide rate being three times higher among the most deprived 10th of the population compared with the least deprived 10th (22.1 deaths per 100,000 population compared with 7.3).

The report, "Dying from Inequality", highlights clear areas of risk to communities and individuals, including the closure and downsizing of businesses, those in manual, low-skilled employment, those facing unmanageable debt and those with poor housing conditions.

Samaritans' chief executive Ruth Sutherland said: "Suicide is an inequality issue which we have known about for some time. This report says that's not right, it's not fair and it's got to change.

Inverclyde has the highest suicide rate of any local authority in Scotland

The Task Ahead

Welcome to a world of unimaginable wealth and rampant inequality, a world where monolithic corporations act as a law unto themselves, where automation and technological progress threaten to undermine the very foundations of society, and where frightened, forgotten, and furious citizens turn in droves towards political extremism. The Socialist Party doesn’t pretend to have all the answers (although we do to many) and we are distrustful of those who think they do since humility is demanded of us.  In this starkly divided world, the question for ourselves is how to catalyse a united voice of engaged fellow-workers. Our greatest hope for the future rests with new solidarities being forged on the global stage, with the welfare of the collective whole being prioritised above the welfare of any one particular group or nation.  The starting point for the Socialist Party is how to unify our fellow workers on a  common platform for socialism, bringing together millions of people for a shared cause paving the way for social, economic and political transformations.

Stoking fear is a strategy that is emerging as a central agenda of populist politicians. They are employing scare-mongering tactics playing upon people's anxieties. They are cynically manipulating us, using fear as a way to dupe us into supporting their policies. Words have a power and their speeches are creating threats and dangers. Sadly, many fellow-workers are buying into the hate rhetoric. However, the process of creating fear and enemies is a two-way street. We are not mere puppets, with our leaders pulling our strings. We need vision. We need to be defiant. There can be no compromise or concession. Movements cannot win without promising a future that includes beauty, joy, and fun. "Dance the military guns to silence," said the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa (executed for his activism against Shell.) It's easy right now to feel like we are facing something unprecedented and unbeatable, but many of the peoples' movements have fought much harsher regimes, but still kept fighting for justice and liberation, anyways, and some of them went on to win incredible victories.

Globalisation enabled global supply chains to spark trade and global economic growth. But the problems of globalization resulted in the loss of jobs, as factories relocated for cheaper labour, growing inequality. All the while, political elites are focused on profits, ignoring the growing anger from the working class. 
The negative impact of globalization exploded into populist nationalism. In the US, the 2008 Great Recession caused more than 2 million jobs lost and several million lost homes in the mortgage crisis while the too big to fail banks were given a life-line and bailed out. Two wars Iraq and Afghanistan costing more than $2 trillion and hundreds of lives shattered the confidence of the American people and sparked resentment against the political elite Demographic change - the diminishing white majority and the increase of non-English speaking immigrants across the US - coinciding with the election of the first black US president elected, the stagnation of wages since the 1980s, and increasing inequality, all led to the populist revolt and the discrediting mainstream politicians.
  Trump made trade and immigrants the villains for job losses. Yet, studies show that nine of ten US jobs lost since 2000 were due to technology and automation, not trade and that since 2014, there has been a net outflow of Mexicans from the US
But populist politics is driven by emotion, not reason. Trade and immigration became punching bags for the anger and frustration that Trump skillfully manipulated.   
In Europe, a number of factors combined to encourage populist nationalism and most dramatically, Brexit. The free flow of labor within the EU led to complaints of "Polish plumbers" in the UK. Growing numbers of Muslim immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East created cultural fear and anger. This has resulted in a growing number of authoritarian regimes, as in Hungary, and the rise of right-wing anti-immigrant politics personified by Brexit, Marine Le Pen in France, as well as similar parties in the Netherlands and in Germany.  
Socialism is the only way we can successfully resist populism. Let’s leave some of the historic baggage surrounding the word “socialism” at the door and start with a clean slate. Socialism does not mean government control. Socialism does not entail a tyrannical one-party state. Socialism means deepening democracy. Under capitalism, we have a political democracy of sorts. We vote for our politicians to “represent” us and make laws. Voting allows us to have a hand in creating the society we want to live in, and if our representatives aren’t doing a good job, we can vote them out.

Calling capitalism “democratic” is only half-true, however. Despite having political democracy, we do not have economic democracy. Think about your boss. Are you able to speak up and change them? Of course not. You’re beholden to your boss, and their word is law. Employees have little to no control over a company’s decisions. In essence, companies are little tyrannies where shareholders have all of the control and the workers are at the mercy of their judgment. If shareholders want to liquidate a company to make a couple million dollars and throw thousands of people out of work, hire a corrupt CEO, or pollute the environment—the workers have no power to say no. This is economic tyranny. Socialism’s solution to economic tyranny is common ownership and democratizing the workplace.

 Money continues to accumulate in the hands of a few and to favour the privileged. There are two worlds — one eating cake, the other, hungry for food. It appears to many that capitalism has only one agenda: to punish the impoverished and to increase inequality while protecting the prosperous and promoting the interest of the powerful. If we are to stop nationalism and populism, it is time for socialism. we must both persuade and mobilise. We have fallen short in both. Starting now, we have to do better.

Folk like us

Scotsman columnist, Jane Bradley, has offered her personal first-hand point of view on the refugee situation and highlighting some of her observations would not go amiss.

“...Those who fled oppression in search of a better life are accused of being cynical economic migrants, but who among us would not have made the same choice...

...No matter what your political beliefs, these refugees are people: people like you and me. We may not be able to help all of them, but we can feel empathy for their plight, we can try to understand why they are in the situation they are in...

...I met many refugees who were undoubtedly fleeing war and persecution. Death threats and imminent danger to their lives. Their cases appeared, to me, cut and dried: they should be granted asylum, somewhere...

...I met others, however, whose stories were more complicated - who may not have had an imminent threat to their lives, but who wanted a better future for their children.

Some of them lived in situations where their daughters would never be allowed to attend school. Others were not in personal danger right now, but lived in a constant fear of political unrest and violence: families who had no idea when or if it would be their door that would be knocked upon by terroist or insurgent groups in the middle of the night. Maybe it would never happen - but it could. So many times, I have heard people like this, sceptically, called “economic migrants”, but I found it was far more complex than that.In reality, few of the people in this situation are likely to be granted asylum in Europe and for me, some of their stories were even more heartbreaking as a result...

...No-one I met wanted to move to Europe to pocket benefits - they wanted to work. They did not want a bigger house or a better car: indeed, many of them knew their living conditions in Europe, even if they made it that far and were granted asylum, were likely to be economically worse than they had been in their home countries of Iraq, or Afghanistan. For most, the priority was being able to give their children the chance of a decent education. “I just want a future for my children,” was a refrain I heard many, many times...

...No-one I met was a cynical “economic migrant”. They were people: ordinary, flawed people, who had found themselves faced with difficult choices and who had done what they thought was right...Why, when faced with such adversity at home, would they not have taken that chance?...we should not condemn them for trying. "