The Fight for Food

In a society where the privileged few own the means of production and control capital plus the bulk of the surplus value, the chances for anything but a formal superficial political equality are slim. Although the form of government may be democratic, the vested interests of capital will certainly take precedence over all others.  The capitalist system spells deprivation and misery for wide sections of the population, providing fertile soil for revolutionary ideas. 

Marx was firmly convinced of economic crises of growing frequency and severity that would inevitably lead to increasing exploitation and impoverishment of the working class, revealing inexorably the obsolete senselessness of capitalism, and thus they would rise in revolt, having acquired revolutionary consciousness. The subsequent development of the capitalist system demonstrated that Marx was an optimist and his conclusions premature.

Nevertheless, at moments of acute stress, such as economic crisis and having failed to provide other means of subsistence, workers will they turn instinctively against the source of their suffering which may lead to the overthrow of the established machinery of state, paving the way to revolutionary transformation of the social system. Marx only described very generally the socialism/communism, so it is easier to say what future non-capitalist society will not contain. It will not be characterised by commodity production either in the sphere of means of production, labour-power or distribution of consumer goods. The former two mentioned have been quite adequately shown to be part and parcel of capitalism, the latter is an issue in question and will be dealt with later. The point to be made here is that negating all the spheres of commodity-character also means negating money and exchange. In other words, production takes place for the well-being of the whole society, and each person takes from the public stores 'according to their needs’. Buying and selling is eliminated. By abolishing relations based on private ownership, it will enable humanity to pursue the goal to which men and women have always aspired.

 There is nothing more beneficial to the Earth's ecology and human well-being, than a healthy food system. Far-reaching social change requires sustained work on multiple fronts and a lot of it. Changing the system, not perfecting our own life-styles, is the point. We will always get our hands dirty if we live in a society dominated by industrial capitalism and powered by fossil fuels.

 Rather than take on the wage slaves need to curtail their wage slave lifestyles in order to accommodate the ever-expanding maw of global capitalism we need to target the real polluters, aka global capitalism and the war machine that it fuels, rather than go after fellow members of the working class. The driving force of mass environmental destruction is the never ending quest for global capitalist profits and growth. Whether we consider the planned obsolescence of produced goods, the destruction of rain forests for beef production or the swirling plastic garbage in our oceans, they all point back to the detrimental effects of the capitalist profit system. The disparities in wealth, education, and security that global capitalism promotes is the driving force of overpopulation. If you look at a map of the world and identify those areas with the most population growth, they are all characterized by immense poverty, exploitation, and oppression brought on by global capitalism.

In Europe, four million small farms disappeared between 2003 and 2013, a staggering 33% of all farms in the European Union. In contrast, three percent of industrial farms now control 52% of the European Union’s agricultural land.

Millions of small farmers currently produce the majority of the world’s food. They are struggling against the agri-business – the large corporations consolidating control over global food production. The former understand that food sovereignty and small-scale ecological farming can feed the world – with food production fully in the hands of producers and consumers. The latter desire an intensive industrial farming model where control over seeds, chemicals, machinery, distribution and most importantly profits, is held in the hands of corporations. Last month the European Commission approved the merger of Dow Chemicals and DuPont, and Chinese state company ChemChina’s acquisition of Syngenta. Next up is the potential merger of Bayer and Monsanto – a ‘marriage made in hell’. These are some of the biggest agricultural companies ever known, true Goliaths with market power.

Capitalism the darkest of times - Socialism the brightest of times.

There will be no basic change in the structure of society unless people join together and bring it about.

For most of this century workers looking for change have joined, supported or voted for. the Labour Party, entertaining the vague hope that it will be the vehicle for introducing a new kind of social order. Experience has taught most of them that they are wrong in expecting Labour to oppose the profit system. It is hardly surprising that we are living in a cynical age in which most people say “you can’t believe anything coming from a political party" or “whatever we do it will make no difference to how we live”. We are not asking you to believe what we say. We are looking for understanding, not belief. We are asking you to have the courage to realise that your understanding of why society is in its present awful mess and your desire, together with millions of others, to change society from the roots can and will make a difference to how we all live.

Everything else has been tried. We have seen attempts to reform the profit system so that poverty is abolished; all such efforts have failed, no matter how sincerely they were advocated or how energetically they were fought for. We have seen the myth that socialism has been established when all that was really in existence was state-run capitalism; that failed. We have seen dangerous and destructive experiments with dictators, fundamentalist religion and the like; all have resulted in pain and suffering for countless millions. No wonder people are cynical about political change. Capitalism has been run in every way possible. Its defenders have run out of ideas and are resurrecting old failed policies. It seems that everything has been tried. For capitalism, it has. 

We are supposed to be living in a democracy. But we aren’t. Or rather, we are living only in a very partial democracy. This is because the democratic features existing decision-making institutions and arrangements have are undermined and distorted by the class structure of present-day society. According to democratic theory, everybody should have an equal say in making decisions. This is not just in the sense of votes being of equal value but also in the sense of having an equal opportunity to express and present views should we want to do so. This equality, which is a basic condition for the functioning of a true democracy, does not exist under capitalism where some people have more money—and therefore more chance to put over their views—than the rest.

Capitalism is a divisive society, distorting the human need for community into the senseless hatreds of nationalism. It is a class-divided society and workers would do well to recognise that bus drivers in Glasgow have more in common with their counterparts in Chicago or Calcutta than they have with the Duke of Argyll or the Duchess of Sutherland. The variety of language, dress, music, diet, or other cultural differences would be enjoyed in a socialist society. They would be the subject of admiration, wonder, and delight. We will learn to dance the Saraband of Northern Spain, appreciate the wood-carving skills of the Balinese, and grow to love the shifting syncopations of African music-makers. Diversity of cultures would be a superb celebration of the ingenuity and inventiveness of humankind, not the subject of ridicule and hatred as it is today in capitalism.

Through a complex combination of coercion and ideological control, a tiny minority are able to live off the backs of the immense useful majority in society. From their ownership of the means of production (factories, offices, transport systems, etc.) they are able to gain political and legislative control, not to mention their power over education and the mass media. This tiny minority are the capitalist class—the ruling élite in society.

Nominally, this group of parasites rules by consent. They are legitimised in the eyes of the useful majority they exploit who not only vote to continue their own exploitation but, at times, are the most passionate defenders of it. For the socialist, this apparent contradiction is no surprise as the capitalist class has almost complete control over the dissemination of ideas. They have political, moral and cultural legitimacy—most people cannot conceive of a world where production takes place solely to satisfy human needs and where money, war, and poverty are things of the past.

You may be saying to yourself as you read this that such a world will never come into existence—why bother when the capitalists have got it all sewn up?

The answer is that the capitalists have not got it all sewn up, nor can they. The daily experience of class exploitation means that the indoctrination process is contradicted by the reality of living under capitalism. The existence of the Socialist Party is the testimony to the fact that workers can see capitalism for what it is and organise for its replacement. Put simply, capitalism has within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

There is one party in Britain which stands for socialism. Don’t judge us by our claims, but on the record of what we have said and done throughout our history. Never once have we swerved from the simple objective of organising politically and democratically to end capitalism and establish socialism. We are the only party worthy of their principled support. Our intention is to build on that and make clear to our fellow workers, be they young or old, black or white, blue-collar or white-collar, women or men. that there is one party for socialists to throw their energies into the Socialist Party. We will continue as best we can on our limited resources to put forward the case for socialism (we can only currently afford to put up a handful of candidates in elections). As a society based on common ownership of productive resources, socialism will be a classless society where there will be no privileged individuals and groups. Which is the only basis on which the principles of democratic decision-making can be fully applied? There is a ray of hope. That hope is the triumph of socialism. Free from the shackles of the market we could start to end so many of the problems which we take for granted, such as starvation and mass hunger in the midst of food stockpiles and environmental devastation.

Fact of the Day

The income of the richest people in Scotland has almost doubled over five years.

Analysis of HM Revenue & Customs data for those earning more than £150,000 a year shows that total income has grown from £3.7 billion in 2010/11 to £6.2 billion in 2014/15.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scotland-s-richest-see-income-nearly-double-in-five-years-1-4421297

May's June General Election

VOTE THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Theresa May has chosen to call a general election for the 8^th of June, hoping that a victory for her will lead to an increased legitimacy for her negotiations to exit the EU. The Socialist Party welcomes every opportunity to place its case for socialism before our fellow-workers.

Many have noticed that whoever gets elected, nothing much really changes. It has been borne out by hard and painful experience that for the most starry-eyed of us that the politicians we have voted for are not only unable to make good on promises but have actually carried out unwelcomed and unwanted policies.  Why should we believe that it would be any different with Theresa May's campaign pledges? 

Do the trappings of democracy really guarantee a truly democratic way of life? Do they ensure rule by the people? The Socialist Party answers "No!" and says that real democracy involves far more. It is true that the vote, together with other hard-won rights such as the rights of assembly, political organisation and freedom of speech, are most important. At the same time we must recognise that genuine democracy is more than these freedoms and the right to vote. Democracy implies much more than the simple right to periodically choose between representative of political parties. We are not under any illusion about the nature of democracy inside capitalism. To govern is to direct, control and to rule with authority. Operating as the state this is what governments do. But to say that democracy is merely the act of electing a government to rule over us cannot be correct because democracy should include all people in deciding how we live and what we do as a community. Democracy means the absence of privilege, making our decisions from a position of equality. Democracy means that we should live in a completely open society with unrestricted access to the information relevant to social issues. It means that we should have the powers to act on our decisions, because without such powers decisions are useless. 

The Socialist Party does not regard political democracy in itself as sufficient to emancipate humanity. But we do recognise that it provides by far the best conditions for the development of the socialist movement. The realisation that genuine democracy cannot exist in capitalist society does not alter the fact that the elbow room already secured by past struggles can be turned against our masters. The right to vote, for instance, can become a powerful instrument to end our servitude and to achieve genuine democracy and freedom.

The vote is revolutionary when on the basis of class it organises labour against capital. Parliamentary action is revolutionary when on the floor of parliament it raises the call of the discontented; and when it reveals the capitalist system's impotence and powerlessness to satisfy the workers wants. The duty of the Socialist Party is to use parliament in order to complete and to bring to a conclusion the revolution. Parliament, is to be valued not for the petty piecemeal reforms obtainable through it, but because through the control of the machinery of government the socialist majority will be in a position to establish socialism. Where it is available to workers we take the viewpoint that capitalist democracy can and should be used.

In our Declaration of Principles we stress the necessity of capturing the machinery of government including the armed forces. That is the fundamental thing. The method, though important, is second to this but, nevertheless, winning control of the state through the ballot-box is central to the Socialist Party. The ballot box is a tactic. The working class being the key political class, whoever wins its support, wins the day, hence why the different factions of the capitalists vie for working class votes.

The Socialist Party has never held that a merely formal majority at the polls will give the workers power to achieve socialism. We have always emphasised that such a majority must be educated in the essentials of socialist principles. The Socialist Party does not propose to form a government and so does not call for people to "vote us into office". Socialist candidates stand as recallable mandated delegates at elections to act as little more than messenger boys and girls sent to formally take over and dismantle the State. not as leaders or would-be government ministers. 

The first step towards taking over the means of production, therefore, must be to take over control of the state, and the easiest way to do this is via elections. But elections are merely a technique, a method. The most important precondition to taking political control out of the hands of the owning class is that the useful majority are no longer prepared to be ruled and exploited by a minority; they must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule - they must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control.

We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don't suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don't necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group such as ourselves, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is such a party that will take political control via the ballot box, but since it will in effect be the useful majority organised democratically and politically for socialism it is the useful majority, not the party as such as something separate from that majority, that carries out the socialist transformation of society. They will neutralise the state and its repressive forces and as stated there is no question of forming a government , and then proceed to take over the means of production for which they will also have organised themselves at their places of work. This done, the repressive state is disbanded and its remaining administrative and service features, reorganised on a democratic basis, are merged with the organisations which the useful majority will have formed to take over and run production, to form the democratic administrative structure of the state-free society of common ownership that socialism will be.

UBI - Pie in the Sky

Old fallacies that were debunked years ago are resurrected and presented as new and profound truths. It is fascinating to watch left-wing media because whatever their disagreements, the one thing that is never open for discussion is the questioning of capitalism itself. One being circulated around as the panacea for poverty and all the accompanying social ills is the Universal Basic Income (UBI) or Citizen's Wage. According to some “visionaries” robots will soon take everyone’s job, and a universal basic income will become necessary. A UBI is an unconditional pay packet for everyone in the country. It replaces all existing benefits and is granted to people no matter their job, wealth or circumstance. It will not make you rich, but provide you with the means to survive. Such schemes were first suggested as far back as the 1930s and the ILP but actually goes as far back as the Speenhamland system in the Middle Ages. 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). While 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'. Nevertheless, no country has actually implemented such a system nationally.

Recently some of those technocrat “philanthropists” from Silicon Valley are especially eager to extol the results of an UBI pilot project in Kenya. The project provides a guaranteed poverty-ending income for those who receive it. In 40 poor, remote villages, 6,000 adults are now receiving 75 cents (yes, cents) per day – or $22 per month for 12 years.  In poor developing countries, an UBI can mitigate expensive aid programs that fail to address the targeted population’s needs, and that are often undermined by corrupt regimes. But The Kenya UBI relies on M-Pesa, a for-profit mobile banking system that was built with the support of foreign aid, private companies, and the government – not well-meaning philanthropists. Even if an UBI succeeds in Kenya it is not a capitalist-friendly solution for the United States: it would be prohibitively expensive and it is doubtful it would not solve the problems that it is meant to address.

On the right UBI in some shape or form has now a solid base amongst its neo-liberal advocates (such as Hayek) who hope to use it to abolish the provision of any state provision of social services and just give every citizen a small equal cash handout instead. It is clear why the UBI concept is most popular on the libertarian right - a means to dismantle the Welfare State. UBI proposals are disingenuous distractions from such immediate problems as persistent poverty, especially for children and racial and ethnic minorities; stagnant real (inflation-adjusted) wages and incomes for most households; expanding income inequality; declining social mobility; inequalities in educational opportunities; and the income volatility that comes with erratic employment. In the US, where the official poverty line for an adult in 2016 was $12,700 per year. Each year, a $10,000 basic income for every American adult would cost more than $3 trillion, consuming more than three-quarters of the annual federal budget. This would require historically high taxes, and yet we rarely hear wealthy UBI advocates calling for their taxes to be raised. They are more likely to advocate cutting existing social-welfare spending, such as Social Security and other programs that benefit the bottom two-fifths of the population, including children.

Many Left proponents assume that if the government gives everybody, working or not, a regular income this is going to have no effect on wage levels? They seem to be assuming that this would be in addition to income from work whereas what is likely to happen is that it would exert a huge downward pressure on wages and that over time real wages would on average fall by the amount of the "basic" income. In other words, that it would be essentially a subsidy to employers. It would be "basic" in the sense of being a mimimum income that employers would top up to the level people needed to be able to reproduce and maintain their particular working skill. Don't they understand how their much-vaunted law of supply and demand works?

These radical supporters of a Universal Basic Income want to end capitalism while presupposing its continued existence. If people are free from any compulsion to work for a capitalist company, this would destroy the capitalist mode of production. This, after all, relies on the workers to produce the products which are turned into profits. It also relies on the exclusion of workers from these products so that they can become profits. However, at the same time, the same supporters also ask the same capitalist firms to produce the profits to pay for freedom from them in the form of a Universal Basic Income. They want both: the continued existence — for now — of the capitalist mode of production where the reproduction of each and everyone is subjugated to profit and the end of this subjugation by providing everyone with what they need. They want companies to make profits, which relies on and produces the poverty of workers, while at the same time ending mass poverty. They want to maintain the exclusion from social wealth through the institution of private property and end this exclusion by giving everyone enough money.

The Challenge for Socialists

The world is in terrible shape. The politicians can’t do anything about it. The economists haven’t helped. All of the people who have dedicated their time or donated to worthy causes haven’t really made much of a difference. The problems even seem to be getting worse, not better. Many people seem to think that there are shortcuts that will solve the problems one by one. Over the last hundred years, the short-cuts have failed to eliminate a single major problem. Poverty, war, starvation, and more remain. Wouldn’t it be better to work for a long-term solution that will succeed, rather than taking short-cuts that don’t? Besides, if everyone working for the short-cuts went to work on a real solution, the long-term would get a lot closer a lot faster. The short-cut approach only allows the problems to get worse. We don’t have time for any more short-cuts. We need a solution. Socialism is the real solution and has never been tried.

The fact is the profit system can never be reformed so as to work in the interest of the majority of the population. It can only work as a profit system, by giving priority to making profits over all other considerations. Workers are thrown out of jobs because they cannot be exploited for profit. Society does not provide for all now simply because its economy (the way it produces things) is geared not to producing what people need but to producing profitably what they can afford.

What we need is a peaceful, democratic social revolution to replace the profit system.  Then we can produce to meet our needs, not for profits. And society can accomplish its true aim: serving the welfare of its members by ensuring that we have no worries over satisfying our material needs. In a socialist society ownership and control of the means of production will be in the hands of the community as a whole. This will enable production to be directed in the interest of all on the basis of what we need. With modern methods of demand research, stock control, statistics, and electronic computing, the means by which the needs of society can be determined are already available. The first step to gaining that control is to work for a world of common ownership, democratic control, co-operation and production directly for the needs of all people. These are the only means by which we can end the economic nightmare of capitalism.  You will never be free until the Earth is free, and the Earth will never be free while it is held in private hands. Capitalism makes us trespassers in a world that should belong to us all in common, let’s organise to take it back. Achieving this new society democratically requires the majority of people to express their desire for it. The immense task is telling the majority of people about it. That’s why we need a socialist party, to campaign for socialism and nothing but.

The reformers, including the politicians of the left with their endless schemes to sanitise the present system, have told us for over a hundred wasted years that all we need to do is elect them to parliament and a decent future for ourselves and our children will be possible? Do not believe those who tell you that there is any worthwhile future under capitalism. The capitalist system means production for sale with a view to profit. No profit, then to hell with needs. The role of the vast majority of us under capitalism is to make profits for the rich and privileged few. We are the raw material of their success. Our poverty is the basis for their luxury. Socialists say that the world should belong to all of us. Only when it does will all of us benefit from the rich abundance of the earth’s resources. For too long we have lived cramped existences so that a minority can live life to the full. We have sacrificed our lives to the profit system and now they ask us to sacrifice the future of our children.

We have only have one life: this one. There is no after-life, nor does reincarnation exist. This life is the only life we have, and the only way we humans can improve it is by our own collective action. No Messiah or other Saviour is going to come and lead us to a better life. We are on our own. The things we need to live and enjoy life are produced today only if there’s a financial profit in it for the private firms, state concerns and rich individuals who own and control the world's productive resources. It is this that causes the economic and military rivalry and the neglect of human needs we see all around us. And these will go on as long as sectional (private or nation-state) ownership and production for profit continue. The collective human action that is needed to improve human life on Earth is democratic action to make the resources of the world the common heritage of all humanity. It is only on this basis that we humans can freely direct production towards the satisfaction of our needs and so ensure that every man. woman and child on this planet have adequate access to food, clothes, housing and all the other things needed to live an enjoyable life.

The situation is not hopeless (unless you expect others to fix everything for you.) The solution has four parts and you are a major component of all four.

• Understand that the problems cannot be solved one by one, they are interconnected. Attempts to solve one problem usually come at the expense of other, equally severe, problems. For example, more money for day care means less money for rape crisis. More money to fight poverty means less money to counter racism. Less money for war means fewer jobs and lower wages.
• Recognise that the underlying interconnecting cause is the profit system.
• Educate others.
• Eliminate the cause. Once the cause is gone, solving the remaining problems will be relatively easy.

Our Lives could be very different

We live in a world of potential abundance for all, but we have trapped ourselves within a social system of mass deprivation. Across the globe millions and millions of our men and women are denied the satisfaction of their basic needs. Millions die each year from starvation. Millions more are debilitated and incapacitated by uavoidable or curable illnesses and diseases. Even in the so-called rich nations poverty is the lot of the majority: not just those under the official 'poverty-line' but the relative poverty which characterises the life of every worker who is deprived of access to what society could provide for them, but they cannot afford to buy. The working class are condemned by the present social system to cut-price, second-best lives. One inescapable aspect of capitalism is poverty. By this we do not mean destitution, as when people literally cannot afford food or clothing or a place to live. There are certainly plenty of homeless people, but poverty is far more pervasive than this. It involves people not having access to what they want or need, and having to make do with second- or third-best. Shopping at a cheap supermarket,  waiting for the sales to buy what you want, telling the kids they can’t have what they’ve set their hearts on - all these are examples of poverty. So is living in a house that’s too small for your family, or booking the cheapest holiday you can find. And so is working after your anticipated retirement age because your pension will not be big enough. Another illustration is the amount of debt with which people get landed with.

It also means you are likely to suffer from stress of one kind or another. This is partly the result of the daily fight with poverty, but there are many other sources of stress for workers. Many jobs are boring or dangerous, and many more offer little satisfaction to those who do them. Worrying about deadlines or targets, or feeling at the whim of your boss’s moods - all these increase the stress due to employment. And the farther you climb up the “career ladder”, the chances are the more responsibility you will bear and hence the more stress you will encounter. Add to this the insecurity of many jobs and the consequent fear of unemployment. Then there’s the stress of the daily journey to work, whether by car or public transport. Life under capitalism means worries and more worries.

Nor is it not just that the vast majority are forced to go without; it’s also that a relatively small number of people live in the lap of luxury. This inequality is not a matter of your neighbour having a bigger car than you or being able to afford two yearly holidays abroad. Instead we are referring to the millionaires and billionaires who own land, companies or shares, and don’t have to worry about two-for-the-price-of-one offers or whether they can afford a night out on Saturday. These people live in grand mansions, probably have a holiday home or two as well, own their own private jets, and employ armies of servants to look after them. Moreover, it’s not they who do the useful work in society: those who drive the buses, teach the children or work in factories or offices are the ones who suffer poverty. The Socialist Party argues that there are two classes under capitalism: the working class (who work for wages and always struggle to make ends meet) and the capitalist class (who receive their income from rent or profit and get the lion’s share of wealth). Belonging to the working class is what makes you poor.

The things we need to live and enjoy life are produced today only if there’s a financial profit in it for the private firms, state concerns and rich individuals who own and control the world's productive resources. It is this that causes the economic and military rivalry and the neglect of human needs we see all around us. And these will go on as long as sectional (private or nation-state) ownership and production for profit continue. The alternative is a society in which all forms of exchange and money will be abolished and all land and property will be taken into the control of the community.

The essential facts are very simple. The land and productive instruments are owned and exploited by a comparatively small number of persons. The workers, therefore, can only obtain a livelihood as the beasts of burden, the hirelings, of these capitalists. It further follows that the more of the good things of life the workers can make the fewer labourers need the exploiters hire. It is therefore not lack of necessaries, but the worker’s ability to produce more than is in demand, that enables the capitalists to create that powerful means of keeping the workers poor, the unemployed. The poverty that afflicts the working class is thus obviously not due to any impossibility of producing sufficient, since it is consequent upon the very opposite!   It is an effect of class ownership in the means of life. 

The Socialist Party advocates a system without commodity-production or any “price system”, wages or payment of money. We stand for a society based on common ownership where people would produce goods and services to be taken and used without buying and selling and in accordance with the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”.  The collective human action that is needed to improve human life on Earth is democratic action to make the resources of the world the common heritage of all humanity. It is only on this basis that we can freely direct production towards the satisfaction of our needs and so ensure that every man. woman and child on this planet has adequate access to food, clothes, housing and all the other things needed to live an enjoyable life.

The world has developed the capacity to adequately feed, clothe and shelter every single man, woman and child on the planet. The resources, the technical knowledge and the skilled personnel exist to do this – the information on what to do is gathering dust on the shelves of practically every NGO but it is not done because the world is currently organised on the basis of the minority class ownership of productive resources and the production of wealth with a view to profit.

It is this profit system that stands in the way of satisfying human needs. It only allows production to take place in response to needs that can be paid for and then only if a big enough profit can be made from doing so. It diverts resources into maintaining a whole superstructure of finance and commerce – banks, insurance, accounting, advertising, etc – that is only needed because there is production for the market. And it diverts yet more resources into armed forces and their weapons which every state is compelled to have in view of the competitive struggle for profits – which as a last resort involves war – that is built-in to the system.

Once this artificial scarcity and this built-in waste is eliminated, as it would be in a world where the Earth's resources had ceased to be the private property of states, national and multinational corporations and rich individuals, then these resources could be directed to turning out wealth to meet human needs. It may take some time to completely clear up the mess left by the capitalist profit system, but people dying of hunger could be stopped immediately. So could all problems arising from money worries.

This is the practical solution to the practical problems facing humanity at this particular stage of its historical development. Unless this basic change from class ownership to common ownership, permitting the change from production for profit to production to satisfy human needs, is made, then unnecessary human suffering and a generally unsatisfactory life for everybody except a privileged few will continue.

End the wages system

The working class has fallen on troublesome times. All the forces of society and all the powers of government are arrayed against workingmen and women. In many places, the lot of the average worker is scarcely one remove above slavery.

Any form of society has to provide two things. Firstly, it must have to feed its members, clothe them and satisfy cultural needs through material goods, i.e. it must produce the means of subsistence for all. Secondly, society must replace used-up raw materials, replace machinery and factories and so on to allow the continued existence of society and the provision of work. Without these two major requirements of any human society, culture and progress would be unsustainable. Even capitalist production must meet these demands.   But is it not the case that every capitalist goes blindly on producing, competing with others, and hardly sees what is happening in front of his nose, the anarchy of the market and chaos of capital accumulation. Surely with the environmental degradation and global warming, the planet is now heading for ruination. Capitalism has failed miserably to provide the basic necessities of life for hundreds of millions of workers around the world and now the future of the species on the planet itself is now in doubt.

Let the working people manage and plan production to suit the needs of the people – for peace, prosperity, and plenty for all. The Socialist Party's goal, of course, is to turn all production away from the profit motive to supplying human needs.  Let us get together and pull together for the common good of all. There is not a redeeming feature to the present competitive wage system.. Every thoughtful person knows it is maintained for sating the greed of the ruling rich. Nothing less than the complete overthrow of the debasing grinding and degrading conspiracy against wage-workers will do. Why should one person be a wage-slave to keep another in luxurious idleness? We want a society whose workers run everything in the interests of the world's workers. We want a system that encourages every worker to become involved in running society; that educates everyone to act for the common good and does not indoctrinate people to look out for number one; that opposes placing selfish interests above the social needs. In socialism, the principle "to each according to need" will be as basic as the principle "every man for himself" is under capitalism. We want society to help each person grow as an individual. Under capitalism, only the bosses are free – free to hire and fire, free to pillage and plunder, free to make their profits. With socialism, the principle of work will be: "from each according to ability." People will work because they want to, because their brothers and sisters around the world need their work. They will share in decision-making, including the distribution of goods and services according to society's needs. They will share shortage if there are any along with abundance which there will be. The wage system will have been abolished. Distribution founded on free access eliminates the material incentive for the emergence of new bosses corrupted by all sorts of privilege. Government or party officials, specialists will no longer receive more money for work that is supposed "more important." The measure of work will have nothing to do with what people receive. People should and will get what they need, within the limits of what everyone can produce. The abolition of wages causes the social basis for privileges and a new class of bosses to disappear. For the first time in history, workers will receive a fair share of society's wealth, regardless of the work they do. Socialism will bring to an end socially useless forms of work that exist now only for capitalist profit. There will be no need for lawyers, advertisers, or salespeople. In one stroke, it will do away with layers of needless government bureaucrats, as well as the hordes of petty supervisors who oversee and manage us for the bosses.

What every worker must realise is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the causes which are capitalism but only its symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system as Marx points out, and not against the system itself. The capitalists would love to perpetuate this situation.  When we fight for a demand like a wage increase of we are merely fighting against the effects of capitalism. Not merely that. We are petitioning the employing class. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. Of course, every pay rise that is won by the workers is immediately offset by the employers by more intensive work, by stricter supervision etc. and by a general price increase. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he or she started. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it with socialism. This is the inevitable limitation of trade union struggles. We do not, of course, therefore oppose trade union struggles or refuse to participate in them. In the course of these fights with our employers, workers begin to learn about the system of capitalist exploitation and the need to abolish it. Trade union struggles are necessary to educate the workers. But the economic struggle must be transformed into a political struggle for the capture of political power by the working class and it, otherwise it will sink into the morass of reformism.  We must go further and abolish the wages system itself.

Ending the wage system will reduce the problems capitalism causes inside the working class. Sexism, nationalism, and racism, are some of capitalism's greatest evils, exploiting one worker to a greater degree than another. Marx said that "the worker in white skin can never be free as long as the worker in black skin remains in chains." We oppose nationalism. National borders are artificial; they exist to divide workers and keep different sets of bosses in power. Workers need no borders. Workers in one part of the world are not different from or better than workers in another. Nationalism creates false loyalties. We endorse the revolutionary slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!"

Less Church-goers

A census of Scottish Christians found that there are around 390,000 regular churchgoers, down from 854,000 in 1984.

7.2% of Scotland's population regularly attend church, down from 17% in 1984

The number of congregations dropped from 4,100 in 1984 to 3,700 in 2016

42% of churchgoers were aged over 65.

40% of churchgoers are male

Four-fifths of church leaders (79%) are male, with an average age of 57

Lead researcher Dr Peter Brierley said the figures indicated a crisis in Christianity across Scotland. "We are living in the 21st century and one of the features of the 21st century is that people's allegiance to particular faiths is no longer as strong as it used to be," he said.

The People's Movement

Workers’ struggles which break out today do not express– even in an embryonic form – the need for socialism and revolutionary political organisation.  Trade union struggles no longer function as a school of communism, and no longer look towards their replacement by better and superior political and economic forms. Socialists no longer expect anything revolutionary from unions. Too often the unions propagate the false idea which sees the emancipation of the oppressed as being possible within the framework of capitalism. The "official" workers' movement has largely failed to resist attacks old and new.   Many unions simply seem to be hoping for the best, while failing to prepare for the worst. No matter how close some unions get attached to the bosses, they cannot escape the fact that their organisations are the target for emasculation just the same. 

The unions were formed in the first battles of the class and aimed at the establishment of less severe conditions of exploitation by uniting the greatest possible numbers of workers:

“The trade unions aim at nothing less than to prevent the reduction of wages below the level that is traditionally maintained in the various branches of industry. That is to say, they wish to prevent the price of labour power from falling below its value...The workers combine in order to achieve equality of a sort with the capitalist in their contract concerning the sale of their labour. This is the rationale (and logical basis) of the trade unions... The value of labourpower is ‘regarded by the workers themselves as the minimum wage and by the capitalist as the uniform rate of wages for all workers in the same trade’. For this reason the unions never allow their members to work for less than this minimum...” - The Grundisse

“Apart from their original purposes, they must now learn to act deliberately as organising centres of the working class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation. They must aid every social and political movement tending in that direction. Considering themselves and acting as the champions and representatives of the whole working class, they cannot fail to enlist the nonsociety men into their ranks. They must look carefully after the interests of the worst paid trades, such as the agricultural labourers, incapable of organised resistance by exceptional circumstances. They must convince the broad masses of workers that their efforts, far from being narrow and selfish, aim at the emancipation of the downtrodden millions.”

(Karl Marx, Instructions for the delegates to the central provisional council of the IWA on the various questions to be debated at the Geneva Congress of 38 September 1866)

 In a letter to F. Bolte on 23 November 1871, Karl Marx precisely defined the characteristics of the political struggle of the working class in the conditions of his time:

“To become political, a movement must oppose to the dominant classes the workers acting as a class to make them concede by means of external pressure. Thus, the agitation is purely economic while the workers try, by means of strikes etc., in a single factory or even in a single branch of industry, to obtain from the private capitalists a reduction of working time; on the other hand, it is political when they forcefully obtain a law fixing the working day at eight hours etc. It is in this way that, from all the isolated economic movements, there develops everywhere a political movement, in other words a class movement with the aim of realising its interests under a general form which has the force of constraint for the whole of society”

You’re not paranoid if you think the world feels more unstable — it is. How do we win ? The tasks are the same as before, but with a new sense of urgency. As before, we must engage millions in the fight for a different future. No true revolution is possible without mass participation. We must build a vast network of work-place and community-based organising committees alongside mass socialist parties challenging the ruling class for political power. We must also be prepared to go beyond the concept of a general strike, and to build worker and neighbourhood assemblies that will replace the state with a true social democracy. This is a struggle not just to restore the old world-system, but to build a new one. This is the time to be revolutionary, to fight to win the world we actually want. Otherwise, catastrophic apocalypse of epic proportions awaits the working class. Intensified exploitation at work when it is possible to protect jobs from automation, the ecological destruction of our life-giving planet, resurgent racism and xenophobia including vigilante attacks on immigrants and refugees with mass deportations, and the constant threat of global war. That is why we fight for the future. That is why we need to fight to win.

The People Against the Profit System

"A worker in revolt is wiser than the learned professor who justifies his chains."

Under capitalism, workers have no control over what is produced and how. All that is decided by how much profit some capitalist will gain. But socialism enables society to decide how to organise itself and the resources of society to meet the needs of the people. As long as profit for the few is the basis of the economic system, that system–capitalism–will continue to go from crisis to crisis, with more and more misery for the people.

While the capitalists revel in luxury and extravagance, the workers are condemned to lives of toil and deprivation. Members of the upper class are known for eating too much. Members of the working class die for want of enough to eat. Poverty and the fear of poverty render their lives miserable. The average worker is not more than a few weeks removed from a state of destitution.  The workers have a power infinitely greater than that of the capitalists. That is their ability to produce wealth, to run industry and to carry on production. They can do this without capitalists, while without workers, capitalists are impotent and helpless. We would lose our chains, our miseries, but gain the world for all the workers, a world fit for men and women to live their lives in freedom of love and labour.

The fight for the liberation of the working class is not a fight for new class privileges and prerogatives but for equal rights and equal obligations for all and for the abolition of class rule, an ending of the wage system and every sort of oppression in whatever form such may reveal itself. The Socialist Party  is pitted against the whole profit-making system. It declares that there can be no compromise so long as the working class lives in want while the master class lives in luxury. There can be no peace until the workers organise as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution and abolish the wage system. In other words, the workers must own in common and run democratically all the essential industrial institutions . Whatever is good and benevolent in our society can be saved only by the workers, not because they possess the men's hearts of saints and angels but because the desire to live is the basic principle that compels men and women to seek a more suitable environment, so that they may live better and more happily.  The first step in this direction is to overthrow the capitalist state and establish socialism. The Socialist Party believes that the working class is ready to challenge the wage system and is fed up with the reformist groups which offer no alternative. 

Imagine a united labour movement taking control and political power. Real working class political strength. Going on to end wage slavery. This is our future. With a proper understanding of the economic system, the workers will soon find means to end that system, and to raise on its ruins a society having for its goal the benefit of the whole, instead of just a privileged part, of the community. Wage Slaves!  Think of it!  The time has come when what has appeared so far off is fast approaching – the abolition of the wage system. The Socialist Party differs from every other political party in that it aas set up for the abolition of the wage system. While the political parties of the reformers declare their compromise and collaboration with the property-owners as their “revolutionary” goal, the Socialist Party is working on changing the basic foundation of the current social system. A mere change of government personnel does not satisfy us because capitalism remains and the exploitation continues. And it will continue, until the workers abolish the wages system. 

The abolition of capitalism is our organisation’s expressed goal. While others have expressed the damage caused by the profit system, the Socialist Party has worked out a platform which will make the end of capitalism a reality. Let us organise and learn, because we have no time to lose. The future belongs to those who fight not to those who are subservient and cowardly. Socialism will be a system in which there are no more classes, no more wage workers and no more lounging parasites. A scientific system, which will not be led by the privileged but carefully guarded by society’s useful producers, led by capable, able men. A system in which everyone will have to do useful work if they are able and if they want to live.

How to feed the world?

The world produces plenty of food to feed everyone, year after year’, with hunger being caused by poverty and exclusion, not a lack of food. The reason is that like all others today, food is produced to sell for the profit of the growers and processors.  Population growth is not the problem that it is suggested to be: the rate of population growth has slowed, and although there will still be a sizable increase in population in the coming decades and a need to increase food production, there is the potential to increase the amount of land under cultivation, which a socialist society freed from production for profit will permit.

The industrial food system is also a major driver of climate change, with around half of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the food system. This covers deforestation, food waste, refrigeration, transport, processing, and packaging. Farming practices contribute as well, in the form of petrol to run machinery and the use of chemical fertilisers. A small number of giant fertiliser companies are the major users of shale gas from fracking, and, once applied to the soil, fertilisers result in large amounts of nitrous oxide, which is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Cutting out the use of chemical fertilisers could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to ten percent, it is argued, and would allow farmers to rebuild organic matter in the soil and so increase fertility. Of course, profit is the force behind these industrial farming methods.

Different kinds of food make different contributions to climate change. The worst are red meat, cheese, fish, and poultry, with lentils, fruit, milk and vegetables having the least impact. Processed foods, which use soybeans and palm oil among other products, are big greenhouse gas emitters and are being consumed more and more. Cutting down on meat and dairy production – which does not imply everyone becoming vegan – could make a major change in emissions.

 Even without any increase in the global use of chemical fertilisers, food production could be significantly expanded were such a resource to be more rationally distributed. In a socialist society, free of the constraints of the marketplace, it would, of course, be entirely feasible to allocate resources in such a way as to ensure their most productive use. Underpinning this freedom would be the unity of common purpose, a unity forged in the basic structure of a society in which all had free and equal access to the wealth that society produced.
Secondly, socialist society would obviously want to halt and reverse the long-term decline in soil fertility by improving the humus content of the soil. Not only would this make for the more efficient absorption of chemical fertilisers but would help contain further topsoil loss as a result of erosion. Whilst this would involve more labour intensive work which would require a larger agricultural workforce it should be borne in mind that one of the greatest productive advantages of socialism over capitalism is that it would release a tremendous amount of labour for socially productive work. At least half of the workforce today are engaged in activities that, although vital to the operation of a modern capitalist economy would have no purpose in a society where production was directly and solely geared to the satisfaction of human needs.Eco-friendly 'cover cropping' and 'no-till farming' techniques can often build soil quality while making farms a carbon sink rather than the emitter. But as long as short-term profit and the diktats of the capitalist market which the main food processing industries and retailers submit to, reign supreme, the most eco-friendly methods will not be a priority.
Thirdly, and most importantly, as a society freed from the profit motive and competitive pressures "to produce as much cash as possible, as cheaply as possible, and as quickly as possible", socialism will be able to adopt agricultural methods which achieve a working compromise with nature (for, as explained, all agriculture unavoidably upsets the pre¬existing ecosystem to a greater or lesser extent) respecting the long-term considerations which ecological science teaches are vitally important.

What will become of the meat and dairy industry in socialism? At present, the socialist case focuses necessarily on the emancipation of the human species from capitalist-induced oppression and suffering, while the ethical question of how we should regard and treat animals remains as one of the icebergs of other issues submerged below the waterline. What is clear to socialists if to nobody else is that humanity’s relationship to nature was never really anthropocentric but in fact ‘oligocentric’. Nature and everything in it including the vast majority of the human species existed for the sole purpose, use, and disposition of the few members of the ruling elites. In the view of those elites, we humans were simply clever animals. Once this highly destructive oligo-centric principle is overthrown, a new ethical framework will inevitably emerge in relation to resource exploitation. Quite what this will be and whether it will become genuinely anthropocentric or alternatively expand to encompass considerations beyond the species barrier is at present an open question. If socialists expect a large-scale meat industry they will have to face the fact that there is no ‘ethical’ way to do this. Unless and until the welfare and humane treatment of humans is first attended to the question of the ethical treatment of animals must remain an issue waiting for its moment.

Food production should be about meeting the self-defined needs of people, not a profit-motivated venture for corporations, agribusinesses and their boards and shareholders. Food security is about meeting the dietary needs of all people, at all times, enabling them to live a healthy life and not to be constantly in fear of the vagaries of the market. Only by addressing the monetary element, by coming to terms with the absolute necessity of removing it and any profit motive from the food supply will farmers, consumers and all the peoples of the world have the security of knowing that sufficient food is available to all, at all times and in all situations. Food security for all the world's citizens is just not possible in a capitalist system. 

A key part of a socialist society would be a serious reduction in the working week. This would free up large quantities of time for participation in allotments.  Inthe usa, the community garden (equivalent to the UK's community allotment) is increasing in popularity. There are currently over two million allotment holders across Europe 

The Profit System Must Go

There prevails a widespread discontent with the existing social order which is manifesting itself in the many raised voices for the reconstruction on a completely new basis of society to end the concrete evils of this economic system. It is not a vague feeling of unrest rising out of general conditions but the result of sharp, stinging experiences. What are these experiences which have generated the demand for a different system of production and distribution? Without an understanding of what is wrong and the sources of these wrongs it is impossible to formulate the reconstruction aims which will end the social ills from which we suffer. It is necessary that we have a clear understanding of what is evil and whence its source if we are to take action to remedy the situation.

The working class must make its stand against the capitalist system – whose lust for profits and interest, for investments, markets and expanded capital, for raw materials and cheaper labour, can mean only ruthless exploitation and abject slavery.  We have solved the problem of production. The wonders of machinery and technology has freed us from the danger of lack of food, clothing, or houses to live in because of the inability to produce them. We can produce all that is needed to supply the necessities of life, as well as the comforts of life — education and the opportunity for recreation — to all the people. Yet the individual worker is always at the mercy of his or her employer, never sure that tomorrow he or she may be dismissed. Today work may be plentiful and the opportunity to earn a living easily secured but tomorrow the factory or office doors may be closed and the employees out on the streets, facing hunger and starvation. This is not only true of the shop-floor workers. It applies to the salaried staff in management equally. The plain fact is that a numerically small group of people, the capitalists, who own the machinery of production and the natural resources, have the masses at their mercy. They are our masters and we, the workers, their serfs. The evils of the present social order — insecurity, low wages, and industrial conflicts — are the product of an industrial system in which the supreme purpose is the taking of profits. The present industrial system divides the people of this country into two classes. Anyone with a grain of common sense will have to admit that. There are people who work for wages and those who employ wage workers. There are the people who own the industries and those who must go to the owners of industry or their representatives for the opportunity to earn a living. The ownership of industry is the source of the power of the profit-seeking class. It gives them control of the opportunities of the masses to secure the necessities of life. The millions of men and women in this country who are dependent upon the wages they earn for a living are economic serfs. They have not won the “inalienable right to life, liberty, and happiness,” because their opportunity to earn the necessities of “life, liberty, and happiness” can be taken from them by the owners of industry, and is taken from them whenever the owners of industry are unable to make profits for themselves from the labour of the workers. The power to hire and fire the workers, to give and take away the opportunity to earn a living, carries with it the power to compel the workers to work for such wages as will leave the capitalists a profit from their labour. 

The business of making profits is shrouded in great mystery by the capitalists. They seek to make the workers believe that it is through some occult power that they make the processes of production yield them profits and build up great fortunes for them. There is no mystery about the source of profits. The capitalists do not create wealth out of the air in juggling with industry. They make profits because they purchase the labour-power of the workers for less than the value of the goods the workers produce; that is, they do not pay the workers the full value of their labor. There is no other way of making profits out of industry. The lower the wages for which the capitalists can purchase the labour-power of the workers and the longer or intensified their hours of labour, the greater will be the capitalist’s profits. The workers naturally seek to increase their wages and reduce their hours of labor. They endeavor to secure for themselves more of the wealth they produce and better working conditions. The capitalists resist. They see their profits menaced by the workers’ demands. The existing economic system is a huge profit-making machine, which has no relation to the happiness and well-being of the masses of the people. It does not exist to bring them “life, liberty, and happiness.” The ruling class would like the workers to forget these things. If the work of reconstruction is to result in a better world, its aim must be the abolition of the profit system. Its continued existence is incompatible with any proposal to reconstruct our production system in any cooperative or rational foundation. Common ownership is logically the next step in the evolution of society, hand in hand with industrial democracy. The workers will enjoy the wealth they produce. If, after supplying everyone with nutritious food, good clothing, a comfortable home, and the opportunity for education and leisure, they find they have surplus products on their hands, they will simply cut down the hours of labour. We can through socialisation — through the organisation and coordination of our powers of production, eliminate waste and create a large increase in our productive ability. The abolition of exploitation through the abolition of rent, interest, and profits, will insure to all the enjoyment of the wealth produced through our greatly productive power and will end the misery and poverty which is such a dark blot upon our civilisation. Production for use and not for profit will enable us to bring into existence more than enough wealth to give a high standard of living.

The work the Socialist Party has to do on the way to freedom, is through building a class conscious political movement which will carry on the work of educating the workers to an understanding of the system of exploitation which now exists and the class character of the government and to organize the workers for the struggle to wrest control of the government out of the hands of the capitalist class. At the same time, it is an essential part for the workers to build up organisations in the industries themselves, having as their goal to supersede the capitalists in control of industry. In these organisations in the industries are the beginning of the new industrial order that will expand and grow until they become a huge cooperative network of the workers for control and management of the work of production and of all matters pertaining to their common interest.