New faces, same story

What those who want a better society should be doing is to campaign to change people's minds, to get them to realise that they are living in an exploitative, class-divided society and that the only way out is to end capitalism and replace it by a new and different system. Once a majority have come to this realisation, they will know what to do: organise themselves into a socialist party to democratically win political control and use it to bring about a socialist society. That's what socialist politics should be about.

Across the world nationalism has been rearing its ugly head again. Many on the political left will argue that Scottish nationalism is somehow progressive and should be encouraged. The Socialist Party says that this is a dangerous poison being spread by the left. The working class – by definition the class that does not possess any land or private property, including capital – has quite literally nothing to gain from a situation where one group of rulers and owners is replaced by another group. The Socialist Party argues that every nation-state is by its very nature anti-working class. The “nation” is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history – which is why modern states across the world send the police and army in to break strikes and otherwise seek to protect the interests of the capitalists and “business” at every turn.

Constitutional reform is of no benefit or relevance to us. It leaves our lives and the problems the profit system causes completely unchanged. Exploitation through the wages system continues. Unemployment continues. A crumbling health service, a chaotic transport system, a polluted environment, failing schools, rising crime and drug addiction and the general breakdown of society all continue. Naturally, nationalists wrap its claims for independence up in democratic rhetoric. A “free” parliament in Edinburgh we are told, would be an extension of democracy, bringing power nearer to the people, so how can Socialists not be in favour of this? Yes, Socialists are in favour of democracy, and socialism will be a fully democratic society, but full democracy is not possible under capitalism. Supporters of capitalism who talk about “democracy” always mean only political democracy since economic democracy--where people would democratically run the places where they work--is out of the question under capitalism, based as it is on these workplaces being owned and controlled by and for the benefit of a privileged minority. As far as solving these problems is concerned, a sovereign Scotland is just a useless irrelevancy. You can have the most democratic constitution imaginable but this won’t make any difference to the fact that profits have to come before meeting needs under capitalism. The people’s will to have their needs met properly is frustrated all the time by the operation of the economic laws of the capitalist system which no political structure, however democratic, can control.

It is not imperfections in the political decision-making process that’s the problem but the profit system and its economic laws. And the answer is not democratic reform of capitalism’s political structure but the replacement of capitalism by socialism.  We are not nationalists--in fact we are implacably opposed to nationalism in whatever form it rears its ugly head--and we see the establishment of an independent Scotland as yet another irrelevant, constitutional reform. One of the last things the world needs at the moment is more states. Nationalism is based on the illusion that all people who live in a particular geographical area have a common interest, against people in other areas. Hence the supposed need for a separate state and a separate government to defend this separate interest. This flies in the face of the facts. All over the world, in all geographical areas, the population is divided into two basic classes, those who own the productive resources and those who don’t and have to work for those who do, and whose interests are antagonistic.
The non-owning class have a common interest, not with the owning class who live in the same area, but with people like themselves wherever they live. The interests of workers who live in Scotland are not opposed to the interests of those who live in England--or France or Russia or Japan or anywhere else in the world.


Nationalists like the SNP who preach the opposite are spreading a divisive poison amongst people who the Socialist Party say should unite to establish a frontier-free world community, based on the world’s resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity, as the only framework within which the social problems which workers wherever they live face today. This is why socialists and nationalists are implacably opposed to each other. We are working in opposite directions. Us to unite workers. Them to divide them.


Just because we are not prepared to back Scottish independence and break-up the United Kingdom does not mean that we are Unionists. We don’t support the Union. We just put up with it while we get on with our work of convincing people to reject world capitalism in favour of world socialism.

The goal of the World Socialist Movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real global community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the 'imagined communities' that are nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong. We always have a choice: we can continue to place our power as a class into the hands of institutional leaders who use it to pursue the narrow interests of a capitalist elite, or, we can take responsibility for it collectively and democratically, use it to further our own majority interest and, in the process, act in the interests of all mankind.

On the Battlefield of Ideas

We in the World Socialist Movement stand for the co-operation of all people worldwide on the basis of free decision-making and democratic control. We maintain--and anyone can check this claim--that the technical means have long since reached the stage at which we can use the world's raw materials in the most economical manner so as to guarantee everyone a sufficient supply of the necessities of life, in every sense of the term. A minimum of effort--which is an obligation for all members of a community--will create a maximum of contentment, of joie de vivre, a society based on solidarity. We are convinced that neither praying to gods nor placing one's trust in enlightened leaders is of any benefit to humanity. Nor are we nationalists. Our philosophy can be summed up by the slogan: one world, one people.  Socialism is the simplest thing in the world. It is based on the voluntary co-operation of all members of society and guarantees free access to the fruits of their labour. 

 Many of our fellow-workers regard us as utopians. This is not because our ideas are unsound but because the defenders of the inhumane profit system have at their disposal a massive propaganda machine which day and night clouds people's clear vision of things. Hear us out. Talk with us. By all means question what we and others are saying, but remember one thing: the decision lies with you and with you alone. There is one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs. There is far more that unites us than can ever divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines.

Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious cooperation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause-to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilization, a world without frontiers or borders, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the shackles of artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity. The war we should advocate is that which has to be waged on the battlefield of ideas - for the hearts and minds of the world's people. And once we unite there will be no force that will stop us taking the earth into our common possession. Once we live in a world of common ownership and democratic control of resources, there will simply be no reason to kill one another in wars. No empires to build or markets to expand or profits to increase. A world without borders brings freedom of movement to a world society. With no rich elites fighting each other over land or resources, the armed workers of the world who presently kill each other in the interests of the rich will also happily find themselves unemployed and able to follow some other more constructive and less dangerous occupation.

We live in a world which has the potential to adequately feed, house and provide clean water and decent medical care for every single man, woman and child on Earth. The resources exist to banish material want as a problem for members of the human race. Yet millions throughout the world are malnourished, live in squalor or are actually dying of starvation or hunger-related diseases. World socialism could stop the dying from hunger immediately, and provide the conditions for good health and material security for all people across the Earth within a short time. It would do this by producing goods and services directly for need. World socialism will operate with one simple and ordinary human ability which is universal — the ability of every individual to cooperate with others in a world-wide community of interests. Socialism will be a world without borders where we will all be at home anywhere. The only way to gain a world of potential plenty is to join with workers in the rest of the world to get rid of capitalism, its class rule and its production for profit. This means making the resources of the Earth the common heritage of humanity. It means establishing a world without borders where the resources which already exist can be used to provide plenty for all. We are not demanding the impossible. Our world would be a much better place to live in if we had a real democratic say in the decisions that effect us and real control over the means and instruments for producing and distributing the things we need to live in comfort. Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious consent and participation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause – to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of technology, a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity – socialism. Our best weapon against our masters, is to understand that we, the workers of the world, have a common interest, and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing information between ourselves, deliberately and consciously working for our liberation without borders.deas

Workers have no country

Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.'- Engels, November 29, 1847.

Nationalism is anathema to socialists. The Socialist Party opposes nationalism and does not fall into the trap of the ‘progressive’ facade of nationalism. We have more in common with people like ourselves in other countries than with the privileged owning class of the country where we happen to live and work. The world-wide working class has a common interest, to end its exploitation and solve its problems, to join together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the planet will have become the heritage of all. One world, one people, where cultural differences will still be celebrated, but where we’ll all be citizens of the world. Our opposition to the Scottish nationalism should not be interpreted as support for the Union or the parties that support it. We are not defending British nationalism and the unity of the United Kingdom in any way. That would be an endorsement for the status quo, something we do not support. So we do not argue that the present constitutional arrangement benefits ordinary people. We are just as opposed to them. A plague on both their houses is what we say. To adapt a slogan, "Neither London nor Edinburgh, but World Socialism".

The SNP tells us an independent Scotland, separate from the rest of Britain, there would be less unemployment, higher wages, more job security, better state benefits, a better health service and all the other things politicians keep promising. But it is patently absurd. This would be a purely political, not to say mere constitutional, change which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged. There would still be a privileged class owning and controlling the means of production with the rest having to work for them for a living. An independent Scotland would still have to operate within the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level of profits as they could in other  countries. In other words, it would still be subject to the same economic pressures as the existing UK government to promote profits and restrict wages and benefits.  Since it is this class-divided, profit motivated society that is the cause of the problems workers face in Scotland so these problems will continue, regardless of whether Scotland separates from or remains part of the United Kingdom.

A separate parliament in Scotland would be a capitalist parliament. It would not provide Scottish workers with any greater control over their own lives. Scotland would remain an integral part of international capitalism. An Edinburgh sovereign parliament will leave the workers in exactly the same position as before. Scottish nationalism is the reaction of one section of the Scottish capitalist class to what they perceive as the declining fortunes of British capitalism and their ‘unequal’ treatment within it. They seek to keep the taxes on North Sea oil revenues and create a corporate tax structure more suited to their own needs. The SNP advocate industrial harmony and an end to class conflict. Scottish workers are being asked to place their trust in the local employing class rather than in unity with other workers. Working-class unity cannot be easily achieved by insisting that there are supposed national differences in consciousness that distinguish Scottish workers from their English brothers and sisters. And certainly it is not aided by combining with particular Scottish bosses, which lead Scots working people to identify with Scottish businessmen and landowners on the basis of shared ‘nationality’. As an inducement, though, the nationalists entice Scottish workers with offers of a reformist programme and promises of more money and a better life. But no natural resources will be put to a sensible or beneficial use until the working class itself has gained control over the use of these valuable and non-renewable resources. A united working class enables us to combine our tactics for defending our class with the strategy of liberating our class.  Scottish nationalism does not strengthen the campaign for socialism or create a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it.  Independence will not improve our condition one iota.  Only class struggle could do that. Success depends on close ties with the labour movements in England and elsewhere.  

The liberation for Scottish workers can only come about by overthrowing capitalism itself. If this is not done, no amount of separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders. 

Socialism is a world community

Socialism cannot be established in one country. Socialism must be a world system. Socialism can only be a world community without frontiers. It cannot be established in one country let alone in one factory or on farm. The kibbutzim do show that human beings can live without money and can work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so that young people are tending to leave them. In practice they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and most have become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

There are those who see the constant internationalisation or globalisation of production and life, as a threat to "national sovereignty". This is a reactionary position. The World Socialist Movement does not defend capitalist national independence. On the contrary, one of our criticisms of capitalism is precisely that it has divided the world into competing and armed "nation-states." What we want is not national independence but a socialist world without frontiers. Our planet already possesses enough resources to properly feed, clothe and house every single man, woman and child on the planet. There's no need for anybody anywhere to go without adequate food, drinking water, health care, housing or education.  What trading treaties a particular country makes concern only its capitalists not its workers.

The answer to "global" warming and "world" poverty and the other problems caused by capitalism can only be found within a world framework. So we are talking about a united world without frontiers, no longer divided into separate and competing states. This will save the enormous amount of resources currently wasted on armed forces and arms, that could be redirected into satisfying the basic human needs that are now so scandalously neglected.

All the productive resources of the world should become the common heritage of all the people of the world. They must no longer be owned by corporations, rich private individuals or states. There are already treaties saying that Antarctica and the Moon cannot be appropriated by individuals or states. The same principle should apply to the whole planet, not just to its natural resources but also to the industrial plants and means of transport and communication that humans have built up by their collective labour over the centuries.

 Appropriate democratic institutions will need to be set up to control the use of this common heritage. World bodies to deal with inherently global questions such as the state of the biosphere and energy supply (as well as, initially, the urgent temporary problems such as world hunger, disease and lack of education that will be inherited from global capitalism). Regional bodies (replacing existing states and respecting cultural and linguistic differences) to organise industrial production. Local bodies to arrange access for people to the things they need for everyday living. Starting with democracy at local level, people will be able to create and maintain a genuinely people-based society.

Goods will be produced, whether globally, regionally or locally, solely and directly to satisfy people's needs, not as at present to make a profit or for sale on a market. In fact, the whole market system of buying and selling, and the whole wasteful structure of financial and commercial institutions that arise on its basis, must go. As long as the market exists we will be dominated by its uncontrollable economic laws. As long as money exists financial and commercial, not human, values will prevail. So, we're talking about a money-free society in which, instead, people would contribute according to their abilities and take as their right, from the common store what they need to live and enjoy life.  Technology will be used to provide enough for everybody in an environmentally-friendly way.


A world without frontiers or separate states, a world based on its resources being the common heritage of all humanity, a democratic world governed by what people decide they want and need not by money, profit and market forces, that's the alternative to the transnational corporate conglomerates.


We will have to step up the socialist case against nationalism. The phrase ‘nation-state’ itself assumes that the states into which the world is divided are the political expression of pre-existing ‘nations’. In fact, it’s the other way round. It is the ‘nation’ that is the creation of the state. States inculcate into their subjects the idea that they form a community with a common interest and that the state represents that interest. The result is that people come to refer to themselves and other subjects of the same state as ‘we’ and ‘us’. Socialists do not speak of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in relation to so-called ‘nation-states’ in which they happen to have been born or live. We know that, in every state, there are two classes with opposed interests: the class of those who own and control the means of production and the rest, the vast majority, who do not and, to live, have to sell their mental and physical energies to those who do for a wage or a salary.


Wars are not fought between ‘nations’ but between states, and states represent the interest of their ruling, owning class. Wars arise out of the conflict of economics between states, representing the owning class within them, over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic areas to protect these. Nationalism is used by states to win support – and cannon fodder – for wars. But it can prove counter-productive if it escapes from state control, as it risks doing over the question of Europe. The interest of the dominant section of the capitalist class in Britain is that Britain should stay in the EU so as to have free access to the European ‘single market’, but as the Brexit vote showed public opinion is opposed to this on nationalist grounds. We insist that workers in one state have the same basic interest as their counterparts in other states. We are all members of the world working class and have a common interest in working together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the globe will have become the common heritage of all the people of the world and used for the benefit of all. We re-assert the original socialist position that workers ought to act as a world-wide class with a common interest in working to establish a single world community.  As socialists we refuse to pander to petty nationalism but work to promote a world without borders or passports.


  Since today capitalism is worldwide, the society which replaces capitalism can only be worldwide. The only socialism possible today is world socialism. No more than capitalism can socialism exist in one country. So the common ownership of socialism is the common ownership of the world, of its natural and industrial resources, by the whole of humanity. Socialism can only be a universal society in which all that is in and on the Earth has become regarded as one country and humankind as one people. , and in which the division of the world into states has given way to a world without frontiers with a democratic world administration as well as local and regional democracy. We campaign to get workers to say no to a society based on profit, privilege and competition and yes to a society based on equality, cooperation and meeting people's needs.  It is all very well being anti-capitalist but if this is to mean something more than merely protesting against the effects of capitalism, it has got to also mean having an idea of an alternative to capitalism. 


We can see why the ruling class in the various different capitalist states into which the world is divided find it necessary to rely on “workers' identification with the familiarity of their place of nurture and 'natural' abhorrence to the occupation of 'their' land by invading forces” – it helps them build up popular support for their rule and their foreign policy aimed at protecting their interests abroad. But we can't see why socialists need to. On the contrary, political nationalism is something we need to combat as it is an obstacle to the understanding that the problems faced by workers all over the world cannot be solved within a national framework but only on a world scale. We can see why, too, ruling classes prefer moderate nationalism to bigotry – yesterday's enemy can so easily become today's ally. Thus, the “Frogs”, “Huns” and “Nips” of yesteryear are now our rulers' allies and workers who continue to believe what they were told when these countries were our rulers' enemies are an embarrassment. Socialist opposition to political nationalism does not challenge cultural diversity. We can appreciate Shakespeare or Dickens without ceasing to be socialists.  We can enjoy our warm ale, mince and tatties, or a Sunday roast, without being nationalists. 

Feeding the hungry in Glasgow

A food bank in north-west Glasgow launched a social media campaign to get donations after warning it did not have enough food for the next day. The Glasgow North West location had seen a 62 per cent rise in demand after an independent food bank closed recently, which resulted in its busiest year since opening four years ago, explained Adrian Curtis, the Foodbank Network Director of the Trussell Trust. 

Following a social media request for donations, the food bank has been heartened to see the public donate food donations began flooding in after the food bank demonstrating once again the generosity of people.

A Scotch Broth

Scotland is far from having a common history. Its population were mainly the descendants of native Picts, invaders from Ireland (the original Scots), Western Europe and Scandinavia. After centuries of tribal wars the land came under one king and the nation was born – by the coercion of the people and in the interests of a class of bandit chieftains. Right up until the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1707 there were really two distinct nations in Scotland. The Highlanders  spoke Gaelic and had a way of life very different from the English speaking Lowlanders, not to mention the Doric speakers in the North-east, as well as those from Galloway, a word literally meaning "Stranger", referring to a population of mixed Scandinavian/Gaelic ethnicity that inhabited Galloway in the Middle Ages.


The SNP see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and as outmoded as the clan system it replaced. It is the Socialist Party who are the true men and women of vision, who look forward to and struggle for a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society's resources, and uncluttered with the frontiers and class divisions which go hand-in-hand with "the nation". To talk of Scottish, as opposed to class interests is to gloss over, to ignore the basic conflict of interests that inevitably arises from the structure of capitalism. The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fundamental class-antagonism, and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and seat of government. The defence against this stratagem is, as always. the re-statement of the socialist case and an iron confidence in the working-class ability eventually to solve their own problems.


 In Scotland today it’s true that there is a struggle – as there is in England, Wales, and Ireland. But the struggle in Scotland is not, as the SNP would have us believe, the struggle for self-government,. The struggle in Scotland, as in the rest of the world, is a class struggle: the struggle between the working class and the capitalist or owning class. The SNP talk about the Scottish culture and the Scottish way of life. But in what way is the life of a Scottish wage-slave basically different from that of an English, an American, or for that matter a Russian wage-slave? There is no basic difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because they will still be the wages labour and capital relationship. There is no truly independent country in the world, because international capitalism has made sure of this. Independence for Scotland therefore is a myth put about by the SNP, which further confuses the Scottish section of the working class and blinds them from the real struggle – the class struggle.


While we constantly hear that we live in a globalised world, national sovereignty still resonates with many people. As socialists we reject the concept absolutely. The delineation of national boundaries within a system of world capitalism is just a reflection of the nationalist consciousness that currently prevails amongst the people of this planet. The celebration of national days, the supporting of the national team at international football tournaments, the organised remembrance of common history etc. are all manifestations of the constant encouragement to us to make identification with our fellow countrymen as the primary determinant of our political consciousness. This is a false proposition. The problems of the Irish people were not solved by independence; the hundreds of thousands of emigrants who left Ireland since 1922 are proof of that. The same will hold for the Scottish people. In the long term, the exit from the EU will not improve or worsen the overall position of the majority of the people of Britain.


As socialists, we say the only political allegiance we should give is to our fellow workers. 

The Socialist Party's May-Day Message

The first of May was set aside as a day on which the working men and women of different countries would suspend work and join in mass meetings to send to each other fraternal greetings and expressions of solidarity in the struggle against capitalist oppression. May-Day is an expression and an indication, no matter how vague, of the growing consciousness of the workers that, nationally and internationally, their interests were fundamentally identical and in opposition to the interests, of the capitalist class.

May-Day is workers' day, the day of our class. However hollow the cries and futile the demonstrations, it remains the anniversary of protest, a continual reminder of exploitation and, subjection. “Class” is the reason and the theme of May-Day – class in its fullest, truest sense. The working class is not the labourers or the artisans or the machine-minders: it is all people to whom wages are life. The working class is international: so is its cause. Among the cries and chants and slogans of May-Day, only one has meaning: “Workers of all countries unite!”

Class consciousness was never more needed than now. Workers have seen war, hunger and poverty; today mankind is under a shadow without precedent -global warming and environmental destruction. The working people of the world have it in their hands to end fear and hatred. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers'. To the Socialist Party, class-consciousness is the breaking-down of all barriers to understanding. Without it, militancy means nothing. The conflict between the classes is more than a struggle for each to gain from the other: it is the division which reaches across all others. Class-conscious workers knows where they stand in society. Their interests are opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class; their cause can only be the cause of revolution for the abolishing of classes. Without that understanding, militancy can mean little. It is not mere preamble that the Socialist Party's principles open by stating the class division in capitalism: it is the all important basis from which the rest must follow. For over a century, the Socialist Party has addressed its case to the working class on May-Day, demanding not support but understanding. In all those years, it has seen movements rise and fall, heard slogans resonate and fade away, known panaceas acclaimed and discarded. Incredibly, the Left lectures the Socialist Party that it is impractical: impractical, when through their denial of what the Socialist Party's case they have fallen, and with them the hopes of millions! The Socialist Party’s proposition is the only practical one. Class-conscious people need no leaders. The single, simple fact which all working people have to learn is that capitalism causes capitalism's problems so that the remedy – the only remedy – is to abolish capitalism. In that knowledge, they must take hold of the powers of government – for one purpose only: that the rule of class by class shall end. Socialism is not a benevolently-administered capitalism: it is a different social system. Reform is no answer, even though at times – rare times – it benefits working people. The reformists have not even set out to change the world but accept that capitalism shall continue, and is merely trying to alleviate its worst effects. Has poverty – extreme, dire poverty – been abolished by the reforms? Ask those on benefits to the food banks or the sick. Has life been made more satisfying by the Welfare State?

The Socialist Party has been intractable in its opposition to reformists. Working class action, in fact, must be revolutionary. That is the real message of May-Day, for people all over the world. The workers of Britain have common cause with the workers of every other country. They are members of an international class, faced with the same problems, holding the same interests once they are conscious of them. There is only one way of realizing those interests: the immense productive powers of the world must become the common property of every man, woman, and child. May-Day has come again. Let it be an occasion of fresh resolve. There are many who are with us but not of us. The struggle for socialism is a long and arduous one, needing the help of every class-conscious man and woman. On this day, then, we urge the need to work for socialism within the Socialist Party. To spread socialist understanding is the great task of our time: every fresh adherent to the Socialist Party principles is another step towards the emancipation of mankind. 

Capitalism knows no frontiers, money has no accent.

  On 8 June, you will have your occasional ration of democracy. It's all very well having a vote—but are you normally given any real choice?  It's tempting—in the absence of any real alternative—to get drawn into the phony war that is political debate today. Whether Labour or Tory or SNP, they all spout the same promises. But it all amounts to the same thing—they offer no alternative to the present way of running society. The Socialist Party wants you to consider an alternative society to the present production for profit rat-race that is capitalism. We want you to look at present-day society and ask yourself: does it operate in your and your family's interest?


  It certainly does not require genius or a microscope to perceive that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owning workers and a minority who are non-working owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large concerns whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world. Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" concern merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.


The Scottish workers don't have to attend university to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "clearances" by Marx's indictments of the Scottish ruling class, referred to in biting terms in "Capital", are any less brutal than their English counterparts. Or do they? The ability of the nationalists in getting away with their anti-working class nonsense and buffoonery rests on the — as yet, political ignorance of the Scottish workers. Their political and social interests—like their fellows everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy.

The SNP has tacked left, making social democrat noises to draw Labour supporters. There is nothing intrinsically left-wing about nationalism. Being a nationalist does not necessarily commit a person to any particular reforms or economic principles. Indeed, technically, the SNP is a one-issue party – for an independent Scotland. To talk of "fairer" capitalism that a sovereign Scotland promises is like talking of "fairer" robbery. Capitalism cannot work in the interest of the majority, it must go. It is of no concern to workers in Scotland whether they are governed from London or by a separate independent government in Edinburgh. This is because the cause of the problems they face is the capitalist economic system of production for profit, not the form of government. And the exploitative capitalist economic system would continue to exist in a politically independent Scotland. Politicians wrangle over purely constitutional matters while capitalism and the problems it causes continue.

The task of Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise in the Socialist Party democratically to take over power to establish socialism. Capitalism in Scotland, in England, in fact, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on. The Socialist Party analysis and solution is international in scope and outlook and the only way in which the Scottish workers can assist their fellow-workers around the globe is to study, understand and organise for socialism. As they do so, the baloney of the Scot Nats will become clearly apparent. "Our" problems are the problems arising from the capitalist nature of society which is now world-wide and the solution for "us"—world socialism in which wealth will be produced, controlled and enjoyed by all.


In Scotland, society is run in the interests of those who own the wealth. They argue among each other over billions of barrels of oil, GDP rates, profits, and exports, because where the borders lie matters to them. Every border is an opportunity to wring cash out of other property owners. Scottish workers will remain dependent upon their whims and interests.  They’ll try to sway us one way or another with crumbs or the promises of crumbs but we’ll only get what they feel they can spare to protect their privilege and wealth. We will remain dependent upon their investments, making a profit for them before we can get our needs and interests met. The only way to stop this dependency would be for us to take ownership and control of the wealth of the world into our own hands. We could, together, use the wealth of the world to meet our mutual needs and gain the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in a free and voluntary association of equals.


Join the Socialist Party to fight for an independent world and not an independent Scotland.

Unite for World Socialism

The idea of world socialism is that it is a global society without frontiers, passports and separate nation-states. Already, under capitalism, people are beginning to think in world terms. More and more people are coming to appreciate world music and many millions follow world sporting events. There is a growing awareness that all humans are part of one world, that we share a common planet.  Millions of people throughout the world are concerned about world poverty and world hunger and problems such as global warming. This is a reflection that we live in an interdependent world, albeit a capitalist one at the moment. It is this interdependence which has long meant that there are no national solutions to today's universal social problems. Capitalism is a global problem, to which the answer is global socialism.

Socialists devised the slogan "One World – One People" as a concise description of the society we are striving for. Socialism means that the whole world will operate as a single productive system where goods and services will be produced so that people can use them freely without resorting to buying and selling. It also means that the people of the world will be united on the only solid basis for achieving this end—by the resources of the world and the means of producing wealth being owned in common and democratically controlled by mankind as a whole. "One World – One People", then, represents an entirely different vision of the future to such schemes as the "United Nations" or "Internationalism" which, as their names imply, attempt to improvise a patchwork from the fragments which capitalism makes of the world.

To solve the many problems confronting humanity what is needed is a change in the basis of world society from existing class ownership to a world in which the Earth's resources have become the common heritage of all. Think globally, act locally, say some environmentalists. Anyone who follows the news cannot help but think globally. World hunger and disease, financial crises and world poverty, climate change and global warming, war and the threats of war—all these are global problems. Clearly, all these problems can only be solved by global action. We are up against a global system which can only be effectively and lastingly dealt with at that level.

We should perhaps add that we are not so naive as to imagine that the changeover from world capitalism to world socialism will occur in a matter of a few weeks. The transition can be envisaged as taking place over a relatively short period of time of, say, five years (at a wild guess for we don't know) so the situation might well occur of socialists having won control in some parts of the world but not everywhere. Naturally, they will manage as best they can in the circumstances, no doubt ending class ownership and bringing in democratic control of all aspects of social life including production. Their other main priority would be to do what they could to accelerate the winning of power by socialist majorities in the rest of the world. But this is not the same as the situation you seem to be envisaging of the people of one country deliberately aiming to establish socialism in just that country while the rest of the world remains solidly capitalist. In our view, this is neither desirable nor at all likely to happen.


When we talk about self-reliant communities we don't mean this literally in the sense that each community should actually have to provide for all its needs from its own resources for this would mean having to go back, not to the iron age or the bronze age, but to the stone age since they wouldn't even have any access to metals or metal ores. What WE envisage is self-administering communities which would try to meet as many of their everyday needs as practicable from local sources and that local communities should be the basic unit of democratic self-administration but, when it comes to production, it is as well to be aware to what extent local communities are interconnected and interdependent and that this places severe limits on what needs could be met locally. The fact is that people in small communities aren't able to produce all they need, or anything like it. The final stage of the production of a range of goods for everyday use could be done locally--food, clothes, shoes, furniture--as well as repairs but neither (most of) the raw materials nor (in most cases) any of the metals to make the tools and machines used in this final stage could be produced locally.


Many environmentalists don't like the idea of mass production but most people would consider access to such items as a cooker, a fridge and a TV as essential, but these can't be assembled individually on an artisanal basis. To meet needs, they would have to be produced en masse. This doesn't mean that they need be produced under the conditions that exist today in factories under capitalism. Far from it. Factories in a socialist society can and will be structured and run quite differently: slower pace of work, shorter hours, more automation, non-polluting technology, democratic participation in decision-making, (even located amidst lakes and gardens). Nor would they be making goods to deliver across to the other side of the planet (except, perhaps, for some factories producing very specialised equipment as for hospitals or scientific research). They would be making goods to supply all the local communities in a given area. Although energy could be supplied locally, the machinery and equipment to do this (pipes, pumps, tanks, generators, transformers, cables, wires, etc) couldn't. Even environment-friendly technology such as solar power involves highly sophisticated equipment that will be beyond the capabilities of local communities to produce on their own. So, local communities cannot be independent or self-reliant as far as meeting their material needs goes; they are interdependent. It is not a question of communities trading passing on their "surpluses" to one another (most, if left to themselves, wouldn't have any surplus) but it is a question of them being interlinked in a single network of production which in the end embraces the whole world.


This does not mean that everything has to be controlled from a single world centre. Only a few functions would have to be dealt with at world level such as, for instance, communications satellites. Most could be carried out (as in practice at present) at a level that can be called regional (in world terms). It is at this level that production of intermediate goods and machines and equipment can be envisaged as being produced, for distribution for use either in other factories or by local communities. Local communities can only be the basis for consumption and for democratic decision-making but not for production. Of course the actual degree of centralisation and decentralisation will be up to the people around at the time to decide in the light of their traditions, experiences and preferences. One thing, however, is clear: even the ultra-decentralised structure can only be achieved in a world where resources no longer belonged to private individuals, corporations and states and where production was no longer carried on for sale on a market with a view to profit. In other words, in a socialist world.

Glasgow Mayday

Independence is just a mirage

Capitalism has no future to offer most people. The one solution to society’s problems is the establishment of a new society. The case for socialism rests upon the fact that the capitalist social system cannot provide a decent life for its people and that, in the interests of those people, it should make way for the next stage in social evolution. No matter how much capitalism changes, it remains the same. Workers are continually being deluded by plausible politicians who make promises to them that can never be kept. It is all an illusion. Can capitalism give us the sort of life, the health, the abundance, the security, which all human beings should have? Can it offer the prospects of future security which a humane social system would take as a matter of course?

The word Celtic, like Aryan, has no real meaning outside linguistics where six languages (Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Breton and the extinct Manx and Cornish) form a distinct group labelled "Celtic". What Ireland, Scotland and Wales share is that they are areas where now only a minority of the people speak a Celtic language. This, however, does not justify calling them "Celtic countries" or creating a mythology about "the Celtic nations" or, worse, about "the Celtic races". the history of Scotland, while differing in detail from that of England, followed the same general course. By their divorce from the soil, a nation of peasant cultivators were converted into wage-slaves, exploited by a class ready to convert the world into one gigantic market. The forces of competition thus let loose may be held in check to some degree by national legislatures, but no final solution for the havoc they create can be found along such lines. The problem is essentially an international one, and must be internationally solved. That, however, calls not for National parties, but for parties in all countries which clearly recognise the common interest of the workers of the world, namely, to achieve their emancipation as a class. When the workers get upon the right track of understanding their position they will cease to worry their brains over comparatively trivial differences in their conditions, whether as between nations or between districts or separate towns. They will recognise that they suffer varying degrees of poverty because at present they exist merely to produce profits for their masters and that it is a matter of comparative indifference to them whether these masters are English or Scots, Germans or Japanese. Our aim will be to abolish masters of every nationality and to organise the production of wealth for their common good.  Class interests must be viewed in global terms, not national/regional terms or occupational/industrial terms. Our perception of our class interests must be beyond whatever nation or region we happen to be born in or our workplace.

The SNP’s aim is the establishment of a separate state in Scotland. As such it represents the interests of a certain sector of the Scottish capitalist class. The nearest parallel to an independent Scotland as envisaged by the SNP is to be found in the old Colonial empire, where independence simply meant a transfer of power to a new group of politicians, while the structure of state and society was but little changed. The Scottish elite has got behind nationalism and independence, disguising (as it always does) its own interests in the language of idealism.  the majority of the Scottish people will find little difference under Holyrood than under Westminster and it could be worse if a global crisis erupts again. Scotland as a small economy, dependent on multinationals for investment, still dominated by British banks and the City of London and without control of its own currency or interest rates, could face a much bigger hit than elsewhere in terms of incomes and unemployment. So independence would not bring dramatic economic improvement to the majority of Scots; indeed, it could mean a worse situation. But then the decision on independence is not just a question of the economy and living standards. That brings us back to the issue of the Scottish and English/Welsh (and Irish) working class sticking together in the struggle against British capital. Will an independent Scottish capitalist state strengthen that in any way?

It is shameful that should be wasting time over a question like a sovereign Scotland which has no consequence to the working class. While capitalism continues the workers will not be any better off.  The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the working class is concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one. The problem is that wealth is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of society in an undemocratic and unaccountable fashion. This obscene concentration of wealth in a few hands lies at the heart of all major social problems which confront us today. 

Nationalism, of which there are many examples arising around us at the present time, is one of the greatest barriers to the establishment of a society based on commonly shared humanity. The Socialist Party is not concerned with making capitalism continue more palatable but with the eradication of the worldwide common system of exploitation. It is not interested in nationalistic liberation movements. Socialists strive for the elimination of capitalism and its replacement by a nation-free planet devoid of frontiers. Our message to the Scots is the same as that to the world working class: "Study the case for socialism and, if convinced, join the fight which really counts—the struggle for socialism." Nationalism is at the top of the list of political illusions used to blind capitalism's victims.

The left-nationalists propose collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production throughout Scotland. This won't work. Scotland is only a small part of an economic system which embraces the whole world. It could never enjoy any real autonomy or self-sufficiency in the face of the world market. From day one it will be buffeted by hostile economic forces entirely beyond its control. In no time at all, Scotland will be faced with two choices—either total ruin, or the complete restoration of capitalist economics. An independent socialist Scotland would be neither independent nor socialist. "Socialism in one country" is an illusion. That is the lesson of history. If the Bolsheviks could not manage it, we fail to see how the left-nationalists could.

Socialists reject allegiance to any nation and regard themselves as citizens of the world. The  Socialist Party accepts the boundaries between states as they are (and as they may change) and work within them to win control of each with a view to abolishing them all. Our aim is the establishment of a democratic world community without frontiers based on the common ownership of the world's resources.

Bill Knox, in his book “Scottish History for Dummies” writes:

"... There is no such thing as a genetically pure native Scots: we are a hybrid people, and  the better for it...Identity is never fixed; it’s fluid and always in a state of forming and reforming  itself. In that respect, Scotland is no different to any other country...as long as the British Empire stuffed the mouths of the middle class  in Scotland with gold, the moaning was confined to a minority. Along came  war in 1914, and the moaning became even quieter as the Scots responded more enthusiastically than any other part of Britain to fight for  king and country...The cause of Nationalism didn’t really get going again until the late 1960s, in spite of the formation of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1934. Scots were content with their dual identity – after all, they had fought another world war to defend it!...The support for Nationalism declined, but it didn’t disappear. All it needed was another spark to ignite it. Step forward the best recruiting sergeant Nationalism ever had – Prime Minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher!...”

The constitutional struggle is a substitute for class struggle is at bottom the product of despair and lack of belief in real social change. People are crying out for political change. We need change. We don’t need this change. Too much time has been spent on constitutional questions while the rich consolidate their wealth and power, impose austerity and hardship and leave the planet to burn. There is a genuine belief in the possibility of change; a genuine belief that your participation means something and matters; that there is a choice about the direction of travel, and nothing can be taken for granted.

One World – One People

One world, one people, is a slogan that can be interpreted as we are all one species - which we are; able to interbreed with any other person and this one world is the only one we've got and we must share it with everybody. The slogan is meant to convey that we stand for a world solution and also that we have rejected nationalism and racism. Politics is deliberately divisive - aimed at control of the masses. But a socialist world - our aim - is striving for a world where all will have equity. One species peacefully cohabiting on its home planet.

 The World Socialist Movement is not about dreaming up a “perfect” or an “ideal” world. What is at issue is establishing a better world, where the many social problems that people face because of the way society is currently organised can be tackled with some hope of success.  It is a question of finding a practical solution to actually existing problems that have arisen at this particular moment in the history of humanity. Over the past hundred or so years 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.   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 weaponry. When the planet's resources have ceased to be the private property of nation-states, global corporations, and rich individuals, then these resources could be directed to turning out wealth to meet human needs. It may take a time to totally clear up the mess left by capitalism but people dying of hunger or from lack of medicines could be stopped immediately.  This is the practical solution to the practical problems facing humanity. This is our planet. We want it back

  We need to abolish the out-moded and old-fashioned division of the world into nation-states. Instead, we need to cooperate on a world basis to meet our material needs and energy requirements. Only in a socialist society will the community be able to make decisions about energy production which are based on what is safe and in the human interest (including our shared environment) instead of decisions based on, and limited by, economic considerations.  Just as capitalism is a world system of society, so too must socialism be. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up.

Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people, there would be various levels of democratic administration, from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals. Production for use will bring production into direct line with human needs. Without money, wages, buying and selling there will be a world of free access. Everyone will be able to contribute to society by working voluntarily, according to ability. Everyone will be able to take freely from whatever is readily available, according to self-defined needs.

The motivation for this new world comes from the common class interest of those who produce but do not possess. An important part of this motivation comes from the global problems thrown up by capitalism. The global warming problem makes a nonsense of the efforts of governments.  The problems of capitalism can only be solved within the framework of a socialist world. Climate change problems require the sort of long-term planning and development of which competitive, international capitalism is incapable.

  But this does not rule out local democracy. In fact, a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced, such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.

Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. If it is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control, then the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be a folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must, therefore, be prepared to establish "socialism" in one country or even a bloc like the European Union.

Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions, and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish "socialism" in one country would be bound to fail owing to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Recent experience in Russia, China and elsewhere shows conclusively that even capitalist states cannot detach themselves from the requirements of an integrated system of production operated through the world market. Many would reject our ideas in favour of something more "realistic", including some who call themselves socialist. They seek to solve social problems within the framework of government policies, the state machine, national frontiers. But if our analysis of capitalism as a world system is correct—and we've yet to be shown how it's wrong—the state politics are irrelevant as a way of solving social problems. Viewed globally, state politics only make sense when seen as a means for capturing political power in order to introduce a world of free access.

The 1% Scots

Oxfam found that the richest one per cent of Scots have an income of £2,608 a week, while the poorest 10 per cent scratch a living on £240 a week. The richest 10% of the Scottish population live in households with a net income of more than £912 per week.

The wealthiest 10% Scots own 9.4 times more household wealth than the bottom 40% put together.

Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland, said: "With nearly one in five people still living in poverty in Scotland, it cannot be right for the richest 1% to own more wealth than the poorest 50% put together and for income to be so unevenly shared too.

Scotland's four richest families are wealthier than the poorest 20% of the population, according to a 2015 report by Oxfam.The charity also calculated that the country's 14 wealthiest families were better off than the most deprived 30%.

There are now more people in poverty in the UK than there have been for almost 20 years and a million more than at the beginning of the decade.

 At the same time, the richest 1% of the population own 20 times more wealth than the poorest 20% – nearly 13 million people – put together. Out-of-control pay ratios in the UK mean that the average pay of FTSE100 chief executives is 129 times that of the average employee. Investors’ share of UK corporate profits has also soared to 70% from 10% in the 1970s.

Oxfam recently commissioned the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics (LSE) to explore the relationship between economic inequality and poverty in the UK. Their research clearly establishes a significant and positive correlation between income inequality and income poverty in the UK over recent decades, almost irrespective of what inequality measure is used. Put simply, the data demonstrates that since 1961, when inequality has grown so too has poverty, and vice versa.

Today, more than 1 billion people around the world still live in extreme poverty. Yet recent Oxfam research shows just eight people own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion who make up the poorest half of humanity

Ruling by Fooling

Nationalism always claims certain virtues as the peculiar, exclusive possession of certain nations. If individuals make such claims, they are laughed to scorn. With what logic can nations make such claims? Nationalism claims that the culture belonging to one nation is distinct from that belonging to any other. This was maybe so in the past, but the natural evolution of mankind is making it less so. Increased means of communication — the swift transport, the mass media, the communication and internet revolution has developed an interconnection that there is no essential difference between any one of the countries of the world. Even language is tending to become universal. More people understand each other today than ever before. Governments are coming to resemble each other. Codes of justice and ethics are becoming universal. It is only by the most artificial kind of propaganda that nationalism is kept alive. Nationalism is an unmitigated curse. It leads inevitably to national chauvinism. It leads to a blind patriotism for the particular little bit of dirt on which a particular person has been born. It leads to narrowness and bigotry, to racial jealousy and bitterness, petty pride and prejudice. In the end nationalism is the best of cloaks for the intrigues and machinations of politicians and capitalists.

Socialists are internationalists. Many who accept the pro-nationalist line simply do not know history. The correct approach is to identify the real enemy, the ruling class, and to unite workers in their material interest, not their place of birth or residence. Erecting obstacles in the way of the unity of workers has also always been the tactic of the ruling class. The self-styled “left” in Scotland serve the nationalistic and chauvinist ambitions of the national bourgeoisie. This makes them defenders of the interests of the ruling class. Workers of Scotland and Britain have a different task before them. It is to unite to resist the attacks of the bourgeoisie with greater and greater strength and eventually to oust it from power so to establish a socialist society.

 

Nationalism is based on myths and the Scots version is no exception. The signatories of the Declaration of Arbroath were asserting their claim to rule over their own tenants and serfs, not leading a liberation struggle while the  1707 Union ensured that the Scots élites retained all their traditional privileges, rather than the defeat of a nation. The clan system of the Highlands, a feudalism with large pre-feudal elements, was a huge obstacle to the development of Scots capitalism. To the Lowlander, the Highlander was a cattle-thief, not a fellow countryman.  When the threat from Highlanders receded, Scottish élites invented a national identity from the romantic idealisation of the society which they had so recently helped to destroy, all kilts and tartans. What was promoted was a picturesque Scots identity within and beyond Scotland’s boundaries. Far from being junior partners in the British Empire Scots capitalists were enormously important in the Empire’s military, police and administration.  The left-nationalists see early nineteenth century workers’ struggles as rebellions against English rule, although the workers made no such claims, and the employers were also Scots.

The Socialist Party honours Wat Tyler, John Ball, Jack Straw, and others who led peasant revolts. We stand with the soldiers who took part in the Putney debates during the Civil War. We honour the Levellers and the Diggers. We honour the Chartists, who led the struggle to make the franchise universal. We commemorate the Tolpuddle Martyrs and others early trade unionists who fought for the right of workers to combine in their own interests. These movements we have a right to be proud of, just as much as those in the radical republican movement of the United Scotsmen, the 1820 Insurrection rebels or the participants in the Crofter Wars.  It will not be a mere Scottish or British, but a global workers' revolution. It is this revolution, and only this revolution, that will be able to save the world from the environmental and social decay caused by a system based on production-for-profit, and which will be able to replace it by a system of production based on social usefulness and sharing.