Socialism Against the State

The Socialist Party is convinced that the only hope for the world lies with world socialism. In a world of sordid nationalism and populist opportunism, the cause we stand for is the world socialist cooperative commonwealth. We have noticed the spread of socialist ideas amongst the people. Yet there remains a lack of knowledge and clear thinking. There has been an influx of academics whose purpose is to cram into the heads of students at schools and universities all sorts of fallacious economic and philosophical theories and to discourage independent thinking.

On the economic battlefield, the hopelessness of the endeavour to reduce exploitation is abundantly plain. Increases in wages confessedly fail to keep pace with the rise in prices of necessities. Decreases in hours utterly fail to keep pace with the speeding-up of production and the more rapid exhaustion of the toiler. Consequently, there is as little hope in reform. We do not, however, counsel non-resistance. Far from it. That would be suicide. It would place us even more completely at the mercy of our unscrupulous exploiters. We do not preach passive acquiescence to the employing class any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the struggle for socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. For in its development we can play a more and more effective part. As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists

But it must be recognised that even though we slacken the inevitable increase in exploitation under capitalism, we are, nevertheless. still losing ground, and that victory lies not that way. Discontent is as strong now as ever it was, but it is still politically ignorant discontent. The future of humanity depends upon the revolution for socialism.   The energy of the workers must not be frittered away, as it has so often been, in futile demonstrations for utterly hopeless reforms. One thing above all others must inspire them—the need for the conquest of the world by the working class.

All the technology created by the genius of mankind is not applied for the benefit of mankind as a whole but used for the few. A socialist commonwealth would liberate the individual from all economic, political and social oppression and provide the basis, for real freedom and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative mind. Common ownership of the means of production and distribution means the end of all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. Marx said: “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority.”

 The Russian Revolution revealed the grave dangers of State capitalism. By concentrating overwhelming power in the hands of the state, it places the citizen completely at the mercy of the State. The development of State capitalism brought in its train a new ruling class – the all-powerful bureaucracy. Under State capitalism, the government derives its income automatically from the economic enterprises of the State. It thus has a tendency to escape democratic control. The State, as the owner of banking industry, agriculture and transport become the universal employer, the universal landlord. It controls everything on which the fate and happiness of the individual citizen depend. The citizen is dependent on the State as regards employment and education, food and energy, leisure and amusement, housing and transport. Under State capitalism, the State would become employer and his or her landlord, and the misery ensuing would become boundless. A system of State property, production of commodities, buying, selling, wages – in a word, State capitalism is simply labelled socialism!

 

A conflict with the State might affect the citizen as an employee, tenant, etc. This enormous power of the State over the individual citizen must needs call forth or strengthen tendencies towards a despotism. State capitalism does not solve any of the deep-rooted social problems. It does not abolish crises, the classes, the wage system. Under State capital, sm there is production of commodities for exchange, not production for use. Between production and consumption there still remains the wall of buying and selling. In the one-party state the elections are a mockery. There can be no other candidates except those put forward by the one party. The word “election” loses its meaning as there is no selection, no choice. All the elector is called upon to do is to endorse the official candidate. He or she may decline to do so by abstaining from voting or by spoiling the ballot paper. When Marx coined the expression “dictatorship of the proletariat,” he had in view a democratically-elected body using coercive measures against an obstructive minority during a short transitional peril after a Revolution. Lenin perverted this clear meaning into dictatorship of one proletarian party. In the course of events in Russia party dictatorship narrowed down into the dictatorship first of the Executive Committee, then of the latter’s political bureau, finally of its general secretary – Stalin.

The mission of upholding human culture and rebuilding society on a basis of social justice to-day rests with the global socialist movement.

RBS Exporting Jobs

The  Royal Bank of Scotland plans to cut 334 jobs and offshore more jobs to India, the Unite union said.

 The bank plans to cut jobs within technology in areas including Finance Solutions, Risk Solutions, Natwest Markets Technology and Digital Engineering Services, among others, Unite said in a statement calling the cuts "unjustified".

"Unite cannot understand how RBS, which continues to be taxpayer backed, can justify hundreds more staff cuts and continue transferring important work out of the country," Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said. "Unite has called on RBS to halt the offshoring announcements and impose a moratorium on the offshoring of jobs."

In February, chief executive Ross McEwan ordered a £2bn four-year cost-cutting drive involving job losses and branch closures. Last month the bank, which is 72%-owned by the UK government, posted its first quarterly profit since Sept 2015. RBS said then that its cost-cutting plan for 2017 was ahead of schedule, with 37% of the planned £750m of cuts achieved.

The love for the land of your birth is absurd

"There is nothing more absurd and at the same time more harmful, more deadly, for the people than to uphold the fictitious principle of nationalism as the ideal of all the people's aspirations. Nationality is not a universal human principle; it is a historic, local fact. ... We should place human, universal justice above all national interests."  Bakunin

Nationalism remains one of the main features of the capitalist societies. The capitalists have used the tool of division many times. Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realise that nationalism is too narrow and limited a concept to meet the necessities of our time.  Presently, people are divided into “nations” and “peoples.” Our goal is to make all people see that these separations distract them from uniting with each other. There is only one humankind. The love of one’s “own” nation—for any reason—is the exact opposite of the political solidarity amongst all people we want to achieve. Patriotism and international solidarity are mutually exclusive. Nationalists will, sooner or later, turn out to be our opponents as their goal is, in the end, not the liberation of all. For people without a passport of the country they live in, stateless asylum seekers, for instance, the concept of “nation” is all the more repressive,

Instead of promoting the unity of all working people against the entire capitalist class – English and Scottish alike – the SNP and their left-wing fellow-travellers play right into the hands of the native capitalists. Instead of working towards class unity, they pushed the collaboration of Scottish workers with “their” capitalists. The Socialist Party rebuts all manifestations of nationalist ideology and at the same time we expose the hypocrisy of the SNP and show fellow-workers that their real friends are their class brothers in England and Wales and around the world and not Scot's capitalists who are after more political power just to get richer off the backs of the working class. Through our work, we are showing working people of all nations that the only way to end oppression and exploitation is to unite in the fight for socialism. Only when the socialist and working class movements become fused into one indestructible whole, a world socialist party, can a conscious class struggle for the emancipation of the working class be waged. The central issue of politics in Scotland today is how to shackle the powerful organisations workers have built up to the priorities of Scottish capital by enlisting the leaders of workers’ organisations to the cause of the ‘national interest’. Did we not in the 2014 referendum witness Colin Fox, moderator of the SSP, collaborate with a hedge fund manager in a demonstration of class collaboration?

 The Socialist Party offers up a vision of a future for a humanity free of national prejudice and chauvinism. All the talk in the world about “unity” is so much clap-trap, unless it is clearly stated what the workers are to unite for.  Let all those who talk so glibly about “unity” take note that, as the fundamental problem confronting the workers is how to get rid of their exploitation and poverty, the basis for the organisation of the workers, must be the ending of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. The Socialist Party insists that the first step to unite the working class is to teach the workers that socialism is their only real hope. The Socialist Party believes in waging a class war — fighting for the working class against the wealthy classes who exploit their labour for profit, and ultimately fighting for a society where class does not exist. Most of the time, this is not a literal war and does not involve physical violence, but rather involves other forms of actions, a battle of ideas. We link our support to the emancipatory aims that we fight for with arguments.  We don’t have anything in common with people whose critique of capitalism consists of making bankers personally responsible for all evils caused by it, nor with those who want to sustain an imaginary “purity of race,” or those who only dislike dominance when it is exercised by the wrong people for we have no problem with “foreign” domination, but with domination per se.  Why confine our discussion within the borders we fight against when we feel a lot closer to a trade-unionist in Korea than to a religious bigot in Kilmarnock? Capitalism’s influence is a global one. The socialism we struggle for, which will finally have production follow needs, is unthinkable to establish in a single country. It would take little time any attempt at setting up conditions for a better life for all to be thwarted. And in a world economy based on the division of labour, one would have to support the policies of competition and exchange to gain access to things one could not produce or harvest in one’s own region.

The most common objection we hear to our position of being anti-nationalist is that, in the end, this is “our country” as well. Part of this is true: people as residents of a certain country do own the respective country’s passport or other official documents, making them “legal” residents. So when they don‘t manage to find a job, it is the authority of “their country” that harasses or even criminalises them. It is “their” country which offers a world full of competition, which provides education in schools either in an understanding way, or just by hammering it into you that to make it in this society you have to struggle. All because your “own state” must compete against other nations, and unfortunately, you are all dependent on its economic success on the world market. And when times are tight, like in the current crisis, you are called upon to sacrifice “for the good of the nation,” which has in fact never done you any good. And once “your country” decides another country be the “enemy,” you will be the one to shoot others or be shot.  Thank you very much for the privilege of belonging to a country! We don’t need a nation. We think the logic that “our enemy’s enemy is our friend” is illogical.

Nationalism is a choice: You may either follow the national government blindly, or you may think for yourself. You may embrace the flag in times of war and peace when the army marches in defence of “national interests”. Or you may look behind the flag and see who is trying to pull your strings and manipulate your emotions. As to defence of “our” country, we should consider, before we side with the oil barons and arms dealers who helped shape the Middle East as it is today who ultimately are responsible whether our interests really lie with them, or whether they are just as much our enemy as the Islamic fanatics.

NO WAR BETWEEN NATIONS, NO PEACE BETWEEN CLASSES!

What Is A Nation?

Throughout April there has been a ton of patriotic vomit spewed out by the media while they "commemorated'', the centenary of the battle of Vimy Ridge in which 11,285 soldiers in Canadian regiments died. They call it, ''The Birth of a Nation'', oblivious to the fact that most of the troops were British born, and justify it on the grounds it ended Canada's status as a junior partner in Britain's economic scheme of things. What it really meant at the time was the Capitalist Class in Canada proved they could be useful to their British overlords and were upgraded. After all, what would all those deaths mean if they died pursuing the interests of the Great God Profit?

So this is what has to be done to become a nation. This begs the question, ''What is a Nation? - the answer being in the political sense, it is a means whereby a minority of the population in a given area do well at the expense of the minority. Since that is the case, and events like Vimy Ridge is the way to becoming one, is it worth having nations? 

How about a world where the weren't any. 

Steve and John.

Let it blossom

We need little proof of the barbarity of capitalism, the parasitical system that exploits humanity and nature alike. Capitalism is the enemy of nature and of labour alike. Its sole motor is the imperative toward profit and thus the need for constant growth. It wastefully creates unnecessary products, squandering the environment's limited resources and returning to it only toxins and pollutants. Under capitalism, the only measure of success is how much more is sold every day, every week, every year – involving the creation of vast quantities of products that are directly harmful to both humans and nature, commodities that cannot be produced without spreading disease, destroying the forests that produce the oxygen we breathe, demolishing ecosystems, and treating our water, air and soil like sewers for the disposal of industrial waste. Capitalism's need for growth exists on every level, from the individual enterprise to the system as a whole. The insatiable hunger of corporations is facilitated by militarist expansion in search of ever greater access to natural resources, cheap labour and new markets. Capitalism has always been ecologically destructive, but in our lifetimes these assaults on the earth have accelerated. Left unchecked, global warming will have devastating effects on human, animal and plant life. Crop yields will drop drastically, leading to famine on a broad scale. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by droughts in some areas and by rising ocean levels in others. Chaotic, unpredictable weather will become the norm. Air, water, and soil will be poisoned. Epidemics of malaria, cholera and even deadlier diseases will hit the poorest and most vulnerable members of every society.

Ecological devastation, resulting from the insatiable need to increase profits, is not an accidental feature of capitalism: it is built into the system's DNA and cannot be reformed away. Profit-oriented production only considers a short-term horizon in its investment decisions, and cannot take into account the long-term health and stability of the environment. Infinite economic expansion is incompatible with finite and fragile ecosystems, but the capitalist economic system cannot tolerate limits on growth; its constant need to expand will subvert any limits that might be imposed in the name of “sustainable development.” Thus the inherently unstable capitalist system cannot regulate its own activity, much less overcome the crises caused by its chaotic and parasitical growth, because to do so would require setting limits upon accumulation – an unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die! Mankind cannot serve two masters – the integrity of the planet and the profitability of capitalism. One must be abandoned. History leaves little question about the allegiances of the vast majority of present-day policy-makers. The reforms over the past thirty-five years have been a monstrous failure. Isolated improvements do of course occur, but they are inevitably overwhelmed and swept away by the ruthless expansion of the system and the chaotic character of its production. In order to affirm and sustain our human future, a revolutionary transformation is needed, where all particular struggles take part in a greater struggle against capital itself. This larger struggle cannot remain merely negative and anti-capitalist. It must announce and build a different kind of society, and this is socialism.

Socialism is not a utopia with which reality should comply. It is the reasoned human answer to the social problems in which humanity is now locked because of the modes of production and consumption of our times which are exhausting human beings and the environment. This calls for radical thinking and political action, in the sense that we must go to the root causes.  Capitalism imposes the commodification of everything for new sources of profit. It is, therefore, responsible for poverty, the widening gap in inequality and the environmental damage to ecosystems.  Socialism is all about founding a new economy based on real needs and not the accumulation of capital and expanding growth to make increased profits. Socialism has always sought the emancipation of the human being. This implies the sharing of the wealth produced and the democratisation of power. This remains the project of the Socialist Party. We reject the deception of an economics that advocates reform of capitalism by legislation and regulation. Socialism wants to put the economic and productive systems at the service of human needs. Socialism challenges the dictatorship of the private and state ownership of the means of production. Socialism involves a revolutionary social transformation, which will replace exchange-value with use-value.

The Socialist Party advocates the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. We propose a steady-state economy where is no point in working longer than necessary to produce what we need. The time thus freed could be usefully allocated to activities now considered as unproductive which are nevertheless essential to good living by working less and working better. Our goal requires that the largest number of people be involved in political action. It is a question of gathering and acting together. We stand alongside the workers and those excluded by the system. The struggle of labour – workers, farmers, the landless and the unemployed – for social justice is inseparable from the struggle for socialism.  Economic planning requires the control of citizens, workers, and consumers. The problem is not industry, research or the technology in

themselves, but the lack of choice and control by citizens. Socialism cannot emerge from decisions dictated from above.  We want neither an enlightened intellectual avant-garde nor a vanguard political elite. This requires that the socialist parliamentary majorities combine their efforts with popular movements involved in all domains of life in society. A people's revolution is needed to conquer this capacity of control.  Decisions taken on one side on the planet have repercussions everywhere else.  This reclaiming of political and civic initiatives by every person, in order to determine where the general interest lies, everywhere and on every issue, is what we call a social revolution. It is a social revolution because it intends to change the forms of ownership, the institutional system and the hierarchy of legal, social and environmental standards which organise both society and the economy.  Only collective decision-making and common ownership of production can offer the perspective that is necessary for the balance and sustainability of our social and natural systems. It intends to empower every person, not in the interest of a particular class but for the good of all humans.

If capitalism remains the dominant social order, the best we can expect is unbearable climate conditions, an intensification of social crises and the spread of the most barbaric forms of class rule, as the imperialist powers fight among themselves for continued control of the world's diminishing resources. At worst, human life may not survive. Humanity today faces a stark choice: socialism or barbarism. 

Dig For Victory

During WWII Edinburgh embraced the wartime Dig for Victory campaign to combat food shortages. By the height of WWII, the city had given over almost 300 acres for cultivation. War had a big impact on the world’s food.

 Before the Second World War Britain imported approximately 55 million tonnes, or 3/4 of the country's food by ship each year. In England and Wales arable acreage was about 9 million; whereas 16 million acres were under grass and a further 5 ½ million was “rough grazing” (once reasonable pasture). One acre of permanent grass (for animal fodder) fed 1 or 2 people; one acre sown with wheat fed 20 people, and one acre sown with potatoes fed 40 people. Nationally, some 6 ½ million new acres were ploughed up between 1939 and 1944. Harvests of wheat, barley and potatoes increased by over 100%; milking cows increased by 300,000; other cattle by 400,000. This was at the expense of fewer sheep, pigs and poultry but enabled the country to completely reverse its reliance on foreign food. In terms of calories, the net output had been quadrupled by 1943-44. By the end of the war, food imports had been reduced from 22 million to 11 million tons and Britain was producing well over 60% of its food. This was despite losing nearly 100,000 skilled male farm workers, who went off to fight, and thanks to the 117,000 women who replaced them. From 815,000 allotments in 1939 the number rose to 1,400,000 by 1943. allotments were estimated to contribute some 1.3 million tonnes of food produce.

Experts from The Botanic Gardens were dispatched to issue advice to growers. 512 allotments sprung up across The Meadows, with a concentration of gardeners working on the east side of the park. Allotments also appearing in Balgreen Park, Bruntsfield Links and Joppa Quarry with parts of Craigentinny Golf Course also turned over to vegetable production. Allotment holders were encouraged to grow crops such as leeks and kale, with a drive for gardeners to plant potatoes in 1948 as wartime rationing continued to pinch households.

The number of allotments fell away in Scotland following the end of WWII from around 90,000 at the peak of the Dig for Victory campaign to 36,000 plots.

A key part of a socialist society would be a serious reduction in the working week and there would be the release of land from commerce. This would free up large quantities of time for participation in newly available allotments.

McGovern is Amazed (1937)

In the recent by-election at Springburn, Glasgow, at which the Labour Party candidate, Mrs. Hardie, was elected, Mr. McGovern, M.P., advised the members of the I.L.P. to refrain from voting. One of his reasons was that, although the Labour Party claims to be Socialist, the word "Socialism" was never mentioned once in Mrs. Hardie's election address (The Times, September 7th, 1937). Now, it would indeed by remarkable if a Socialist Party were to run candidates on a non-Socialist programme. Actually what has happened is not at all remarkable since it comes from the Labour Party, which is not Socialist. Where can Mrs. Hardie have learned this trick? Perhaps she learned it from her old acquaintance, Miss Jennie Lee. In 1928 Miss Lee was elected at a by-election at North Lanark. She was the I.L.P.’s nominee and they financed her. Her election address not only contained no reference to Socialism, direct or indirectly, but she did not even mention the I.L.P. or her membership of it. Mr. McGovern should see her about it.

Incidentally, he should also recall that it was the I.L.P. which reduced to a fine art the practice of pretending to be Socialist but running as candidates of the Labour Party on a non-Socialist programme. How else does he suppose that some 200 of its members got themselves into Parliament at the 1929 General Election? Mr. McGovern himself first got into Parliament as the candidate of the Labour Party, which he knew was not a Socialist Party.

It is true that Mr. McGovern and his associates in the Independent Labour Party now include at least the words “Socialism" and “Socialist” in their election addresses, but they have made little other change. Votes are still solicited on every kind of reform; which means that the candidates know quite well that they are dependent on the votes of non-Socialists.

It is reported that Glasgow members and branches of the I.L.P. are returning to the Labour Party because they disapprove of Mr. McGovern’s action in advising them not to vote for the Labour candidate.

We are all migrants.

"The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of the self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor German nor English; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to him is neither French nor English nor German; it is a few feet under the ground." - Marx

One of the weapons of the master class in its armoury is its ability to camouflage the reality of the exploiter/exploited class relation, disguising it with religion, race, gender, and nationalism. Nationalism is manufactured to provide the pretence that we are all “free.”  Nationalism was created to reinforce the state by providing it with the loyalty of a people of shared linguistic, ethnic, and cultural affinities. And if these shared affinities do not exist, the state will create them by centralising education in its own hands, imposing as “official” language and attempting to lessen any deep cultural differences from the people's within its borders. This can clearly be seen in Scottish history. The state pre-empts the autonomy of localities and peoples and in the name of “nation”.  The nationalism in Scotland is as artificial as anywhere else.

When the capitalists tell us we are “all in it together” they are duping us into defence of their material interests. The SNP plays to different audiences, in one role they are the populist socialist opposition and in the other, less public, they are the friend to big business.Scottish independence is just a diversion from the real struggle – the class war. The nationalists mislead us with romantic myths that ‘We’re different up here’; that Scotland as a consequence of distant historic struggles for power involving medieval robber barons like Bruce and Wallace supposedly imbues its inhabitants with something meaningful, something that transcends the reality of a working class that alone produces all wealth and is international, and a capitalist class that expropriates most of that wealth. Workers in Britain, Brazil or Bangladesh have their exploitation and real interests in common, and nothing in common with the capitalist interests and functionaries and land owners that exploit them. There is only one socialist response to nationalism – Stuff it. The real issue for the world’s workers is that they face an increasingly dire future under whichever capitalist regime rules us. The world capitalist crisis has seen living standards falling across the planet since the 2008 recession emerged. It is not surprising that there has been a rise of nationalist and populist movements who all claim that the “old parties” are to blame. They want us to believe that they can manage capitalism better, that they can magically escape the effect of the global economy. Our only hope lies in getting rid of the capitalist system that produces misery and such abominations as hunger, disease, and war.

Would an independent Scotland be much different for most people who would still be powerless economically and socially? Look around the world at all the many nation-states in existence, and see the same differences in power, influence, and wealth restricting self-determination for working class people, even if they are free “nationally”. The formation of new nation-states can no more put an end to imperialism than the formation of new businesses can put an end to capitalism. "Dominate or be dominated" is as much the logic of competition between nation-states as between corporations.  The logic of the nation-state system is similar to that of competition in the sphere of production. The world's productive forces are divided into competing businesses where each can survive at the cost of another. Nationalism is nowhere a recipe for the well-being of the masses.

A society where 'profits' are the main driving force and the gap between rich and poor keeps widening is unstable.  So the employing class has to come up with a strategy to push through their cuts and at the same time deal with our anger and discontent. Therefore it is no coincidence that in this situation we witness the re-emergence of nationalism: to divide-and-rule, politicians of most parties blame the 'immigrants' for the miserable situation, but at the same time they announce that they will squeeze 'their local workers' even harder (e.g. through more zero-hours contracts and making it even more difficult to go on strike) Nationalism plays a role where we work. Many of us were not born in the UK, we speak different languages. On the job some of us might feel closer to our 'English', 'Polish' or 'Indian' manager, than to the 'foreign' person who works next to them - also because we hope that by sticking to 'our' manager we will get an advantage over other workers. BUT companies are able to use divisions and stereotypes to make us compete against each other and ultimately make more profits for themselves. We need to keep our eyes on our real class enemies.

Working people turn towards the nation (state) mainly to 'protect our jobs'. But we have to question why there are 'jobs' and 'a limited number of jobs' in the first place. 'Jobs' are created by those with money and resources, only if the jobs create more money for them. They and their market decide what jobs we do - and most of these jobs only relate to money-making: advertising, financial services, securing the wealth of the rich. If we would all just work to produce what we need for a living (houses, nice clothes, good food, funny little gadgets), then we could just share out the work equally. If we didn't have to sell our time and energy to them for money, a lot of 'unemployment' would actually be a good thing. Why? Because it would mean fewer people are necessary to produce what we need: everyone could work less and we'd have more time to do other things that make us happy. But here and now we just look and compete for jobs, because we need money, and they create jobs only if they can make more money off us. Down with their jobs, down with their unemployment. Today in the capitalist system, the introduction of new technology and its higher productivity creates the unemployment, the increased competition, and the pay cuts. The bosses keep the threat of unemployment over our heads to keep us obedient and divided. It does not need any migrant workers for this to happen - it is the normal functioning of the system. Closing our borders would not help. When the steel industry in Scotland began to close down, Scots followed the work to Corby. We are all migrants.

Socialism is the self-liberation of working class people, by their own efforts, creating and using their own organisations. There can be no separation of political, social and economic struggles. Socialists do not disdain cultural diversity nor confuse it with nationalism or patriotism. That various peoples should wish to celebrate their own traditions is not merely a right but desirable. The world would be a drab place indeed if the rich mosaic of different cultures did not replace the homogenised world created by modern capitalism. 

They Are Rich Because We Are Poor

Protest is not enough. We need a vision.  Is now the time to retreat on our big ideas? Is it time to soften our demands? Now is a moment that calls for a radical imagination of what’s possible. Let’s turn protest power into political power and people power. The days of accepting the lesser-of-two-evil politics are over. We have to build a class-conscious movement if we want to win. And they know if we do that, they will lose – and that is exactly why those in charge work so hard to divide us. It is time to move the struggle from defence to offence. In the shadow of every current catastrophe, forces of global renewal and creating a non-violent planetary society are taking shape. We have a realistic chance to make this happen in the near future.  Human beings are able to manifest whatever they believe in, whatever they can envision. This applies to every area of life. Why not apply this power to establishing world socialism? 

Around the world today, there is a suffering that compels us to make a profound change in our own ways of thinking. 250 million children are currently living in war zones. 50 million children are refugees, searching for a new home. Humanity is faced with an apocalyptic situation. We stand on the brink of global catastrophe, or, on the other hand, the beginning of a new civilisation. The lives of billions of human beings will depend on your choice. We can offer our children, and our children’s children, a future worth living, if we take an active part in the transformation of the economic structure of the planet. Can we imagine new communities that might arise where people a grow up where there is no fear and no hostility among human beings, a world where people practice solidarity and care for one another?  Can we imagine a world, in which the concept of class enmity has been made obsolete? We already possess the knowledge to put it into practice.

A global network is arising with the goal of bringing these thoughts into reality – the World Socialist Movement. We feel that such a world could exist and that we could manifest it if we agree together to do so. We’re talking about planetary system-change - in every community and in every individual. Every rural commune and every urban neighbourhood, will transform themselves into a network of interconnected and interdependent but basically autonomous communities. A bottom-up democratic based society waiting to happen.  All that's missing is the will and determination to usher in a whole new way to live in peace without all of the demonic trappings of capitalism. The time's now.

 The remedy is so simple, and the method more simple still. The cause of poverty is the ownership of the means and instruments of wealth production by the capitalist class. The remedy, therefore, is to dispossess that class of its ownership. It maintains its ownership by virtue of its political control. Its economic domination would cease the moment that the working class captured the political machinery that sends the police and the soldiers against them. Curiously enough, the working class never seem to discover that it is they who gratuitously give the capitalists the power to enslave them every time they go to the ballot-box! It is obvious, then, that the method of recapturing political control is going back to the ballot-box and voting for socialists. 

Homes for Holidays but not for People

Research suggests that about half the homes in the EH1 postcode will be holidays lets by 2050.

There is now a growing trend in Edinburgh for people to buy up properties which they will never live in themselves but instead, use them for holiday lets.

Dundee - Scotland's Orchard City

Dundee is undergoing huge changes culturally and socially. To younger generations, berry or tattie picking may be an alien concept, but the practice was once a key part of seasonal life locally as well as across Scotland. The area has an existing connection to orchards — which originated in the Carse of Gowrie around 800 years ago as part of farms and granges owned by monasteries — and you have a rich heritage of food cultivation upon which to build.

 Slessor Gardens is where Dundee Urban Orchard (also known as DUO) is encouraging everyone to forage in their edible garden and orchard – for free. Anyone can come here and enjoy the herbs and fruit free of charge. The small-scale orchard is one of 25 across the city, all planted by DUO in a project which began three years ago. The idea behind the project is to raise awareness of “food sustainability” and “food justice”.

“Food poverty is a huge issue in Dundee,” explains Jonathan, as he tends an apple tree, sporting stunning pink and white blossom. “In an ideal world, there would be no food banks; there’d be more community gardens and orchards like this, so we’re doing what we can to make changes and bring awareness to these problems...we’re trying to support the social and emotional well-being in the city by offering a celebratory response to the local and global problem of food poverty. It’s an open invitation to everyone to come here and enjoy the space and when the fruit is ripe, to harvest and eat the produce.”

Three of DUO’s orchards supply fruit and vegetables to food banks, including the Giving Garden project at Menzieshill Parish Church, which grows lots of vegetables and has eight apple trees. Other sites DUO work with include Ninewells Community Garden, Maxwell Community Garden, Camperdown Wildlife Garden and the “Art-Science Orchard” linking the DCA and Dundee Science Centre.

“A large proportion of the food available in Dundee has travelled long distances and is purchased in packaged or processed form from supermarket shelves,” says DUO co-founder Sarah Gittins , “When we lose our connection to food, we lose a sense of what sustains us and this effects our care for one another and the planet.”

An Epidemic Waiting To Happen.

March 22 was clean water day, in which UNICEF brought to peoples attention that more than 3 billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation systems. Globally at least 1.8 billion use a drinking water source contaminated by faeces and half of the world's population will be living in water-stressed areas by 2025. The water problem is particularly serious in Africa's largest City Lagos, Nigeria, a City of 21 million. According to one community leader, "when we fetch water it foams and smells like petrol and detergent were poured into it." Obviously, the problem is compounded by one of the most disgusting aspects of life under Capitalism in the 20th and 21st centuries, the growth of Mega-cities. In cities such as Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Cape Town and Lagos, millions live in shanty towns, where there is no sanitation and clean drinking water. Somehow we can't imagine the capitalist class using the wealth they've worked so hard to steal, putting in sewers and water lines for the residents of a shanty town.

Be that as it may, nevertheless they wouldn't have to. In 2011, the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, announced a competition to invent a toilet that did not need a sewer connection, or electricity and cost less than 5 cents per user per day. The winner was an entry from Caltech that uses photovoltaic cells to power an electro-chemical reactor that treats human waste, producing clean water for flushing or irrigation and hydrogen that can be stored in fuel cells. The system is entirely self-contained; it has no need for an electrical grid, a sewer line or a treatment RiverBlue2016 2 facility. The only input the toilet requires, beyond sunlight and human waste, as simple table salt which is oxidized to make chlorine to disinfect the water. 

So once again, capitalism rises to the technical challenge, but will the toilets be used in shanty towns? It's doubtful because it will still cost the capitalists money to put them there; money they won't see a return on, no matter how cheap they are to use. So once again, capitalism fails the social challenge. It should be obvious to anyone that a shanty town is an epidemic waiting to happen and sooner or later it will. 

Steve and John.

Nationalism - Strong against the Weak, Weak against the Strong

Nationalism is a sign of fear. The bosses are confronted with a possibility that workers everywhere around the globe who have to fight under increasingly similar conditions and who are now moving around will recognise the global nature of the companies and industries so employers and the state use migration in order to play us off against each other; on the company level and beyond. It was no surprise that the normally anti-strike right-wing press applauded the “native” workers at the Lyndsey oil refinery in 2009 when they went out on strike against the employment of Portuguese. The tabloids gleefully featured front page pictures of strikers on picket lines clutching "British jobs for British workers" placards. Less was written by the newspapers about the weakness of the trade unions in the face of their bosses  who blamed the traditional militancy of the engineering construction workers in the UK which led to the necessity to use of overseas workers.

If workers use their various experiences of having lived and fought in different countries they can become stronger. Workers worldwide know enough now about how to get rid of the bosses and politicians, who profit from us. We possess the knowledge and the power to create something better. Nationalism has been transcended by the need for working class emancipation. Since workers have a common interest to overthrow capitalism and establish a free association based on common ownership and democratic control of the economy, national liberation is no longer a desired objective. Capitalism is global, international and has effectively destroyed national boundaries--as far as its interests are concerned. The ruling class has maintained the illusion of nation states in order to better control the flow of the most basic commodity: labour. capitalist and their politicians are constantly preoccupied with "safeguarding" their national borders because the uncontrolled movement of workers and other commodities can give some sectors of their class disproportionate advantage over others. They enlist the support of indigenous workers by convincing them that newly arrived foreign workers threaten their livelihood or otherwise undermine access to social services. They, the capitalists, seem not to mind it too much when foreign capitalists come to the U.S. to invest in their economy.

Workers everywhere are better served when they fight to break down borders, not when they help create new ones. Setting up an independent state in a capitalist world of state is not anti-imperialist. Such a state always falls under the influence of a bigger bloc of states such as Scotland with the EU. The rise of nationalism cannot be separated from the crisis of the enormous vacuum on the left, which leaves those who preach nationalism (or religious fundamentalism) with little socialist competition.

National unity is class collaborationist. Socialism can only ever be won by the working class. nationalist movements - no matter what their rhetoric - are no substitute. hence the idea of them moving us "closer to socialism" is misconceived.  The only "independence" offered by capitalism is the wonderful autonomy granted by the market (i.e. none at all) no matter what flag happens to fly over the places of exploitation. The idea of the division of humanity into nations is etched into people’s consciousness under capitalism. If one national state fails them, the easiest thing is to turn to the idea of creating a different national state. It seems so much more “practical” to rearrange the pieces on the board than to build an entirely new sort of society.  Nationalism makes sense so long as there is not a challenge to the system as a whole.

The ruling class, using nationalism, has side-tracked the aspirations of the working class.  National independence is by no means the liberation of workers.   National capitalists want a bigger slice of the profits from the exploitation of workers. Nationalist capitalists have little political and economic force and cannot take power without the mass support of the working class. That’s why it resorts to all sorts of demagogy to the effect that it will “liberate” the workers (whom it would force to pay the price for “independence”). The “Left-nationalists” contribute nothing but division and confusion as they ally themselves with the little bosses to reach a larger audience. One of the reasons the left is in such poor shape to deal with nationalist challenges is that it does not understand these things.  Pro-nationalists are driven by their desire to find a special explanation for the oppression of minorities. The class struggle is not enough; there must be a “national struggle” as well.  Nationalist theories merely isolate people in their struggle against exploitation.  Only socialism, in removing the material basis of nationalism and racism, the discrimination and exploitation of some workers in the competition for jobs, can achieve equality between different sections of the working class.World socialism cannot be achieved by the adding to nation-states, but by opposition to them all. 

The problems of Scottish workers will not be solved in the framework of an independent capitalist state. Socialists have to understand the only way to bring workers of different nationalities together is to insist on free association. Internationalism does not mean identification with existing states.  The fate of Scot's workers is irrevocably bound up with the fate of the rest of Britain's workers. Socialism is the order of the day. A socialist British Isles as part of a socialist world is the future. Members of the Socialist Party are not proud of their nationality. They are proud of the denial of their nationality. Socialists do not stand for the protection and promotion of their “own” national culture, but for the integration of all that is best in every culture into a new human culture. 

The working class is the only class capable of overthrowing the capitalist system. For this there needs to be a genuinely socialist party. Only a solid working-class base can accomplish the socialist revolution. The Socialist Party opposes all nationalism. With this opposition, we are not alone. For many people, they identify with their home country which they call patriotism. Indeed, in the debate around the referendum for Scottish independence the “Yes” campaign was repeatedly accused of being nationalist, whereas somehow unionists did not have to answer the same accusation of being British nationalists. Some people might reject mainstream or right-wing nationalism as oppressive but posit the “real nation” or local “community” against it. When members of the Socialist Party oppose nationalism we oppose the nationalist segmentation of humanity into different peoples. The Socialist Party aims to win all workers to fight the source of their exploitation.   

The world belongs to all and to none

The capitalist economy works according to certain economic laws which no government or legislative body can over-ride. So the argument about sovereignty is not really about what the constitution may or may not say. It's about the effective power that a capitalist state can exercise within the capitalist economy. Capitalism has always existed within a framework of competing states, none of which is strong enough to impose its will on all the others. States, as weapons in the hands of rival groups of capitalists, intervene to further the interests of the capitalists that control them. They do this by using state power to set up protected markets, raw materials sources, trade routes and investment outlets. In normal times their weapons are tariffs, taxes, quotas, export rebates and other economic measures. When they judge that their vital interest is at stake their weapons are . . . weapons. They go to war. The extent to which a capitalist state can distort the world market in favour of its capitalists depends both on its industrial strength and on the amount of armed force at its disposal. This is why all states are under pressure to acquire the most up-to-date and destructive armaments that they can afford. In the jungle world of capitalism, might is right. "Sovereignty"—the margin of independent decision-making that a state has—also depends on might. Over the years capitalism has become more and more international, more and more globalised. This has tended to reduce the margin of maneuver open to states, i.e. has reduced their "sovereignty". 


The sovereignty argument is really an argument within the capitalist class as to whether they should give up some of the might of their state to be able to benefit from the greater might of a larger grouping.  Those who voted Brexit believe that a capitalist Britain would be better off going it alone.  But Theresa May realises that Britain can't really go it alone, but has to be associated with some larger grouping. Now their argument is about which this should be: America or Asia or the Commonwealth rather than the EU. As socialists, we don't take sides in this inter-capitalist argument. Let the capitalist class and their parties and supporters settle the matter for themselves. A siege economy is no way out of the global capitalist crisis. In fact, there is no way out for workers other than socialism which, because capitalism is already a global system, has to be world-wide too. In the meantime, we continue to campaign for the establishment of a world society without nations or borders and where the resources of the Earth are used to produce the things we need to live and to enjoy life for us to take directly. Our objective is a world community based on common ownership and democratic control of the world's resources with production to satisfy people's needs, not profit.


In practice, national sovereignty has been deeply undermined – first of all, by the emergence of a global economy dominated by huge transnational corporations. International financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization and IMF have largely taken over economic policy making. Indebtedness leaves many states with merely the formal husk of independence. Some groups of states have “pooled” part of their sovereignty in supranational regional institutions. The prime example is the European Union.  The fragmentation of states is a natural corollary of the globalisation of capital. From the point of view of the transnational corporations, states no longer have important policy-making functions. It is enough if they enforce property rights and maintain basic infrastructure in areas important for business. Small states can do these jobs as well as large ones. In fact, they have definite advantages. They are more easily controlled, less likely to develop the will or capacity to challenge the prerogatives of global capital.


Global versus national capitalism has emerged as an important divide in world politics. This divide exists, first of all, within the capitalist class of individual countries. Thus, even in the US, the citadel of globalisation, some capitalists such as Trump supporters are oriented toward the home market and favour national capitalism. And in Russia some capitalists support globalisation. The pattern of political forces differs from country to country.


Being against capitalist globalisation is not the same as being against capitalism in general. We have ample past experience of a world of competing national capitalisms – quite enough to demonstrate that there is no good reason for preferring such a world to a world under the sway of global capital. The main problem with the movement against globalisation is that it can be mobilized so easily in the interests of national capital, whatever the intentions of its supporters.  Socialism is an alternative form of globalisation – a globalisation of human community that abolishes capital.

Have you ever mailed a letter from part of the world to another and wondered how from a pillar-box in the street to the letter-box of a house in another continent, it gets there?

Have you ever flown from one part of the world to another and wondered about all that air-space you pass through which requires air traffic control to permit a safe journey?

Or how WHO and FAO can mobilise all these NGOs to combat epidemics and famines.

Have you never ever requested a book from your library who then borrow it from another library to provide it to you?

World co-operation already exists in many areas of our life and we are awash with international organisations and professional bodies and business/trade associations that co-ordinate and keep one another informed of facts and developments. 

As often explained when we establish socialism, it is not a blank page beginning but building upon what already exists in a myriad of forms. We take what exists and transform them, sometimes this will be a very minimal change that is required, while in other cases it will need more fundamental adaptations.  Every army in the world has an engineering corps equipped with all sorts of heavy construction equipment and with trained personnel, capable of laying bridges, building roads and runways, constructing barracks and bases, every army has a transport corps to support supplies and logistics, every army has a medical corp and signals corps capable of creating communication across wildernesses - why should they be made redundant and not deployed for peaceful means.

People are becoming increasingly aware that national sovereignty in regards to global problems such as climate change is meaningless. They will charge their local and regional organisations that have grown into the expression of their wishes with the task to co-ordinate and co-operate with all others of like mind well in advance of the revolutionary moment of assuming political power. So the real beginning is the creation of the One Big Union, the One Socialist Party out of the 200 odd workers organisations in each country and from that to their world-wide restructuring...industrial workers of the world and the world socialist party. Workers across the world experience poverty and violence to some extent on a daily basis – it is the common bond that transcends national boundaries. This feature of our class-based society, an inevitable result of the social relation of the worker to capital. The principles underlying socialism, whilst not offering an immediate panacea, do address all the issues of the rights of all individuals, “by the conversion into the common property of society the means of production and distribution and their democratic control by the whole people.” Unlike the UN and numerous international agreements, multilateral accords and protocols which are repeatedly undermined by one or more powerful states consistently overruling decisions and agreements, the ethic of socialism is rooted in the people.

Are Orange Politicians Honest?

The Socialist Courier blog notes that the Orange Lodge Scotland twitter congratulates those Orangemen who were voted in as local councillors.

We wonder if they announced their membership at any of their public meetings or in their campaign leaflets.

We wonder whether they stood as independents or as candidates for a political party, and if the latter, does that party endorse the ideas and practices of the Orange Lodge.

The Robots Are Coming...

Nearly half of Scottish jobs could be carried out by machines in just over 10 years' time, a new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland warned. It said 46% of jobs - about 1.2 million - were at "high risk" of automation in the period up to 2030.

The report also explained that, by then, adults are "more likely to be working longer, and will often have multiple jobs with multiple employers and in multiple careers."

A Child or Youth Shot almost Daily.

A child or youth is shot in Ontario almost every day according to a study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluation Sciences and Toronto's Hospital for sick Children. The study found there was an average of 355 firearm injuries a year between 2008 and 2012. It also found that immigrant children and youth from Africa are three times as likely, and those from Central America, four times as likely to be a victim than their Canadian counterparts. 

Whether racially motivated or not, these shootings must end, but it sure as hell won't happen while a system as divisive as capitalism lasts. 

Steve and John.

Capitalism Can't Continue Without War.

On April 7th, the Associated Press said U.N. satellite images show at least18,000 structures have been destroyed in the Yei area of South Sudan. The area has become the main centre of fighting between the government and rebels since the "Peace Deal" collapsed in July.The U.N. has highlighted the area for its risk of genocide and an AP reporter saw charred bodies during a visit to Yei last year.

 Since capitalism can't continue without war, let's see to it that it doesn't continue period.

Steve and John.