Brexit and real sovereignty

The Brexit question that was framed in the referendum as having supreme importance (‘a once in a generation chance to set the future course of the country’) was yet again a debate about which particular version or configuration of capitalism should be selected. In this case, the specific question of whether a trans-national system of capitalism or a more traditional national organisation of capitalism, should be chosen. Only when we collectively realize that what are presented as contentious issues such as immigration, taxation, etc. are not the real defining issues of our lives, can we plan a much better society. It's only when workers across the world discard all notions that countries and national identities are a central part of the political landscape that real changes can be made to all our lives.

Capitalism cannot be reformed. If any capitalist reforms have some slight advantage to the working class it is merely an incidental by-product of a measure designed to strengthen and maintain capitalism. The advantages to the capitalist class far outweigh any to the working class. Go and read up what socialism is before you attribute it to any other capitalist experiments. Low wages or higher wages are not a solution. It is in the very existence of waged slavery at the point of production where all exploitation takes place. Governments are merely the puppets of the parasite capitalist class.

Socialists have always wanted working people to ‘take control’ of their collective destiny. That’s what socialism is all about. This is not possible under capitalism because it is a system governed by uncontrollable economic laws which impose themselves on people whatever they want or decide.

The only way to take control (‘back’ is out of place since the majority class of wage and salary workers has never had any control) is to take control of the places where we work and where wealth is produced and run them for the benefit of all. We need to abolish the wages system and establish a priceless commonly owned society with production for use. The politicians are powerless to do anything other than attempt to manage us in the interests of the global parasite class. All government is over us.

Credit Suisse have produced their Global Wealth Report for 2016. It notes, for instance, that 'the 33 million millionaires comprise less than 1% of the adult population, but own 46% of household wealth.' There's lots more data there.
https://www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/about-us/research/research-institute/publications.html

All wealth comes from the world's working class. The capitalist class, liberals or neo-cons, are an economic parasite class. That class is easily removable when the workers of the world aspire to a free access, democratically controlled, commonly owned world where production is for the use of everyone to satisfy all human needs, where the organising principle is, "From each according to their ability to each according to their needs".

Resisting change may indeed be a good and appropriate option for unions at a particular junction. The parasite capitalist class can run away with the loot they have amassed from the exploitation of workers, at or below the market rate. Unions can sabotage this 'quick getaway' of the industrialist to get some settlement for the workers who will be thrown onto the scrapheap. They are not the cause of any meltdown as all unions know the market rate sometimes above in good times or below in downturns is the best they can do.

The parasitic economic class income is in the millions or billions from exploiting their ownership of the means of production and distribution. In any case trade unions are a part of capitalism and its wage bargaining and nothing to do with a free access socialist society.

It is not a moral question of who are saints or sinners. Workers have no choice upon where raw materials or coffee beans or their shoes come from. It is a question of class interest. They do indeed have more in common with those overseas workers being exploited than with their home grown employers and require ot make common cause with them, to overthrow capitalism and to usher in the post-capitalist society, to end all waged slavery, whether highly or lowly paid.

The supply of cheaply consumer commodities from abroad are intrinsically linked into depressing wages here. The wage is only so much food, clothing, shelter, etc. so cheap produce, built upon waged slavery overseas is incorporated into reducing wage costs here also. Hence wages here have been successfully depressed for many years. The capitalist class can only exist through extracting surplus value from the waged working class. It is irrelevant how highly or lowly paid the worker is. All is economically relative. Nor is it a question of being envious. A much bigger and essentially global question.

It is one of ending a system of ruthless exploitation of human beings and natural resources though intense competition for the benefit of a minority parasitic class in whose interests all governments govern over us, all wars are fought for them, 'business by other means' over trade routes, raw materials and spheres of geopolitical interests even to extent of war science upon hapless civilian populations at Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the 'good guys' and all profit accrues to.

Crocodile tears for workers sufficiently distant in Africa and elsewhere, blind you to the causes of their immiseration both there and here, war by deed or proxy and poverty both absolute and relative, twin concomitants of the system you support and will have you sleep walk into the next world conflagration.

It is at the point of production you exploited your workers and creamed off surplus value. The future of your workers is not your concern, but the profit of yourself is. You may have had sleepless nights wondering how many to get rid off, to maintain your profitability, but I don't think any capitalist goes into business motivated by a desire to create a stable future for a labour force. Codswallop and bollocks to that notion. Capital accumulation is the raison d' ệtre of all capitalists.

Most capitalist revolutions have indeed been minority led ones. In the move from feudalism to capitalism the state often was used in this way forcing state capitalist development in emerging capitalist economies which were trying to leapfrog into the advanced stages of capitalist development in the absence of a large enough domestic capitalist class or sufficient capital is to industry, employing Taylorism etc.

Capital develops unevenly through concentration and centralization. And for that matter capital is still going on accumulating globally whereby one capital kills many giving rise to gigantic conglomerates. Accumulation is going through destruction and annihilation. This is reactionary. This is decadence

Productive forces have developed to the stage of both actual and potential abundance for all. But the working class consciousness and organization have remained subdued under the domination of capitalist ideas and interests – constantly and crushingly campaigned by all pervading 'right', 'left', or 'centre' chronicles and ideologies.

Now capitalism has developed the means and an educated workforce to run things, as they do now from top to bottom, we can proceed to the post-capitalist era.

We are speaking of the immense majority being self-led and using democratic means, the end of governments over people and utilisation of this political awareness to have the people themselves administer over things utilising recallable delegates when necessary. You have to make a leap from considering how things are done today, with standing armies and competing local, regional and global interests allied with anarchic production for sale market allocation for the benefit of 1-5% minority privileged owning groups with the majority in waged enslaved conditions of rationed access to the wealth they collectively produce, into commonly owned production for use cooperative global regional and local endeavours with free access and the situation is resolved into cooperative allocations and sharing of raw materials as opposed to warring competition.
The material productive forces of society have come into conflict with the existing relations of production. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations have turned into their fetters or, in other words, the productive forces have outgrown the production relation.

But nothing will stop an idea which time has come. A world without the twin concomitants of capitalism, war by deed or proxy and poverty absolute or relative, will provide its own challenges when we get there.

Wee Matt

Who are you voting for ?

Class not nation

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Capitalism is constructed on national lines: nation states, national languages, national education systems and national laws. We have national parliaments and therefore national political parties, national industries and therefore national unions. We are taught about our shared “national” culture and encouraged to embrace “national identity”. We support “our” country, “our” military, “our” national sporting teams. National boundaries are the product of the rise of capitalism, with its need to develop national markets and industry. Each nation was unified with a capital city, a central government authority, a single currency, a single border, and a single army.The problem with nationalism, however, is that it has the corrosive effect of undermining class solidarity and helping to bind us more closely to our own ruling class. Marx and Engels recognised that the working class is “itself national”. But they urged that “working men have no country” and must settle their affairs with their own capitalists. Our fight must be with our own rulers; and to the extent that we wrap ourselves in the same flag as them, we can never be free. Workers have an interest in adopting this spirit, rather than succumbing to nationalist arguments. Nationalism has always been deeply reactionary, racist and imperialist, and there is nothing about it that we should seek to defend.

Capitalism is based on competition – between capitalists in pursuit of profits, between workers as we compete for jobs, university places and so on, and between the states seeking to extend the reach and power of the “national” capitalist class. Workers around the world today more than ever share similar conditions of life: tempos of work, patterns of consumption, forms of recreation and so on, increasingly cut across the old national barriers. Class struggles between workers and bosses in one country often propel and combine with struggles in other countries. if we want to overcome the real divisions between rich and poor, we also need to break down the invented divisions between peoples across the globe. We need to raise Marx and Engels’ call to arms: “Workers of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

  Both Scottish and British forms of nationalism are reactionary but the overt anti-immigrant xenophobia stoked by UKIP makes the latter doubly so. With most people worse off than they were in terms of jobs, real wages, and access to health and education services, and yet still accepting a capitalist framework, they will understandably focus their anger on scapegoats and vulnerable targets. Asians and other migrants end up being blamed for health waiting lists, deteriorating education services, lack of housing and so on. Immigration controls are racist, anti-working class measures. They are designed to keep workers divided along national lines and to identify with their own capitalists against foreigners. Immigration controls, by discriminating over who can and cannot work and live in this country, legitimise discrimination against migrants once they are here. Marx used to argue that until British workers learned to solidarise with Irish republicans against the British ruling class, they would never develop the political consciousness necessary to take on that ruling class. British workers would remain tied to their own rulers’ apron-strings on the key political questions. For exactly the same reasons, open borders is a key demand to be fought for by people serious about social change. Workers and leftists who side with nationalism against people from other countries are basically lining up with their own exploiters; they will never be able to mount a serious challenge to the ruling class until they break with them on the question of nationalism and all the issues. In defending immigrants we can make no distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigrants. The ‘illegals’ are, indeed, the people in the worst position and most desperately in need of support. There should be no restrictions on entry and work in this country, and full rights should be accorded to all, whether born here or migrant. Defending migrants means declaring war on all immigration controls and on nationalism which has been as much a staple part of the diet of the left-wing as it has of the traditional right in this country. Workers across the world have many things in common. We need to organise together, to help each other .

Nationalism is a ruse to lure workers into supporting the rights of business to make profits at their expense. The ruling class is prepared to allow a certain level of democracy, such as the right to vote and some political freedoms, as long as their right to make profits is not restricted in any way. Universal suffrage has never been a threat to profit-making because big corporations control all the key sectors of the economy, including the media, and they fund the political parties so that they are conducive to policies that make ever larger profits. The increasing nationalism and the rise of right-wing racist groups play on people’s fears about the lack of jobs, affordable housing and diminishing access to public services. They also reflect peoples feelings of powerlessness and anger at the rising cost of living. Nationalism cannot resolve the root causes of the economic and social problems faced by working class people. The capitalist system operates to enrich a tiny, wealthy elite by exploiting ordinary people and creating divisions using nationalism and racism. The idea that native workers are being ‘dispossessed’ by greedy, queue-jumping, newcomers is false, but powerful. By creating an enemy out of tmigrants, and a hero out of the perpetrators - the bosses, people aim their fear and anger over diminishing standards of living at the wrong target.

 The growth of Scottish nationalism has seen more of the Left falling in behind it. The Socialist Party, however, exposes their reformist arguments that independence will better the lives of workers and takes an implacably hostile stance toward the SNP, using every opportunity to expose its cynical tactics to win workers’ votes. Scottish nationalism means its workers are turning away from class unity and joint struggle with their brothers and sisters south of the border, and strengthening reformist illusions that hope lies in a new constitution and a sovereign parliament, one with “their own” SNP politicians and “their own” bosses.

As socialists, we recognise that we have more common interest with the ordinary people of other countries than with our own ruling class. The alternative to nationalism is class solidarity. 

Understanding Capitalism

The basis of capitalism rests on the relationship between the capitalist and the worker. The worker must sell his or her labour in order to live. The capitalist needs that labour to produce things to sell. So a capitalist will buy and own the raw materials, tools etc. necessary for production and will then hire workers to work with the tools and the raw materials to produce what the capitalist tells the workers to produce. The workers will then use the tools to turn the raw materials into something the capitalist then sells.

Let’s look more closely at the relationship and how it benefits the capitalist. Let’s say the capitalist owns a factory that makes wooden tables. This means he needs to buy an amount of wood and the tools to make the tables (hammers, nails, glue etc). He also needs workers to come and use the tools to turn the wood into tables he then sells. Let’s say he spends $10 on the raw materials for one table and when it’s finished the table is worth $20. The worker who comes in to turn the raw materials into a table uses his or her skills and energy, takes the raw materials and adds value to them in the form of a finished table. The capitalist then pays the worker. The table immediately belongs to the capitalist and the capitalist sells the table for $20.

The capitalist has spent money on tools and raw materials and on a worker to build the table. The worker has used brain power and muscle power to turn the raw materials into a table (which immediately belongs to the capitalist and not to the worker), adding $10 units to the raw materials in the form of labour. The capitalist then sells the table. But something is missing. What did the capitalist pay the worker?

If the capitalist paid the worker the value of his or her labour, this adds up to $10. The capitalist has spent $10 on the raw materials and tools, and $10 on the labour to use these up and produce a table worth 20. The capitalist then sells the table for $20. What’s in this for the capitalist? He’s spent $20, and at the end of the process he’s received $20. So what was the point? The capitalist hasn’t got anything out of this arrangement.

But what happens if the capitalist pays $10 for the raw materials and tools, but only pays the worker $8 for his or her labour? The capitalist sells the table for $20, but it only cost $18 to produce. The $2 left over is the capitalist’s profit.

So the key is in the nature of the relationship between the worker and the capitalist. One capitalist isn’t likely to sell wood or tools to another capitalist for less than what they’re worth. So where does a capitalist find a reason to be in production in the first place? The reason is profit, and that profit is found by the capitalist paying the workers less than the value of their work.

To make this a little bit clearer, consider that the capitalist rarely pays a worker based on the number of finished items they produce. The capitalist pays the worker to come to work and work as hard as they possibly can for a set amount of time. This obscures the real relationship between worker and capitalist somewhat and leads to the situation where the worker works half the day to meet his or her own immediate needs, and the rest of the day works to create wealth just for the capitalist.

It is this relationship between the worker and the capitalist that is central to how the capitalist system functions. It is in work done by the worker above and beyond that needed to meet his or her own immediate needs that the capitalist finds a reason to be in business. This relationship is the basis of profit. We can see it most clearly, and it begins to explain the situation, where labour is cheap and where it produces expensive commodities, places where the weekly wage of a person stitching trainers isn’t enough to buy a single pair of them.

In essence we as workers have been reduced, by the capitalist class and the politicians who support them, to tools of work; a cog in a machine; essentially born to work for them, and have our work make them money. If we're going to be truly free, we need to have the freedom to pursue our goals where and when and how we see fit. Wage labour is fundamentally incompatible with this.

What is needed is a fundamental shift in attitudes towards work and the relations that make work necessary. People feel undervalued and underpaid because they are. People can see the inequity in their relationship with their bosses. What isn't seen so well is the fact that we're literally selling our ability to work and a good third of our lives, giving up our freedom in the process, in order to live. But people weren't born simply to work. We instinctively know this and we value our lives more than this because none of us really likes work, but this is balanced against the necessity of work for the vast majority. If we don't do it, we can't really live at all. These are conditions imposed on us by capitalism. We need to continue the task of attempting to reconstruct society.

Nationalising a business or service or industry isn't going to help deliver economic democracy either. The people who work there, and workers generally, would have no more control over how the business is run or what happens to the product of their labour than they would if the business was in private hands. Nationalisation doesn’t address the relationship between employer and employee. It is simply a case of swapping one group of expropriators and facilitators for another. The trade union movement is concerned with higher wages, sometimes with shorter hours (or at least limiting increases in hours), protecting jobs, but these days never, it seems, with the way production and distribution is organized. Such concerns are pushed to the fringes. However, labour movement doesn't go anything like far enough in addressing the real economic problem facing workers and society at large: the problem of how we should organise production and distribution of what workers produce. In fact, trade unions  makes no attempt to address this problem at all. We need to make economic democracy a cornerstone of radical thought again. We have to present workers with a vision of the future where they decide democratically, and in collaboration with the community at large, what to produce, how to produce it and then how to distribute it. To really change capitalism, we need to change its core: the relationship of workers to the production, appropriation and distribution of the surplus they create. Workers need more radical solutions. The ultimate aim must be not to prop up capitalism but to destroy it. To overturn the relationship between employer and employee. To abolish the root cause of our economic misery – the employer, the rentier and the banker – and to take control of our own working lives by whatever means necessary. This should begin with a fight to control the ground on which this battle is being fought but the focus overwhelmingly seems to be on fighting for a few extra crumbs from the table. What is needed is not concessions to capitalists and politicians but a vision of workers taking control of the production process themselves so we can free ourselves from the misery of wage slavery.

Adapted from here
http://libcom.org/blog/universal-basic-income-freedom-workers-13122016

The tragedy of the homeless

One homeless person dies every week in Glasgow according to Glasgow City Council. The council admitted that the number of deaths released in the FOI may not be entirely accurate as it may not include all the homeless deaths in the city or rough sleepers who are not from Glasgow or currently engaged with the Council.

Graeme Brown, the Glasgow Director of Shelter Scotland said: “Each one of these cases represents a human life lost too soon. “We know that homeless people, in particular those who sleep rough, have worse health than the general population and are far more likely to die young. It is simply shameful that this is happening in 21st century Scotland. Sadly, we know that homelessness is still far from fixed in Glasgow and across Scotland today."

According to Shelter Scotland estimate up to 5,000 people sleep rough in Scotland every year, with thousands more using temporary accommodation. Glasgow City Council receives each year roughly 6000 formal homelessness applications with further applications for temporary accomodation.

Fact of the Day

More than 30% of children in Glasgow East are ranked as being in poverty, living in families in receipt of out-of-work, means-tested benefits, according to the latest HMRC data. The UK average is 20%. 

One in five people aged between 16 and 64 are on out-of-work benefits, compared with the national average of fewer than one in 10. 

Anarchism in Glasgow (part 2)

Anarchism in Glasgow : Charlie Baird Snr, Mollie Baird, John Taylor Caldwell, Babs Raeside, Jimmy Raeside, etc.;

14/8/87

Q : How did people come in contact with the movement and how did the movement strike them at the time ?

JR : Well, the clothes have changed a bit ! And the venue - the anarchist movement would have had to grow quite a bit to get a room like this.

MB : Yes... The "Hangman’s Rest" : when there was a lull in the questions the rats used to come out !!

JR : Or street corners...

JTC : The movement started in Glasgow in a way that’s buried in a certain amount of mystery because they haven’t been able to research it properly, but after the Paris Commune a number of Frenchmen came to Britain and one of these settled in Glasgow and became the companion of a woman called MacDonald who lived in Crown St. She had anarchist views and they organised the first anarchism movement in Glasgow working from Crown St. and meeting in the space outside Glasgow Green which is called Jostling Sq or Jail Sq. People gathered there every Sunday. Afterwards there was a lull until we have the Social Democratic Federation (Hyndman’s crowd) building up a group in Glasgow ; the next stage on the road to anarchism was when the disaffected formed the Socialist League under William Morris. They wanted to be anti-parliamentary but not anarchist. There was such an influx of anarchists in Glasgow and eventually in 1895 it broke up and the anarchist movement of Glasgow was formed. It had 50 members and met in a place in Holland St. It had a number of speakers : Willie MacDougal was one - and the movement developed from that.

From 1900 it was able to invite Kropotkin and Voltairine deClerke to speak in Glasgow and was quite a force up to the start of the 1st World War when it broke up because of the persecutions it had to endure because of its anti-war position.

MB : I knew that Guy (Aldred) had a group in little rooms in Clarenden St...

JTC : Guy Aldred came to Glasgow in 1912... The anarchist movement in London had three elements : one was Stepniak, one was Kropotkin, the other was Bakunin. Stepniak had shot a policeman in St.Petersburg and fled to London - he belonged to the old Russian Narodniks, who believed in propaganda by deed, in shooting officials and they believed that the State has a social contract with the people and when it fails to fulfil that contract, the common people are in a state of nature and can declare war. That was the beginning of the theory of propaganda by deed in Russia. The other stream was Kropotkin who believed that we are dominated by the State and he gave a historical analysis of the State and that we should get back to a pre-state condition of a society run by communes. But the third person was Bakunin who from a philosophical point of view came through Hegel and he believed that we had to destroy authority. Guy developed that point of view in the Freedom Press, but then felt that they were too theoretical, Sunday afternoon anarchists, so he and another founded a paper called the "Voice of Labour", to carry the fight into the factories. After 3 or 4 months Guy realised that it you do that it runs along trade-union and amelioration lines ; what we need is education - so he formed the Communist Propaganda Groups - these were to educate, the other to agitate. Now the CPGs were anti-parliamentary. You have to remember the context : the Labour Party was something new, it had been formed to represent trade unions and wasn’t sure whether it was going to be a left or liberal party or be an industrial syndicalist organisation as identified with Tom Mann or Daniel deLeon in America. There was a careerist element and Guy fought against payment of members, and this took on the form of an anti-parliamentary faction.

Guy was invited to speak in Glasgow in 1912 by a splendid organisation called the Clarion Scouts. It had all kinds of things to interest young people - camera clubs, bicycle clubs, etc. Youngsters used to get on their bikes and cycle through the villages and they had a secret sign when they passed each other (one said "hoops", the other said "spurs"). They formed their first organisation in Glasgow in 1898, I think, and would help any left-wing organisation - they helped the ILP, they helped the anarchists - they were not sectarian. They invited Guy Aldred to speak in the Pavilion Theatre in 1912. There were no microphones in those days and the theatre was filled, but he was such a success that he came back again and again, and in the end made Glasgow his native city and formed his own Communist Propaganda Group. He was running "The Spur" which had a good circulation and was well known in the movement.

When the war came Guy went off to jail but his paper was carried on by Rose Witcop, his free-love companion. When he came back after the war, his CPG had folded, because he was really the centrepiece of it.

The Glasgow Anarchists (those who’d formed a group at the time of William Morris) were carrying on : Willie MacDougall was one of them - he’d been jailed too, taken down to Dartmoor. He simply escaped from Dartmoor - he jumped on a bike and cycled home and nobody stopped him. (Only a few years ago, at 86, he was still carrying on his propaganda)

click read more to continue

Anarchism in Glasgow (part 1)

=========

1) Charlie Baird Sr. : An Interview

6th June 1977

Before the war I’d been sympathetic to the Communist Party, as early as 16 or 17 years of age. It wasn’t until the war, when Russia had signed the pact with Hitler, that I started to have my doubts about the CP. But even prior to that I’d drifted away from them. When the war started, I took up the Conscientious Objector position, and finished up, of course, in jail. It was in jail - I hadn’t been conscious that there was such a movement as the libertarian movement, the anarchist movement - I thought that the CP was the last thing in left-wing movements.

I met two lads in prison (I also knew one prior to going in, who’d told me to look out for these two lads); one was Jimmy Dick. He’d managed to get some anarchist literature in. I went through that and discovered that was what I’d been looking for. It was what I’d believed, even when I was in the CP ; I was dissatisfied with the centralised character of the movement.

Then, of course, when we came out, there was an anarchist movement in Glasgow at that particular time. We came out of jail and teamed up with them. It was around 1942 when I came out of jail, and there were about 40 active members of the group. By 1944-45 it was probably around 70-80 members.

The peculiar thing about the Glasgow group was that there was no such thing as recognised members of the group. The only way you could recognise a regular member of the group was by his activities; there were no things like membership cards or anything like that. The 70 or 80 would include the lads from Burnbank and Hamilton - miners, the small groups out there with 3 or 4 members. They organised meetings and we supplied them with speakers.

Edinburgh was the same. We’d contacts in Edinburgh who organised meetings and we supplied them. There was an old diehard there, but you couldn’t say there was a group. There were many sympathisers, right enough, who were always there at the meetings. They were active insofar as during the meetings they would go round with literature and a collection. They were sympathetic and that was good enough for me. There was an Italian lad who was the original contact ; he had a cafe on Leith Walk, but his father was very reactionary - pro-fascist - while the lad was very revolutionary, very keen, but obviously under his father’s influence. Nevertheless, you went through and saw him, and organised the meetings at the Mound in Edinburgh.

We had the members in Glasgow, plenty of speakers : Jimmy Raeside, Eddie Shaw, Jimmy Dick, Sammy Lawson, Frank Leech, Johnny Gartmore. But Raeside and Shaw were the main speakers, they seemed to enjoy it. They were good propagandists. Shaw was more the humorous type ; he was a satirist - he ridiculed the system in a humorous fashion which went down big with the public. They got entertainment, and at the same time they got the message. Raeside was a more serious type, very logical, and enjoyed a debate - SPGB, Marxist Study Group. Raeside was the main speaker ; he’d an extensive knowledge of the movement. Even apart from that he was an incredible speaker, very convincing. There were even occasions when he was taken up on aspects of the struggle which he wasn’t aware of. He could carry the audience with him.

Shaw and Raeside were highly developed social animals. Even in the company of opposition they were very friendly - no chip on their shoulder. They could walk into the company of Communists or Trotskyists, who you’d find would be very careful, but Shaw and Raeside would walk in, they wouldn’t have to be introduced. Shaw especially - he would just wade into a company, any company at all.

Shaw was called up, but he’d made up his mind that he wasn’t going into prison. So his case went to the High Court of Appeal in Edinburgh. Even the "Evening Citizen" gave him a big front-page write-up "Glasgow Anarchist Wins Case in High Court". He defended himself. Incidentally, he was briefed by Guy Aldred - Guy prepared the case, but he handled it himself. You can have the best case in the world, but you’ve got to face the three highest judges in the land. The "Evening Citizen" said he handled the case with force. That would be around 1944-45. I was with him when he went to Edinburgh ; it must have been about May or June.

His case was very simple. He went through the usual process of being called-up. They took you into custody when you were registered as a conscript, the next you’d hear from them was when you had to go to court. If you’re political you’ve no chance. Shaw went to the Sheriff Court for sentence. You’re called into court twice, the first time there was a CID man who was instructed to take you down to Dumbarton Rd and the Army Doctor ; you’ d refuse to go through the medical and they’d bring you back to court a month after that. The CID man had been told to take him down at 2pm, but he didn’t take him down until 4pm - and this was Shaw’s case. When he got back to court, the judge sentenced him to one year and Shaw said "I’m asking for a stated case". The judge said "On what basis ? You’ve no basis for a stated case". Shaw said "You instructed the CID man to take me before the doctor at 2pm but I didn’t get to the doctor until 4pm."

That was the case. It took them over an hour to settle it. Lord Thomson presided and, what do you call him ? they called him the Bloody Judge at the time... Anyway there were the three of them. After Shaw had stated his case "Are you going to allow CID men to flout the law ; you’re going to end up like Germany or Italy, where the people have no rights, you know..." Lord Thomson said "Look Mr Shaw, you know you’ve no intention of going to the army" and Shaw said "That’s right, but it’s the facts of the case, not whether I’ll go to the army". A precedent had been set, perhaps during the First World War, and it was Guy Aldred who’d dug this one up. He’d told Shaw, if you have any trouble ask for access to the court library and you’ll be able to get the chapter and page. They were about to dismiss him when he did this and the three judges hummed and hawed, and Lord Thomson said "All right then". The court clerk went down and then handed it on to Thomson. Thomson just looked at it with a look of disgust on his face and passed it on and said nothing. So the appeal was upheld with expenses and the CID man was called into the dock and given a dressing-down. When Shaw had mentioned the basis of the case I’d said "Ach, no chance".

You’d people in the services who were anti-war and at the same time were unattached. There was a common danger during the war which was the common ground for people with political views like my own. We must admit this - we’d huge meetings, particularly in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but I think t his was due to the fact that there was always the danger of someone being arrested, something violent happening, something sensational. It was a very precarious position to take during the war, especially in public when you’d troops, etc. You can imagine the atmosphere. What did matter was that you recruited members at these meetings, and, if not members, at least sympathisers who took papers into the factories.

Judging by the attention that you got from the troops, apart from a few hotheads, particularly the Americans and Canadians, the other lads used to come and buy the paper and discuss it. We’d contacts with them too, mainly the Air Force, I don’t know why the Air Force. There was no war fever as such during the war, even among the troops and their families. My own experience with the public was "Aye, that’s right, but what can you do about it ? The war’s there and Hitler’s there, and you have to face up to him". The usual answer to that one was "You can’t beat fascism by greater military force ; fascism is inherent in the capitalist system". It was the Empire, not the fact that Hitler was killing the Jews or Poland - they sold Poland.

"War Commentary" was the paper at that time. It had tremendous sales in Glasgow. And we’d all the Freedom Press literature - the pamphlets, the books. We’d a bookshop in George St. (originally, I believe, with the Marxist Study Group, but that was all over by the time I’d come out of prison). Shaw and Leech had broken away, and later linked up with the other groups in England and contacts in Scotland. The Anarchist Federation of Britain was formed just after that.

The relations with Guy Aldred were very strained. I think one of the main reasons was that Guy was a loner : he was a movement in himself. There’s no question about the man’s integrity. He’d built up his movement, made his international contacts. I suppose Guy was afraid that someone could infiltrate and take over the movement by a process of building up support and them getting a vote. His relationship to the Anarchist Federation wasn’t very good. In spite of Guy’s help, Shaw often attacked him, especially on the question of the ballot box. We knew that Guy had no intention of going to parliament, but, in my opinion it was stupid, you know, there was nothing to gain. He’d built up such a reputation of integrity and consistency that I thought it was awful foolish that he should sacrifice all this.

One of Guy’s old members was a man by the name of Frank Leech, a peculiar character. He was bourgeois through-and-through. He’d a good-going business, a general store. He was very friendly with the Freedom Press and used to make contact with Freedom Press in a private capacity. I was the Secretary of the AFB at that time and all correspondence was supposed to go through me, but Leech would never accept this. Personally, it didn’t matter to me - as long as the movement was there and was working. You’d never get a group where that wouldn’t happen, but it all depends on the extent to which it goes on.

We were a great source of income to Freedom Press, but they didn’t seem to put any account on that at all. We thought they had a function, they thought we had a function, and that was just to distribute the literature and send the proceeds down. This didn’t go down at all with most of the members.

When the split took place it wasn’t at a business meeting or a conference. It’s difficult even now to understand how it happened the way it did and why it happened. It was just suddenly that a section didn’t turn up at a business meeting - that was Leech, Shaw, Raeside and some followers. That would be around November 1944. The reason was a general disillusionment with the way the group was being run. Leech was the source of all this and Shaw supported him - he was somewhat dependent on Leech. The big fellow had a lot of money and Shaw was taking time of work to do meetings up and down the country. Raeside had got married and bought a horse-drawn caravan and travelled up and down the country. Shaw and Raeside decided to go abroad. Shaw had boys of 13 and 15 and for the boys sake he was clearing out, of course you’d have conscription in Canada anyway. And Raeside went to Australia.

Anyway we carried on, me and the wife and some other lads, we carried on for a year. This must have been shortly after the war. We held meetings at the corner of Wellington St. It took a toll on me, the outdoor speaking, it’s a hell of a strain physically. Mentally it didn’t bother me, in fact latterly I began to enjoy it. Then one of the other speakers, a lad called Bill Gollan, fell into bad health and died in Knightswood Hospital of tuberculosis. When the war ended the common danger ended too. And finally the wife and I were left... By this time the breakaway group were about finished too. They held meetings in Maxwell St. Leech died suddenly. He was a big heavy man, he’d heart trouble, and Shaw and Raeside went to Canada and that was the end of that.

===========

In August 1987 the Raesides, who had been living in Australia for many years, returned to Glasgow for a visit. This provided a rare opportunity to bring together some surviving members of anarchist groups in Glasgow during the 1940s for a public discussion on the history of that movement and the lessons which can be learned.

Transcribed in November 1993 from a not-always-clear cassette tape. A formerly inaudible section has now been transcribed with help from Charlie Baird Jnr.

https://libcom.org/history/anarchism-1940s-glasgow

Putting world socialism on the ballot

Those who would like to vote the Socialist Party, invariably cast their votes no matter how reluctantly for the candidate most likely to ensure the defeat of the Tory. What is the difference between the Labour Tweedledee and the Tory Tweedledum?

The return of a Socialist Party candidate does not then mean the immediate realisation of a programme of palliatives commonly set before the electors by the rest of the parties. The election of a Socialist Party member to any public body at present, is only valuable in so far as it is the return of a disturber of the political peace. Until socialism attains a foothold any seat captured must simply be regarded as a means of spoiling the political intrigues and games played by the politicians.

As William Morris wrote: “I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so: in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels...”

For the third time in as many years we are being asked to make a decision for the capitalist class. Last year it was whether Britain PLC should or should not remain in the capitalist EU.

The year before it was about which set of professional politicians should run the state machine on behalf of the capitalist class. Now, we are being asked to do this again.

But, in voting to continue with capitalism, those who bother to vote will be voting for the problems in fields such as housing, health care, education and the environment to continue, because the root cause of these problems is capitalism and its economic imperative to put making profits before satisfying people's needs.

Britain's oldest socialist party,the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1904) consists of working men and women and has no funding save from its own donations.

It has no leaders and has no wish for followers either and never has done, it holds that the emancipation of the working calss is the task of the working class itself.

A vote for the SPGB candidate or writing “world socialism” across your ballot paper says a plague on all the parties of capitalism and is a vote for your self emacipation.

We do not want a mere protest vote, but an active politically conscious one supporting the democratic post-capitalist society, of common ownership,(not state ownership), production for use and free access run by our selves, not governments over people but the people administering over the commonly owned resources.

But, except in the few constituencies where they will be candidates standing for this, namely these 3 seats in the coming General Election: Islington North, Battersea, and Swansea West, we shan't be voting for any of the candidates on offer but instead casting a write-in vote for "world socialism" by writing this across our ballot paper.

Socialism is an advanced post-capitalist society of common ownership, production for use and free access. Money or any other means of exchange will be unnecessary with the abolition of waged slavery, the last great emancipation taht of the wage slaves, and free access to the commonly owned wealth being the normative distribution method overseen by us all in a recallable delegatory democratic framework as an administration by the people over the commonly owned resources, rather than government over the people, in the interests of and by an elite parasite class.

World Socialism – is a revolutionary advancement for the human species which will make 21st century capitalism look like the Dark Ages, yet the debate is not yet out in the open. Hardly anyone dares conceive of a society after capitalism, so powerful is its hold on the collective mind. But we dare.

Wee Matt/AJJ

No to Nationalism

The fear of ‘the others’, fear of people we don’t understand permeates the thoughts of the British nationalist Brexit voter. This fear is man-made, developed by the owning class to undermine working class solidarity. Prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, racism, hatred and xenophobia have spread like insidious contagious diseases. The media demonise and denigrating the poor while attacking the migrant worker. The interests of fellow-workers have become secondary to many people who are actually good working class people, simply blinded by unfounded fear. That is a disturbing reality.  It is suffocating the empathy and understanding of the plight of the migrant worker, the vulnerable and the poor. There are those who were in the trenches with the working class, who are now fighting against the worker, shoulder-to-shoulder with the enemy of the working class. They are openly wearing their prejudices on their sleeve. The hold a sense of belonging which brings a sense of security and protection. A belief that in the ‘protectors’ – the one’s who are loudest attacking ‘the others’ will keep us safe from harm. People must stop allowing the irrational fear of others to guide their beliefs, opinions, and decisions and, instead, notice the attacks on all workers. Otherwise, the ruling class may win and destroy everything the working class has fought for, were jailed for and died for. It should be clear that you don’t move towards the unity of the world working class movement - a unity that must be forged if we are to win any significant victory over a vicious capitalism - by dividing the actually existing unity of the working class in Britain along national lines.

Nationalism is diverting working people from their historic mission. History shows that is dangerous for socialists to flirt with nationalism. The result is usually a boost for nationalism and a defeat for socialism.  What is at stake is not merely electoral success or failure, but whether the idea of nationalism triumphs over the ideas and values of socialism. The most important division in society is not one between England and Scotland. It is between those who create the wealth and those who own it. Only by going back to first principles of workers' organisation of political education, using the collective strength of a united working class irrespective of gender, race or nationality will we be able to challenge the status quo. Socialists need to win the argument against independence within the labour movement – if we fail to do so then we will have lost for decades to come. Nationalism is the antithesis of socialism. Only by doing so will we build support for an alternative future which is much closer to the values of democratic socialism than it is to anything nationalism has to offer. Today, one of the most tragic features of the left is that many accommodate people who are utterly reactionary just because they are militant nationalists. But they are anti-working-class forces through and through. It should be obvious that any divide will weaken the potential for a working class fight back against austerity. Workers in Scotland are no longer urged to look to their comrades south of the border for solidarity and a common project to win pro-working class reforms but instead urged to look to their fellow Scots in a national movement for Scottish independence. However the fact that the independence movement is funded and supported by a significant section of the Scottish elite such as billionaire Brian Souter of Stagecoach.  This should be an indication and a warning that the Scottish independence movement is no friend of the Scottish working class. The Socialist Party understands the unity of the working class is required to transcend capitalism. Left-nationalists downplay the likelihood that the establishment of an independent Scottish state will lead to the weakening of the British working class. Support for both British and Scottish nationalism has grown in consequence of working class defeats. The fact that the labour movement in Britain has so far failed to produce any real fight back against growing inequality, food banks, benefit sanctions, zero-hour contracts, housing shortages has allowed the nationalists to gain increased traction among working people.  The SNP has been able to pose left on such matters and hides behind the excuse of Westminster control in order to justify its own austerity measures.

The SNP has a difficult balancing act to perform. It must try to win over Scottish workers to independence while reassuring companies and corporations that sovereignty will be “business friendly” and that the working class will be kept firmly quiescent. It must make promises to workers that it knows it can’t keep so it keeps the promises vague and non-specific. Workers, of course, will be encouraged to line up to support their respective bosses. Not a good environment for the development of a united fight back against austerity. Unfortunately, its reformist posturing has not been challenged by the SSP or Solidarity who have provided an important service to the SNP by echoing the SNP's claim that independence will produce a fairer society and by promoting the SNP as a party to the left of Labour. They don’t want to rock the pro-independence boat or help dispel the illusion that the SNP is a progressive party. That would harm the independence cause to which they are now irretrievably wedded so silence is their best option.

The task for socialists in all countries, whether that be Scotland or Britain is indeed independence - not of nations but of the working class. This class independence is the very foundation of the struggle for socialism. Scottish nationalism and the call for independence throws up yet another barrier to achieving a socialist society.

There is only one alternative to barbarism: socialism

People in America today are dissatisfied with both the Tories and Labour, the Republican and Democratic parties. The bulk of them are aroused over the way these parties turn deep-seated grievances into mere subjects of campaign oratory that are forgotten the day after the election. Undoubtedly the hope is still strong among them of getting some reform in the old parties, especially from Trump, yet a large section would like to see a completely new alignment on the political scene. But this can be done only by offering them a meaningful alternative to the perennial “lesser evil” choice.

There is no shortage of critics of the socialist movement. Those political commentators who scoff at socialist sentiments and aspirations and say that such a concept is now outdated, that the working-class movement has been defeated should ask themselves the question: does the capitalist system which they are promoting, and which they say the people are accepting, solve any of the problems of the working people in any part of the world? The working class is still the decisive force in every country. Why would the ruling class devote so many policies and resources to ensuring that we are docile? Critics of socialism should question why we have to put up one recession which only leads to the next and ask is there no way that the economy can be organised that to eliminate recurrent recessions? There are a lot of questions anti-socialists refrain from asking for fear of the answer. Is there not some way in which the people can be guaranteed their well-being, and guaranteed decent standard of life for themselves, their families and the future generations. Then there is the question of the environment and the damage to the environment, looking into what it is which causes the damage to the environment. Is there not some way that life can be organised so that it does not cause these problems? Then very important, of course, the whole question of peace in the world. What is the root causes of those bloody brutal conflicts? In our view, these are the vital questions which have to be addressed. The Socialist Party has definite views on all these things. Unlike our critics, we looked deeper into these questions and found some answers. We are socialists and we propagate our full views. But, principally, it is the working class which has to take up these questions. Without the working class itself taking up these issues they will never be solved. The Socialist Party can only encourage as wide as possible discussion among the people on these questions and ask them to reflect upon our case for socialism.

The principle function of the Socialist Party is to educate fellow-workers to realize that their industrial power must back up a political or general class fight. It is only by using their political power that the capitalists make their exploitation of the working class legal and the oppression of their system constitutional. And it is only by using their political power that the working class can make their own exploitation illegal and their own oppression unconstitutional. It is only by the use of their political power that the working class can abolish capitalist class rule and privilege, and establish a society based on the common ownership of all the land and the tools of production. We plainly stated that we cannot expect revolutionary unless people themselves get the understanding and the spirit of socialist organization. The working class through the ballot box can abolish the capitalist system of ownership with its accompanying class exploitation and oppression, and establish in its place socialism — an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the tools of production shall be the collective property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. The Socialist Party ask the working class to organize with us to end the domination of private ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of unplanned production — and substitute in its place the socialist co-operative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilisation. Now, comrades is the time to dedicate yourselves to the revolutionary socialist principles and to the struggle for socialist freedom. Unite in the battle against capitalism.

Red Ed

A brief outline of the radical history of popular grassroots resistance on the East coast of Scotland. Not all events mentioned are anarchist or possibly something I would support in full. Hopefully, this will allow for the writing of a much more in-depth larger work in the future.

1736- Porteous riots
1740- Leith food riots
1770- Meal riots
1780- Bowed Joseph died. Bowed Joseph born in the Cowgate was a famous Edinburgh agitator and took part in riots.
1790- Leith dockers strike
1864- Annuity tax riot.
1865-Midlothian farmworkers' union set up.
1867- Thomas Hastie Bell born.
1876- Kropotkin lives in Edinburgh for a brief time.
1881- Irish nationalist bombs Loanhead police station.
1882- Kropotkin returns to Edinburgh to give a lecture on the russian situation.
1889- School strikes. Dockers Strike.
1890- Cab drivers strike.
1891- Railway workers strike. Dockers strike.
1892- Soldiers riot against cops
1892- Thomas Hastie Bell returns to Edinburgh and involved in anarchism with J. Blair Smith and McCabe.
1895- Sept 14. Emma Goldman lectures in Scotland. Visits Edinburgh.
1896- Tsar Nicholas 2nd visits Leith. Thomas Hastie Bell gets in his face.
1897- Builders strike
1898- Thomas Hastie Bell goes to London.
1900- Emma Goldman visits Scotland again for lectures. She meets Thomas Hastie Bell.
1901- Tramworkers strike.
1905- medical student riot (possibly sectarian)
1911- railway strike, school strike, ropeworkers strike.
1912- carters strike, miners strike, (disgusting) pro-vivisection riot,
1913- Dockers strike, miners strike, tramwaymen strike, ropeworkers strike( pretty close to a regional general strike) rioting
1915- Leith carters strike. Dockers strike.
1919- School strikes.
1924- coal trimmers strike.
1926- riot in Edinburgh.
1933- National Unemployed Workers movement in Princes Street.
1938- March 6-13th Emma Goldman lecturers in Scotland on Spain. She received help from the Anarchist Communist Federation the predecessor to the Anarchist Federation.
1942- Thomas Hastie Bell dies.
1943- National League of the Blind and disabled sets up an Edinburgh branch which exists until 1975.
1977- protests against nuclear power.
1981- Broughton Unemployed Workers Centre opens.
1983- Leith dockers strike.
1984- Counter information news sheet produced. Miners Strike. Violent resistance to the police in Midlothian particularly Bilston Glen colliery. Anti-poll tax protests.
1994- Broughton Unemployed Workers Centre evicted. Protests against criminal justice bill.
1996- Opposition to Job Seekers Allowance. Opposition to deportation of John Gotip (reported in Broughton Spurtle)
2002- Bilston Glen Protest camp begun by Bilston, Midlothian.
2003- Protests against Iraq War. School kids occupy Edinburgh Castle.
2004- Counter information ceases publication. 05/04/2004 Edinburgh
100 people blockade an Esso garage in opposition to war on Iraq
2005- G8 riots in Princes street.
2011- Occupy Edinburgh set up in St Andrews Square.
2013- Bedroom tax protests.
2014- From Yes to Action Statement produced by ACE and signed by ECAP, Scottish IWW, Edinburgh AFed and others. Edinburgh Anarchist Federation puts out critical statements about Scottish Independence.
2015- Action Against Austerity Network founded in Edinburgh which comes to consist of ACE, ECAP, IWW, Scottish AFed, Scottish Unemployed Workers Network(SUWN) , Castlemilk Against Austerity, Dundee Against Austerity...Charles Stewart House is occupied by Edinburgh Uni students. PCS museum workers strikes.
2016- Homeless campers occupy the Cowgate in protest against luxury hotel. Charles Stewart House is occupied by Edinburgh Uni students. RMT railway workers strikes.

Rational Scots

SCOTLAND is one of the least religious areas in the UK, behind only the south-east of England and Wales, according to a new report.

The study, which is billed as the first in-depth look at the non-religious in the UK, found overall 48.6 per cent of the population in the UK now identify as non-religious.

In Scotland this figure rises to 55 per cent, behind Wales at 56 per cent and the south-east of England at 58 per cent. The most religious area was Inner London, with just 31 per cent saying they had no religion – called ‘nones’ in the report.

The research, carried out by St Mary’s University in Twickenham, London, also found for every person brought up with no religion who has become a Christian, 26 people who were brought up as Christians now identify as having no-religion.

Report author professor Stephen Bullivant, director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St Mary’s, said growing numbers of people were likely to say they had no religion. “As more and more people have done that in society, the default setting is to say you have no religion - whereas 40 years ago the default setting would have been to tick Church of England or Church of Scotland for example,” he said. “Added to that trend, people who have been brought up as non-religious tend to stay as non-religious.

A socialist on the BBC Daily Politics show