Profits before homes (1994)

From the March 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you were to hear of a country where one in 25 of the inhabitants were affected by homelessness — two million people — what country would spring to your mind?

You might imagine a Third World country, or a war-torn one. It is neither. The country in fact is . . . England

The figures above are an unofficial estimate by the housing charity Shelter (Homelessness in England — The Facts, information release, October 1993). The official figures are hardly more cheery. In 1991/2 a total of 196,039 households were officially accepted as being homeless in England and Scotland together. This understates the case, however.

There are no comprehensive figures for single homelessness nationally. Shelter estimate there may be around 50,000 single people homeless in Britain. Official figures exclude the majority of the single homeless, and only include households deemed in "priority need", for instance, those with children.

It can be easy to conclude that either there is a dreadful lack of houses, or many feckless people exist. Certainly, many believe so, especially those who think that our capitalist society is the only world possible.

The truth, though, is blindingly and tragically plain. It involves the perennial co-traveller of the working class — poverty. It doesn’t matter that an individual or family needs a decent, warm and comfortable house, if they do not have enough of the rationing vouchers that capitalism calls money, then tough. Capitalism has one driving force, and that is to make profit, not to supply resources to prevent pressing social need.

Poverty
Capitalism is run in the interests of those who own the means of making wealth. The working class, who own nothing in the way of creating wealth, have no choice but to work for the capitalist class for wages or salaries, and through their labour create every last penny of profit for the privileged class.

Yet many members of the working class have been able to buy a home. At a time when nearly three million people are unemployed, they are indeed fortunate to have a job and an income to secure a mortgage. Or are they?

Many believe they own their home, little realizing that in reality the bank or building society does. "Owning" is a misnomer, in that "ownership" can so easily be removed. In 1992, in England alone, 68,540 houses were repossessed. In the first half of 1993 courts in England and Wales awarded a further 53,436 re-possession orders.
In addition, a large number of people live on the knife-edge of being repossessed, with the resultant toll of stress and misery. A Roof magazine survey claims that 800,000 home owners are in mortgage arrears, with over a third of a million in arrears of six months or more.

Unfit
Renting a house, or flat, might seem a safer and more affordable way of getting a decent home to live in. But the facts of life here are not very enjoyable either. The 1991 Housing Conditions Survey for England and Wales (covering private, rented, local authority and housing association houses) revealed that 1.5 million occupied houses were unfit to live in (Independent, 10 September). It also found that one-in-20 of owner-occupied houses were of an unfit standard.

Misery knows no borders either. The 1993 Scottish House Condition Survey found that one-in-20 of occupied houses were unfit to live in. Also, nearly a third of Scotland’s occupied houses were found to suffer dampness, condensation and mould. These figures were reinforced by the 1993 Glasgow Housing Survey. It found one-in-5 of private rented housing was unfit, "Below Tolerable Standard" to use the official term.

Millions are affected by homelessness, the threat of homelessness, and living in "Below Tolerable Standard" housing. Multiply these figures across the whole of the developed world, and the amount of human misery connected to housing problems due to working-class lack of means is phenomenal. Capitalists don't have housing problems, other than getting more, or bigger, mansions for themselves.

None of this is new, of course. When capitalism is in recession — which is a permanently-recurring feature of the profit system — levels of poverty rise. But poverty, and its symptoms like homelessness, don’t go away when capitalism is booming. It — they — only stand slightly in the shadows.

Many construction workers are currently unemployed; there are large stockpiles of bricks and building materials, while the figures above tell of the number of people who need a decent home to live in.

A caring, people-based society would readily see the solution: apply the skills and resources to the problem. That will not happen in our capitalist society, for the missing ingredient of profit cannot be made in sufficient quantities. And it makes no difference that society becomes more aware of homelessness, and wishes to do something about it, for the capitalist rule is: No Profit, No Solution.

Pretending
Capitalist politicians — be they Conservative, Labour or Liberal — periodically latch on to the plight of the homeless and pretend that something is being done, or that they know what the solution is.

My own constituency MP spent a night in December camping out on the street in Edinburgh in his sleeping bag, with like-minded people, to draw attention to homelessness. Amazingly, our capitalist opponents are always saying that we are the wooly-minded idealists.

Capitalism runs governments, not the other way round. Reforms are a redistribution of poverty, not wealth. And reforms are reversible. Remember the Welfare State? Real Socialists do know the solution and it’s the only one that tackles the real problem, not merely the symptoms. Capitalism needs to go.

Homelessness, and just about every other social ill, will never be solved in a capitalist world. That is not mere pessimism on our part, it is a fact you can confirm by reading your paper every day, then looking to see how the world around you really is.

Meanwhile, workers everywhere can only keep their fingers crossed that illness, unemployment, and poverty don’t pull them into the misery of homelessness. Or they could be thinking how Socialism could be a move to something better than the mess capitalism is.

Sandy Wilson

Ex-Edinburgh Br.

Together for Revolution

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

The Socialist Party, basing its principles on the fact that workers the world over have a common interest, is opposed to all racialism and to all nationalism. We are opposed to all legislation to prevent the free movement of workers, whether in search of jobs or fleeing from oppression. Many blame working class problems on the presence of migrant workers. In fact, there was a shortage of housing, hospitals and so on before the immigrants came; these social problems have their roots in capitalist society and exist all over the world, whether a country loses people as emigrants or accepts them as immigrants. Xenophobia is an insidious trap for the working class; the problems of capitalism are international and can be solved only by all workers, whatever their origins, co-operating to abolish capitalism and to replace it with socialism. Let those on the Left who talk of immigration controls never dare speak of the brotherhood of man again! In the mid-nineteenth century, it was taken for granted by those who thought themselves progressive that the ending of slavery and serfdom would be followed by the eventual removal of all restrictions on movement. Instead, the comparative ease of movement that then existed and which permitted Marx and Johan Most, the anarchist, for example to leave the continent and settle in England, has been followed by our own era in which registrations, passports and other obstacles to migration have reached a new perfection, more pernicious because the machinery of coercion is got much more efficient. Nothing is more certain to slow up the spread of socialist thought than to sow dissension between the workers by emphasising national differences that are purely capitalist in character. Those who argue that Socialism is a long way off make it farther off by muddling the workers’ heads.  For some on the Left, the old slogans of internationalism have long been discarded in favour of the cult of nationalism. Too many on the Left share a firmly held opinion of the uninformed majority in the working class that the foreigner is responsible for our economic troubles.

 As long as the exploited donkey class continues to be misled by the bunch of carrots with one carrot being this anti- migrant complex dangling before its nose, so long will the capitalist class ride comfortably on its back. When the donkey realises that it is never allowed to get near enough to the carrots to test their desirability, the time will be appreciably nearer when the rider is hacked off. Until then the ruling class will do all in its power to foster the idea that people act according to the dictates of some mysterious characteristic inherent in their nationality and not, as is the real fact, according to their class function. The function of the capitalist regardless of nationality is to use the worker for his own ends. The task of the worker is to understand this and achieve his or her freedom, which necessarily carries with it the freedom of all mankind.

Ever since the evolution of the first humans, members of our species have wandered into virtually every comer of the globe. The first way of life — hunting - gathering — involved moving around to find new sources of meat, vegetables, and fruits. This inevitably meant encountering other bands and reproducing with them. Even after the rise of agriculture and the growth of more settled lifestyles, people continued to travel (forcibly or otherwise) to various parts of the earth, and to mix with people of a variety of origins. The slave traders of the ancient world and of more recent times caused enormous population upheavals, just as did wars and crusades. The expansion of capitalism into a world-wide system has likewise caused people to interact and reproduce on a global basis. The upshot of all this is that everyone has a mixed background, with genes from various parts of the world.  All human beings are hybrids. Humanity is a single species, divided by the artificial barriers of class and nation.

 Socialism involves revolutionary changes in every aspect of the working-class way of life. The wages system must be supplanted by a democratic administration of production and distribution, based on individual needs and equality. This means the building of a working-class organisation now, where every worker understands and accepts the democratic principles of administration; and is ready to take his place in the scheme of things, both on the productive and administrative side. Until the workers do this, society cannot move forward.

The Socialist Party extends the hand of fellowship to the working class of all lands, for only through international action by a socialist working class will socialism be achieved. 

Time is Running Out

Haven't we all had enough of this capitalist system? Aren't we all sick to the teeth with the meaningless toil, the boredom and being bullied by our bosses. The employing class literally hold working people in bondage. We see where capitalism leads: to a permanent never-ceasing struggle for survival. Workers have increased productivity ten-fold with few increases in wages. Many are also working longer hours under worsening job conditions. When we are forced to compete in a rat-race against each other this breeds a mindset of dehumanisation so is it a surprise that we begin to behave like rats to one another. Capitalism doesn’t care if harm is done as long as profit is achieved. It is fundamentally an amoral system.  Most crimes are simply extensions of capitalism, the forces of competition involved in satisfying the market. Global warming, pollution, and devastating wars are the results.  The need to create profit commodifies people and businesses understand that and it why they have large departments described as “human resources”.

It’s important to discuss socialism, the alternative to capitalism. Socialism is just a few basic ideas to help us escape capitalism. Socialism is not the redistribution of resources and the wealth but the fundamental transformation of the process of production itself. We don’t want to manage a ‘better’ capitalism. We want to collectively plan production and distribution for all. For a better world, the working class requires to take over society, otherwise, it is merely treating the symptoms and not the disease itself.   Socialists understand that an injury to one is an injury to all, and under capitalism, it means protecting the environment and humanity alike. The only democracy possible is an economic democracy.  Socialism means the abolition of the existing order.

The world’s farming and food systems are not currently fit for purpose. Around 800 million people go to bed hungry each night and even more – about one in three of the planet’s six billion population – suffer some form of malnutrition, lacking crucial nutrients in their diets. These numbers will only get worse. The world’s population is forecast to exceed nine billion people by 2050, even as climate change shrinks production capacity each year.

The Socialist Party because we reject all leadership restricts our membership to socialists alone that we can afford to be uncompromisingly democratic. Some of those who in the past have sneered at our “impossibilism” is perhaps now starting to realise that what we have succeeded in building up is the nucleus of the type of mass party which the working class can use to liberate itself. We certainly do not have any of the glamour which makes other organisations so attractive to their romantic revolutionary elements, but to those interested in the serious work of achieving socialism, we do represent a party where they will be welcomed as comrades and equals. The aim of the Socialist Party is to unite the working class against the capitalist class. Alone, workers have no power, but together, we have all the power in the world. That means that we must expose the myths of religion, ethnicity, race, or gender. Isolated one-issue campaigns might bring in some new members for a while yet inviting workers to join on that basis is dishonest. It is no substitute and can’t adequately address the broader political problems of capitalist exploitation. The purpose of political organization is to amplify and concentrate the resources of the members so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This doesn’t mean that other struggles and activities are unimportant but a tool is most effective when it is tailored to a particular use and the Socialist Party is designed for political action to change society, not to advocate reforms or to defend what limited liberties we may now possess.

 As wage and salary earners, the vast majority of us have endless economic problems to worry about -- wages and prices, rents and mortgages, sickness, unemployment, old age. Even more worrisome can seem the large and perhaps overwhelming problems facing us as human beings: war, poverty and the destruction of our own planet by those who seek to persuade us they can do our thinking for us. There are numerous other problems, like racism or sexism, which distort human judgement and reinforce a system that thrives on human misery. Many people look to leaders to solve these intractable problems, sometimes through union action, more often by demanding social, political and economic reforms.

Come election time, all the parties suddenly grow excited, urgently recommending laws they will introduce if they gain control of the government. But they don't regard it as their business to deal with the basis of any of those problems, where the cause actually lies. Neither Right nor Left has any intention of tackling and dealing with the core of our troubles: the system of employment, known traditionally as wage labour, and the associated use of capital to produce all of the wealth we depend on. This system, we maintain, generates massive artificial scarcities in a society with the technological means to afford us abundance.

The Socialist Party holds that the social system needs to be changed fundamentally and we advocate the abolition of social classes through production based solely on meeting people's needs, democratically administered. This goes much deeper than a mere change in government, but it also assumes the widespread understanding of what needs to be done. We understand capitalism has gone as far as it can go; the time has come to put it behind us and start with a system of society that really works for everyone.

If you agree generally with arousing the rest of the world's workers to an understanding of how easily within our grasp it is to achieve a world of abundance and peace -- and a world we can pass on intact to the coming generations, join us.

Those of us in the Socialist Party seek a world without poverty, war, sexism, racism, nationalism, and other forms of hatred; without environmental devastation.

Socialism is for anybody who thinks the world would be a better place if we had no bosses and politicians telling everyone else what to do. Democracy means more than an election every few years. Freedom means real freedom, and respect, for everybody; People cooperating to satisfy human needs. Socialism is for anybody who wants real solutions, not repeated failures. The Left and Right haven't solved anything that counts - and they can't. Real solutions may take a while, but that's better than never. Real solutions require rational thought, not hype. Real solutions require people to work for them

We reject the idea that socialism has been tried in countries sometimes referred to as socialist. Look below at our definition of socialism and ask yourself if this in any way describes the state capitalist, police states of modern China and Cuba or the old regimes in Russia and eastern Europe, or the past and present "social-democratic" governments in many countries.

We reject the idea of socialism in one country. National socialism equals non-socialism. The capitalist system is global and so must the system which will replace it.

We reject the idea that people can be led into socialism. Socialism will not be established by good leaders or battling armies, but by thinking men, women and children. There can be no socialism without socialists.

A Grouse about Grouse Moors

Grouse moors for the privileged rich are to blame for persecuting endangered birds of prey in the Scottish Highlands and Uplands, according to, Ian Thomson, the head of investigations at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland. He said data from 77 birds of prey that had been satellite-tagged showed a direct correlation between dead and disappeared birds and grouse moors. It showed hotspots in the Angus glens near Dundee, the Highlands in Perthshire, the Monadhliath mountains and Speyside south of Inverness, around the Black Isle north of Inverness, and in the Southern Uplands. Thomson said: “It is clear from this map that, like golden eagles, the distribution of illegally killed or suspiciously disappeared satellite-tagged red kites and hen harriers is far from random, and shows clear clusters in some upland areas. “As with the hotspots for eagles, these clusters are almost entirely coincident with land dominated by driven grouse shooting management.”

In May an expert report from Scottish Natural Heritage on golden eagles said there was a direct correlation between grouse moors and the deaths and disappearances of tagged eagles, and the areas where eagles were failing to breed or prosper. SNH found a third of 131 young eagles tagged over a 12-year period had disappeared in suspicious circumstances or been killed, chiefly in the Highlands.

Roseanna Cunningham, Scotland’s environment secretary, explained,  “The findings of this research are deeply concerning and will give rise to legitimate concerns that high numbers of golden eagles, and other birds of prey, continue to be killed in Scotland each year."

French Revolution

Book Reviews from the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

History of the French Revolution by Jules Michelet (edited by Gordon Wright) University of Chicago Press. 32s

The Crowd in the French Revolution by George F. Rudé OUP Paperback 8s. 6d.

At some stage in the year 1789—the precise moment is debatable—there occurred in France a great social and political upheaval. This French Revolution gave rise, in embryonic form, to important concepts such as the class struggle, revolutionary dictatorship and, in the later stages, “elitist egalitarianism" in the form of Babeuf’s Conspiracy of the Equals.

Those, however, who see the revolution as a popular, egalitarian movement have failed to understand its true character. The French Revolution was a successful attempt by the bourgeoisie to destroy the feudalism which shackled their economic enterprise with old-fashioned regulations and which denied them the political rights they felt were their due. Throughout the, revolution’s course it was the bourgeoisie which controlled the various legislatures and executives, and its results were trade and commerce emancipated from feudalism, a law banning any trade unions (le loi Le Chapelier) and a system of indirect election benefitting the well-to-do. This was, of course, before Napoleon imposed upon the revolution the dynastic ambitions of the Buonaparte family.

There are, indeed, those who have protested that the first National Assembly, far from being a body composed of strictly bourgeois elements, was in fact packed with lawyers and other members of the liberal professions. But lawyers have always represented the interests of trade, commerce and industry—activities which are essential to their prosperity. The doctors, journalists and other professional people who sat as legislators were all notably in sympathy with liberal economic doctrines, and they were always shown to be afraid of popular uprisings such as that in Paris in July 1789. Thus the professions had effectively allied themselves with merchants, industrialists, bankers and agriculturalists, and could be relied upon to serve their interest.

These two books represent, in widely differing form, attempts to understand the role of the common people in the revolution. Michelet’s History first appeared in seventeen volumes in the 1840’s (of which this edition is a continuous selection). As such it is a good example of, and a grand monument to its age. Michelet is as much French Romaniticism’s representative historian as Victor Hugo is its representative literary figure. With a vigorous style, full of life, Michelet gives us his impassioned, apocalyptic and panoramic view of the revolution as the climax of the spiritual battle between the Catholic Order and the “principle of Justice”.

Unfortunately, in his eagerness to present the revolution as the victory of a united force—“the people”—Michelet overlooks important points of detail and produces certain inaccuracies. So insistent is he, for instance, in asserting that the revolution was a spontaneous outbreak of “Justice” and “the People” against a misery and oppression which he paints very eloquently, that he overlooks important differences in the interests of the bourgeoisie and “the people”, the main one being the contradictory demands of free trade and controlled bread prices.

Michelet’s book, however, has certain valuable aspects. It contains a brilliantly eloquent denunciation of Christian theology and extremely shrewd assessments of the true character of the so-called Absolute Monarchy and the mediaeval church in France.

Totally different in character and outlook is George Rudé The Crowd in the French Revolution. Originally published in 1959 and now available in paperback, it was described by one historian as “a significant book which opened up some entirely new sources and showed how statistical precision can be brought to the study of riots”. It is indeed a close study of the behaviour and composition of the Parisian crowd. Rudé, writing from the Marxist viewpoint, is concerned with breaking away from the tradition which until recent times treated the crowd, as he says, “as a disembodied abstraction and the personification of good or evil”, and with examining the crowd in a more scientific spirit. (The book is amply supplied with tables showing the composition, geographically and class-wise, of the crowd and the prices of various commodities at different stages of the revolution).

The crowd, or sans-culottes—called thus because they could not afford breeches—was a heterogeneous body, composed not only of the working class but of small shopkeepers and independent craftsmen as well. Rudé paints a picture of a working class still in transition between feudal and capitalist societies, and not truly distinct from other sans-cullote elements.

However, although the wage-earners in Paris had as yet developed little class solidarity, they did have a vague idea of their cohesion as a class. The breakup of the guild system had accentuated the gulf between masters and journeymen, and there had been a strike as early as 1724. Disputes over wages and conditions continued up till 1789. However, the large demands which food made upon a man’s wages produced a situation where the crowd was concerned more with keeping down prices than with raising wages.

Rudé points out that a variety of motives existed for the crowd’s revolutionary actions, among them dismay at high prices and uncertain food supplies, a belief at first in the king as its champion against the aristocracy and the church, and then in a republic. The crowd was not a totally inarticulate mob merely seeking immediate economic gains. Although economic factors may have influenced them, strongly and often, these went hand in hand with beliefs, however unsophisticated, in political principles.

In this context, Rudé well notes that the bourgeoisie, even at that early stage, were determined to prevent the wage earners gaining any influence, and that, although “whenever it (the crowd) advanced . . .  the aims of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, it has been represented as the embodiment of all popular and Republican virtues”, the bourgeoisie were unwilling to share power with this “virtuous” body. Property qualifications were required from would-be representatives. Rudé also points out “the ferocity with which the bourgeois . . .  of the National Guard dispersed the Champs de Mars demonstration” (a protest at Louis XVI’s flight from France).

Rudé’s book is an informative and extremely readable study of the popular aspect of the French Revolution.

Amit Pandya

Sinclair's Musings

This month we take a bit of a foray into the world of fiction commenting on wage-slavery in the "land of the free" from over a hundred years ago.

It's a handy parable how capitalism swindles profits from wage slaves while wages go up, and we wonder if anything much has changed in a hundred and eleven years since it was written. We hardly think so! Seems nothing is new under the sun when it comes to capitalists duping workers to produce faster while they lose – slaves running to stand still.

"All day long this man would toil thus, his whole being centred upon the purpose of making twenty-three instead of twenty-two and a half cents an hour; and then his product would be reckoned up by the census taker, and jubilant captains of industry would boast of it in their banquet halls, telling how our workers are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy." The Jungle, 1906. Upton Sinclair.

For socialism,
 Steve, Mehmet and John

Human Race Is Endangered Too.

Scientists at Stanford University, recently issued a report, claiming that significant animal population decline and possible mass extinction of species, all over the world, may be imminent, and that both have been underestimated by other scientists.

The study, published on July 10, by the National Academy of Scientists, said the reduction of species have been, and are still, being caused by destruction of the habitat, carbon pollution and climate change.

Most people are aware this was occurring, but weren't aware it was so rapid. One thing the scientists didn't say, was that we, the human race, is an endangered species too. John and Steve.

Basically Things Don't Change

A report on North Korean workers in Russia, issued by the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights, and organization in Seoul, said the Workers Party of Korea seizes 80 per cent of the wages earned by them. More money is taken to cover living expenses, mandatory contributions to a so called loyalty fund, and other donations.

In other words they work for close to nothing, which is like it was in the major industrialized countries just after the industrial revolution.

So things, basically, don't change much under capitalism, which is one of many reasons it should be abolished. 

John and Steve.

Towards a free and equal world

Trade unions co-operate in the exploitation of their members by accepting the premise that the international capitalist class has the unquestioned and legally enforceable ‘right’ to exploit the working class. Of vital importance is the mental conceptions of revolutionary change held by workers and without a change in what people think about the prospects for change there can be no alternative other than a continuance of some form of capitalism. Socilists claim, that there is a way to reconcile our conflict with our masters, and it is to build on our economic and social power and organise collectively and politically to end the dangerous madness of the market system once and for all, rather than trying to beat the capitalists at their own game.  Any gains made in the class struggle for better pay and conditions are still open to being eroded by the inevitable capitalist counter-attack, and without a socialist understanding, the workers will not be able to climb out of the rut of capitalism. So the cycle would continue, with workers making some gains, but then the capitalist class launches a counter offensive by either attacking the gain itself or attacking from some other direction. 

A fundamental Marxian position is that class struggle is the motor that drives change. Built into capitalism is a class struggle between those who own the means of wealth production and those who don't and who are therefore forced by economic necessity to sell their ability to work to those who do. The class war, between the owners of the means of production (the capitalists) and those compelled by threat of poverty to sell their capacity to work (the workers) is an essential and continual feature of capitalist society. The class struggle is the irrefutable antagonism of interests in present society between the class that owns and profits from the means of production, and the class that creates the wealth but does not possess any means of producing wealth of their own. Those who yearn for change are aware of some form of injustice or antagonism inherent in present-day society. This class struggle is not just over the price and conditions of sale of the commodity workers are selling. Ultimately, it's about control over the means of production. The strength of the argument is that it puts the power and potential for change back where it belongs and where it in fact really lies: in our own hands. The problem we have to face is that, in the class struggle, the odds are nearly always against us, and that to build a socialist future, we need a mass organisation of people who know what it is they want and are prepared to work to achieve it. As Engels put it, “The period for sudden onslaughts, of revolutions carried out by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where the question involves the complete transformation of the social organisation, there the masses must be consulted, must themselves have already grasped what the struggle is about, and what they stand for.” 

Groups pursuing the tactic of trying to reform capitalism by concentrating on adjusting it is a wasted effort, since the entire system is based on a minority exploiting a majority. To expend all energy in demands for a more "friendly" capitalism is not what socialists should aim for, as, even in the event of success, the primary evils of capitalism would still remain i.e. production for profit and extraction of surplus value. The main effort of socialists should be aiming for socialism itself. Socialists should get involved in industrial struggles but without illusions, in particular the illusion that they can have a revolutionary outcome. The socialist revolution may start from some strike over wages spreading to the whole of the working class and certainly workers can learn from the experience of industrial struggles against employers that socialism is the only way out so, in this sense, strikes can contribute to a growth of socialist consciousness. But so can the many other experiences of the way capitalism works againt the interests of workers (bad housing, poor health care, pollution, wars, etc).

Which leads to the importance of who controls the state. At the moment, this is in the hands of people favourable to the continuation of capitalism, itself a reflection of the fact that most workers too don't see any alternative to capitalism. The state, therefore, upholds legal private property rights. The end of capitalism can only come as a result of a consciously socialist political movement winning control of political power with a view to abolishing all capitalist property rights and ushering in the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. The preconditions for ending capitalism are a majority socialist consciousness and workers democratically self-organised in a large-scale socialist party. Neither of which, unfortunately, exist. There is no way that an anti-capitalist social order can be constructed without seizing state power, radically transforming it the constitutional and institutional framework that currently supports private property. To ignore the state is a ridiculous and dangerous idea for any anti-capitalist movement to accept.

Questioning the future of capitalism ought to be in the forefront of current debate. Socialist ideas have to be communicated to other workers, but not from outside the working class as a whole. They have to be communicated by other workers who, from their own experience and/or from absorbing the past experience of the working class, have come to a socialist understanding. It is not a question of enlightened outsiders bringing socialist ideas to the benighted workers but of socialist-minded workers spreading socialist ideas amongst their fellow workers.  Our mission is to show clearly both how we are robbed and exploited by the system ruled by capital and how we can untap the wealth of our collective productive power by taking control of the means of production directly. Socialists recognise the necessity of workers' solidarity in the class struggle against the capitalist class, and rejoice in every victory for the workers to assert their economic power. Both raising and defending of workers' wages affects the amount of time and resources at the disposal of workers for control of their own lives. Romantic notions of class struggle – of battles on the barricades – concentrate on the exceptional forms, rather than the dull reality of the class struggle of every day life. Workers do have to engage with the issues of pay and work conditions and pensions, but the main issue is the overthrow of capitalism, not picking away at it and then having our gains eroded sooner or later. In thinking of the class war as an actual war, the drive for a socialist understanding in the working class and the creation of a socialist society should be the main front, demanding the most effort, while everyday issues of pay and conditions and defending the gains that have been made would be a secondary front. We should never lose track of the actual aim of the socialist movement, the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a democratic association of peoples.

Severe Severence For Some.

In June, SEARS Canada said it planned to close 59 stores and cut 2900 jobs without severance pay under the companies creditors arrangement act.

What makes the whole situation so weird is SEARS plan to pay $9.2 million in retention bonuses to those who are not being laid off, many of whom, but not all, are in management. But then whoever said capitalism and sense go hand in hand?

 John and Steve.

A Disappointment If What He Wants Is Over $1,000,000

 Boxer, Floyd Mayweather, has 2 haircuts each week, and occasionally 3, each of which cost $1,000 US. Furthermore everywhere he goes he carries a briefcase with $1,000,000 in it, because, "I may see something I want to buy."

When one considers millions of folk have to live on less than a buck a day, doesn't it suggest there is something seriously wrong in the society we live in?

John and Steve.

A socialist planet for all

Fellow-workers, we are out to end this man-made hell on earth. We can show you that the greatest of our social evils are directly traceable to the fundamental wrong of stealing from you the product of your work. We ask you to unite with us for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the socialist cooperative commonwealth.

A careful reading of our Declaration of Principles will at once clearly and unmistakably show both the strength and the simplicity of the socialist position. Not one of the principles on which that position stands has been, or can be, refuted.

The Labour Party and their left-wing hangers-on have never taught anything but the pseudo-socialism of the reformist school. The idea that anyone could possibly obtain the most elementary knowledge of socialism from these parties is manifestly absurd. The schools of reformist thought may very well be good training-grounds for budding bureaucrats, Labour decoys and prospective  Cabinet Ministers but, except altogether in a negative manner, they are unthinkable as doing anything in the way of making Socialists. As a matter of fact, the confusion and mental decrepitude engendered by their teachings have done more to retard the progress of Socialism than all the efforts of the orthodox political parties.

One of the tragedies of misplaced enthusiasm and wasted effort by our fellow-workers has been the campaign for nationalisation. The idea gthat nationalisation would be good for the workers and a good vote-catcher for Labour Party candidates and the idea that nationalisation is socialism and would solve all problems is prevalent among the Left. It was supposed by Corbynites to be based on the principle of “public service” not profit. We have seen in the past the nationalised undertakings in operation under laws passed by the Labour Government. We see them being run on methods hardly distinguishable from those of any large private company. Disappointed about this, some workers have thought that the trouble is due to having the wrong people in control of the nationalised industries, not recognising that whoever is in control face the same obligation to make a profit.

No other method is possible under capitalism: the assumed alternative of running the industry at continuous heavy losses would merely lead to a demand either for reorganisation, so that profit would be made or a demand for selling back to private companies. Going in for nationalisation, in the belief that it would be a step to Socialism, was a false move. It has not achieved anything. Nationalisation, which was once the great plank of the Labour Party, is now a heap of sawdust which was quietly swept away. It never had the support of the Socialist Party. 

When we, as socialists, examine the records of government by all the parties, separately and in coalitions, we are reinforced in our conviction that the only solution is the one sneered at and rejected the “dream of a society altogether free from conflict and friction”—a socialist world. Socialism alone can foster the harmonious and brotherly behaviour of mankind which lies dormant in all of us, awaiting the freedom of expression and fulfillment that will accrue once the revolution has been accomplished. We call on our fellow members of the working class to stop voting for the continuity of capitalism, even though we acknowledge fully It is a hard task to educate workers away from support of capitalism and reform of capitalism, over to an understanding of socialism. When they can be got to consider the question they all will see that nationalisation leads nowhere and that socialism alone offers them the means to use the land and industry, without financial hindrance, to supply the needs of the human race, and at the same time enable them to enjoy, along with everyone else, all the amenities social production in field and factory can provide.

“DOCTOR, WHO CARES?” (A Fantasy, Part 1) - weekly poem

“DOCTOR, WHO CARES?” (A Fantasy, Part 1)

Some Feminists are rejoicing that the 13^th 'Dr Who'

will be a woman as, with their limited perspective,

they view this trifle as a revolutionary breakthrough.

The new Dr Who is a woman!

Or in sexist parlance, 'a gal';

He's now been transgendered,

His cojones dismembered,

He is, chaps, no longer a male!

The trend could have repercussions,

Will actors adopt the new creed?

A musical play,

About Mrs May,

Could star Brian May in the lead! (1)

A brand new production on Hitler,

That's filmed at his Berlin retreat;

Might feature Miss Rudd, (2)

As the failed Nazi dud,

Bunkering down in defeat.

Could Ann Widdecombe play a Dalek?

Or a male space-monster instead?

And could Catholics cope,

If she plays the Pope,

With nun Tony Blair in 'theys' bed?! (3)

These follies are feasible if,

Non-binary gender holds sway; (4)

With some men in drag,

Wayne Rooney a WAG,

And Prince Charles, the Queen of the May!

This is the most faux revolution,

Since Tsarism's Petrograd fell;

But for minds that ain't small,

It's a load of old ball,

And a load of old 'ballcocks' as well!

(1) Queen guitarist.

(2) Amber Rudd, home secretary.

(3) The latest Feminist fad is for woman to self-identify as being

of 'non-binary gender', i.e. something other than a man or

woman who insist others refer to them as 'they' rather than 'she'.

(4) If, according to Feminists, gender is ‘non-binary’ then

it is a spectrum applicable to the entire human species.

© Richard Layton

Hiding Things Under The Shelve.

A massive iceberg - double the volume of Lake Erie - broke off from the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica during the first week in July. Scientists said it was a natural phenomenon unrelated to global change.

Of course, it was; 1 trillion tonne icebergs split off from ice shelves all the time.

 John and Steve.

No Wage Raise, Other Prices OK

The Bank of Canada raised its interest rate from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent, on July 12. This was its first increase in nearly seven years. The hike was caused by expectations of stronger economic growth in 2017. It will raise the cost of mortgages, lines of credit and other loans linked to the prime rates of Canadian banks. 

What it will not raise are wages and salaries. 

John and Steve.