Women in society

 The much-vaunted freedom for most women is largely a myth, and women are only taking the position that capitalism assigns to them. The question of women’s freedom resolves itself into exactly the same problem as that of the men. Socialists argue from the basic fact that capitalism's private property relationships and class division are the cause of the oppression of both men and women. 

For the materialist, there is no blanket exploitation of women by men. The subordination of one sex to another was coincident with the division of society into classes. Prior to the beginning of civilisation - the period of written history — there existed primitive communist societies in which nobody was afforded superior status. The period from primitive communism to the beginning of civilisation saw the growth of taboos, first on child-parent relationships and then on those between brother and sister, culminating in the 'pairing' family. Monogamy, however, arose as a consequence of social evolution. This form of family, based as it is on the supremacy of the man, arises alongside the advent of private property. Women's biological commitment to childbearing meant that it tended to be the man who acquired property and instruments of production, and once men had these things they wanted to keep them. So the monogamous family has as its aim the begetting of children of undisputed paternity and women's role is essentially a childbearing one. So, to quote Engels: 'The first class antagonism which appears in history (it begins at civilisation) coincides with the development of the antagonism between men and women in monogamous marriage and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male'.

It should be emphasised once more that we are not talking of a consistent oppression of one sex by another. In the early stages of capitalism, for example, women enjoyed certain rights and privileges which they later lost. In early 17th century Britain, where some production was still organised in accordance with guild regulations, women in certain trades were protected against male competition. These rights often related to the work of women in the household, for at that stage domestic and industrial work were not clearly distinct. 'Spinster' meant not an old maid, but a woman who supported herself by spinning; a 'brewster' was a woman who supported herself by brewing beer. Moreover, in spite of Puritanism, women were not thought of as sexually inferior, as is borne out by this 17th-century proverb: 'Women are saints in the church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen and apes in bed'.

With the increases in the productivity of labour and with changes in the organisation of production these protective features disappeared. The wives of those who owned property were educated to please men, while those who were married to wage slaves simply cooked and looked after the children. The man's wage sufficed to maintain his family as well as to reproduce his own labour power. Then, in the 19th century, when capitalism began to need a greater workforce, part of the worst exploited sections of the working class was composed of women. Being physically weaker and previously out of work, they provided a cheap source of labour. In Capital Marx cites the case of a milliner who died from overwork (she laboured sixteen and a half hours a day in 1863). He further mentions that women were used instead of horses for hauling canal boats because:

“the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, whereas that required to maintain the woman is below all calculation.”

The capitalist nonetheless needs labour power—he cannot have part of the workforce dying off. So these extreme conditions were altered and laws were passed improving the conditions of the working class.

Class society, then, creates the conditions for women's inferior treatment. If the wives of the property-owning class are restricted to the home, it is all too easy for the men to reap the benefits. For the same reason, the working man's wage must suffice for himself and for his family. Whatever form the subordination of women has assumed, it is a consequence of the class division of society; in the case of capitalism, the division between owners and non-owners of the means of producing wealth. Before the advent of class society there was no reason for one sex to treat the other as inferior because there were no owners and non-owners of property, and therefore no need for competition.

It is important to point out that there are female members of the exploiting class. Working class women, by contrast, share with others in their class the condition of wage slavery. Whichever form it takes, whether it is real prostitution or working on the assembly line, they have to sell part of themselves —  their labour power — in order to live. As Marx put it: Prostitution is only the specific form of the universal prostitution of the working class'.

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Women ought to be criticising capitalism and working for socialism, a class-free society of common ownership. In such a society there is no reason to suppose that women will have to become men or men women.

World development has decreed that women shall play a part that is in keeping with the conditions under which they live, and to the women who do not own property this means that under capitalism they will be as much wage-slaves as their brothers. There can be no freedom for the workers, men or women, while they are exploited. Working-class women have an historic mission to perform with their men. There is no time for entering into things that concern the masters only. Let the property holders equalise the holding and sharing of their property between the sexes if they like. It matters not if our employers are men or women, but it does matter a great deal wheher we ourselves understand our class interests. The emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex, and that is the only cause worthy of our support. 

The suffering and abuse of women is inseparable the social system in which we live.  Socialists are optimists. We insist that the mess that is human society to-day can be changed if we all decide to change it. We made it, no demented divine power ordered it from above, so we can think it out and get it right. There is little value in diagnosis without a cure, but the cure has to come from awareness of the cause of the disease. It has to come through growing dissatisfaction, leading to questioning and consciousness. The worker, the wife, the prostitute, all innocent but jointly responsible for their continuing exploitation, must resist and rebel. The cure is far simpler than the disease. We will dismiss all manifestations of poverty and control—wages, money, law and state—take down all the fences and establish one world where all the human race will share the good things that we have learned to make. Freed from the dictates of the law and the confines of convention, relationships between men and women will find harmony. Marriage and prostitution will have no meaning when people may work together, live together, love together in any way they choose.

Women have got to understand that political power must first be obtained by a socialist working class, who then will reorganise society on Socialist principles. The workers will be in possession of the fields, factories and workshops, and production will be for use and not profit. Those fit will work, and working time will be adjusted to the needs of the population. All will be entitled to what they need, providing it can be produced, and at a glance one can see that the economic ills we are suffering from must of necessity disappear.

There is only one organisation in this country which is working for these ends, and that is ourselves. We do not say "vote for us and we will do it for you." We simply tell you, first understand socialism and then send your representatives to Parliament to carry out your wishes. Knowing what you what, none could bamboozle you.

Women workers are in general less active politically because:.

Firstly, there are practical problems that prevent women from attending political meetings. Most meetings are held in the evening and many women have young children so going out to a meeting is likely to mean finding a babysitter, which is not always easy and often expensive. Socialist Party members should recognise this and wherever possible offer practical help (such as babysitting) to women with children who are prevented from attending Socialist Party meetings because of their child-care responsibilities.

Secondly, many women are, understandably, nervous about going out alone after dark. They may very well be put off going out to a meeting at night if they know they will have to go home afterwards. Again Socialist Party members should be prepared to help out by organising lifts home after meetings if members have cars, or by offering to walk with women who are scared.

Thirdly, many women have been taught from an early age that politics is part of the man's world outside the home, is nothing to do with them and has nothing to offer them. They may very well feel that their first concern is with their domestic responsibilities - the welfare of their children and the problems of trying to fit paid work around the needs of their families. So how can we persuade women workers that socialist politics is as much to do with them as it is with men?

We need to convince women that socialism will not just change the "public" sphere of things that go on outside the home but it will also affect the "private" sphere of family and child care in important ways as well. Socialism, unlike capitalism, will offer women workers not just a choice between paid drudgery outside the home and unpaid drudgery inside the home, but the possibility of doing whatever work or combination of work they themselves find fulfilling. Their role as mothers (if that is what they choose) will not be under-valued but will be recognised and respected. But fathers, and indeed other adults in the community, will also recognise that they have a responsibility for the welfare of children. So caring for children will no longer be seen as a burden, the responsibility of just one or two tired adults but as a joy to be shared in by everyone, male and female. So in very practical ways, socialism has a lot to offer women. We must therefore stress to women workers that while they are absolutely right to say that capitalist political parties have little to offer them, the Socialist Party offers them not only the chance to work together, as equals, with other like-minded workers in order to build a new socialist society, but also the possibility of a full and creative life in that new society. As socialists, we are not concerned with just one area of life - the male-dominated world of politics and politicians. All the conflicts and contradictions of capitalist society affect all of our lives.

Some women may be reluctant to become politically active because traditional sex-roles and conditioning into those roles have convinced them that to be assertive and to speak up for yourself is "unfeminine" and that women are "no good at that sort of thing". As a result, many women lack confidence in their own abilities and are terrified at the prospect of even asking a question at a public meeting. Party members should be aware of this problem (and of course many men may also be nervous) and take practical steps to give women support and to encourage them to take an active part in socialist activities. Some men still believe that so-called "women's issues" are trivial or marginal. They are not, and should not be treated as such. Issues to do with the family, child-care and sexuality are as important as those to do with waged work and affect us all in important ways. The Socialist Party does not make distinctions between men's interests and women's interests. Whether we are talking about child-care or factories these are issues that affect all workers, men and women.

It is vital that we get more women along to our meetings. Socialism is not just for and in the interests of men, and men certainly can't get socialism without women.

Mother Courage: "Poor folk got to have courage . . . Mere fact they bring kids into world shows they got courage."

WHAT'S WITH THESE POLITICIANS? (poem)

WHAT'S WITH THESE POLITICIANS?

Ex-Minister, Priti Patel, lied about her Israel visit & Bojo’s words

resulted in a woman receiving a doubled prison sentence in Iran.

Boris has a history of gaffes & being economical with the truth.

What's with these politicians who,

Insist on being chumps?

Such MP's are a motley crew,

With grey cells in their rumps.

Who clearly think they're not bound by,

The usual social rules;

And who prevaricate and lie,

And take us all for fools.

So would  you buy a used gun from,

Ex-Minister Patel?

She’d probably charge you a bomb,

For such materiel! (1)

Some say she looks quite devious,

And someone you can't trust; (2)

Too foxy and quite envious,

And with a power lust.

And Boris Johnson, Eton clot,

That would-be Churchill clone;

Who fantasises quite a lot,

And thus is blunder prone.

Does he believe, this rank poltroon,

That he’s this era’s sage?

This man who's merely a buffoon,

And hates to be backstage!

So what makes both these reprobates,

Think that they're qualified;

To regulate all of our fates,

When both of them have lied?

Most MP’s when they’ve just begun,

Claim their job’s doing good;

But they soon vote for number one,

And their own livelihood!

(1) Patel is staunchly pro-Israel and wanted Britain

to fund an Israeli Army hospital for Syrian refugees.

(2) She was a former big tobacco lobbyist who

voted against an EU tobacco control directive.

© Richard Layton

Old and in the way?

Imagine a world that allows you to live the autumn years of your life with dignity. Old age should be about life being made more pleasant with everything society has to offer. After all, everyone holds onto the hope that he or she will someday enjoy what they now offer to others. The old should not be haunted by the thought that others are waiting for them to die in order to come into an inheritance. Nor by the fear that once they are old and helpless they will be thrown aside to vanish from all thought. When socialism is built the elderly will not depend on the charity and the alms of the community.   The world’s over-65s will soon outnumber its under-5s for the first time in recorded history. Whatever our age, we all have an overriding interest in the establishment of Socialism. When you are young and fit you produce surplus value for your master. When you are old and infirm you are the subject of neglect and abuse. In the treatment of the elderly, capitalism must be the worst system ever devised. In a capitalist society, goods are produced to make a profit and workers are viewed primarily as economic units who can be exploited for their labour power. The elderly, having withdrawn from productive work are, therefore, at an economic disadvantage. Our profit system makes men and women grow old prematurely. Millions look with dread upon the day when, once they have grown old, they will be discarded. Millions of workers struggle through life in penury and want towards a bleak and barren old age, to finally find rest at last in the council care home or the morgue. It must be impressed upon the minds of workers that the living standards of a generation of people at or near retiring age are being sacrificed to increase the proportion of resources going into government investment going to businesses. The problem is that people accept capitalism and its logic and therefore see no alternative. 

From the cradle to the grave we are subjected. in one form or another, to the depredations and exploitation of the capitalist system.  Elderly workers are manipulated according to the fluctuating demands for labour power under capitalism. Thirty or forty years ago at a time of high unemployment, the elderly were encouraged to retire early and now the retirement age is being raised higher and higher. Capitalism is a wasteful and oppressive system for workers of all ages. It is capitalism which fosters the spurious divisions and encourages animosities between various age groups. While the younger generation struggle with benefits, pay, education and housing, the elderly encounter comparable problems, of low incomes, poor health, choosing between eating and heating, isolation and loneliness. Traditional societies valued older people as a store of knowledge and experience, but under capitalism, the elderly are seen as little more than unpaid child-minders for grandkids, and as a burden to be looked after as cheaply as possible.  When the elderly cannot work and continue to make profits for capitalism, they can go on to the human scrap heap. Who cares?

It is typical of capitalism, that as we reach old age we do not have a great deal to look forward to. A system whose purpose is profit can have no place for anyone unable to contribute towards this aim.  When workers decide to abolish the wages system and produce for human needs instead of profit, then hardship and insecurity in old age could become a memory of capitalism's barbaric past. In socialism, everyone would have the opportunity to contribute to the community for as long as they could. Their contributions would not have to be strictly rationed nor controlled and all would be able to share in the common produce. The creation of second-class cast-off workers known as pensioners would cease to be and in its place, we could have a fair share for all. The struggle for such a society is in our immediate practical interest.  Under capitalism, welfare has always been an issue. If capitalism is to be judged by what is done for the least fortunate section of the community – the aged and infirm – it will be judged and found wanting. This world possessed of vast resources should be free from the scourge of poverty. Money dominates our social life and our social practices and that can only produce inhumanity.

Violence in politics (1970)

From the May 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

The upsurge of violence in modern society probably means that “Law and Order” will be the most explosive single political issue of the 1970’s. What concerns socialists most is the political violence which has been seen of late in Paris, London, Tokyo and many large American cities. This has been carried out by large numbers of people, mostly young, who have the avowed intention of changing society and of even instituting “Socialism”. Indeed, many of these insurgents claim to adhere to the theories of Karl Marx. Not surprisingly, Marx is once again widely regarded as the apostle of violent revolution, barricades, and fighting in the streets.

At a recent debate in Edinburgh, the audience heard our opponent claim that Marx had never supported the use of the ballot in achieving Socialism and had always advocated using force of arms. Whether this statement was due to ignorance or “tactics” is unknown. We say Marx’s views on the revolutionary use of the ballot by the working class are not a matter for debate, they are a matter of record and were dealt with by us in the April issue of the Socialist Standard.

Why this obsession with violence, then? After all, it is only a few years since the emphasis in the protest movement was on the non-violent. The theme of the earlier Aldermaston marches was that “we shall overcome” by pacifist methods, a far cry from the bloodthirsty spectacle of recent Easters.

The key lies in the fact that as capitalism continues on its not-so-merry way its problems not only increase but intensify. For example, the Spanish Civil War pales to insignificance with its post-war parallel in Vietnam, and prior to 1939, the disarmers were aghast at the thought of submarines and mustard gas. Today, it is thermonuclear and bacteriological warfare.

Most of the current crop of “revolutionaries” came into politics through their disgust at one or another of capitalism’s evils. Many of them were originally supporters of the Labour Party and helped get it elected in the belief that this would be a step towards eliminating certain social problems. Of course, the reality has been very different. To many it has seemed that governments lack the will or are too treacherous to deal with the problems and that it doesn’t matter who the votes are cast for, the result is the same — human misery on a vast scale. Thus they come to the conclusion that the ballot is useless, a kiss on a piece of paper.

Is it as simple as that? Is it really lack of will that prevents governments solving the problems? The myth is that governments could take capitalism by the scruff of the neck if they really wanted to. Actually, it is the other way round. How can a government determine or forecast the actions of the rest of the world? And how can it deny — if it wishes to retain popular support — the wishes of the majority? For there is another myth dearly held by the protesters, that the majority is really on their side. The fact is that the majority either supports capitalism or can see no alternative way of running society except on a production for profit basis.

So, it is a lack of desire for Socialism (production for use) that keeps capitalism going. Governments have no choice but to run the system the best way they know how. The vote, then, is not necessarily useless. Rather it is like a razor which can be used to separate a man from his whiskers or his breath. Likewise, a vote can be a weapon of emancipation or self-inflicted wage slavery, depending on the man using it.

In their frustration, the protesters must turn to solutions outside of majority support, and there is no lack of would-be leaders to provide such solutions from the rehashed theories of Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, etc., and their insistence that since all previous revolutions have been violent so must the next one be, too.

We deny this most unMarxian viewpoint on the grounds that the factors involved in revolutions do not remain constant. The bourgeois revolutions of 19th century Europe took place against a background where the bourgeois had no option but to take up arms. The existing legality was often undemocratic, so the only way to change things was by illegal means.

Also, these upheavals occurred when the level of weaponry was low by today’s standards. Then it was a case of rifle against rifle, horseman against horseman. In such a situation it was possible that revolutionaries fired by the “justice” of their cause and as well, or as poorly, armed as the mere hirelings of the state could take on and beat them. Nowadays, the situation is vastly different. No group outside of the state machine could possibly seize power in a modern country in the face of the sophisticated weaponry ranged against them. Much wiser to win control of the state machine first.

The most important changed factor is that previous revolutions have always been carried out in the interest of a minority who understood what was at stake. The socialist revolution will be the first one in the interest of a majority, so, along with Marx and Engels, we hold that the majority must also understand what is at stake.

In any case, those who have actually tried to seize power without first winning political control in more recent times have failed miserably. The May 1968 Paris affair was crushed without any real force having to be used. Probably the only shots fired came from the students, themselves. No tanks, aircraft or artillery were required. Indeed, this writer has a vivid memory of seeing on TV how a Paris Municipal street cleaning vehicle made short work of a barricade.

Ignoring the myth of Mussolini’s march on Rome, the most serious attempt was Hitler’s Munich putsch in 1923. The rebels were desperate, trained and armed men, many of whom had fought in world war one, and they constituted a more potent force than anything today’s barricadists are likely to provide. Through the streets of Munich, they marched until confronted by the state machine in the form of some policemen armed only with rifles. A volley of shots rang out and some of the marchers fell dead or wounded. Alan Bullock, in his Hitler — A Study in Tyranny, tells of the ensuing panic and collapse of the putsch. Although Hitler dislocated his arm in the stampede to get away, his brain continued to function. There and then he realised that attempts to bypass the state machine were useless. From then on he set out to win the minds of the German electorate and to win power legally. Once this had been achieved the military had no option but to accept Nazi rule.

Of course, the widely held view among the “revolutionaries” is that it is impossible for socialists to capture the forces of the state; that in the event of a socialist majority the armed forces and the police will be used to cow that majority into submission. How valid is this idea?

Socialists claim that the idea of Socialism — a world without social classes in which the means of production will be commonly owned — is produced out of the revulsion of capitalism’s problems, its wars, crime, poverty, alienation. that the values and institutions of capitalism increasingly come into conflict with the growing desire of the working class to live in a society more in harmony with their needs. In short, socialist consciousness is a product of capitalism’s problems. Now, there is no evidence to suggest that members of the armed forces are any more backward than other workers in factories or offices. Their ideas are pretty much the same on matters of sport, sex or politics. They do not live in a vacuum.

So, how likely is the soldier to obey a command to suppress a socialist working class? Not so long ago this writer did his National Service and can, accordingly, speak from first-hand experience. Did we obey our officers because we loved them or regarded them as superior beings? Actually, a chief topic in the NAAFI any night of the week was what a useless shower officers were. Also, any officer issuing an order which we knew to be unauthorised could be safely and often was, ignored. During the years of National Service the newspapers often carried exposures of servicemen being misused, supplied by the men themselves.

The reason why we obeyed the officers was that even we, without a socialist idea in our heads, knew that those in command are backed by the populace at large. The working class today, as before, thinks the armed forces are necessary, so, logically, it regards discipline as a must. Officers with no authority telling soldiers exposed to socialist ideas to do what they certainly won’t want to do — shoot their own families — will be more likely to have the arms turned on them!

The most urgent task, then, for those who wish to abolish capitalism and institute Socialism, is to organise with others of like mind. No need to form another organisation when the Socialist Party of Great Britain has been in existence for 66 years. There is a great need to carry the socialist case out into the ranks of the working class, particularly now as capitalism’s rottenness becomes more exposed to the public gaze. First, it is necessary to understand that case, and a start can be made by discarding the romantic nonsense of the barricades. Those who most loudly proclaim their hatred of the bourgeoisie show it in a strange way by aping it.

We do not see the ballot as a cure-all; it is majority understanding of Socialism which counts most. How will we know when we are a majority? there may be better methods of finding this out, but, meantime we still think that the ballot is the best way of finding out what people are thinking at any particular time.

The late Vic Vanni

Glasgow Branch

The Clearances

15,000 vulnerable children from Scotland’s children’s homes who were transported by charities including  Barnardo’s to Canada as part of the British Home Children programme that lasted from 1863 until the 1970s in a programme of forced emigration and cheap labour that lasted almost 100 years.

Many youngsters suffered rauma after being split from their brothers and sisters and in some cases told they were unwanted and even that their parents were dead.

Lori Oschefski, the founder of the British Home Children Advocacy & Research Association (BHCARA) explains, “The British Home Children were sent away to work, some never to see their families again. Our mission is to bring the true stories to light and to reunite families with the truth.” British Home Children were badly stigmatised. They were thought of as the dregs of the UK and given derogatory labels. Many carried that shame throughout their lives and many weren’t given an education, Ms Oschefski added.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/the-15-000-scots-children-shipped-to-canada-1-4616584
Children aged between six and 16 were transported with the younger ones adopted and the older boys and girls sent to work as indentured domestic servants and farm labourers. Some had originally ended up in care due to parents poverty or sickness. Only two per cent of the children sent to Canada were actually orphans, according to researchers.

More than 100,000 children were sent from the UK in total to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

Just Admit It: Capitalism Doesn't Work

What is the State? It is the machinery for imposing the rule of one class over another, i.e. government, law, armed forces, police, prisons etc. Where there are no classes dividing society, where there is freedom, there will be no State. Socialist society will be very different. There will be no State because social relationships will be based on mutual cooperation and not on coercion. It will be a world society free of the problems and limitations of the profit economy. This is the Marxist conception of socialism. The common, mistaken idea of Socialism is it where the working class control their own exploitation such as through nationalisation or cooperatives.Such an idea is absurd, as the essence of capitalism is the subordination of wage-labour to capital.

Many disparage the SPGB "fetishism" to majority revolution and the Parliamentarian process but overlook the fact that in 1904 when we laid down our position and principles, more than half the working class did not possess the vote - all women and a still a quarter of men were deprived of it. We were never adherents to the number game.

Nevertheless what existed was suffice according to the SPGB for the working class to use to capture political power. Our aim is to achieve a "functional" majority, rather than advocate as many did in the past, action by a self-defeating minority, hence many often misconstrue our emphasis on the term "majority revolution".

Many gradualists insist we should carry on the campaign to perfect the electoral system with various constitutional amendments such as an assortment of PR proposals, the SPGB continues to maintain that what we have can be used and what is missing is understanding an knowledge among or fellow workers.

What is essential is that the numbers are sufficient for the revolutionary process to succeed and to make socialism work, either as active participants or otherwise fully acquiescing to the events taking place around them.

We cannot recall any member of the SPGB decrying the fall of state-capitalism when fellow-workers in Eastern Europe's Soviet Union satellite countries voted with their feet (and some with their fists) for not following constitutional methods of voting and elections.

A prospective member of the Socialist Party need not have read a word of Marx. The acid test of socialist convictions hinges on such views as: Capitalism cannot be reformed or administered in the interest of the working class or of society; Capitalism, as a social system, is in the interest of the ruling class (albeit that capitalism, historically, was an essential stage of social evolution) and it is incapable of eliminating poverty, war, economic crises; Socialism is the solution to the social problems and irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism; Socialism cannot be rammed down the workers’ throats against their wishes; Socialist success is dependant upon the fervour and enthusiasm of the determined, conscious socialist majority. These are the characteristics of a socialist; a coupling of the head and the heart, theory coupled with action.

We see the work of the Socialist Party to be a trigger that transforms majority ideas from bourgeois into revolutionary ones by education and campaigning and when our numbers arrive, progressing from a propagandist party to a class organising one, such as shown by the attempt of the Socialist Party of Canada and its relationship with the One Big Union.

People should know that we always add caveats to our support for the ballot box - one being that the most important factor is the knowledge and understanding of the person placing the X. Which is why we insist that you don't vote for the SPGB unless you agree with us and your vote is that indication of socialist understanding. The important Marxist ideas we try to convey in or education are the Materialist Conception of History and the Labour Theory of Value, using those concepts in arousing socialist consciousness, on the basis of evidence and unfolding events, that capitalism has outlived its historic usefulness and is now ripe for burial. We, as socialists, are catalytic agents, acting on our fellow-workers and all others to do something about it as speedily as possible. The barest minimum of socialist principles are: socialism is a product of social evolution; the socialist revolution is inherently democratic because of its nature of being conscious, majority, and political; and that socialism is based on the social relations of a community of interests between all the members of society and society as a whole. There can hardly be any compromise or concession on these general principles. Working-class understanding is at a very low ebb, therefore the membership of the SPGB is low but not such a great difference in the number of adherents to other groups to demonstrate they have any better strategy than ourselves. To the accusations from Leftists that we are sectarian and enthralled to dogma we do unrepentantly oppose all the so-called working-class parties which compromise with capitalism and do not uphold the socialist case.

Election periods are the time when workers are more receptive to political discussions, even if it is to explain their apathy and non-involvement. Of course, the importance of election issues and the importance of the casting individual votes will affect the turn-out. At the moment, our involvement in the electoral process is a token one to take advantage of not just the free postage but also to participate in the numerous hustings that are organised in election campaigns. Outside election times, open public political meetings are rare occurrence except as PR events for the established politicians. Nevertheless, our support for parliamentary action is to capture political power, not just a mere propaganda tactic. And we have explained frequently why we see it as a necessity to have control of the State, rather than pursue other anti-parliamentarian strategies. As we are in the UK, our analysis and practice are based on the reality of that. We have built an organisation that we feel is best suited and fit for purpose to express and act as an instrument of our class.

How a socialist party behaves in other countries with different political structures, we do not lay down any strictures on others except to broadly insist that they democratically reflect the will of the majority. This is what we said in 1937 about Spain "... It must be assumed that the Spanish workers weighed up the situation and counted the cost before deciding their course of action. That is a matter upon which their judgement should be better than that of people outside the country..."

Whether we take our seat if elected or exercise the Sinn Fein policy has long been discussed within the Party and the culmination of these debate has always been the elected SPGB MP would take the oath of loyalty to her majesty and sit in the Commons.

And while still a minority, they will not sit on their hands and do nothing. The Party has also decided that SPGB MPs will vote for any reform seen to be in the interest of the working class. As the Socialist Party of Canada member elected to the State Legislature of Albert said:
"When I voted on the last division I did so because I saw an opportunity to benefit a few of my class, the laborers in the construction camp. There is no opportunity to get anything for the workers on this vote, and I shall not vote. On every vote where there is no opportunity to get something for my class, I shall not vote. On every vote where there is no opportunity to get anything for my class, I shall leave the House and refrain from voting."

The Socialist Party is reticent to cite the authority of Marx and Engels since as you pointed out their views differ with time and circumstances, for example, Marx support for some nationalisms and not for others. Elections were less a matter of principle but more of tactical importance rather than a strategy. Marx not only supported, the campaign of the Chartist in the 1850s for universal suffrage but also, through the IWMA, the similar campaign of the Reform League in the 1860s as reported in Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life, By Jonathan Sperber
"Marx vigorously endorsed campaigns for a more democratic franchise, in the hope of increasing worker' parliamentary representation. He was particularly proud of the prominent role of the English leaders of the IWMA in the newly founded Reform League that advocated universal manhood suffrage for Great Britain..."

On the IWMA executive the Reform League was represented by Dell, Cowell Stepney and Lucraft, all three are also on the Executive Committee of the Reform League Also, the National Reform Association, set up by the late Bronterre O'Brien, by its President A. A. Walton and Milner.

" In the spring of 1865 the Central (General) Council of the International initiated, and participated in, the setting up of a Reform League in London as a political centre of the mass movement for the second election reform. The League’s leading bodies – the Council and Executive Committee – included the General Council members, mainly trade union leaders. The League’s programme was drafted under Marx’s influence. Unlike the bourgeois parties, which confined their demands to household suffrage, the League advanced the demand for manhood suffrage. This revived Chartist slogan won it the support of the trade unions, hitherto indifferent to politics. The League had branches in all big industrial cities. The vacillations of the radicals in its leadership, however, and the conciliation of the trade union leaders prevented the League from following the line charted by. the General Council of the International. The British bourgeoisie succeeded in splitting the movement, and a moderate reform was carried out in 1867 which granted franchise only. to the petty bourgeoisie and the upper layers of the working class."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/archive/eichhoff/iwma-history/notes.htm#n418

" As far as possible they should be League members and their election should be pursued by all possible means. Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed." Marx Address to the Communist League 1847

Marx’s view of universal suffrage was clearly given in his article on the Chartists, in which he said:“But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of itself as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England, would, therefore, be a far more Socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent. Its inevitable result here, is the political supremacy of the working class.” ‘N.Y. Tribune,’ 25th Aug. 1852;

"The irony of history turns everything topsy-turvy. We, the ‘revolutionists’, thrive better by the use of constitutional means than by unconstitutional and revolutionary methods. The parties of law and order, as they term themselves, are being destroyed by the constitutional implements which they themselves have fashioned.” 1895, the year of his death, Engels in an introduction to a reprint of Marx’s Class Struggles in France

"The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage. For as long as the oppressed class—in this case the proletariat—is not ripe for its emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing form of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class. But the more the proletariat matures towards its self-emancipation, the more does it constitute itself as a separate class and elect its own representatives in place of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be that in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” Engels, Origin of the Family

To quote M. Rubel, a Marxist scholar:
“The economic and social barbarism brought about by the capitalist mode of production cannot be abolished by a political revolution prepared, organized and led by an elite of professional revolutionaries claiming to act and think in the name and for the benefit of the exploited and alienated majority. The proletariat, formed into a class and a party under the conditions of bourgeois democracy, liberates itself in the struggle to conquer this democracy; it turns universal suffrage, which had previously been ‘an instrument of dupery’, into a means of emancipation”

And did Marx not assist in drafting write the election manifesto for Guesde's French Workers Party in 1880 where the preamble includes the above quote of converting universal suffrage in France "from the instrument of fraud it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation"

Precedents are only of value when the conditions are the same. Indeed our involvement in the electoral process is still trying to transform it from being a tool to fool us and to rule us. We are not yielding or surrendering its potential usefulness to our class enemies.

The constitutional weapon is condemned because the class that controls it use it in their own interest. Thus the blame is placed on the weapon, when we should rather be blaming ourselves for not organising to control it, and instead, leaving it in the possession of our class enemies. The State machine that enables a class to rule is clearly an instrument of repression and must be subverted before the oppressed class can be free. Another analogy would be a bad tradesman blaming his tools. The political machine has never helped the working class because they have never controlled and used it; they have never been conscious of the necessity.

Critics of the Socialist Party believe our concept of a revolutionary working-class party, politically organised, is impossible, purposely ignoring the wide difference that exists between the Socialist Party and other organisations. We await our anti-parliamentarian critics to demonstrate how, without political organisation of the workers, the machinery of government can be captured and rendered ineffective.

There is no doubt that capitalist politicians will exercise all their cunning against the working class party as it advances, the wiles of the politicians will become more subtle, but the Socialist Party is proof against every form of trickery. It carries on the work of organisation openly, free from the suspicion of undemocratic practices. There is a place in proletarian politics for a party such as the Socialist Party that engages in elections. Is it the only weapon or tool of the working class?..of course not. 

Lothian Socialist Discussion

Wednesday, 22 November
 7:30pm - 9:00pm

The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh,
17 West Montgomery Place, 
Edinburgh EH7 5HA

The Socialist Party welcomes any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But as human animals capable of rational thought and long-term planning, we must also seek to stop the skirmishes by winning the class war and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. That means that the working class as a whole must understand the issues, and organise and fight for these ends themselves by organising a political party for the conquest of state power. 

The Socialist Party does not minimise the necessity and importance of the worker keeping up the struggle over wages or to resisting cuts. There are some signs that union membership and general combativity are rising. And this is vital if our class is to develop some of the solidarity and self-confidence essential for the final abolition of wage slavery. We 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. But to struggle for higher wages and better conditions is not revolutionary in any true sense of the word; the essential weapons in this struggle are not inherently revolutionary either. It demands the revolutionising of the workers themselves. If there were more revolutionary workers in the unions—and in society generally—then the unions and the host of other community organisations would have a more revolutionary outlook.

We state to achieve socialism requires a clear understanding of socialist principles with a determined desire to put them into practice. For socialism to be established the mass of the people must understand the nature and purpose of the new society. Our theory of socialist revolution is grounded in Marx's - the position of the working class within capitalist society forces it to struggle against capitalist conditions of existence and as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, the labour movement would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves and would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it.

 Socialist propaganda and agitation will indeed be necessary but will be carried out by workers themselves whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result is an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism.  The responsibility of the Socialist Party is to challenge capitalist apologists and pseudo-socialists in the battle of ideas and that requires talking to, leafleting and debating and engaging with our fellow workers.

Socialist ideas arise when workers begin to reflect on the general position of the working class within capitalist society. They do then 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's not a question of enlightened outsiders bringing socialist ideas to the 'ignorant' workers but of socialist-minded workers spreading socialist ideas amongst their fellow workers. We see socialist consciousness as emerging from a combination of two things - people's experience of capitalism and the problems it inevitably creates but also the activity of socialists in making hearing the case for socialism a part of that experience.  We are not against reform campaigns, co-ops, the trade unions, or any other way in which workers struggle. What we do say, is that these are not means towards socialism, and we advocate socialism as the better and lasting answer.

We insist on the necessity of majority understanding behind socialist delegates with a mandate for socialism, merely using the state and parliament for one revolutionary act, after which the state and the Socialist Party has no further existence. We can be proud of our long history in exposing the oxymoron of the "workers state" and attacking the concepts of Leninism (and its offspring, Stalinism and Trotskyism).

Free Access

'One Card' aims to encourage greater access to libraries by removing barriers between services and gives access to more than 120 libraries and 1.6 million books.

Pamela Tulloch, chief executive of Scottish Library and Information Council, said: "One of the fundamental defining characteristics of public libraries is that they are open to everyone. No-one is turned away from a library, there is no joining fee, and anyone can use a library and its services, regardless of age and background.

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop explained "As well as traditional services like book lending, libraries are also places where people can access free wi-fi, use a computer and socialise. Libraries can empower communities, helping tackle inequality, reduce isolation and boost the local economy."

The principle of free access is practiced today. We, in the Socialist Party, believe that the idea should be extended to all aspects of life, food, clothing, shelter, and services.

Sunday Sermon - "One World, One People"

Pope Francis declared 19 November 2017 as the First World Day of the Poor. It took the church long enough, didn't it?

Papa Frankie explains, "We know how hard it is for our contemporary world to see poverty clearly for what it is.  Yet in myriad ways poverty challenges us daily, in faces marked by suffering, marginalization, oppression, violence, torture and imprisonment, war, deprivation of freedom and dignity, ignorance and illiteracy, medical emergencies and shortage of work, trafficking and slavery, exile, extreme poverty and forced migration.  Poverty has the face of women, men and children exploited by base interests, crushed by the machinations of power and money.  What a bitter and endless list we would have to compile were we to add the poverty born of social injustice, moral degeneration, the greed of a chosen few, and generalized indifference! Tragically, in our own time, even as ostentatious wealth accumulates in the hands of the privileged few, often in connection with illegal activities and the appalling exploitation of human dignity, there is a scandalous growth of poverty in broad sectors of society throughout our world.  Faced with this scenario, we cannot remain passive, much less resigned...To all these forms of poverty we must respond with a new vision of life and society."

Indeed, there is a need for a vision for the future. The World Socialist Movement has one that it has been trying to convince well-meaning individuals for over a hundred years to accept and work towards. If we are one people we should be concerned about climate change, world poverty, and the global plight of refugees fleeing war-torn countries. If we are one people, from across the world we will come and take care of the elderly, the young and the frail and sick.

The most remarkable feature in modern life is the lack of interest displayed by working people in their economic condition. They seem to accept their status of beasts of burden as a matter of course, a state of affairs to be put up with without complaint or protest. A job of work seems to be the highest aspiration they have. Around that revolve their hopes and fears. A job of work brings them all the joy of life they ever know—food, clothing, shelter, some much-required leisure, and entertainment. For these things they start like horses on Monday morning, and finish like cows, complacently chewing the cud of future milking, by Friday. Fellow-workers appear to suffer from a poverty of spirit - fighting spirit. Docility seems to be the hall-mark of the “respectable” working men and women who have “something to be thankful for,” i.e., a job.  Workers live to work. They are instruments for the production of profit. The bread they eat, the clothes they wear, the houses they live in, are not so much necessaries of life as necessaries for the production of that labour-power, that energy, which is to be expended in the creation of profit. And, the saddest thought of all, those who live only to labour and to exude profit, are so used to this aspect of life that they have become dead to the real meaning of the word socialism. Never has there been an epoch that has succeeded so completely in robbing vast populations of their lives, as under the wages system. 

Fellow-workers, can you not see that you are being robbed of life. 

The Left

We are asking the working class to learn the lesson of history and reject the advice of “intellectuals” and act on the principle, “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.” The last thing these “saviours” suggest is that the workers should reject all leaders—including them. Our advice to the working class is clear. It cannot hope for an end to its misery under capitalism. It must abolish capitalism and establish socialism; it must become the owner of all the means of work—land, raw material, machinery, etc.—and, thereby, owner of the whole of the produce of its own labour. To do this, the workers must organise politically, because “a struggle between two great classes of society necessarily becomes a political struggle," and they must win political power.

The revolution is always round the corner. They believe that one day a “ revolutionary situation ” will arise in which they will seize power and lead the masses to victory. This wearisome nonsense abounds in the columns Trotskyist literature. The “revolution” would have taken place but for the fact that the workers were betrayed by their leaders, is a typical Trotskyist interpretation of workers history. According to Trotskyists, every political upheaval, every wave of strikes, would have resulted in the “revolution” but for the fact that workers lacked “real revolutionary leadership.” On almost every page of their journals, the idea is promoted “The leaders must show the way.”

 It is precisely because the workers lack socialist knowledge that leaders rise to power. If the workers’ leaders do not represent the interests of workers, they do certainly reflect the outlook of the workers. When workers do acquire socialist understanding, they will not require leaders. An organisation which claims to be revolutionary must be badly led indeed when its revolutionary object—the only excuse it can advance for its nominal separation from the Labour Party—becomes secondary or ultimate and has to wait while something else is done first.

Our task is to make socialism clear to the workers, and we shall persevere with that task until the game of the leaders is played out—until there is no one to lead, because the rank and file are ready to go forward of themselves, leaving the vanguard in the rear to follow on.

Socialism is the complete dispossession of the entire capitalist class and the reorganisation of society on the basis of production solely for use. We hold that when a majority understand the nature of capitalism, understand the futility of electing leaders to reform it and that a complete change of the basis of society is both necessary and possible. The candidates of other political parties pander to a variety of tastes and requirements and play off one group of people against another. “Something for everybody” is their motto.

You will find no “Great Men” in the S.P.G.B. The parts that its members play are varied, but no attempt is made to measure one against the other—the keynote is co-operative effort, as it will be in socialist society. One of our objections to the existence of “Very Important Persons” is that it presupposes that some persons are accounted of little importance. We are a band of ordinary folk, but each is as unimportant (and therefore each is as important) as the other, whether chosen for speaker, secretary, organiser or by-election candidate.

Capitalism casts aside hundreds of millions of workers classified as “redundant” or “surplus” to requirements. It disempowers the underpaid and the unprotected toiling in global sweatshops, keeping them cowed, anxious and compliant. It financialises the economy, creating predatory global institutions that extract money from consumers, institutions, and states through punishing forms of debt peonage. The 400 richest individuals in the United States have more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population, and the three richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population. It shuts down genuine debate in regard to vast income disparities and social inequality.

Attack the symptoms and the state will be passive. Attack the disease and the state will be ruthless. Time is no longer on our side. If we can build socialism we have a chance.  We cannot be distracted by the symptoms and apply palliatives. We must cure the disease.

Smacking and corporal punishment

Scotland joined the list of countries to ban smacking children altogether. 53 nations currently have a total ban on smacking children.

According to a new study US researchers found that the practice makes youngsters "more aggressive". Dr Elizabeth Gershoff of the University of Texas at Austin, who led the study, has conducted extensive research into the use of smacking on children and has concluded that it is “making them more aggressive and more antisocial”.

Past studies have also linked corporal punishment in children to the onset of depression, anxiety and drugs and alcohol abuse.

In the latest study, published in Psychological Science, Dr Gershoff and her collaborators recorded the behaviour of children whose parents did not smack them and those that did, as reported by their teachers.

Their findings showed a clear distinction between the groups, with an increase in behavioural problems from the age of five to eight.

“It affected how often they argue with other children, fight, act impulsively and disturb activities in the classroom,” said Dr Gershoff. Dr Gershoff says one of the main links between smacking and bad behaviour is that children don’t have to learn self-control. “What smacking teaches them is that when the parent is around, they should behave, otherwise they will be hit,” she said. “The child does not learn how to manage themselves when the parent is not around.”

Conducting a controlled experiment to find the effects of smacking on children is unethical, as it would involve telling parents to smack their children. However, by dividing the 12,112 participating children into smacked and non-smacked groups, and then pairing them according to various characteristics, the researchers were able to approximate an experimental setup.

Dr Gershoff said that a key message of her work is that corporal punishment simply “doesn’t work”.

“All of us get frustrated when things don’t go our way. Our job as parents is to teach children how to handle that,” said Dr Gershoff. “Smacking isn’t teaching those things.”