How we organise is who we are

The Socialist Party cannot guarantee a peaceful road to socialism. There are many varieties of non-violence, some are by no means, passive docility, there are occupations, sit-downs, blockade pickets, non-cooperation, collective actions that go beyond turning the other cheek of 'Christian' pacifism. We advocate a world-wide social revolution that would make all that is in and on the Earth the common heritage of all mankind to be used to provide an abundance of wealth to which all could have free access according to need. This essentially peaceful revolution can only occur when the great majority of people in all countries are in favour of it and organise democratically to carry it out. It involves a rejection of all nationalism and all attempts to solve problems on a national scale.

Democracy must be the basic principle of both the movement to establish socialism and of socialist society itself. If a majority of workers really were as incapable of understanding socialism as many on the Left maintain, then socialism would be impossible since, by its very nature, as a society based on voluntary cooperation, it can only come into being and work with the conscious consent and participation of the majority. Socialism just cannot be imposed from above by an elite as envisaged by the Left. Political action must be taken by the conscious majority, without depending upon leadership. It is upon the working class that the working class must rely on their emancipation. Working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership. Even if it could be conceived of a leader-ridden working class displacing the capitalist class from power such an immature class would be helpless to undertake the responsibilities of democratic socialist society. Valuable work may be done by individual teachers, writers, and speakers, and this work may necessarily raise them to prominence, but it is not to individuals that the working class must look. The movement for freedom must be a working-class movement. It must depend upon the working class vitality and intelligence and strength. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of the revolution there can be no emancipation for them. There is just one political party that when it contest elections appeals to the electorate not to for it unless they understand and accept and want what they want. An uninformed voter is dangerous and should stay home on election day. It is better to not vote at all, than to cast a ballot with a lack of knowledge.  The only factor in all the material conditions of today that are standing in the way of socialism is the political ignorance of the workers.

There can be no socialism without socialists. The lack of socialists is all that stands in the way of socialism. The revolution cannot be rammed down the throats of the workers against their understanding or desire. In the name of building up a socialist movement, some Leftists have emasculated their socialist principles. Socialism is possible, necessary and practical today the moment the great majority become conscious of their interests. In order to equip themselves for their own emancipation, the workers must acquire the consciousness which alone can enable them to do so. This consciousness must comprise, first of all, a knowledge of their class position. They must realise that, while they produce all wealth, their share of it will not, under the present system, be more than sufficient to enable them to reproduce their efficiency as wealth producers. They must realise that also, under the system they will remain subject to all the misery of unemployment, the anxiety of the threat of unemployment, and the cares of poverty. They must understand next the implications of their position – that the only hope of any real betterment lies in abolishing the social system which reduces them to mere sellers of their labour power, exploited by the capitalists. They will see then, since this involves dispossessing the master class of the means through which alone the exploitation of labour power can be achieved, there must necessarily be a struggle between the two classes – the one to maintain the present system of private (or class) ownership of the means of living and the other to wrest such ownership from them and make these things the property of society as a whole. This is the struggle of a dominant class to maintain its position of exploitation, on the one hand, and of an enslaved and exploited class to obtain its emancipation, on the other. It is a class struggle. A class which understands all this is class-conscious. It has only to find the means and the method by which to proceed, in order to become the fit instrument of the revolution.

There is but one political party that does take the issue of leadership seriously and it has had no leader. The Socialist Party is made up of people who have joined together because they want to rid the world of the profit system and establish real socialism. The Socialist  Party is a leader-free political party where its executive committee is solely for administrative duties and cannot determine policy (or even influence party policy by the submission of resolutions to conference) All the EC meetings are open to the public and their minutes available for public scrutiny on the internet as proof of our commitment to transparency and democracy. We do possess a General Secretary but he or she holds has no position of power or authority over any other member. All our conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership. Despite some very charismatic personalities in the past, no one person has held undue sway over the direction and workings of the Party. It is a political party that is an organisation of equals. The longevity of the Socialist Party as a political organisation based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles which have produced without interruption a monthly magazine is an accomplishment that most other political organisations can only aspire towards.

Cuts cost lives

Denise Christie, Scottish Secretary of the Fire Brigades’ Union, said the controversial creation of a single nationwide service in 2013, coupled with austerity, has led "to the worsening of response times, increased fire losses and increased deaths". She hit out at what she said was a "national scandal" where cuts to services have led to people in some parts of Scotland having to wait far longer than others for a fire engine to arrive.

"The Scottish Fire and Rescue Services own statistics show that since the creation of SFRS [Scottish Fire and Rescue Service] in 2013, fires and fire deaths are on the rise," she said. “It should be a scandal that fire service response times are getting worse. The FBU believes that the real reason for the slower response times are due to the continued cuts to the Fire and Rescue Service." She said firefighters were "continually being asked to cover shortages with overtime" and that cuts put lives at risk.

Christie said: "The FBU believes this has led to a postcode lottery of local standards. The lack of underpinning national standards has led the fire and rescue service down a very dangerous road. It is a road that has led to the worsening of response times, increased fire losses and increased deaths. Firefighters are continually being asked to cover shortages with overtime and feel morally obliged as they are not prepared to see fire cover being compromised."

She added: "The primary purpose of the fire and rescue service is the prompt and efficient mobilisation of firefighters in response to a fire or other related incident, in order to save life and protect property. Yet response times have worsened significantly since the introduction of the Scottish Fire and Rescue service in 2013. The time an emergency call being received and a fire engine arriving has risen slowly upwards."

Christie said the "grinding process of cutting firefighter jobs are the central causes of the problem".

She claimed that 700 jobs had been axed since the merger of eight regional services into a nationwide service in 2013. "It has been reported that between 60 and 100 fire appliances are unavailable every day due to insufficient firefighters to crew them," she said.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16063588.Firefighters__39__leader_says_cuts_and_a____postcode_lottery____has_led_to_deaths/

The age we live in is an age of inhumanity

The Socialist Party is not content with piecemeal improvements in the conditions of the working class, but instead advanced the need for a revolutionary transformation of society that would result in a cooperative commonwealth where workers would democratically determine their working conditions. These are not the happiest days for socialism. We know that. We know that many hold gloomy doubts about the very possibility of a socialist future and about the ability of the working class to reorganise society rationally.  Despite old Karl’s hopes and expectations, the proletariat is taking many more years than he thought it would need to organise itself for the successful onslaught against the capitalist scourge. What the Socialist Party claim is that the rule of the capitalist is not eternal, that the power of the capitalist is not invincible. That the working class can overthrow the rule of capital and its servile state.

Capitalism is an economic term. It is applied by political economists and sociologists to the economic system of our civilization, by means of which men achieve economic independence and have the privilege of living idly upon the labour of others, who produce a surplus value above that which they receive for their own sustenance. Capitalism refers to the system. A capitalist is one who profits by the system. If he works himself, it does not alter the fact that he has an income apart from his labour sufficient to sustain him for life without working, and therefore is economically independent. In the capitalist world, the living standards of the workers go steadily down. Real wages fall. Social services are cut. Hours and working conditions worsened. The workers live by the sale of their labour power and their position is unchanged by temporary and insignificant variations in their income. Having money in the bank, winning a few pounds in the betting shop, selling some shares for more than they cost, all help to stretch the pay packet for a few workers but do not lessen their reliance on it. None of this changes how we get our living, our class position under capitalism, where our economic interests lie. It does not. in other words, remove the need to get up in the morning and go to work, to submit ourselves to the exploitation process. Poverty and all it means — stress, hunger, slums, a sub-standard existence — breeds frustration, and relief is often seen in terms of "get-rich-quick". The worker on the factory production line dreams of winning the pools; the criminal of the big, once-for-all, haul.

With socialism, private ownership of the means of production and distribution will end, money would then lose the functions which it possessed under capitalism and would be abolished. Unless we overthrow capitalism there is no future. Only socialism can bring the solution. Only Socialism can cut through the bonds of capitalist property rights and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for all. This is the aim of the Socialist Party. This is the purpose of the working-class revolution. Only the organised and politically-conscious working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, can drive the capitalists from possession, can organise social production.

The Conservatives have shown once again that they stand for the dominance of the privileged few, the small number of people who effectively own and control this country. It may seem tempting to vote for some other party just to get them out — until you consider the alternatives.

The main alternative is the Labour Party. Many people still see them as the party of the working people, a party out for a fairer society which will tackle the problems mentioned above. A brief look at what the Labour Party does when it is in power shows that they are no different to the Tories. Whether the politicians seeking your votes are really committed to changing things for the better, or whether they are just power-hungry careerists is really irrelevant. Once they get into power they have to administer the system in the only way it can be run — against the interests of the vast majority, the working-class. Capitalism is a system of society where the means of life are owned by a small minority, and the majority of people have to work for them in return for a wage or a salary. This basic class division means that workers have only a limited access to society's wealth, that their needs must constantly be denied in the interests of profit. Attempts to work within the system to make things fairer, to reform away the problems people have, ignore this harsh reality. A society based on the exploitation of the majority can never work in the interests of that majority, no matter how caring or well-meaning the reformers might be. Unemployment, poverty, bad housing and all these other problems are inevitable in this system.
The fact that the main parties work within these limitations results in the narrow, limited political debate that currently prevails. So we are confronted with arguments about the level of unemployment, but not why — in a world of potential abundance — people are poor as a result of class division; and arguments about how best to defend a country, not why workers should be prepared to lay down their lives defending their masters' interests.

The only real alternative is the socialist alternative, a world of common ownership and democratic control, where everything on and in the earth is used solely to satisfy human needs, where people take control of their own lives. Arguments about 'doing something now', about choosing the lesser of the evils on offer, serve only to delay the achievement of socialism, to prolong the life of this miserable society. To achieve socialism, workers must understand and desire it. and reject the insulting nonsense put out by these other parties. We must decide to work and vote for something really worth having, and not get lost in the muddy waters of capitalist politics, sifting through the shit for something worth voting for. At the next election, you will, as always, be faced with two alternatives: voting for Capitalism or Socialism. Make your choice!

The members of the Socialist Party know the futility of processions, demonstrations, and other such means the workers employ. They also know that the political power which the working class give the master class by their votes, enables the latter to confront the former with armed force, and until the control of that armed force is wrested from the capitalists the unemployed and the working class as a whole might as well try punching a brick wall. The only way in which the emancipation of the working class can be achieved is by studying the Socialist position, organising class-consciously inside the Socialist Party with the object of overthrowing the capitalist system. There is NO other way, and it cannot too often be re-iterated. Only by one method can you eliminate this tragic waste. That method is by realising your position as wage-slaves and emancipating yourselves therefrom. Socialism will teach you how to do this. 

There is no automatic socialist future, no guaranteed progress and no final crisis of capitalism leading by itself to utopia. The choice between socialism and barbarism is still open, and its outcome depends on each one of us. Without the working-class struggle, no socialism: this is truer than ever before. What is not true is that anti-capitalist struggle automatically equals socialist struggle. Awaken before it is too late! The only path forward is the path of struggle against capitalism, the path that leads to the social revolution, to socialism. The future is in our hands. We shall overthrow capitalism. Forward to the Social Revolution! There is no time to lose. Socialism will win the world and change the world.

THE FUTURE IS WITH THE PEOPLE

Human ingenuity and natural resources are wasted by the capitalist system, which makes profit the and capital accumulation the only purpose of business with all concomitant evils perpetuated by this system - ignorance and misery. Science and technology are diverted from their humane purposes and made instruments of war-fare and for the enslavement of and the starvation of men, women and children. The Socialist Party holds that this system, through the destructive action of its failures and crises places no real value on human life. We therefore call upon our fellow-workers to muster beneath our banner so that we may be ready to conquer capitalism by making use of our political power and by taking possession of the State, so that we may put an end by the abolition of capitalism, and bring all the means of production, transportation, and distribution, to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth — a commonwealth which, although it will not make everyone equal physically or mentally, will give to everybody the free exercise and the full benefit of their talents. The Socialist Party appeals to all who are interested in the emancipation of the working class from the chains of wage slavery to join it and through it and its companion parties in the World Socialist Movement, to work for the overthrow of the present capitalist system in all its social and economic ramifications, and for the establishment in its stead of a worldwide socialistic cooperative commonwealth.

The Socialist Party believes that very little can be gained by trying to administer the capitalists’ political machinery; that this machinery is especially adapted to fit the necessity of the capitalist ruling class. It believes that what the working class gains under capitalism at one point they lose at another; and that as the struggle goes on it will become more and more bitter, and the general distress and subjugation of the workers more and more acute; and that this process must go on until the workers learn the lesson that the source of their trouble is inherent in the wage system, and that the remedy is not patching up this system, but to its final overthrow and the establishment of the cooperative commonwealth. The Socialist Party agrees with Tolstoy who said, the master class will do any and everything but “get off the backs” of the working class. The Socialist Party's mission is to sweep the capitalist system into oblivion, and usher in the socialist cooperative commonwealth. Socialism comes not as a remedy for the evils of existing society, but as a programme of principles for a new society. Socialism commences the unity of humanity as a fact. It does not proclaim it as a sentiment, but recognises it as a scientific fact. For good or ill, whether we will or no, we are bound up together in this world and can only achieve our well-being together. Each for all and all for each is the only rational mode of procedure, in view of this fact. We might like to have separate interests and be able to extricate ourselves as individuals from this unity; but we cannot do so any more than we can individually extricate ourselves from the law of gravity. We all in common depend upon the same common resources of nature. None of us is rightly born until every child born into the world as the immediate inheritor of all the resources of nature, of industry and society, of inspiration and culture; of all that tempts to goodness and greatness and makes for fullness, freedom, and gladness of life. If the whole world were full and glad with life and should yet consent that one child should be born with less, the world would be damned. Until all of us together see to it that every person is equal with every other person in access to resources, opportunities, and liberty, we shall none of us see freedom upon the earth. In this sense shared-interest and self-interest are one and the same; for no one person has a true interest in oneself who does not regard the whole life of mankind as their calling and interest; and no-one has a true regard for his brothers and sisters who does not seek to make him or herself a whole and free individual in their service.

Since all people in common depend upon the sources and tools of production, there can be no individual liberty save these resources and technology belong to the people in common. There can be no social peace and sanity so long as some people own that upon which all people depend. All that can be said against slavery can also be said against the private ownership of the tools of production and distribution; for the private ownership of the common sources and machinery of life is nothing less than the ownership of human beings. Noone is free so long as he or she is dependent upon another for the chance to earn a livelihood. If a man owns my bread, or owns that which I must have in order to get my bread, he owns my being, unless I choose to revolt and starve.

Private ownership of the land, of its productive machinery, means private ownership of the people. Who sells his or her labour-power for wages sells themself; for labour-power is life. The wages system is merely an advance in the slave-system, but it is no fit system for free men or women; and there can be no true freedom for all until there is not another hireling left under the sun. The labour of the world is essentially slave-labour. There is not a wage-slave on earth who has not in some degree degraded themself, even in spite of themself, by dependence upon the private buyer of labour. So long as some men own that upon which all men and women depend, the owners and the dependents are alike corrupted, enslaved, and robbed. The capitalist system rests upon this power of private capital to legally appropriate the fruits of the labour of society yet the only elemental right is that the people in common should own that upon which the people in common depend. The ownership of the wealth by the few has been the poison of history. A civilization build upon fraud and force, gambling and lying, stealing and political debauchery, capitalism and slave-labour, simply seeks its own retribution and downfall.

The Socialist Party will build on a sure foundation that has for its end, the commonwealth, the common wholeness, the common freedom, the common abundance and fulfilment of all men and women. Nature offers resources enough for abundance of life for countless billions of human beings. Critics answer that we aim for a society for saints and angels, but not for a society of human beings such as we are; that we must wait till we have a better brand of human beings before we can have socialism. All of which is very much like saying that it is not safe to cure a man of his disease until he gets well; or like saying that well will not come in out of the rain until we first get dry. It is a strange idea that makes men and women regard what they know to be basically good as dangerous in practice, and what they know to be very wrong as actually safe. Socialism strikes at the root of the chief cause of our less than perfect conduct and proposes to abolish that slavery and competition which making mankind brutal and dishonest. The whole influence of capitalism is to war against love and liberty, and to make all that is lovely in human life impossible. Socialism comes to remove the causes that prevent men and women from true fellowship.

Socialists have no thought of arraying one class against another class as individuals; class-consciousness does not mean class hatred. Let us admit that socialists sometimes give utterances that have the class-hatred ring about them. Class-hatred is nonetheless alien to the spirit and genius of socialism. Even so bitter a controversialist as Karl Marx says that, of all men, socialists can afford to be tolerant and kindly toward the capitalist class, knowing that class to be victims of a system as truly as the labourer. What the socialist does mean by class-consciousness is this: that nothing can obviate the hideous fact that one class of human beings is living off another class; that a capitalistic class is heaping up the produce of the producing class. And we appeal to labour to become class conscious, because we knows perfectly well that the labourer cannot achieve his or her freedom, nor have the produce of his or her labour, until we becomes conscious that we are the real producers and the owners of the earth. Capitalist barons and landlords will exist and despoil the earth with economic and military wars until the disinherited and dispossessed of the world arises to take possession of its heritage. So long as the worker is willing to be a mere wage-earner, so long as he oer she is led about by politician, just so long will conditions worsen. The working class must achieve its own liberty, if it is ever to be achieved. Liberty cannot be handed down by an upper class to the lower class; it has never been so achieved, and ought not to be so achieved. If liberty were something that could be imposed upon one class by another, or could bestowed as a gift from superiors to inferiors, it would vanish in the night. Mankind will not be free until they have won and established their freedom in experience and by the power of their own brain and brawn. The class-conscious appeal is not for strife or hostility, or antagonism, but for dignity; for constructive purpose. The end of socialism is the abolition of all classes and parties and the coming in of but one class, the people, with opportunity for everyone to produce their own living and at the same time to become, as Charles Kingsley said, “a scholar, a saint, and a gentleman.” Unless workers as a class are so awakened that they become courageous enough to adopt the socialist commonwealth as an immediate goal, and adopt a spirit of goodwill towards all, no one can achieve their liberty for them, or ought to achieve it for them. All history demonstrates how the people have had to achieve for themselves each inch and gain of liberty, and how they have been again and again betrayed. How can we truly respect ourselves, or help to make the socialist movement what it ought to be, if we fail it in its moment of sorest need? Socialists are not appealing to you for support on the ground that socialists are better than other people, but on the ground that socialism is better than capitalism.

Socialism proposes to bring forth and educate the best that is in humanity; capitalism and competition are bringing forth and educating the worst. Socialism comes not to destroy, but to fulfill. It comes with no attack upon any man, but with the message of goodwill. It offers the economic basis for the realisation of that fraternity which has been the dream of the ages. It comes with no attack upon personal possessions. Capitalism has already destroyed the possibility of the bulk of mankind ever becoming property owners.

Socialism is Mankind's Salvation.

The Socialist Party is well aware that socialism is a term little understood by the world at large, and that it is everywhere a target for denunciation by the media. Yet when analysed, it means cooperation instead of competition; common ownership of land and all the means of production and distribution. It is the coming of the cooperative commonwealth to take the place of wage slavery. The present capitalist system is not only a failure, but it robs, it degrades, it starves; it is a foul blot upon our civilisation; it promises only increased horrors. There is no hope except by the path mapped out by the Socialist Party, the advocates of the cooperative commonwealth.

The material foundations for socialism, the objective pre-requisites of the proletarian revolution, are in place on a world-scale. The key to the further development of society is now in the hands of the subjective factor, the workers themselves. One of the principal barriers on the road to liberation continues to be their commitment to piecemeal reformism. There will be no automatic collapse and whoever preaches such is lulling the workers into passivity. Only the most revolutionary struggle of the working class can propel capitalism to its doom. World capitalism is ripe for socialist transformation. Socialist education is being conducted by the Party throughout the length and breadth of the land to furnish the information whereby to arrive at the correct tactics for the conquest of the world for the workers of the world. We aim at a new society – the socialist commonwealth.

While capitalism lasts, so too will the inevitable class struggle. The change from capitalism to socialism, from capitalist dictatorship to democratic rule of the working class, is a revolution. The abolition of private ownership of the means of production is what the capitalists oppose with all their might. We will build the socialist commonwealth and working people shall work and live, using the resources of modern technology in a way that allows human dignity and individual personality to flower in all their splendour for the benefit of all. The new social system at which we aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed out by a system of regimentation. What we seek is a proper collective organisation of our economic resources such to make possible a much richer individual life for every citizen.

The Socialist Party has come to build, not to destroy.  The Socialist Party's aim is the emancipation of the workers from their exploitation, and the establishment of the socialist commonwealth. This social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action, through the election of Socialist Party delegates, supported by a majority of the people. We do not believe in change by violence. We consider that the other parties are the instruments of capitalist interests and that whatever the superficial differences between them, they are bound to carry on government in accordance with the dictates of the big business interests and cannot serve as agents of social reconstruction. The only power that can save humanity from the peril of barbarism is the working class. It must free itself of all dependence on the possessing class. It must cease all collaboration with the exploiters and embark on class struggle.

The Socialist Party aims at political power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination of our life. It is a democratic movement financed by its own members and seeking to achieve its ends by constitutional methods (if permitted). It appeals for support to all who believe that the time has come for a far-reaching reconstruction of our economic system and who are willing to work together for it. The aim of the Socialist Party is the establishment by democratic means of a cooperative commonwealth in which the supplying of human needs and enrichment of human life shall be the primary purpose of our society. The Socialist Party will not rest content until every person in all other lands is able to enjoy the freedom of human dignity as a citizen of a peaceful world. What are we organised for? What is our chief bond of unity? What is our avowed object? The welfare of the working class and the abolition of capitalism. Our goal is a socialist world based on common ownership of our resources and industry, cooperation, production for use and genuine democracy. Only socialism can turn the boundless potential of people and resources to the creation of a world free from tyranny, greed, poverty, and exploitation.

The socialist option is the only alternative. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. That failure puts places socialism on the immediate agenda. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. This wholesale reconstruction will be accomplished by democratising all levels of society. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through lay-offs, shutdowns, and neglect of health and safety. Unions, despite their courageous efforts, have encountered difficulties eliminating even the worst abuses of management power. Socialism will dissolve the economic foundation of one-sided management privilege by relying on the needs and creativity of people.

The Socialist Party is the party of the dispossessed and oppressed struggling to build a new world. We shall be both a social movement and a political party. As a social movement, we support all struggles against the injustices of capitalism. As a political party, we seek political power to eradicate a social system based on exploitation, poverty, and war. The capitalist system must be replaced by social democracy to meet the needs of working people. That is the only hope of humanity. socialists have responded to those who cite minority violence as a possible reaction to the achievement of socialism by saying ‘peacefully if we may; forcefully if we must’. When we see the aftermath of political violence we must fervently hope that we never.

How does more money get you to no money?

We're swamped by pro-universal basic income messages and the enthusiasm requires to be dampened down. There will be  trial in Scotland. Four councils are faced with the task of turning basic income from a utopian fantasy to contemporary reality as they build the first pilot schemes in the UK, with the support of a £250,000 grant announced by the Scottish government last month  The independent think-tank Reform Scotland, which published a briefing earlier this month setting out a suggested basic income of £5,200 for every adult, has calculated that much of the cost could be met through a combination of making work-related benefits obsolete and changes to the tax system, including scrapping the personal allowance and merging national insurance and income tax.

The Socialist Party analysis of UBI is that it would be a subsidy to employers. Indeed, in the Swiss referendum on the matter in June 2016, the advocates of a UBI openly stated that everybody’s wages would and should be reduced by the amount of 'free money' from the state. The other socialist objection is that ignores the economic imperative of capitalism, enforced through competition, to accumulate more and more capital out of profits, and so profits must come first before meeting the consumption needs of the population. Catering for these is kept to the minimum to maintain productive efficiency or, in the case of 'free money' payments to the poor, to the minimum needed to avoid bread riots. The basic income scheme will be used to undermine social and public services.

Those left-leaning liberals should ask themselves why the right-wing Adam Smith Institutes promotes UBI

“UBI is politically feasible, socially desirable and financially sustainable,” the report says...Even if it gets implemented, UBI won’t solve all our problems. Its parameters, scope and size will have to be fiddled with for a long time to come. But no one can deny that it’s a feasible reform that can nudge our society forward.” their report's Otto Lehto, explained, 

Sam Dumitriu, the head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said “A UBI streamlines the provision of welfare services and improves the autonomy and incentives of individuals. Allowing poor people to spend their money as they see fit stimulates a bottom-up market solutions and cuts down on the bureaucratic red tape. All this pulls resources away from wasteful rent-seeking into wealth creation Attempts to protect jobs through Luddite regulation will backfire and mass retraining schemes have a shaky track record. Cash transfers are our best bet at ensuring the benefits from coming technological change are felt by everyone. We now need to experiment with different ways of doing it”

And always in search of votes, the Labour Party has leapt upon the bandwagon and considering proposing a universal basic income that would be paid unconditionally to all citizens.

The Fabian Society endorses a compromise alternative, not the full idea. 

Tax-free allowances should be scrapped and the money used to pay a flat-rate benefit to all adults...The report’s authors reject the idea of a “fully-fledged” universal basic income –... They warn such a plan would create too “many losers and not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with the least”. But the Society’s researchers say a similar flat-rate “individual credit” for all adults that sat alongside the existing benefits system could “significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes”. They say child benefit could also be integrated into the same system, with a “child credit” paid to a child’s main carer.

“At this time there is not a good case for integrating universal credit, tax allowances and child benefit into a single flat-rate payment for each individual (ie a ‘basic income’),” the report’s authors write. “There is growing interest in the idea, which has the merit of reducing the employment disincentives, complexity and intrusion associated with means-testing. “But a basic income has significant disadvantages – any revenue neutral reform would create many losers and would not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with least today. Reform would be very unlikely to eliminate the need for means testing and conditionality.

“Instead, the tax-free allowances and child benefit should be converted into an ‘individual credit’ for all adults and a ‘child credit’ paid to the main carer. Unlike a basic income, this payment would sit alongside universal credit and as a result would significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes.”

As many have always suspected, the idea of UBI is merely tax structure reform.

While many projects got glowing headlines, the devil was in the details. These pilot schemes are not testing a "universal basic income" but a reform of the poor law system.

Finland plans to give every citizen 800 euros a month and scrap benefits. Prime Minister Juha Sipila was quoted, “For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system”

“It’s not really what people are portraying it as,” said Markus Kanerva, an applied social and behavioural sciences specialist working in the prime minister’s office in Helsinki. “A full-scale universal income trial would need to study different target groups, not just the unemployed. It would have to test different basic income levels, look at local factors. This is really about seeing how a basic unconditional income affects the employment of unemployed people.” Kanerva describes the trial as “an experiment in smoothing out the system”
Marjukka Turunen, who heads the legal unit at Finland’s social security agency, Kela, which is running the experiment explains that the Finnish benefit system is simply “not suited to modern working patterns”, Turunen said. “We have too many benefits. People don’t understand what they’re entitled to or how they can get it. Even experts don’t understand. For example, it’s very hard to be in the benefit system in Finland if you are self-employed – you have to prove your income time and time and time again.”

Authorities believe it will shed light on whether unemployed Finns, as experts believe, are put off taking up a job by the fear that a higher marginal tax rate may leave them worse off. Many are also deterred by having to reapply for benefits after every casual or short-term contract. “It’s partly about removing disincentives,” explained Marjukka Turunen, who heads the legal unit at Finland’s social security agency, Kela, which is running the experiment. The benefit system is simply “not suited to modern working patterns”, Turunen said. “We have too many benefits. People don’t understand what they’re entitled to or how they can get it. Even experts don’t understand. For example, it’s very hard to be in the benefit system in Finland if you are self-employed – you have to prove your income time and time and time again.” For UBI purists, the fact that the monthly Finnish payment – roughly equivalent to basic unemployment benefit – is going to a strictly limited group, and is not enough to live on, disqualifies the Finnish scheme. The Finnish experiment’s design and objectives mean it should perhaps not really be seen as a full-blown UBI trial at all, cautioned Kanerva: “People think we’re launching universal basic income. We’re not. We’re just trialling one kind of model, with one income level and one target group.”

The provincial government of Ontario is to run a pilot project aimed at providing every citizen a minimum basic income of $1,320 (£773) a month. People with disabilities will receive $500 (£292) more under the scheme, and individuals who earn less than $22,000 (£13,000) a year after tax will have their incomes topped up to reach that threshold.

$25m (£15m) project over the next two months, which could replace social assistance payments administered by the province for people aged 18 to 65.

Inside the article it clarifies that it is only a pilot project of $25m (£15m) over the next two months, which could replace social assistance payments administered by the province for people aged 18 to 65 on three distinct sites: in the north, south and among the indigenous community of Ontario determined by high levels of poverty and food insecurity should be chosen for the test project. It is due to launch in spring 2017, will be voluntary and promised “no one would be financially worse off as a result of the pilot”.

 Unconditional monthly payments will begin to flow this summer; single people will receive up to C$16,989 ($12,570) while couples will receive C$24,027. All participants will continue to receive child or disability benefits, if applicable, to 4000 folk, in a 3 year three-year, C$150m pilot program drawn from the cities of Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay. 

Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s premier said “It’s not an extravagant sum by any means,” 

The new Canadian pilot project is not really about a universal basic income. It's about an unconditional basic income for people who would otherwise be on some other, means-tested state handout, i.e. it doesn't apply to everybody but only to those on below poverty line incomes. And although the payments won't be means-tested the recipients will be pre-selected on this basis. So, more a reform of the poor law than a step towards breaking the link between work and consumption. Which is the most "UBI" will amount to if it is ever implemented.

Why do all these sympathetic articles assume that if the government gives everybody, working or not, a regular income this is going to have no effect on wage levels? They seem to be assuming that this would be in addition to income from work whereas what is likely to happen is that it would exert a huge downward pressure on wages and that over time real wages would on average fall by the amount of the "basic" income.

In other words, that it would be essentially a subsidy to employers. It would be "basic" in the sense of being a minimum income that employers would top up to the level people needed to be able to reproduce and maintain their particular working skill. Don't they understand how their much-vaunted law of supply and demand works.

In the name of realism these radical supporters of a Universal Basic Income want to end capitalism while presupposing its continued existence. If people are free from any compulsion to work for a capitalist company, this would destroy the capitalist mode of production. This, after all, relies on the workers to produce the products which are turned into profits. It also relies on the exclusion of workers from these products so that they can become profits. However, at the same time, the same supporters also ask the same capitalist firms to produce the profits to pay for freedom from them in the form of a Universal Basic Income. They want both: the continued existence — for now — of the capitalist mode of production where the reproduction of each and everyone is subjugated to profit and the end of this subjugation by providing everyone with what they need. They want companies to make profits, which relies on and produces the poverty of workers, while at the same time ending mass poverty. They want to maintain the exclusion from social wealth through the institution of private property and end this exclusion by giving everyone enough money. Not possible of course.

Socialist Standard No. 1363 March 2018

 

Whole issue as print ready pdf: 

Socialist Standard March 2018.pdf

• Editorial: Privatisation No Better
• Pathfinders: Space Oddity
• Karl Marx's Legacy
• Cooking the Books: Greed or Need?
• Greasy Pole: What’s ‘Appropriate’ Then?
• Material World: Dying Younger
• For Whom the Carillion Tolls
• In Search of Populism
• Turkey: What's Going On?
• Peter McDouall: Scottish Chartist
• Cooking the Books: What the Poor Law Pays
• Proper Gander: Delicious Chips For Their Tea
• Book Reviews: 'Not a Crime to Be Poor - the Criminalization of Poverty in America', 'A Party With Socialists In It - A History of the Labour Left', & 'The Kronstadt Uprising'
• Exhibition Review: Robots
• 50 Years Ago: Labour and the Health Charges
• Obituary: Karla Rab, 1940-2017
• Think Globally - Act Globally
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

For a Sustainable Future

We live in truly frightening times.  Global catastrophe is a real and growing possibility.  Life is becoming more difficult for most and many of the advances made by our class are being pushed back.  We accept that the world is full of horrors, otherwise, we would not want to change it. Without a vision of a better world and the organization that goes with it, protest go nowhere yet the need for a socialist transformation has never been greater.  Without fundamental social change, future generations are facing a bleak future indeed. We are running out of time. There must be a mass world socialist movement, or there may be no future at all. The Socialist Party presents a vision a society that serves the well-being of humanity and nature alike where workers participate democratically in decision-making. There is bound to be disagreement among socialists as to details. Socialism has been defined and interpreted in lots of different ways. Scholarly tomes on the subject became surprisingly popular as economists probe the sources of unequal wealth distribution. We emphatically maintain that socialism should be identified with the abolition of the wage-system. This clearly distinguishes us from all those who identify socialism with planned state economy or with redistribution of wealth, etc. We maintain that socialism requires the transformation of the means of labour, means of production, into the common property of society. The Socialist Party can only see into the possibilities, based on our own experiences as a political party that has been existence for 114 years and has witnessed all manner of policies and practices. All we can do is continue the hard work we do each and every day working for socialism and supporting whatever struggles our fellow-workers engage in. When we sow or ideas, we never know what seeds will take root.

Opposing irrationality is a precondition to such change. There is throughout the world a popular perception that socialism is a coercive authoritarian system, and the experiences of the former Soviet Union justified that perception. Generally speaking, people feared what they thought was socialism. This was at the heart of socialism's crisis. The Socialist Party, however, never identified socialism with state ownership of the means of production, but with common ownership and democratic control. The collapse of the Soviet Union was not the defeat of socialism’ and its end. What we witnessed was the demise of a particular type of capitalism, state-capitalism, a model of a centralised command economy. The Soviet Union was not a socialist country and was totally alien to the socialist vision. The fall of the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc is no case against the socialist idea. Instead of common ownership of means of production, nationalisation by the State of the means of production was adopted. Waged employment, money and prices , the market and exchange value, plus the separation of the producing class from the control of means of production, all remained. A centralised state-bureaucracy ruled.

The only party in this country to stand for Socialism is the Socialist Party. Class ownership of the means of production causes workers’ problems and any government, be it Labour or “right-wing”, which takes power within capitalism cannot solve these problems and must come into conflict with the workers. It must run capitalism in the only way it can be, as a profit-making system in the interests of the privileged few who live off rent, interest, and profit, and to the detriment of the workers. As socialists, we are not particularly concerned whether the capitalist government is Labour, Tory, SNP or a coalition of them all. They are all anti-working class. It is not just the Tories that are the enemy. It is capitalism and we are equally opposed to all parties that support it, Labour as well as Tory.

We are not out to change human “nature”. We merely assert that human beings behave in different ways under different social conditions and that they can change themselves by changing these conditions. The change from capitalism to socialism will not be made by us on behalf of the people but by the immense majority of workers who want socialism and are fully aware of what is involved in establishing and running such a society. Once workers are socialist-minded Socialism can be established fairly quickly. When the workers have political power it won’t take long to use it to convert the means of production from class to common ownership. This done, then production for use, to meet human needs can begin. Socialism will have been set up. Socialism can only be established by the democratic political action of a working-class convinced of the need for it. In Britain, universal suffrage and parliament (and the local councils) can be used to win political power. But there is nothing special about the British constitution. Other states have different arrangements but as long as they allow a majority to get its way they can be used to establish socialism. We welcome the break-up of dictatorships and the coming of democracy, however limited. But we do not support democracy in the abstract, but as a means to an end: Socialism. We always have held that democracy is of value both to the working class and to the socialist movement, but we do not think that it should, and in the end can be defended by uniting with non-socialists or by war. Some critics suggest that when the Socialist Party grows the government will take steps to try to crush it. Maybe, but we doubt it. For as the socialist movement grows so the power of the capitalists is weakened. The balance of class power shifts in favour of the workers. Any government, be it Labour or Tory, which tried to crush the socialist movement would be biting off too much. By the time the socialist movement has grown so as to be a threat to capitalist power then it will be too late to crush it. No doubt when the socialist movement grows those who support capitalism, fearful of splitting the anti-socialist vole, will rally around one or other of the large capitalist parties. It may be the Tories or it may be Labour or they both may form an anti-socialist electoral alliance. It does not really worry us what they do. That is their problem and that of the class they represent, the capitalists. We assure of one thing, though. Going by the record of past Labour governments, if there are any repressive measures to be taken against socialists and workers generally, Labour will be only too pleased to oblige.

The solution to the problems of workers will come by uniting with each other and with their fellow workers of the world. Then, when the workers are united their energies can be turned to the real conflict—that between capitalists and workers, not between workers with different national and religious tags. However, the workers must, in the first instance, reject all the nationalist and religious ideas, which lead them into willing submission to the capitalist class. Only by a close examination of society can the workers learn the reason for their poverty and to see that their adherence to capitalist divide and rule tactics helps perpetuate their exploitation which is the sale of their labour-power and only after casting aside all forms of nationalism and religions can society be examined in a clear manner. Only by learning where their true interest lies can the workers go out, organise consciously and take the proper steps to end their subservience. Capitalism can only be fought with knowledge.

Lest we forget

Obituary from the January 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with regret that Glasgow Branch reports the death of long-serving member Peter McKenzie. Peter had been a Glasgow member since 1940. He was an active and enthusiastic one who was especially valuable as a chairman at Branch meetings: when Peter was in the chair the business was always dealt with in an efficient and thorough fashion.

He was in many ways a link between the younger members of the Branch and the pre- and early-war periods. He was full of anecdotes and stories of the Party’s activities in those days. A cheerful character who had a clear-cut, no-nonsense style of propaganda, he introduced many workers to the Socialist case. A railway worker, he made many useful contacts among his workmates.

One story illustrates the effect he had in discussion in railway bothies when the talk got round to politics. During the war, when hysteria and hatred gripped many workers, he argued consistently against war and the other horrors that capitalism produced. Returning to his home from work, after midnight, he found two “gentlemen” awaiting him. They asked where he was born, where his father was born and—being thorough—where his grandfather had been born. After Peter had convinced them that he wasn’t a German spy, they told him he had been reported by one of his workmates. With great relish, Peter told how he returned to his bothy discussions and tried to figure out who among his political opponents was the "patriot”!

He was an outstanding example of the older generation of Glasgow members—a mature man thoroughly grounded in the basics of Marxism and a fearless advocate of Socialism. Besides the Branch’s loss of a valuable member, many of us have lost a warm friend. He is survived by his wife and five children, one of whom is a Party member. To all of them, we extend our sympathy at their sudden bereavement.

A Change of Politics

The members of the Socialist Party are frequently beseeched by the Left to join in some sort of anti-capitalist alliance. They endeavour to convince us with siren-songs that such a coalition against capitalism would bear fruit, either by driving the non-socialists out of the Labour Party like weeds or providing the shoots of a new “socialist” party, glibly offering popular reforms. The life-cycle of such developments can be charted in close connection with the recurring crises within capitalism born and re-born with each succeeding economic crisis. In all their incarnations, they have remained a reformist movement in body and spirit, hoping to politicalise workers and recruit them into their ranks. Even at their most radical, the political platform does not transgress the boundaries of that are built into the capitalist system. Armed with their reform programs, the Leftists vainly storm the citadels of the capitalist class to extract as many concessions and reforms as they can. Occasionally, very occasionally, they even control some local governments. Nevertheless, any reforms they managed to exact do not result in any basic changes in the workers' lives or reverse the processes of capitalist accumulation, centralization, and control.  In some cases, they even produced consequences contrary to those anticipated or promised.  After every losing battle and even ignoble capitulation to the master class, the Left has lost more of their mass support. Without bold revolutionary aims, unable to grasp the dynamics of the principal forces at work in capitalist society, the reformist movement progressively lost whatever trust and confidence it once possessed within the working class. Their “revolutionary”  shrivelled into vacuous phrases to cover their alliances with pro-capitalist parties. This many-faced, myriad-minded social movement of protest against the plutocratic rule of Big Business and High Finance lack the power and the will to revolutionise the political system and the economic structure of capitalism.

 Our aim in the Socialist Party is a cooperative commonwealth without State, without ruling Government, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all. We appeal to fellow-workers to rally to the World Socialist Movement and muster under the banner of socialism. The capitalist class is constantly revealing itself in its true colours with its rising cost of living, growing unemployment, the savage repression of all efforts of the workers to better their condition, the deportation and imprisonment of migrants. The working class must capture the power of the State and reconstruct society in their own interests, to turn it from the government of men into the administration of things. Everywhere the capitalists cry: “More production! More production!'’ In other words, the workers must do more work for less wages, so that their blood and sweat may be turned into gold to pay for the ruination of the capitalist world. To save their system of exploitation the capitalists unite and chain the workers to the machines of industry. So long as the capitalist system exists, a few men will be making their money out of the toil of others. All reforms of the present system of society simply fool the worker into believing that he or she isn't being robbed as much as before. Workers can no longer wait to experiment with reforms. Before it is too late, the class-conscious workers of the world must prepare to attack and destroy capitalism and root it out of the world. The State is used to defend and strengthen the power of the capitalists and to oppress the workers.  Capitalist society presents a solid front against the worker.

The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the social property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of all in common. Industry and its factories, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the worker, in each industry, but of all in common and must be administered for the benefit of all.  The word “politics” is to many like a red flag to a bull. Politics, to people, means simply politicians trying to catch votes to elect them to some comfortable office, where they can comfortably forget all about the voters, until the next election campaign. This is using the word “politics” in a corrupt sense. One of the principles upon which the Socialist Party was founded is expressed in the saying of Karl Marx: “every class struggle is a political struggle”. That is to say, every struggle of the workers against the capitalists is a struggle of the workers for the political power – the State. This is the sense in which we socialists use the word “politics.”

The Left believes that they can gradually gain this political power by using reforms to legislate capitalism peacefully out of existence. This leads them to preach all sorts of reforms of the capitalist system, draws to their political opportunists and adventurers of all kinds, and finally causes them to make concessions and compromises with the capitalist class. The Socialist Party engages in electoral campaigns to give us an opportunity to speak to the working class, pointing out the class character of the State and their class interests as workers. They enable them to show the futility of reforms, to demonstrate the real interests which dominate the capitalist political parties, and to point out why the entire capitalist system must be overthrown. When Socialist Party members are elected to Parliament, their function to make propaganda; to ceaselessly expose the real nature of the capitalist State, to obstruct the operations of capitalist government and show their class character, to explain the futility of all capitalist reform measures, etc. In Parliament, the Socialist Party can show up capitalist brutality and call the workers to revolt. The most common objection to electing candidates to capitalist legislatures is that, no matter how good revolutionists they are, they will invariably be corrupted by their environment and will betray the workers. This belief is born of long experience, chiefly with Labour Party fakirs. But we say that a real revolutionary party such as we have the means to retain the loyalty of our elected delegates. The special function of the Socialist Party is to educate the workers for the capture of political power and the administration of the socialist cooperative commonwealth.