One World - One People

The world, as they say, is getting smaller every day. The marvels of modern communications have diminished the geographical obstacle of distance.  The world economy, the global market, is more integrated today than we ever before realised. Yet the world remains divided up into nations, with frontiers and barbed wire, passports, and immigration controls, customs duties and 180 or so varieties of currency. Nations are demarcated by states, which have carved up the whole world into often quite arbitrary patches of territory in the last couple of centuries. The world is also in crisis. The crises produce turmoil. Despite this, states remain jealous of their sovereignty, competing with each other for shares in world production and trade to manage and command national economies.

Socialist solidarity springs the practical experience of the workers who felt that they had to cooperate with each other across frontiers and boundaries in order to defend their interests, their wages, and their working conditions. The day-to-day experience of a man standing alongside a foreigner brought an understanding of common interests, an instinctive kind of internationalism. In the ranks of the working class there went on an incessant competition and scramble for jobs. While the capitalist engaged in commercial rivalry and trade wars, fighting for markets, the workers were competing with each other for a place on the factory floor, often underselling the price of their labour. Socialists are well aware of this very real and unedifying element in the existence of the working classes in a society where dog-eat-dog competition permeated every aspect of social life. This strife can only end with the abolition of private property in the means of production – that is, with the abolition of capitalism.

The aim of the modern labour movement is to curb the competitiveness of the workers, to bring under control that individualism which made them an easy prey for capitalist exploitation. The aim of the labour movement is to instill in the workers the sense of solidarity which would benefit them all as a class. That was the origin of the trade unions and the origin of modern socialism. ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ is nothing else but a call to eliminate the effect of competition between workers within each country and to eliminate it also on an international scale. From this point of view, nationalism was, in the first instance, the workers’ self-destructive competitiveness; internationalism was their solidarity transcending national boundaries.

 Marx and Engels insisted that ‘the working men have no country’. They argued that the nation-state was alien to the interests of the proletariat and that in order to advance their interests workers must ‘settle matters’ with the bourgeoisie of each state, that workers must challenge the power of their ‘own’ capitalist class directly. This opened the possibility of ‘the common interests of the whole proletariat, independently of all nationality’. It also implied practical activity by workers to organise in mutual solidarity across national borders. Socialists maintain that workers must free themselves of patriotism and national superiority in their own interests, for without discarding these aspects of bourgeois ideology they would never themselves be free.

We oppose nationalism. By nationalism, the bosses really mean that workers must respect capitalist borders. These borders are artificial; they exist to divide workers and keep different sets of bosses in power. Workers need no borders. Workers in one part of the world are not different from or better than workers in another. Nationalism creates false loyalties. Workers should be loyal only to other workers, never to a boss. We endorse the revolutionary slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!"

Beyond Resistance – Establishing Socialism

What is needed to be made is a fundamental change in the direction of society. Our compass for where we are headed should have socialism as its destination. We need to keep this end in view not to lose our way.

Today the capitalist class through its ownership of wealth holds economic power. Apart from perhaps small personal savings and maybe a house, the vast majority of people in Britain and elsewhere own nothing but their labour power, their ability to work. Wealth is produced by those who work by hand and brain, far in excess of the wages they are paid. The surplus goes to the capitalist owners or shareholders as profit. This is capitalist exploitation, the basis of all forms of rent and interest. The capitalist system is inevitably marked by gross inequality of opportunity. Driven by the urge for higher profit and in fierce competition, capitalism has developed from small-scale production in its early years, to present large-scale production, in which a few giant corporations dominate all branches of business. The drive towards further centralisation of capital by mergers is an economic law of capitalism. It results in greater and greater concentration of economic power in fewer and fewer hands, and the interlocking of industrial and financial capital. Huge conglomerates are created which do not confine their activities to one country, but straddle national frontiers. The process continues regardless of which political party is in office. It is not only economic power that is in the hands of the capitalist class. Political power is in the hands of the same class. The State is under the control of the same groups who control the wealth of the country and it serves their interests. The capitalist class does not only hold political and economic power. The same small elite controls the instruments of ideas through control of the mass media and whatever else that influences the minds and attitudes of the people. So there you have it, what we are up against, class power - economic, political, ideological.

The ruling class makes every effort to put the burden of the capitalism's problems upon the shoulders on working people. The rich few grow richer while the living standards of the majority are under constant attack. The capitalist purchaser of labour-power has only one object, viz., to enrich himself by making his money breed or expand, by the process of making commodities containing more labour than he pays for. This insatiable thirst for and headlong pursuit of surplus-value by employers has been for the workers and their families the cause of an exploitation more onerous than any form of exploitation previously known. So long as the means of production and labour are not joined together same hands, the production will retain the character of capital, and capital will inevitably exploit the workers and wring from them extra sweat and toil for which it will not pay.  The harder we work the more power we give the capitalist class to expropriate and enrich themselves. In contrast, with socialism for the first time in history, the individual will have the opportunity of real freedom, of real self-development, an opportunity one can never possess under the sordid struggle which characterises the capitalist society in which we live.

The Socialist Party through its activity and campaigns sharpen the weapons against the old society and build the confidence and strength of or fellow-workers. Socialism must always be the revolutionary idea to transfer of economic power from a small, greedy elite to the democratic control of the majority or it means nothing. Socialism means nothing unless it means control of society. It cannot be too strongly stressed that socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private or state hands. Anything else is not socialism. Socialism is not the establishment of a 30-hour week, not the abolition of zero-hour contracts or the creation of minimum wages. None of these, nor all of them together, is socialism. They might all be done by the government tomorrow, and still, we would not have socialism. They are merely reforms of the present system, mere band-aid patches on industrial servitude. While not opposing any reforms or improvements which may be secured under capitalism, the Socialist Party steadfastly declines to take time and resources away from its main battle, for revolution, in order to carry on the struggle for reform.   The one demand of the Socialist Party is unadulterated and undiluted socialism and the unconditional surrender by the capitalist class.  The Socialist Party claims the mantle of being the most humanitarian movement on the planet, more so than any philanthropic foundation or charity organisation. The Socialist Party - it and it alone - promotes the highest humanitarian hopes of humanity. The Socialist Party stands out unique as the only body based on the material programme which will make the realisation of those aspirations an accomplished fact. Socialism alone will supply the basis for permanent improvement in the condition of mankind.

Scotland's Hidden Child Poverty

North Barlanark and Easterhouse South areas of Glasgow have more than 70% children growing up in poverty. Yet there are pockets of "intense" child poverty among the most affluent areas of Scotland, new analysis has found.

While East Renfrewshire has some of the most prosperous communities in the country, the local authority includes Arthurlie and Dovecothall, where 54.9% of children live in poverty.

Researchers from Glasgow Caledonian University found similar inequality in Aberdeenshire, Orkney and Shetland. They said two-thirds of those classed as poor lived outside "deprived" areas.

Prof John McKendrick, who led the research, said it demonstrated the limits of focusing anti-poverty strategies only in the most deprived areas.  His study also found that even in local authorities with the lowest levels of child poverty, there were areas where more than one in every four children were living in deprived circumstances. These included Hillhead in the west end of Glasgow - where 36.9% were in poverty, Peterhead Harbour in Aberdeenshire - where the figures was 31.5%, Lerwick South in Shetland - where 26.2% were in poverty and Stornoway West, with 27.1% in poverty.

"Even within those local authorities with the lowest levels of child poverty in Scotland, there are pockets of intense child poverty in which more than one in every four children are living in poverty. This suggests that even in most of the affluent neighbourhoods there are some people who are living on an income that means that they are not able to afford what the majority of people in Scotland would agree that the majority should be able to afford."

Fact of the Day

Scotland has 37,135 properties recorded last year as having been empty long-term. Despite the issue rising up the political agenda, the most recent Housing Statistics for Scotland quarterly update revealed the number of long-term empty homes has risen by 83 per cent since 2007 when the total stood at 20,328.

SOCIALISM—OUR AIM

The Socialist Party visualises a social system that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes. The aim of the party is to popularise the principles of socialism and to aid in the work of transforming society from a capitalist to a cooperative commonwealth. We don’t propose the elimination of personal possessions. We speak of those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs

They shall be owned in common by all the people. Our Declaration of Principles forms a clear statement of our ideas to inform the world where our party stands, and to guide the party activities. The Socialist Party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in election campaigns. We believe that the modern world is an economic unit. No country is self-sufficient. It is impossible to solve the accumulated problems of the present day, except on a world scale; no nation is self-sufficient, and no nation can stand alone. The economy of the world now is all tied together in one unit, and because we think that the solution of the problem of the day—the establishment of socialism—is a world problem, we believe that the advanced workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We have advocated for the international organisation of the workers, the World Socialist Movement, and the cooperation and mutual assistance of its companion parties in all respects. The Socialist Party is opposed to all forms of national chauvinism, race prejudice, gender and sexual orientation discrimination, 

Capitalism is a society that did not always exist. Like preceding social systems, it went through a period of gestation in the womb of the old feudal society. It grew and developed as against feudal society, eventually overthrew it by revolutionary means, raised the productivity of mankind to undreamed of heights. Capitalism operates by certain internal laws which were analysed and laid bare by Marx in the Communist Manifesto and then in Capital. Primarily, the private ownership of the means of production and the employment of wage labour at wages less than the value of the product produced by the wage labourer. This creates a surplus which the capitalist proprietor has to sell in the market. It is obvious that the wage worker, who receives for his labour less than the total value of his product. can be a customer only for that amount of the value that he receives in the form of wages. The balance is surplus value, as Marx explained it, for which the capitalist must find a market. The workers are exploited by the capitalists. There is a constant conflict of interests between them, an unceasing struggle between these classes.

As long as the capitalist system remains recurring wars are inevitable. The Socialist Party has always stated that it is impossible to prevent wars without abolishing the capitalist system which breeds war. It may be possible to delay a war for a while, but eventually, it is impossible to prevent wars while this system remains. That does not eliminate the possibility of incidental and accidental attacks being caused by this or that country but fundamentally wars are caused by the efforts of all the capitalist powers to expand markets and spheres of influence The only way they can get them is by taking them away from some other power, because the whole world has been divided up among a small group of imperialist powers. That is what leads to war, regardless of the will of the people. We do not maintain that the ruling class (in general) actively seeks and desires war but they can not avoid it and retain the rewards of the capitalist system in their country. The Socialist Party does not give any support to any war, (other than the class war) We do not vote for it; we do not speak for it; we do not write for it. We are in opposition to it. Within socialism, there are no longer capitalists who profit by war, who see in war the way to secure more markets and a chance to dominate the world. 

The law of competition between capitalists results inevitably in the bigger capitalists, the ones with the more modern, more efficient, and productive enterprises, crushing out the small ones, either by destroying them or absorbing them until the number of independent proprietors grows continually less and the number of pauperised people increases by leaps and bounds, until the wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a very few people, and the great mass of the people, especially of the workers, are confronted with ever-increasing difficulties of an economic and social nature. The real revolutionary factors, the real powers that are driving for socialism, are the contradictions within the capitalist system itself. All that the Socialist Party campaigning and agitation can do is to try to foresee theoretically what is possible and what is probably in the line of social revolution, to prepare people’s minds for it, to convince them of the desirability of it, to try to organise them to accelerate it and to bring it about in the most economical and effective way.

The social revolution “is a movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority” to distinguish it from previous revolutions which had been made in the interest of minorities. Socialism cannot be imposed on the people from above. Capitalism by itself does not “evolve” into socialism. It has to be transformed into socialism by the conscious action and struggle of men and women. No longer can the capitalists by virtue of the fact that they own the means of production, live off the labour of the working class. No longer are the workers compelled to sell their labour power to the capitalists in order to live. The workers are no longer property-less proletarians. They now own the means of production and work them in their own interests and in the interests of society. For society is now composed or workers by hand and brain, i.e. free associations of wealth-producers.

Fish Pollution

ONE fish farm produces the same amount of waste as all of Scotland’s west coast towns put together, an expert has said.

Dr Richard Luxmoore, senior nature conservation adviser at the National Trust for Scotland, said a moderately-sized farm dumped the same amount of sewage as a town twice the size of Oban.

It comes as a string of experts warned salmon farming was having a deadly impact on the environment.

Musings from the past for socialist libraries

"Man ought to be able, wherever placed, to find for himself the means of existence; but I was to open a new scene of life, to remove to some distant spot, to be prepared against the ill-will of mankind, and the unexplored projects of the hostility of a most accomplished foe. The actual means of existence are the property of all. What should hinder me from taking that of which I was really in want, where, in taking it, I risked no vengeance, and perpetrated no violence? The property in question will be beneficial to me, and the voluntary surrender of it is accomplished with no injury to its late proprietor; what other condition can be necessary to render the use of it on my part a duty? He that lately possed it has injured me; does that alter its value as a medium of exchange? He will boast perhaps of the imaginary obligation he has conferred on me: surely to shrink for a thing in itself right from any such apprehension, can be the result only of pusillanimity and cowardice!" - William Godwin, Caleb Williams, 1794

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John &
 all contributing members of the SPC

Progressive Grappling? Lets Have Done With It.

On March 10 the Progressive, (a strange word for a party that stands for capitalism), Conservative Party will choose a leader to, hopefully, help them win the upcoming provincial election.

 The media are ''full of it'', debating whether it will be Caroline Mulroney, Christine Elliot or Doug Ford -- in fact there is so much coverage it makes one wonder when folks will finally wake up and smell the coffee, which is that it makes no great difference which party wins or who its leader is. 

Capitalism is a market economy and the markets fluctuate and sometimes wildly. When the economy is buoyant a government may look good, but it will not and never has lasted long because of the boom-slump inbuilt nature of capitalism. 

When a slump comes all the government can do is to try and grapple with it as FDR did in the thirties, though most of his ideas were suggested by his Labour Secretary. 
The Nazi's also grappled with it by producing for war! 

So let's have done with the boom-slump economy and the parties who seek to maintain it.

For socialism,
 Steve, Mehmet, John &
all contributing members of the SPC

The Principles of the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party adheres to two vital tenets of Marxism.

That the “proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority". The Socialist Party takes seriously its implications. "Self-conscious" implies that the class itself must understand the full significance of its actions. “Independent' implies that the class itself must decide the objectives and methods of its struggle free from other classes interests.

That the "The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". The working class cannot entrust its task to anyone else. No "saviours from on high" as the workers' anthem The International puts it, will free us. The working class will never achieve its power, if it leaves the revolutionary struggle to others.

Thus according to the Socialist Party, socialist political understanding and mass participation in the process of the revolutionary project is essential. Socialism, unlike all previous revolutions, requires the knowledge and involvement of the majority. It is therefore important that at the very outset we state precisely what socialism means.

What socialism means to members of the Socialist Party is that there are inequality and misery in the world; that this is the outcome of our social conditions; that the essence of these social conditions is that the mass of the people, the working class, produce and distribute all commodities, while the minority of the people, the capitalist class possess these commodities; that this tyranny of the possessing class over the property-less class is based on the present wage-system, and maintains all other forms of oppression; that this tyranny of the few over the many is only possible because the few have obtained possession of the land, the raw materials, the factories and machinery, in a word, of all the means of production and distribution of commodities, and have, as a class, obtained possession of these by no virtue other than by either force or fraud; last but not least, that the approaching change in society will be a revolution. The system of human society as it exists at present must be overthrown from the foundations. The two classes at present existing will be replaced by a single humanity consisting of the whole of the healthy and sane members of the community, possessing all the means of production and distribution in common, and working in common for the production and distribution of commodities.

The Socialist Party believes that the means of production and distribution should be the property of the community.  The owning class can and does dictate terms to the man or woman of that non-possessing class. “You shall sell your labour to me. I will pay you only a fraction of its value in wage. The difference between that value and what I pay for your labour I pocket, as a member of the employing class, and I am richer than before, not by labour of my own, but by your unpaid labour.” This is the teaching of the Socialist Party and why we claim to be socialists.

But we acknowledge that there were others before us. Earlier socialists also sought a better world founded on common ownership, equality, and democracy. In this they saw the means to meet all mankind’s material needs Among the Chartists, for example, Ernest Jones declared: “Money-capital did not create labour, but labour created money-capital; machinery did not create work, but work created machinery. It, therefore, follows that labour is, by its own nature the sovereign power and that it owes no allegiance, gratitude or subjection to capital.” 

Socialists have held that the ending of private ownership of major productive resources was the precondition for a socialist society. Today, in the name of socialism we see common ownership changed into state slavery, equality denounced as the barrier to the very socialism which it seeks as an aim, democracy denied as incompatible with working-class power.  The events in the former Soviet Union in the twentieth century has provided ample evidence that it is possible for the working class to possess less political power, to enjoy less civil liberty, to exercise less control over the circumstances of its working life, to be, in every sense of the word, more ‘exploited’, under regimes based on state ownership. The Bolshevik tradition, whether in its Leninist form or in its Trotskyist guise, has come so completely to dominate what passes for socialist thinking today that these facts are now regarded by some as a refutation of the principles of socialism, by others as a cause for redefining socialism into some monstrous Big Brother State. The Socialist Party, far from unaware of the dangers of a concentration of economic and political power within the hands of an all-powerful state, warned that the outcome of the Russian Revolution would be something approximating to what later emerged. Socialism means the administration of production by society, rather than by the state. This was not accomplished by the 20/20 vision of hindsight and the experience of Stalin's show-trials but the application of theory and contemporary analysis of events

Socialism means a class-free society, and a class-free society means that a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy the national wealth, while the majority live only on their labour to produce it. It means especially that privileged individuals who do have excess income cannot invest it in the instruments of production with which others work, thus reducing them to a position of fixed subservience. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour. 

Cheering News To Lighten All The Gloom And Doom

Those of you who have read so far may be wondering if there is any cheering news to lighten all the gloom and doom? well, there ain't much, but, one little goodie is that church attendance is dropping in Canada, which suggests folk are giving up on religion - but let's hear from a guy who can explain it better than me. 

Karl Marx said:
 ''Religion, the family, the State, law, morality, science, art, etc. are only particular forms of production and come under its general law. The positive abolition of private property as the appropriation of human life is thus the positive abolition of all alienation and thus the return of man from religion, the family, the State etc. to his human, ie social life. Religious alienation only occurs in the sphere of consciousness, in the inner life of man, but economic alienation is that of real life and is abolition, therefore, affects both aspects. Of course, the development in different nations has a different origin according to whether the actual life of the people is more in the realm of mind or in the external world, whether it is a real or ideal life.'' 

From Marx's 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts', 1844.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & all contributing members of the SPC.

Don’t Agonise, Organise!

The Socialist Party is not a party of reform but of revolution. Let it be clearly understood that by revolution the Socialist Party does not mean violence and insurrection. The Socialist Party offers a possible peaceful solution to the class war by the capture of the political powers by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class. Humanity must choose between the continuation of the capitalist system which leads to destruction and a revolution founded on the basis of solidarity and reciprocity.  Socialism stands for the end of the war and poverty. In capitalist society, the world is divided into states with opposed interests. The world is split up, separated by frontiers and impassable fences and walls. Nowhere is there security. There is talk of peace while there is preparation for war. The need for disarmament is announced while the powers arm to the teeth. Capitalist society has made of science an instrument of destruction for inventing weapons of war. A world revolution will replace the struggle between nations and will make of the earth one country single and indivisible. Socialists advocate everywhere solidarity and their slogan is “Workers of the world, Unite!” True freedom does not exist where property is not common property or where a man or woman is the slave of another, where the capitalist state has control of our lives and our wealth. Liberty in our society is an empty word, a word without meaning, a lie.  The wage system will have to give way to socialism which will bring to an end the exploitation of man by man and slavery in all its forms. Capitalist society condemns to poverty, enforced idleness, and starvation those whom it cannot employ for the purpose of enriching the capitalist class.

The Socialist Party opponents tell us that we are not practical, that we are dreamers, Utopians, visionaries. Our critics confront us with human nature and those academics or public figures say “You want to change society to ensure happiness to all and give everyone equality of rights. You forget, human nature! Mankind is by nature selfish and bad. You will never be able to change peoples' innate characters. Your ideals and intentions are good. But only angels can tread the ground you seek to build” And to this the Socialist Party replies. “This same human nature argument was advanced against those who wished to abolish slavery by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle” Slavery has been abolished. Anybody who today would advocate the establishment of slavery in its old form would be looked upon as an enemy of the humankind. And would be told that there is something in human nature which cannot tolerate the existence of slavery.

Socialism is not only desirable and possible, it is also an historical necessity. Socialism is now even more feasible because the forces of production, thanks to new technology, have reached an unheard level of development with robotics and automation. They only need to be put in action for the benefit of everyone in order that all members of society may be assured of complete well-being. Modern science has created all the conditions of luxury.  Socialism with each new day becomes more possible and more urgent as a consciousness of cooperation rises among the producers. Our world could become a social heaven yet because of this absurd system in which we live, we find ourselves enduring a social hell. Mankind, instead of co-operating in the building of a shared sustainable home for all, finds itself occupied by an internecine strife in a war of each against all. The result is a useless waste of individuals' strength and the planet's resources. Socialism by ending the cause of these rivalries and conflicts– the private ownership of the means of production – forms a new society based on the principles of human solidarity and reciprocity and economic soundness. It will put an end to all waste and all unproductive work. It will abolish antagonism of interests and reduce authority to a minimum, making it function not in the interests of a class but in the interests of society as a whole. Socialism consists of a rationalisation of production, of all our activities and our very lives themselves. And that, not in the interests of some, but for the benefit of all.

The victory of socialism is desirable because only socialism can put an end to the exploitation of man by man and of women by men. Because only socialism can put an end to the struggle for the re-division of the world, for national possessions, which takes place between the different continents, nations and peoples. Only socialism can put an end to war and poverty and the innumerable injustices which are an everyday feature of our lives.

The capitalist class will not surrender its power through goodwill towards the workers. In order to change the ownership of property, it is necessary to take political power away from the wealthy employing class. This political power which is presently in the hands of the capitalist as a means of self-defence will become in the hands of the workers a weapon for the emancipation of the working-class. Workers, on capturing political power, will ensure the existence of social property, of property common to all. Each class which owns the means of production seeks to obtain political power, control of the State and the armed forces in order to safeguard its exclusive property and maintain its monopoly of ownership. Economic power brings political power. The landlord who exploits directly the ignorant peasant scattered throughout the countryside and unaccustomed to organisation, prefers the power of an absolute monarchy. The owners of machinery – living in a more developed society dependent on science and in which large masses of workers are concentrated in cities – have recourse for the purpose of maintaining its rule to the parliamentary monarchy or a republic. But be it parliamentary monarchy or a republic it is always political power at the service of private property. It is always the armed force at the service of the privileged class. He who possesses property possesses power. The working class is a propertyless class. And is on this account without any real political power. But this situation cannot last indefinitely. The working class will come to realise that it is the plaything and victim of a system which exists only through its efforts and which heartlessly exploits it.

There should be collective ownership of what is collectively produced. The working class in possession of the means of production, whether, produced by its own efforts or through the bounty of nature, will cease to be the wage-slave of the capitalist class.  Technology will cease to be a rival to the worker and will instead become an aid and an ally. Socialism is based on the recognition of the interests which are common to all and is a concept which does not sacrifice the individual for the sake of society nor society for the sake of the individual. The objective of socialism is a free individual in a free society, the well-being of each assured by the well-being of all in a well-organised society.

Life Sentences

Scotland, Prof Van Zyl Smit said, is now proportionately sentencing more people to life than any other European country, including England and Wales. The professor, who is at the law department of Nottingham University, was speaking ahead of a speech to the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland.

In absolute terms, Scotland has around 1,000 life prisoners and England about 5,500. By comparison, Russia has 1,800 prisoners serving life whereas France has 500.

Countries like Russia and France only sentence the most serious killers to life, such as terrorists or child sex murderers. Germany gives life to all murderers but has a very narrow definition of the crime of murder.

Other nations such as Uruguay and Norway have abolished lift sentences altogether but can keep someone locked up on public safety grounds.

Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit said Scotland had a get-tough penal system which was increasingly out of kilter with the rest of Europe. He insists “not all murderers are equally dangerous” and urged Scotland to follow the example of places like Norway — where far right terrorist Anders Breivik was given a maximum sentence of 21 years for killing 77 people.

The Scottish Government in recent years has been accused of adopting "soft-touch" justice policies by right-wing opponents and commentators. However, figures show it has one of the highest incarceration rates in western Europe.

Professor Van Zyl Smit said: "Scottish people often have an idea of the criminal justice system as not being as harsh as elsewhere. At the top end that is not true.

"The UK has the highest rate of life sentencing in Europe and Scotland sentences more prisoners to life, proportionately, than England," he said. "The UK and Turkey together have more lifers than the rest of Europe put together, including Russia. There is a hard question about what you do with your worst offenders. The main concern is that numbers are burgeoning here, while some countries do not have life sentences at all." He added: "More than 30 countries have neither the death sentences nor life sentences," he said. "Others use them more sparingly. People who defend the system say we reflect the seriousness of the offence in a life sentence and the minimum period lifers have to serve before they are eligible for release." His said: "You need to look at mandatory life sentences for murder – not all murderers are equally dangerous – and at what sort of minimum period is being set. After that minimum period are you releasing people? And more and more people are being recalled to prison.”

One of the reasons life sentences are controversial in Scotland and the UK is because they do not usually mean a prisoner remains in prison for the rest of their life.

Scottish judges must sentence for life but they also add a minimum tariff that a convicted killer must serve. Analysis shows these tariffs have been creeping up with Prof Van Zyl Smit suggesting a growing number of lifers behind bars was "storing up" problems for the future. The longest so far was 37 years. All released lifers, however, are out on licence for the rest of their life regardless of the length of their sentence.  The Scottish Conservatives have called for life to mean life whole life sentences. Prof Professor Van Zyl Smit said such policies were "arguably illegal" in terms of European human rights law.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/16079679.Scotland_told_to_scrap_automatic_life_sentences_for_murderers/

How About A Massive Improvement In Everyone's Life For All Time.

 Justin Trudeau was jubilant when he signed Canada up for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has joined Canada to a trade deal with ten other Pacific region countries. To quote, ''Our government stood up for Canadian interests and this agreement meets our objectives of creating and sustaining growth, prosperity and well paying middle-class jobs today and for generations to come.''

 Not everyone was quite so ecstatic; Unifor prez. Jerry Dias fears Canadian auto workers will have to compete with ''cheap labour'' in Asia and the Canadian car markets will be swamped with Hondas and Toyotas.

 Christopher Monette, a spokesman for Teamsters Canada, said Canada is giving away some of their dairy markets and claimed the labour protections in the TPP were weak. 

It is too early to say how things will play out concerning the details, but of one thing we can be sure - the best that can happen is that some sections of the working class in Canada will find a slight improvement in their lives for a short time. 

How about a massive improvement in everyone's life for all time?

For socialism,
 Steve, Mehmet, John
 & all contributing members of the SPC.

Capitalist Economics Assert Themselves.

For several months Stats-Canada had been saying there were slight declines in the unemployment rate, which was probably due to production for the Christmas market, but things have sure changed as the iron-clad laws of capitalist economics have re-asserted themselves. 

Stats-Canada reported record part-time job losses in January that gave Canada's labour market its biggest one month loss since the recession of 2009. 

137,000 part-time jobs were lost, including 50,900 in Ontario. Harsh weather, (to put it mildly), affected the construction industry, (down 14,900 jobs), and the transportation industry, (5,900 jobs). 

So folks, enjoy the good times while they last, 'cos under capitalism it won't be for very long.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John &
all contributing members of the SPC.

The Choice Before Us

Religion has been around for a long time.  The traditional answer is that humans evolved religion as a means of coping with the death of loved ones, which is true, as religion preys strongly on the personal crisis in helping cope with the deaths of loved ones by promising that they will see their loved ones again. Another reason often put forward is for a means of explaining the world around us as being created by an all-powerful deity, because it was only until quite recently that we have had any real clue as to the nature of the forces at work around us that have crafted our environment and state of existence. As humans discovered agriculture and started to settled down, populations tended to grow far beyond the small hunter-gatherer groups. Human societies started to independently evolve religious ideas as a means of controlling the behaviour of members of society of how people should behave which were  said to be laid down by an all-knowing and powerful deity, the creator, rules such as thou shall not kill, steal, and one man one wife, and of course to pay homage to the creator/s and follow the teachings and instructions of the deities prophets and priests, that were to be repeatedly recited and ingrained in all members of society. 

All religion's seek to exert total control over every member of society as it was/is believed that all events that happen are as a consequence of the pleasure or displeasure of the Gods such as natural disasters in which respect societies even went so far as to sacrifice fellow humans to please their gods, and sacrifice remains at the fundamental core of all religions i.e. that humans sacrifice independent free will in this life for freedom in the next life, and to a achieve entry into the afterlife humans need to obey the will of the Gods as set down by those that purport to represent the deities such as kings and queens and priests under the fear of what would happen to them if they did now obey the will of the Gods as their representatives on earth. Complete religious control even up to the point of self-sacrifice (martyrdom). Over time this control of the masses has continued to develop and intensify the hold on the general population's actions, making it far easier for the elite to control every aspect of life. 

Religion is not simply a jumble of confused ideas. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of the capitalist class. It divides us and blinds us to the class action that is required to overcome the menace of capitalism. Religion is the ideological expression of a long-gone world and its ancient social conditions, a world of superstition, slavery and little education. Far from providing an answer to today’s problems, it tells us to put our faith in the supernatural hopes of a past age. Instead of uniting us as a class we are to become meek and mild, and to submit to the whims of an ancient god. From the dawn of civilisation religion has been a weapon of political domination. The working class though not as yet hostile to religion, are nevertheless becoming increasingly indifferent to it. Religion is dying but not yet dead. None of us is born Christian or Muslim or anything else. We’re born with no knowledge or beliefs in any god. In fact, we’re all born into a state of atheism. Wherever the accident of birth sees each child born, each individual is born totally dependent and without language or religion. A child develops speaking the language of its home. A child raised in a religion-free zone will not acquire religious knowledge. For this to occur it would need to be exposed habitually to ideas, concepts, and beliefs by those around it. How many people make a conscious choice of religion and how many simply continue with what they were born into as part of their traditional culture, religious or not?

Belief in religion – any religion – hampers the ability to think objectively, particularly about social and political issues. The disappearance of all religious beliefs should be seen as an essential part of our struggle for socialism and not just as a fringe irrelevance. It isn’t simply a question of religion being false, or brutal or divisive; it is a weapon of the ruling class, a bulwark in the way of the emancipation of the working class, a hurdle to be overcome in the progress to socialism nor could it be overcome while the conditions that nourished it continued to exist. Thus, the socialist sees religion as an integral part of the class struggle.

Despite occasional public pronouncements that the West had no quarrel with mainstream Islam, there is no doubt whatever that, with help from the media and repeated insinuations from various officials, the widespread impression has been created that opposition to, hatred of and terrorism against the West is essentially “a Muslim thing” and that the Islamic faith itself carries the seeds of violence and terrorism. Thus we see that a difference in religion has offered the opportunity for capitalism to denigrate as scapegoats the Islamic world: and to drive a wedge of suspicion and distrust between western workers and their eastern counterparts – a good present-day example of the old imperial dodge of “divide and rule”.

An awful lot of people try to impose their false beliefs and certain antiquated social traditions on other people by falsely pretending to be speaking for a god without any good evidence of the existence of any god in the first place and even on the basis of pretending that ancient texts written by men came from that god despite the real world facts which unequivocally demonstrate that these ancient texts teach all manner of false empirical ideas and notions of morality that are primitive and barbaric. Christians who pretend that their ideas are from a god, without any good evidence of even the existence of any such god, and despite extensive evidence that their ideas are false. Christians can't even agree with each other on what it means. There are only several hundred different Christian denominations! 

Materialism, or science, on the other hand, comes from the objectification of the real world outside of the emotions and desires and limited perceptions of humans, from the recognition through rational thinking that the world exists completely independently of the human psyche, and that how we feel about reality is utterly irrelevant to determining what the facts of the real world are. Reality is what it is regardless of how we feel about it. The universe is far more vast and more complex than anything comprehended in the primitive cosmogony of the Bible. Man is not the purpose of creation. The earth is not the centre of the universe. Even our galaxy is but one of a trillion observable galaxies in the universe, and those are merely the ones we are able to observe.

Socialism, as the science of society, is an essential part of a scientific view of all phenomena regarded as an interdependent whole; and such a monistic view of the universe, with each part in inseparable causal relation to the rest, can leave no nook or cranny for God or Gods. The concept of God as an explanation of the Universe is becoming entirely untenable in this age of scientific enquiry. The laws of the persistence of force and the indestructibility of matter, and the unending inter-play of cause and effect make the attempt to trace the origin of things to an anthropomorphic God who had no cause futile. The physical laws of the known universe cannot logically be held to cease where our immediate experience ends, to make way for an unscientific concept of an uncaused and creating being. The Creation idea is unsupported by evidence and is in conflict with every scientific law. Socialism is consistent only with that monistic view which regards all phenomena as expressions of the underlying matter-force reality and as parts of the unity of Nature which interact according to the laws of physics.

The consistent socialist, therefore, cannot be a Christian, or Muslim or Jew or Hindu. As a belief, religion is a manifestation of man’s ignorance of Nature’s working. The great theoretic weapon of the workers in their fight for emancipation is science, not religion; and religion and science are as incompatible as fire and water. Religion is an instrument of domination which cannot be used as an agent of emancipation at this stage of history and social development. The working class, moreover, though not as yet hostile to religion, are becoming increasingly indifferent to it. Workers find little basis for belief in divine interference.

The decay of religion is, indeed, a measure of the advance of humanity, for the height of man’s superstition is at the same time the depth of his ignorance. The socialist can see, accompanying the decline of religion, humanity emerging from the darkness of ignorance and fear into the clear daylight of science and power, spurning the priests who had duped them, dispossessing the class that had robbed them, and moulding society to their needs, ordering and perfecting the social forces they have inherited. Socialists can picture the people, no longer slaves, but free: no longer in fear of phantoms of their own creation, but looking proudly out upon a harmonious and rational social world, harnessing giant natural forces to industry, and intensifying their relationship with Nature by a wider knowledge of Her laws. Socialists see a social organisation adapted to give all people health and happiness by freeing them from wasteful drudgery and by stimulating healthy emulation in a new birth of science and the arts. And so the community of brothers and sisters, that Christianity professed but could only retard, becomes, at last, a reality through the complete harmony of interests brought about by the co-operative commonwealth; a made inevitable, because the social organisation makes the highest welfare and happiness of each immediately dependent upon, and producible only by the promotion of the like well-being of all. 

The Road to Socialism

The Socialist Party’s conception of revolution is often criticised for its lack of credibility since it is assumed that people have to wait for the overwhelming majority necessary to “enact” socialism before doing something about their immediate problems. The Party does argue that the work for socialism must be the building up of a majority of socialists who will then be in a position to remove the capitalist features from production as a conscious political act and that until a socialist majority is achieved, the class monopoly of the means of production, the wage-labour/capital relationship, commodity production, the operation of the market, and the state, will continue to be both the form of social production and its administration by governments. The Party’s theory of revolution insists that socialism can only be established by the democratic, conscious political actions of a majority of socialists and it is not just any theory culled from a textbook of bourgeois sociology. The theory is based both on the class struggle as the motor of social change and on an understanding of the economics of capitalism and the limits it places on what can be done within the framework of the capitalist system.

Members of the Left reject the Party’s theory of revolution as “impossible”. Their argument was that without a majority of socialists, and prior to the formal enactment of common ownership, a working-class government could set society on a course of change in the direction of socialism. In control of the state and all legal processes, such a government would grant the widest freedom of action to the trade unions and thus set up a partnership with the trade unions pursuing working class interests on the industrial field and a government doing the same on the political field.

The unions would maximise the workers’ share of the social product at the point of production. The government would provide housing, health care, and education, etc. At the same time, such a working-class government would begin the process of establishing common ownership through the nationalisation of the means of production and through “taxing the rich out of existence”.

The Party rejected this gradualist policy at the beginning of the century and this rejection has been vindicated by experience and has led to the Party’s traditional case for abolishing class ownership by one short, sharp political act. With a growing socialist majority, the class struggle will take new forms, not least because the ruling class will become ever more cunning and ruthless as its hegemony is more and more threatened. Critics have accused the Socialist Party with some foolish ideas which we do not hold such as the use of Parliament alone. The Party is aware that the use of parliament by a socialist majority is just one part of a much broader movement for change in which the revolutionised ideas and activities of millions of class-conscious workers will be rather more important than the actions of delegates in parliament. 

 The Socialist Party presents our objective as an immediate solution to the problems of the present and not as a futuristic utopia. All serious socialists do this. What on earth would be the point of proposing an alternative to capitalism which will only be capable of liberating workers after they are dead?  Our appeal to workers is upon the basis of class interest and our appeal will be successful because the class struggle generates class consciousness in workers. Most people who like socialism as a “nice idea” but despair about its achievements are utopians, and as such, they lack a sense of liberation as an historical phenomenon—a product of victory in the class war. 

The reason why the Socialist Party rejects the gradualist theory and policy is that the Party’s theory of revolution was formulated from an application of Marxian economic theory to the workings of capitalism on the one hand, and from the nature of socialism on the other. This established a framework of limitations and possibilities of what could be achieved by the working class acting in its interests. From this work, it became a political premise that the economic operation of capitalism could not be controlled in a manner which would allow for any gradual realisation of working-class interests amounting to the gradual establishment of socialism. Moreover, a society which would be consciously and democratically controlled by its members in the interests of all its members could only be established by the conscious political act of a majority. This is what the Left reject—thoroughly and out of hand—even in face of the fact that the force of the Party’s arguments has not diminished with the passing of time; on the contrary, as capitalism has continued to develop as a world system, it has become more compelling.

 It is highly demonstrative that the contemporary Left has failed to offer strategies for the struggle other than reformist ones: struggle for minorities’ rights, for women’s equality, for the rights of immigrants and homeless, defending the environment and so on, that is they have offered actions aimed at improving capitalism partially (which helps to make capitalism more attractive to a greater number of people and thus decreases the number of socialist fighters) not at destroying it. And certainly all this, does not pose any threat to the rule of capital. A socialist revolution, which can only be worldwide and which will not run in the same pattern common for the previous bourgeois and state-capitalist revolutions is not a matter of the distant future.

The  Left, at best, talk of the need to "transcend" capitalism in general, in some distant future but do not call for an immediate struggle for social revolution. There are those (although few in number and weak in influence) and who do. But somehow their calls fail to ring the bell with wide, and even narrow, masses of the workers. When the ruling classes are forced to take such a measures against the workers that will inevitably blow up the class peace, i.e. to refuse to limit the working day, to terminate the dole system, to actually eliminate the social infrastructure of the welfare state, to crack down on protests, these circumstances may lead to the class organisations of workers (such as trade unions) radicalising, to the capitalist society betraying its class nature, to the general public opening up to the revolutionary propaganda, and consequently, to the class struggle reviving and then to a social revolution.

The Socialist Party's aim is a revolutionary change in society. Socialism does not mean a different kind of government or State control of industry. It means a completely different social system, based on the ownership of all the means of life by everybody. Socialism means a world where the things of life will be produced solely to satisfy the needs of mankind, instead of for the purpose of realising a profit for your bosses; a world where the whole of humanity will own and control the means of living and where wars and international strive cannot exist: a world where people will no longer be subject to the threat of unemployment and to the perpetual struggle to make ends meet—in short, a world where everyone will freely and equally associate and enjoy all the fruits of their labour. We're talking about a world community without any frontiers. About wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit. About everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money. A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary.  There is no need for the food we eat, or the clothes we wear, or the houses we live in, to be restricted by the size of our wage packets. There is no need for the output of factories and farms to be restricted by having to make a profit. The productive resources are sufficient to make it possible to abolish buying and selling and thus money and to go over to free distribution of the things people need.

How is the Socialist Party is going to do all this? The answer is that it is not. YOU are going to do it. No politician can help you.

The Flim-Flam Man

Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour Party leader, who the BBC calls “a proud man of the left”,  told conference delegates in Dundee that "our economy needs less market and more planning". He also said: "Our party's mission under my leadership is not simply to secure a fairer distribution of wealth from the existing economic system, it is to fundamentally change the existing economic system."

We have heard this “radical” talk all before from the Labour Party's politicians and each time we have had a Labour Party government, such stirring words are never heard of again.