What Socialists Mean by Poverty

The number of people in Scotland living in poverty is a disturbing 20% (one million) and it provides an opportunity for politicians to blame other politicians for a problem. Holyrood blames Westminster, Westminster blames Holyrood. That is poverty defined as after housing costs, people are left with a household income that is below 60% of the national median? Can the fifth annual increase in the number of people in Scotland who are living this way be viewed as anything other than a problem?

The Socialist Party blames capitalism.

'What do YOU mean by poverty, then?' asked Easton.

'What I call poverty is when people are not able to secure for

themselves all the benefits of civilization; the necessaries, comforts,

pleasures and refinements of life, leisure, books, theatres, pictures,

music, holidays, travel, good and beautiful homes, good clothes, good

and pleasant food.'

'If a man is only able to provide himself and his family with the bare

necessaries of existence, that man's family is living in poverty. Since

he cannot enjoy the advantages of civilization he might just as well be

a savage: better, in fact, for a savage knows nothing of what he is

deprived.

 What we call civilization--the accumulation of knowledge

which has come down to us from our forefathers--is the fruit of

thousands of years of human thought and toil. It is not the result of

the labour of the ancestors of any separate class of people who exist

today, and therefore it is by right the common heritage of all.

Every little child that is born into the world, no matter whether he is

clever or full, whether he is physically perfect or lame, or blind; no

matter how much he may excel or fall short of his fellows in other

respects, in one thing at least he is their equal--he is one of the

heirs of all the ages that have gone before.'

'Why is it,' continued Owen, 'that we are not only deprived of our

inheritance--we are not only deprived of nearly all the benefits of

civilization, but we and our children and also often unable to obtain

even the bare necessaries of existence?'

'All these things,' Owen proceeded, 'are produced by those who work. We

do our full share of the work, therefore we should have a full share of

the things that are made by work.'

'As things are now,' went on Owen, 'instead of enjoying the advantages

of civilization we are really worse off than slaves, for if we were

slaves our owners in their own interest would see to it that we always

had food and--'

'Oh, I don't see that,' roughly interrupted old Linden, who had been

listening with evident anger and impatience. 'You can speak for

yourself, but I can tell yer I don't put MYSELF down as a slave.'

'Nor me neither,' said Crass sturdily. 'Let them call their selves

slaves as wants to.'

At this moment a footstep was heard in the passage leading to the

kitchen. Old Misery! or perhaps the bloke himself! Crass hurriedly

pulled out his watch.

'Jesus Christ!' he gasped. 'It's four minutes past one!'

Linden frantically seized hold of a pair of steps and began wandering

about the room with them.

Robert Tressell, Ragged Trousered Philanthropist

So all workers are poor on Owen's first definition of poverty. But how many workers in Britain are poor on his second definition of poverty as lacking or only just getting the "bare necessaries of existence" (what might be better called "destitution")? Owen is giving two different definitions of poverty here. One, that someone is poor if they don't have access to "all the benefits of civilisation" and, two, that someone is poor when they can only access the"bare necessaries of existence".

The ambiguity arises with someone who has access to more than the "bare necessaries" but not to "all" the benefits of civilisation but only to some of them, e.g. from Owen's list to books, music, holidays.  Which is the situation of most workers today and always has been the position of some. This no doubt is what is behind the claim that most workes are not poor.

The Party used to get round this by drawing a distinction between "destitution" (access only to the socially-determined mimumum necessaries) and "poverty" (exclusion from ownership and control of means of production). This definition of "poverty" moves away from access to means of consumption to access to means of production, even if it goes against the popular usage of the term.

On Owen's second definition, most workers are not poor (only about 10-15% in Britain are). On Owen's first definition all workers are (as are many small business owners). On the definition the Party has used, all workers are too (but no small owners).

Agreed that what constitutes "the bare necessaries of existence" is socially-determined and in Britain will be higher now that it was over a hundred years ago in Tressell's time but I don't think we could get away with saying that a worker living in a centrally-heated house with two or three rooms, hot and cold running water, freezer, television, computer, mobile phone, three meals a day, etc is only getting the "bare necessaries of existence". Such a worker is only "poor" in the sense of being excluded from ownership of means of production and therefore forced by economic necessity to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary in order to live. Also, of course, in some parts of the world, there are people not getting enough to stay alive properly. Few people in Britain are in that position.

From Political Power to Popular Power

 

Often one of the essential points brought forward by opponents to socialism is the part played by the so-called "captain of industry” to-day. It is urged that production on a large scale is impossible without them, that their energy and enterprise depends upon self-interest which signifies the pursuit of wealth and power, and that such incentives being absent from the proposed new social order captains of industry will not develop and large scale production will therefore languish. We know from innumerable events which constantly make plain the weakness of this position, but its supporters continue their advocacy unabashed, partly from interested motives and partly from the sheer incapacity to see and understand the facts in front of them.

To-day the duty of those captains of industry, the CEOs, is to overreach other corporate bosses and collect willing tools to aid them in the work of extracting the greatest amount of surplus value from the working class. It is not a question of running an industry but of piling up profits, and the CEO sometimes seeks to obtain the lion’s share of these profits. When industry comes to be organised to meet the needs of everybody without distinction, the various tasks necessary will be distributed and controlled on behalf of all. There will be neither opportunity nor incentive for one to achieve power and wealth at the expense of another, and there will be every inducement for each to give of one's best in the way that is most congenial for the benefit of oneself and the rest of society.

Leaving aside those who set out from a fraudulent beginning, ambitious men, brought up on maxims of wealth and power, set out to build up large enterprises and use all the capital and credit they can lay their hands on. A business slump, which these optimists rarely foresee, a shortage of available capital, or something similar, interferes with, their projects or stands in the way of some greater achievement, and induces them temporarily to resort to methods which come under the legal heading of fraud, in the expectation that they will be able to put matters right when their designs have been accomplished. Sometimes they are successful and live on as highly respected pillars of society, with the probability of a monument after their deaths. Sometimes they are unfortunate, then economic rivals, frightened financiers, maddened shareholders, and the moralists, unite in condemning them and bringing them to “justice.” The larger the concerns involved the larger is the scale of fraud.

Big industry strives to utilise all the funds it can lay hands on for the purpose of expansion and of enriching those at its head. It puts its hand into the pockets of small capitalists and shopkeepers, and uses the savings of the “better-off” for its schemes. Consequently, it is the heartbroken cry of the small shareholder that usually makes the most noise when a collapse comes, because it is just these people, with economic security in sight, struggling fiercely to get there, who are being constantly ruined and flung into the more hopeless sections of the propertyless class. And yet they are the fruitful soil for the blooming of all the pernicious doctrines of self-help and the like. Striving for economic freedom, unable to accomplish it by their own efforts, they look hopefully to company promoters, provide funds for all kinds of hare-brained schemes, and sing the praises of “great” men whom they trustfully expect will lift them out of the mud. They cannot find words harsh enough for those who let them down and shatter their delusions

History shows that meaningful social change is not possible through reformism. The basic characteristic of reformism remains the support, within the working class, of the capitalist state and through it, of the native capitalist class. The Socialist Party supports a working class standing erect on its feet; refusing to be pushed to its knees. A working-class resorting to independent political action and class struggle. A working class fighting for socialism.  The first step towards socialism is to organise in a socialist party so that at least all the workers will recognise that they must act according to their class interests politically just as they do economically in their unions. Once such a socialist party has captured state power, we can proceed to reorganise the whole of society to serve the interests of the vast majority instead of the few.

Patriotism - Perfumed Poison

LEFT NATIONALISM

 We should not be at all surprised that some “theoretical” support to Scottish nationalism is peddled by certain spurious “socialist” groups. In 1891 Engels referred to the British Isles “where the two islands are peopled by four nations”. The Socialist Party is not bound by any Marxist holy writ.

Capitalism cannot be improved gradually; neither can it be managed in a decent human way. It must be overthrown by the working class in a revolutionary way.  The left and right compete and bid against one another in their patriotism, accusing the other of being weak on the national interest, in the same way, they dispute over the management of the capitalism system. Patriotism, even if it becomes prevalent amongst our fellow workers provokes us to stand against the stream and to defend, against this stream, the real interests of the working class. 

The Socialist Party is neither loyal servants of the masses nor their would-be saviours who would be their future oppressors. Our purpose as a conscious element of the working class is to show the direction and the objective that the class struggle has to take against capital, to radically criticise capitalist society, to support the interests of the working class as a whole and to help the proletariat to constitute itself a class in order to overthrow the capitalist system and to establish the socialist society which a world without classes, without exploitation of man by man, without mechanisms of organised violence and oppression in general, without the whole of capitalist relations that are governed by property, commercial exchange, exchange value, surplus value, money and wage labour. It is a world community of freely associated producers, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all, each member of which contributes to social welfare according to his ability and enjoys the social goods according to his needs and participate directly and actively in the collective management of common affairs. We must show to people the need and the vision of socialism because it is the only way out of capitalist barbarism. If they will not organise and mobilise by themselves, nobody can save them. If they raise the nation's flag nothing can be done. 

The Socialist Party remains faithful to our principles. We are together with our class, we are together with it in the everyday struggles that carry on as a class against class, raising its self-confidence, encouraging its self-organisation and contributing to the rise of class consciousness. We neither worship nor carry the working class. If they will not struggle, inspired by a different future,  they will remain slaves. Nationalism is a chain which shackles the wage-slave.

Workers have no interest in supporting nationalism. Times of crisis and upheaval have always provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories and fantasies, creating a social climate marked by the mass growth of nationalism, racism and reactionary ideas. The Socialist Party is faced with the challenge of swimming against the tide and defending our ideas without compromise. The alternative is not to support nationalism. Much less is it about joining in the calls for a return to ‘Old Labour’. For the Socialist Party, socialism isn’t an idealist utopia which has to be sacrificed in the real world. On the contrary, the revolution to overthrow capitalism and replace it with the cooperative commonwealth is the only solution to world capitalism. In this globalised world the material conditions exist to establish a community without classes and national borders, where the questions of who gets what and how are determined not by money and profit but by administrative decisions taken by ‘freely associated producers’. For anyone who shares this view there is only one political option: join the struggle to win the working class over to the only really anti-capitalist programme: socialism, the real hope for the future. Get involved! 

The Old Tax Routine

So the Ontario P.C.s have, in their infinite wisdom, seen fit to elect Doug Ford as leader and the first thing he said was if he became Premier he would abolish taxes for anyone making less than 30 grand a year. Well way to go, Doughy, baby, ain't we all a dumb buncha saps by not seeing through that one.

 Employers would use that as an excuse to not grant a raise. Governments may sometimes pass laws the capitalist class doesn't like, even if it is their job to run the day to day affairs of capitalism, but they'll find a way of getting around it. 

So let's scrap this whole damn nonsense and scrap crapitalism.

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

Why the Socialist Party

There is only one necessary characteristic of a leader and that is he must have followers. Take away the followers and he ceases to be a leader. It seems too obvious to need mentioning, but whenever a plea is raised for a new leader or whenever disgust is shown against an old one this truism appears to be forgotten.

The Socialist Party holds that the emancipation of the working class must be the task of the working class itself. There is no secret formula. The main outlines can be grasped by any reasonable person. No need for a political shepherd —only those who do not know the way need to be led. Up to the present, the mass of the workers have lacked political knowledge and have voted for people instead of principles. They have given their votes to the people who made the most alluring promises, and as time proved the hollowness of the promises, the workers turned in disgust from one group of people to another, and then back again as the memory of previous disappointments faded. This fact has led many to question the usefulness of Parliament. They have forgotten that whenever the workers have placed their trust in leaders they have almost always been let down. The workers have been as readily betrayed on the industrial field, as they have on the political field. The trouble has not been due to the field of combat. It has been due to the method adopted. When the workers cease to regard certain individuals as endowed with some special capacity of "leadership,” they will adopt the method of issuing instructions to delegates that are to be carried out regardless of the delegates' own views or wishes. The ground will then be cut from under the feet of those who prosper out of leadership, and such people will no longer have a saleable article for the capitalist in the shape of a blind following. There have not yet been a Parliamentary test of the power of delegates acting on instructions given them by a large body of workers who knew exactly what they were after and how to get it. In fact, outside the Socialist Party, the method has never been really applied. Time after time the specious words of some acknowledged leader have diverted groups of workers from their original aims, generally on the plea of “expediency." The word “expediency" has acted as a useful veil for generations to cover the compromising activities of leaders, but of late there are indications that “tactics" will replace it. The truth is that the foolish and cowardly belief in this fetish of leadership has been a considerable barrier to working class knowledge and progress. The power and wealth leaders acquire induce them to fortify their positions and insist on the necessity of leadership as a permanent institution with the development of appropriate means for wire-pulling and mutual bargaining for position. The Labour Party has given the striking proof of this in recent years.

Socialism will not be possible until the mass of the workers understand it and are prepared to vote for it. If a working class that did not understand socialism were to vote for it, the result would only be chaos, as the first attempts to put it into operation would bewilder the majority of people and leave the way open for a counter-revolution. When the workers understand Socialism they will know what to expect and what will be involved in putting it into operation, and here they will defeat the efforts of any delegates ready to sell themselves to the opposition. In such circumstances a delegate could only sell once; he would not get a second chance. 

There is but ONE remedy for all the evils of working-class existence, and ONE only — it is the solution which does not pay the “leaders of labour ” to propagate. For that task, the Socialist Party has been established. We insist that these evils are all part and parcel of, and inseparable from, the present social order—capitalism—a system of society in which the means of wealth production are owned and controlled by a small section, on whom the mass of the people are dependent. These evils will persist and glow unless and until the working class, organised in the socialist parties, make an end to private ownership so that no individual will be dependent on another private individual for his material subsistence. In socialism, such absurdities as poverty in the midst of plenty, which is the outstanding feature of capitalism, will be unthinkable, because society will produce all human comforts and conveniences for USE only and not for profit. The product of men’s hands will then cease to play tricks with them, and the further improvement of machinery, which spells wreck and ruin to the workers to-day, will then only increase the real well-being of all. We insist that no proposition can be sound and worthy of working-class support that respects the present social order and does not aim at the destruction of a system that deprives millions of people of a chance of earning a living, that humiliates and degrades, and drives thousands to despair and suicide. Any proposition that does not establish equal right for all to the means of life, deserves nothing but the contempt of the workers. Workers of the world! It is high time to rid yourselves of your illusions and of your leaders! Join our organisation and so leave your mark to posterity as men and women of whom they will be able to say that you assisted in the great task of saving the planet from the fangs of the monster incubus of capital!

 Let us spread the knowledge of socialism and hasten its establishment.

Edinburgh Branch Meeting

Thursday, 5 April- 7:00pm
The Quaker Hall, 
Victoria Terrace (above Victoria Street), 
Edinburgh EH1 2JL

 Against All Nationalisms

“The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not you and I.” Karl Leibnecht

Nationalism is a poison in the veins of the working class. Wherever we look nationalism and racism is on the rise. These are dangerous and unpredictable times. The rise of so-called populism and the far right has been a global trend.  The working class stands divided and helpless, riven by xenophobia. Nationalism and religion have been skilfully employed by the ruling class in destroying the most basic elements of class-consciousness and solidarity among the workers. Wherever you look the “patriot” card is being played more often. Nationalism isn’t “natural”. It is manufactured. Nationalists and populists if they are not fomenting wars or supporting one side or another in conflicts across the planet, they are calling for trade wars. The working class is being enticed by all kinds of reactionary political agendas. Nationalism, as has been demonstrated in every national liberation struggle, is no friend of the working class. The capitalists who control the nationalist movements (however “socialist” they claim to be) either become the cats paw of one or other super-powers or when they get into power they oppress and exploit the workers just as before. 

The working class has no country. We are, and always have been, a class of migrants.  The real issue for the world’s workers is that they face an increasingly dire future under whichever capitalist regime rules us. The world capitalist crisis has seen living standards falling across the planet. The aim is to divert attention from the real crisis onto the “other”, the foreigner. The politics of prejudice have always been part of the capitalist game but now the situation is more desperate. Finding a scapegoat is a lot easier than solving the real economic problem. As long as the workers spills their blood for a nationalist solution, they will always face class defeat. Our solidarity is our weapon and we cannot let anything undermine it. This is why our slogan is still “workers of the world unite.” The unification of the dispossessed for a society without classes or borders requires a return to the path of class struggle. This is the only solution to the perpetual devastation of war and to nationalistic self-interest. As Edinburgh-born James Conolly put it in 1910, nationalism of any kind is:

“a movement which would lay aside class contentions to gain national ends, so enabling the bourgeoisie to prevent working-class expression.” (Connolly, of course, later capitulated to that very nationalism when he took part in the Easter Rising but his earlier words ring truer than ever.)

Capitalism has created the possibility of a world of abundance yet continues to inflict misery on millions, if not billions. The fundamental reason is to be found in the laws of capitalist production themselves. The same laws which drive capitalism on are also the ones which produce its crises.  Health and social security spending have been slashed. The only alternative is a job with low wages, zero hour contracts and no security. This is accompanied by media accusations that it is all the fault of “foreigners”. Either it’s those migrants who “steal our jobs” or it is some foreign government like Putin's Russia with its dirty tricks which is the cause of the problem. Racist and nationalist parties are playing on fear but they are nothing compared to the mainstream capitalist parties of both left and right who use it to divert attention from the real cause of our misery – capitalism.  Either we follow the logic of capitalism towards more and more warfare and the ecological rape of the planet or we reconstitute society anew on the basis of a common ownership of the world’s resources, a society without states, without borders, without money and without war based on the principle “to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities”.  

Let’s not fall for nationalist nonsense. Whatever other differences we have, we are united as a class by the fact that we are all the exploited victims of capitalism. This makes the working class the internationalist class. Collectively it is the only force capable of putting an end to the infernal cycles of crises and war. Today it’s not so much that we have a world to win – we have a world to save from a system which offers only social and environmental devastation. Only the working class, once aware of its own interests, is capable of changing the world.  

Are we sectarian?

The Socialist Party is criticised for its hostility to other organisations which profess to be socialist. We are attacking capitalism, and all who defend it are to that extent our political foes. Our appeal must be primarily to the workers in order to interest and enlighten the workers as a preliminary to getting them to become active and understanding socialists. We are not surprised, therefore, when the avowedly capitalist parties stand firmly for capitalism, and grudgingly yield small concessions only in order to lessen discontent which may appear to threaten their hold on the machinery of government. Likewise, we expect the capitalist-controlled media, the and the various hangers-on of capitalism to defend capitalism. We expect this, but we must constantly expose it and explain it. That is part of our work of winning over the working class for socialism. The Left is not identical, but are separated by a very real difference? The people who control and finance the Tory Party are consciously defending capitalism and their own class privilege—even if they are fortified by the erroneous belief that in so doing they are defending the best interests of humanity as well. The Left approach the issue from a very different angle. They are essentially movements of discontent, representing the workers’ more or less blind retaliation to the downward pressure of capitalism. Where the Tories offer reforms deliberately with the idea of buying off discontent or directing it into harmless courses, the Left is trying to encroach on capitalism by means of reforms. They hope to use discontent as the road to power, then use that power for a more or less drastic reconstitution of society. Apart from a certain amount of political dishonesty and the desire for personal advantage associated with those parties, we have no objection to the motives behind their activities. We criticise because whatever the motive may be behind the activities of the Left the activities are harmful. We do not charge these men with consciously wanting to uphold capitalism, nor do we suppose for one moment that their activities do, in fact, constitute the main defence of capitalism and main obstacle to socialism. 

The chief defence of capitalism is the State, with its armed forces, controlled by the capitalist class, their hold on it being backed up by the concentrated activities of capitalist politicians, parties, press, and propaganda instruments. So long as they retain the confidence of the mass of workers, capitalism is impregnable.  It is harmful to the interests of the working class that they should organise and strive for reforms of capitalism instead of for the abolition of capitalism. It is politically dishonest and harmful to delude the workers with the notion that their problems can be remedied piecemeal while capitalism remains in being. It is harmful when workers are waking up to the nature and consequences of capitalism to turn their energies to the reform of capitalism for, with a little knowledge, honesty and patience, those energies might be turned almost as quickly to the task of abolishing capitalism. In brief, we do not charge these parties with being capitalism’s principal support, but with being obstacles in the way of working-class enlightenment. Were there no such reformist parties capitalism would still stand as long as the majority of workers remained capitalistically-minded, but the work of making socialists would be vastly easier. Socialists would not, having exposed capitalism, then have to take on the additional task of exposing reformism masquerading as socialism. We may sum up by saying that it is a mistake for workers to express their discontent by organising to secure reforms of capitalism, and the Socialist Party must constantly point out that mistake. Further, when the party of reform takes on the administration of capitalism it becomes at once a party committed to the suppression of discontent. 

The Left proclaims that its aim is socialism. They want to claim that they are socialists, but they do not intend to introduce socialism. Exploitation gives the key to an understanding of capital. Today the workers as a class are born, and remain, propertyless; they, therefore, do not own capital which is a form of wealth. Capital is the accumulated wealth of the capitalist class. It is useful for further production, but with only one object — that it may absorb the further unpaid labour of the workers, and thus produce . . . surplus value, the source of rent, interest and profit. Not the means of wealth production in themselves, but the class relations under which they are used to obtain surplus value, realised through sale in the world market — make them capital. The Left does not stand as we do for common ownership, which would mean the abolition of such class relations. It is impossible to exaggerate the harm done to the socialist movement by those who, calling themselves socialists, have taught the workers to believe that state capitalism and social reform are socialism. Workers all over the world have, through this misdirection, been led to support some form of capitalism, trusting that it would solve their problems. 

Our object is socialism, defined as a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. Our definition is not a mere insistence on a formula. We work for socialism and oppose capitalism—including nationalisation or state capitalism—because only socialism will solve the problem facing the working class. We do not want state capitalism and therefore have no interest in associating with those who do. The fact that they call it “socialism” only makes their activities more dangerous to the workers. It is an essential part of socialist propaganda to convince the workers that the advocates of “something less than socialism” is and must be advocates of capitalism. It is our job to demonstrate that their activities are against the interests of the workers; that they are enemies of socialism and of the working class.  Effective unity for socialism can only be on the basis of real agreement about the aim and the methods. 

The Socialist Party is obviously not in a position to ameliorate the conditions of the working class,’ but it can and does support useful action by the workers in their trade unions to resist encroachments on their standard of living.

Lest we forget

Obituary: Hugh Armstrong

It is with sadness that we report the death of Hugh Armstrong at the age of 80. A member of Glasgow Branch for fifty-two years, Hughie, as he was known to his fellow socialists, was born in the Gallowgate in Glasgow's East End and grew up in the Gorbals. As a young man he was dragooned into the armed forces to do his National Service, an experience which left him with a lifetime contempt for authority, strengthened no doubt, by an incident where, after a ‘Disagreement’ with a bullying Sergeant Major – the Sergeant coming off second-best – Hughie was beaten senseless by Military Police thugs.

Hughie was a grafter, and found work as a labourer in the post-war building boom working in various towns and cities in England before returning to Glasgow where he secured permanent employment with the General Post Office.

On a visit to the ‘Barras’ in the early 60s Hughie chanced upon an outdoor meeting of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It was a turning point in his life, although hearing the socialist case for the first time he was understandably sceptical but curious enough to return, question, discuss and eventually to join in 1966. He became a tireless worker, attending meetings, selling literature and eventually becoming an outdoor speaker. I have vivid memories of Hughie on the platform; not one for fancy rhetoric but putting over the socialist case in a simple but effective way.

One of the less ‘Glamorous’ but necessary party activities was to stick up posters on walls and empty shop windows to advertise upcoming indoor meetings. This necessitated a team of three people, one to paste, one to post, and most essential, one to act as the lookout for the police, who would apprehend you, resulting in a fine. The area they had chosen also happened to be the favoured haunt of some, euphemistically named ‘ladies of the night’ who also had to be wary of the police. Midway through posting, Hughie spotted a couple of beat cops approaching and shouted: ‘Police!’, whereupon the other two members scarpered. The ladies, however, assuming despite his diminutive stature that he was a plain-clothes officer, immediately set about him. Propagating the socialist case can sometimes be detrimental to your wellbeing!

Hughie came from a family who loved singing. His sister Patricia sings jazz in a city centre bar, his ex-wife also sang, and their son Raymond is a professional opera singer. Hughie favoured the Great American Song Book which he would perform at the tea-dances he attended, and in 1990 achieved his dream come true when he saw his idol Frank Sinatra perform live at Ibrox Stadium.

T.M.

The Poison of Nationalism – The Nationalist Dead End

The Aberdeen Independence Movement (AIM) will host the North East Scottish Independence Conference in the Granite City next weekend and will be joined by an array of organisations including Women for Independence, EU Citizens, Pensioners for Indy, the Common Weal, Radical Independence Campaign and many more at the Copthorne Hotel, Huntly Street, on Sunday, April 8 from 11am to 6pm. Speakers include Gordon Smith of Pensioners for Independence, Ash Burnett from EU Citizens for an Independent Scotland, Fiona Robertson of Disabled for Yes and National columnist Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp of Business for Scotland.Speaking for AIM will be Theo Forbes.

We in the Socialist Party will not be present but our views on nationalism are very clear and we have explained them on this blog many times.

National borders are part and parcel of capitalist class society. Border control only applies to us wage-slaves,  never to members of the parasite class who are able to buy their way around the world. We are not dreamers.  The idea of a borderless world is not a utopian fantasy.

To those who argue that Marx supported certain independence movements we say Marx (and Engels) lived at a time when capitalism was still forming itself into nation-states and he supported some nationalist movements where they thought it would get rid of feudal and other pre-capitalist social structures to make possible new independent capitalist nations to emerge and thus widen the basis for the creation of the working class, the future gravediggers of capitalism. Today, there is no such thing as a progressive nationalism.

Nationalist ideas are widespread and political confusion (in particular, amongst the young) is as great, now as it was in the past.  At the moment nationalism is everywhere on the rise and its dangers cannot be underestimated but it is largely prevalent because we have been losing the class war. Businesses are going bust, insecurity is rising. Debt has been rising for years. There is no hiding the fact that capitalism is a disaster and the ruling class expects the working class to pay for it. The media is full of doom and gloom. Nationalism, has nothing to offer the working class. Only the end of capitalism can put an end to despondency and misery.  

When governments makes an appeal to swell the ranks of the patriots, there will never be a shortage of left-nationalists who, with "progressive" talk, will want to pull the workers in, disguising themselves as champions of “socialism”.  There can be no such thing as “better democracy” without the abolition of the capitalist state and the institution of a class-free society based on satisfying real needs. There is no emancipation for us under capitalism. Socialism is the only alternative to this crazy system. This system and its politics work only for the parasitic few and cannot be ‘reformed’ to work for the exploited many.

James Connolly wrote in 1897, "If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain." Our conception of socialism has advanced beyond the notion of a “socialist republic” in any one country but Connolly here was merely expressing the idea that real liberation for the working class can only come with the overthrow of capitalism.

As world socialists, we argue that the only alternative to the social and environmental devastation offered by capitalism is that workers unite across borders for a common goal: a world without classes and states, where ‘the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’. For this we need an global movement of socialists to offer solidarity and assistance.

The nationalism we oppose is not just the obvious racist variety of the likes of Farage or Le Pen. We have opposed the "national liberation" of the leftists. Simply, look at the fate of all the national liberation struggles which "succeeded". Today all remain under the control of capital and the workers in these states live in greater exploitation and poverty than ever. Every kind of demand for national rights, whether real or assumed, spontaneous or artificially provoked, under whatever political banner and goals it sets itself, ends up being absorbed into the struggles of the Great Powers with no possibility of playing an autonomous role other than serving as a means for the local capitalists to pursue their own interests and as part of a greater alliance line-up.

Every ‘nation state’ exists as part of a capitalist world economy where the necessity to generate profits and fall in with the demands of the world market ensures that ‘the nation’ is a class-divided society. In every national territory the struggle of the working class against exploitation by the capitalist class is the same everywhere. The only solution for the working class is to destroy all existing nation states. As Marx said "The workers have no country" but they do have "a world to win". Let the world’s working class take up the banner of class war everywhere. The working class will not accept the crisis-ridden system for ever. Events taking place all around the world are the tragic manifestations of this barbaric world from which there can be no escape except by a powerful resurgence of the class struggle. The enemy of the working class is nationalism. And the enemy of nationalism is a working class fighting for its own interests – which are the interests of the bulk of humanity. The only alternative is working class revolution. It may seem far off yet we need to step up our fight for a society without nations, borders, states, wars, and exploitation. Our war is the class war! 

The only war worth fighting is the class war.

The Left - The Visionless Movement

The one thing that most clearly marks off the Socialist Party from the other organisations which claim an interest in socialism, is our view that the only possible basis for a socialist party is an understanding of socialist principles. It is no uncommon thing for members of the Socialist Party to be met with the charge that they are only mystics, airy philosophers destitute of any practical notions of how to carry on the society which they propose to establish. No substitute has yet been discovered for Socialist education. It is a slow job and not so exciting or remunerative as that of sweeping the un-class-conscious workers off their feet with stirring "practical” measures.

The establishment of socialism is essentially a practical proposition. It is the definite object of the Socialist Party, the goal of our activity. If the workers do not show any enthusiasm for this object that is not because it is "theoretical," but because they do not understand the need for it. They are quite prepared to accept their slave-status (are indeed unaware that they are slaves), and gladly leave planning to their leaders and masters. When they wake up to the fact that they are slaves and that a change in the basis of .society is necessary, they will also realise that in future they have got to do the planning as they march along the road to their emancipation. They will not look to leaders to plan for them. On the other hand, there is no necessity for a small minority of the working class (such as the Socialist Party is at the moment) to anticipate the decisions of the majority which it will one day become. Certainly, there is no harm in speculation, so long as it is recognised as such, and so long as the speculators do not attempt to force their speculations upon us as a necessary programme. Discuss, by all means just what is going to happen in twenty or thirty years' time; but do not forget the fate of the practical programme drawn up by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto eighty-three years ago. In twenty-five years it had, in its authors' own words, become somewhat "antiquated” owing to the rapid pace of industrial development. The pace is even more rapid to-day. That is the main reason why the Socialist Party steers clear of so-called plans and programmes. A further reason is that outsiders have a fatal knack of confusing a programme which, at its best, can only be a means to an end, with the end itself; or, to put it another way, the "programme" and not the object (i.e., socialism) occupies first place in their minds. The result can be seen in the fate of the old Social Democratic Parties in this and other countries. Numbers were attracted into these organisations by the immediate programme, the sound Socialist element was swamped, and these parties eventually degenerated into step-ladders for political job-hunters, who in turn operated as tools for the master-class. The preference of the Socialist Party for scientific principles rather than for speculative programmes is thus not a mere foible, it is based upon bitter experience.

The Socialist Party is not in any doubt as to what it has to do when it has conquered political power. Its job will be to convert the means of living into the common property of society. We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few. Poverty exists in all lands where the means of producing wealth exist in the greatest abundance. The very conditions of the problem provide the means for its solution. It is for the workers to discover them. The solution for such a situation cannot be found along the lines of supporting any political party which asks for power to administer capitalism, for capitalism, as a system, is responsible for the problem. In order to obtain free access to the means of living, the workers must use their political power to remove the existing legal barriers; in other words, they must abolish capitalist ownership of these means. They must make the land, factories, railways, etc., the common property of the whole people and establish democratic control over them in the interests of all.

Socialist Standard No. 1364 April 2018

• Editorial: Trade War
• Pathfinders: Capitalism’s Bond Villains
• Why I am Striking: A Diary of the Universities Strike
• Cooking the Books: Zollverein
• Greasy Pole: Rising Star? Do We Need Another One?
• Material World: Cain and Abel in Africa
• ‘Fairness and Simplicity’: Who Benefits from Universal Credit?
• Democratically-run, Free Public Services, Why Not?
• The Myth of ‘Homo Economicus’
• Same the Whole World Over
• Cooking the Books: Fareless Transport
• Consciousness and Illusion: From Plato’s Cave to the Matrix
• Proper Gander At The Movies: Red Carpet Campaigning
• Book Reviews: 'Fighting Fascism', 'Poverty Safari - Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass', & 'Marx’s Theory of the Genesis of Money'
• Exhibition Review: Syria - Story of a Conflict
• 50 Years Ago: Labour's New Race Law
• Obituary: Hugh Armstrong
• Think – and act – for yourselves
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Understanding the system

In 1999 Karl Marx was voted the “Greatest Thinker of the Millennium” in a BBC online poll. Then in 2005, he was voted the “Greatest Philosopher” in another BBC poll. One voice from the wilderness though is too faint to be heeded, neither strong enough nor loud enough or even adequately broadcast so as to be heard. The only solution for the economic problems of the workers is socialism. Chasing after the endless revivals of old fallacies evolved by the ingenuity of the reformists has brought them no lasting advantage. Their ideas of a world compatible with a profit-driven market economy are illusory and their prospects for reform in the interests of humans and the environment a fallacy. It has diverted their attention from things that really matter and has left them as far as ever from achieving socialism. There have been repeated economic crises. Every one of them has shown the same general characteristics. Every one of them has been viewed as a sign of irretrievable ruin, and every one has been used to dissuade the workers from looking towards socialism. Recessions are not evidence of capitalist weakness They will not of themselves result in the collapse of the capitalist system, and only a misunderstanding of the nature of crises leads the workers to slacken their efforts to maintain wages at those times. Crises are not the ruin of capitalism, but merely correctives to its contradictions. Capitalism and its crises can, and will, go on indefinitely until the workers take conscious steps to end the system. The Socialist Party tells the workers that socialism is the only remedy for their troubles. There is no time which is not a proper time for them to work for socialism.

 Only too frequently, when the word 'socialism' is deployed it is used as meaning more government intervention in the running of capitalism and the lives of the people. Not only does the Left exclude questions of the ultimate goal of society, but they do not even admit socialism—that is, common ownership of the machinery of production and distribution—as being a question at all. For the,m the question of the ultimate goal of society is merely the issue of state capitalism versus private capitalism. Socialism of course means the end of government since there will be no minority class who need state power to maintain their dominance. For capitalism to end, political power will have to pass out of the hands of their capitalist ruling class and into the hands of the working class. So it comes back to the need for a consciously socialist majority to win control of political power after all. This is an essential precondition for the establishment of a world socialist society, the only basis on which our vision of a world without money can come into being.

Capitalism, we can safely argue, perpetuates inequalities. People with money will always have an inherent advantage over the poor and uneducated in free-market economies. And since capital grows faster than wages thanks to the power of compound interest, the gap in wealth between the haves and have-nots will continue to grow. In the near future, capitalists who own robots will be able to multiply their productivity and profits without a corresponding increase in wages, as the majority of blue-collar jobs go extinct. Unemployment will rise as a result, triggering violent class warfare that could threaten the very fabric of many global societies. The workers are poor because the capitalist class own the machinery of production and because they retain and consume a vast amount of the wealth produced.

The Socialist Party has nothing in common with the parties that preach peace but continue to prepare for war. Our opponents defend their actions with talk of the need for security. We must, they say, guard the integrity and independence of the nation. They differ among themselves only as to the amount and kind of armaments necessary, for security. They argue the respective merits and costs of the battleship, the submarine, aircraft and poison gas. There are some who urge that the nations should agree to gradual and mutual disarmament, and there are even pacifists who claim that the best of all guarantees of security is for this country to disarm completely without waiting for the rest of the world. The Socialist Party does not agree with any of these points of view. For us, it is not a question of deciding which is the. best method of achieving security, but a question of deciding whether the security referred to is of any real concern to the working class.  Commercial rivalries set capitalist states one against the other. The class which has property and privilege must maintain armed forces to protect their property and to make secure the social system which affords them their privileges. The capitalists and their politicians do not consciously seek war as a means of snatching wealth and power from their rivals but they are driven by the forces at work in the capitalist system to follow policies which bring them into conflict with each other.  The governments are called in to further the interests of the national groups of capitalists. Under the cloak of patriotism and national defence, with the blessing of the church, the press, the labour leaders and the politicians, millions of workers are thrown against each other in battle. They do not know that they are fighting to defend or to extend the interests of the class that lives by robbing them of the fruits of their labour.

One cannot but sympathise with the exasperation of Labour Party members who are always promised something new and inspiring. The Labour Party is not a socialist party. It is not even united in its views as to the best way of running capitalism. Its record shows that its leaders are willing and able to use it against the interests of the workers. Workers who take to heart the lessons of the past will abandon it and join the Socialist Party. 

Charity ends

The Meals-on-Wheels has been a lifeline to thousands of elderly and disabled people. The service has been withdrawn from many parts of Scotland - and will cease entirely by the end of the year.

The service has now ended in Moray, Argyll and Bute, East Dunbartonshire and West Dunbartonshire. The Royal Voluntary Service (RVS) said it could no longer ensure the service is safe and sustainable. RVS believes a lack of support from local authorities has forced them to cut services. In recent years an increasing number of council's throughout the UK have withdrawn subsidies, and the service operated by the RVS has dwindled.

Director Sam Ward said: "We've gone from having over 80 services - we're just down to seven in Scotland and only 15 across the whole of the UK."

Alternative services are being offered - including lunch clubs, frozen meal deliveries and a variety of home care packages. Many of the people who have been delivering meals as RVS volunteers, are doubtful the alternative provision being made will be right for everyone.

Kirsteen Mitcalfe has been a volunteer for about 30 years said: "I can't see that it will be as good. It's all very well saying that they can go to a community lunch but... there are several people who are housebound that can't go out to anything in the community." She added: "They get a nice meal three times a week at the moment and that's no longer going to happen."

Movement or Monument? The SPGB

The Socialist Party has great confidence that our analysis offers the only explanation of capitalism and the necessity of socialism. Socialism means the common ownership where the administration of society would also be transferred into the hands of the people. Socialists are opposed to the idea that a state or a nation must have a single “national” culture to which all its citizens are expected to conform. The way to end capitalism is to build unity among the working class in common struggle against the present rotten system and for a socialist society. We stand for the unity of the working class to achieve a socialism. Our greatest force, however, is the power of correct ideas. Our ideas and case for socialism can now be a powerful lever in the building a new society. No general prosperity will be possible as long as capitalism exists. Only socialism will bring prosperity to all. But socialism can only be achieved by men and women who are intellectually free.

The Socialist Party is the UK’s oldest revolutionary party. Founded in 1904, the SPGB reached its peak of membership and influence in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, though ever since has remained a visibleand self-styled thorn in the side of organisations situating themselves in the Leninist and anarchist traditions. Viewed by many as a monument to revolutionary purity, i nevertheless developed a considerable reputation for Marxist political education – especially in the field of Marxian economics – which continued after the war.

Underpinned by its anti-reformism and infamous ‘hostility clause’ against all other political parties, the SPGB’s sense of being ‘the other’ was emboldened by the rise of the New Left from the 1950s. However, its influence on other thinkers and organisations was sometimes wider than it liked to concede: from, for instance, being the originator in Britain of the theory of state capitalism, to its explicit promotion of the idea of socialism or communism as a society without the wages system, any price mechanism, or money. Whilst the former view influenced the group which went on to found the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party (to which the SPGB has been opposed), the latter was an outlook which found wider resonance on the ‘ultra-left’. This was specifically in the perspectives of the left communist, council communist and anarcho-communist organisations that developed in Britain from the 1970s, and then in the twenty-first century in groups such as the Zeitgeist Movement.

Democratic political action by a majority that wants and understands socialism is the way we see socialism coming about, not by "socialistic” communes or cooperatives gradually becoming more and more self-sufficient and eventually squeezing out entirely capitalist production for profit. This argument amongst those who want a class-free money-free society of common ownership and democratic control goes back a long time, right back to the origins of the modern socialist movement in the first part of the last century. On the one side was Robert Owen, who spent (and lost) the fortune he had made as a textile capitalist on founding communistic colonies in Britain and America. On the other were the Chartists, whose position was later supported by Marx and Engels, who argued that political action for social change was the most effective way to achieve a co-operative commonwealth.

It might be more pleasant to live in a communistic community but the trouble is they never last. Not because communism is against human nature as opponents claim, but because they can’t escape from the surrounding capitalist environment. Far from them overwhelming capitalism it’s been the other way round. Either they isolate themselves as much as they can from capitalism, in which case they are only able to offer a very frugal existence, or they engage with the surrounding capitalist economy, for instance by selling their products, in which case they get more and more sucked into capitalist ways of doing things. The kibbutzim in Israel are a good example of this. Some of them did start out as communities which didn’t use money internally and in which affairs were run democratically with everyone having an equal say. But over the years they have not only competed successfully on the capitalist market as sellers; they have also taken to employing non-members as wage workers, i.e. become capitalist enterprises.

We are not saying that people shouldn’t live in communistic communities if they want to—we are not in the business of telling people how they should live their lives under capitalism—only that it’s not the way socialism is going to come. We can imagine that, when socialists are measured in millions rather than thousands so that it has become clear that sooner or later socialism will be established in the near future, people will be making all sorts of plans and experiments in anticipation of the coming of socialism and that this will include communal living in the countryside as well as in towns, but we are not there yet since this presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement which must come first. So at the moment, we need to concentrate on spreading socialist ideas rather than promoting experiments in "socialist” living.