Edinburgh's rich live 21 years longer than the poor

People living in Edinburgh’s wealthiest areas can expect to live 21 years longer than those in its poorest. Poverty can take more than two decades off your life in Edinburgh.

 The life expectancies of men living in the impoverished areas of Greendykes and Niddrie Mains were compared with life expectancies of men from the up-market New Town. A man from Greendykes and Niddrie Mains can expect to live to the age of 63.6 years. In contrast, a man living in the more affluent area of New Town west could expect to live to 85.

People in deprived communities developed “multi-morbidity” – having more than one disease at a time – ten to 15 years earlier than the least deprived.

Professor Alison McCallum, Director of Public Health and Health Policy at NHS Lothian, said, "The figures illustrate the stark inequity in life expectancy and we will continue to work with our partner organisations to tackle the impact of these unjust differences in our society.”

A socialist future can work

The basic aim of all our activities in the Socialist Party is to help the working class to accomplish the task of establishing a socialist society. Socialism means freedom. Freedom from poverty, insecurity, exploitation, and war. It means the full flowering of individual, spirit, and initiative and a richer and happier life for every family. It will provide, for the first time, opportunities to develop the full potential of every human being. It will guarantee the conservation of our land, and a more secure. These goals can only be brought about by the socialist revolution. The noble aim of the Socialist Party is to abolish the right of one person to rob another of the fruits of his or her labour, bankers, landlords, and profiteers no longer exist and common ownership prevails. This is what makes the Socialist Party different from all others. Nowhere in the world has socialism been established. The system of exploitation for profits extended over the entire globe. There is only one class capable of overthrowing capitalism: the working class. Exploited by the relations of production under capitalism, the working class has a direct material interest in the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism, the system in which the working class owns and controls the means of production and collectively shares in the products of its labour. The working class, created by capitalism, is also the destroyer of capitalism.

Since Marx first called for a society "from each according to ability, to each according to need" this vision has inspired hundreds of millions. It has been the driving force in history. But it has also raised the problem: how do we win? The effort to build a revolutionary movement capable of creating communism while still working under the powerful grip of capitalism is clearly no small or simple task.

Since Marx first called for a society "from each according to ability, to each according to need" this vision has inspired hundreds of millions. It has been the driving force in history. But it has also raised the problem: how do we win? The effort to build a revolutionary movement capable of creating communism while still working under the powerful grip of capitalism is clearly no small or simple task. Despite false starts and setbacks, we remain convinced the working class will realise its revolutionary potential but no movement has yet been built primarily around making socialist ideas mass ideas.

Nationalism preaches to the people of a nation or national group that regardless of class they have more in common with one another than they do with the people of other nations. Nationalism helps bind the working class to the plutocracy and the oligarchs of its nation. The Socialist Party line is, "One world, one class.” In response to nationalism and to anti-immigration, we say, "No borders." We don't say, "Abolish some borders." We don't say, "Some of the workers of the world, unite." Our class has learned from bitter experience that there is no halfway or reform solution to nationalism. Our call is for all of the workers of the world to unite. There are no capitalist solutions. There are no "good" borders or bosses. There is no "good" nationalism. And there are no "good" reforms. We show that dividing the workers on national or ethnic race lines enables the bosses to rip-off, one group of workers, while robbing all workers. The workers must awake, and awake quickly, to the realisation that war with all its horrors is the product of the capitalist system. To conceal the true source of war, capitalist propagandists divide the nations into “aggressors” and “peace-lovers.” This is a lie. The people of every nation hate war, for they are its victims. They are plunged into war by the capitalist rulers, who alone profit from it.

By making the reforms primary priority our fellow-workers are neglecting the socialist idea of abolishing the wage system." We need to live in a society in which the labour of the working class enhances everybody, where there will be no profits for the bosses. There will be no bosses at all. Only the working class, which suffers the cruelties of capitalism in peace and war, can deal the death-blow to this foul system. The workers can rally the broadest masses to their liberating banner and can change the world. Having abolished capitalism, they can harness the productive forces and the wondrous discoveries of science to the service of human needs.  The release of new technology and computerisation opens up grand vistas for the development of human society. It holds the promise of eliminating all poverty and raising the living standards of all peoples to undreamed-of heights. Hazardous and unhealthy occupations can become things of the past. The drudgery and servitude of ugly and unnecessary toil can be ended. There can be leisure and comfort and cultural advancement for every man, woman, and child on earth. All on one condition – that capitalism, the strangler of human progress, is ended! In the meantime, the poor and the needy – the millions of them – drag out their drab and dismal lives.

Which Banner?

Today's nationalist march was being held using the slogan "All Under One Banner."

Members of the Socialist Party in Scotland remind our fellow-workers of Object 8 in our Declaration of Principles

"The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom."

Many Happy Returns, Charlie

Happy Birthday Charlie

Today is a special day: it’s Karl Marx’s 200th birthday. On the 5th of May, 1818, Marx was born. He chose to be an advocate for the working class and dedicated his life to their cause. What kind of force would arise if their individual powers were consolidated into a unified political movement?

Things appear more unstable and unpredictable than ever before. The truth is that we are all victims of capitalism and our destiny is to confront and change the socio-economic forces that cause our modern epidemics of social ills. The profit-driven economic system -  capitalism - is not working for us and we should create another economic system that puts the people first.

Day after day, year after year, even generation after generation workers, forced to work under alienating conditions for the money they increasingly need just to survive, workers surely fit Marx’s idea of a proletarian “class in-itself,” having experienced the wage-slavery of capitalism but many socialists and scholars have expressed frustration about workers’ continued failure to become a “class for-themselves.”  How on earth can the scenes Marx portrayed in Capital still remain unchanged after more than a century? They strike only for narrow economic grievances related to their specific workplace and rarely assert a broader class-based perspective. In this sense, it may seem that the prospect of a Marx-inspired movement is nowhere to be found. But regardless the ideas of Marx are still alive, providing many workers with a sense of purpose and direction. Despite years of neglect and distortion, socialist ideas still arise and are discovered by workers when false narratives do not explain realities of everyday life. Theories that do not fit people’s lived experiences are unlikely to hold for long.

Capitalism exploits all the resources. They treat humans as resources, they treat the flora and fauna as resources. Everything is just a resource to be exploited by capitalism for the capitalists. The big corporations and their owners are ]killing this living planet. The ruling class doesn’t have sleepless nights worrying about its workers or the world around them. The same people who own everything on the stock exchange own the media that tells the people what to believe and what to think. And the message is “Don't worry.” We’ve got to take on capitalism and its lies. We are socialists, disbelievers in private property, promoters of common ownership for the common good 

We must work together every day to build our collective cooperative future. The Socialist Party is committed to creating a different kind of world, a world where radical participatory democracy is how we make decisions and it is one where exploitation of our environment and the destruction of our climate is not the function of our economy. Throughout history, change has often seemed impossible. But once it comes, it seems like change was always inevitable.  The Socialist Party has always been the radical voice of the working class.

The Socialist Party Against Nationalism

So once again the Scottish separatists are parading with their Saltire and Lion Rampant flags, with those claymore communist left-wingers cheer-leading them on.

Members of the Socialist Party do not think that a sovereign independent Scotland is worth demonstrating for. We said it before, we say it again, and we will keep on saying it every time our fellow workers are exhorted to go down the nationalist dead-end.

We expect jingoist Tories to be flag-waving fools, rejoicing in the lunacy of nationalistic fervour, with parades of patriotic enthusiasm used as a means of whipping up workers' support for the pernicious belief that we, who do not own the nation's wealth, have an identity of interest with those who do. What particularly angers members of the Socialist Party is when self-styled Marxists endeavour to deodorise the stink of national chauvinism with the socialist vision. The Socialist Party continually accuses the Left who pay lip-service to the slogan “workers of the world unite” yet support the nationalism of the SNP.  The problems of workers in Scotland are the problems of wage-slaves everywhere and they will not be solved separately within a sovereign state from the rest of the working class.  For the worker in Scotland, there is but one hope. It is to join the world socialist movement and make common cause with the workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation: saying to both English and Scottish capitalists: “A plague on both your houses." For the true battle-cry of the working class is broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rallying cry is: “One World, One People”

“Independence" is a word used to stir up emotions. An "independent" Scotland will be no more independent than it is today. It will still have to conform to global economic pressures which govern how much food will be on the table of the average person.  And is this that most sane people are more worried about the necessities of life: putting food on the table, a roof over their head, and other far more important things than the constitutional status of the state they happen to live in. The capitalist system doesn’t play favourites based on national, ethnic, or cultural sovereignty. Investment and trade are based on making the best profits, not upon whatever nationality of politicians forms the government. The most important decisions are now made, not by politicians, but in the boardrooms in the City of London, Wall St or Shanghai. Even so, many locally-based businesses are indirectly tied into this economy as sub-contractors and the ever-deepening nexus of international linkages means they cannot escape economic crises emanating from elsewhere which impact upon the local economy. The limited leeway of governments to ameliorate such localised effects has been correspondingly reduced. Of course, the Scottish businessmen such as Brian Souter, who helps to fund the SNP, do so not because they want to end the Glasgow Effect and the dismal life expectancy but because he believes that Scotland’s rich can benefit. Freedom is not intended for the people of Scotland, but for Big Business to maximise returns.

It is time to reject the notion that there are Scottish problems which apply exclusively to Scottish workers and which can be solved by a "Parliament of our own.”  Instead of turning their eyes to Scandinavia as inspiration, the aspiration should be to set their sights on the poverty of our fellow-workers in Brixton, Birmingham, Bristol and Bradford and call for unity and solidarity, not separatism.

So today,, when thousands of workers are on the streets of Glasgow to demand Scottish independence the Socialist Party members in Scotland, say we are proud to be anti-patriotic. Our fellow-workers on this demonstration today for Scottish independence are wasting their time when they struggle to make some aspect of capitalism better, to make capitalism more acceptable. Capitalism is not a system that can be humanised or reformed into something better. It is a profit system subject to economic laws which can only work in one way: as a system of profit-making and accumulation of capital in the interest of a tiny minority of profit-takers. You can have the most democratic constitution imaginable but this won’t make any difference to the fact that profits have to come before meeting people's needs under capitalism. If our rulers want to reform the machinery of capitalist government, that’s up to them. But spare us the pretence that nationalism is some great extension of democracy. It is not imperfections in the political decision-making process that’s the problem but the exchange economy and its profit system. And the answer is not sovereignty but socialism. Independence would be a purely political and a mere constitutional change which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged. 

Socialism, a “society organised as a conscious and planned association”, "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common," as Marx described it. Socialism will be a world-wide co-operative commonwealth, not parochial provincialism.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

JOIN THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

The capitalist system is incapable of maintaining improvements in the standards of living of the world’s workers. All around the world, capitalism threatens to plunge humanity once more into the catastrophic cycle of economic depression, environmental degradation fascism, and war. Only the world working class can lead humanity out of the historical impasse of capitalism, by making the world socialist revolution. To realise this necessity, the working class must be armed with a revolutionary class consciousness. Throughout history, the bosses have always tried to keep workers divided, unorganized and weak, in order to intensify their exploitation and thereby grab bigger profits. Despite relative gains for some workers, the rate of exploitation continues to increase. Each year, a larger share of production goes for profits, a smaller share for wages and other workers’ income. The capitalist class has never stopped–and will never stop–its efforts to destroy and weaken the workers' movement. Economic insecurity has become a way of life for millions of workers. Despite a long history of the struggle to improve conditions, reforms have not resulted in a decent, stable life for working people. Every gain has been continuously threatened, if only by a factory closure or relocation to another city or outsourcing to an entirely different country. As long as the ownership of land and industry is under control of the capitalist class, the economy is run solely for the maximum profit interest of the bosses, and their state power is used to protect their capitalist system. The political and class consciousness of workers can be increased only by exposing the capitalist control of the two-party system, and by developing the understanding through specific political exposures that the government, regardless of which party is in temporary control, is actually the political general staff of the ruling class.

When militant workers participate conceal or set aside their Socialist aims and principles, they commit a serious opportunist error. Either out of fear that their socialist views will isolate them, or that their revolutionary position will give a “kiss of death” to the immediate struggle, or out of a misconception that “socialism is not on the order of the day,” they reduce their activities to those of other reformists and thereby forget the very purpose of being revolutionaries. Seeing the immediate struggle as everything, they fail to raise the political, class and socialist understanding of workers. Instead, they tail after the bureaucrats so as to avoid being “too left.” They fail to expose the nature of the capitalist state and the reformist nature of simple trade unionism. They fear to fight for the truth, and, as a result, they eventually abandon all fundamental Marxist principles, Thus, out of fear of isolation, they abandon struggle entirely – and thereby become isolated. Socialist workers must be guided by the slogan, 'An injury to one is an injury to all.' We must advance labour solidarity in all battles against the capitalist class enemy, vigorously combat all manner of discrimination, practices that cause disunity. Unity of workers on a class struggle program must begin “down below,” that is, with the grassroots unity of workers in a department, a shop, a plant, or an industry.

Workers’ understanding must be developed so that they fight the bosses politically as well as economically; so that they learn that the strike is not only a powerful economic weapon but also a potent political weapon. Workers must also build toward independent political action. For as long as capitalism exists, there will be capitalist oppression. A socialist party as Marx and Engels pointed out disdains to conceal its aims, and openly advocates the necessity for a socialist revolution. It is necessary for socialists to use every opportunity to develop workers’ understanding that real economic security, freedom, and peace can be achieved only by a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into socialism. Success in this work of developing socialist consciousness among the masses can make unions more powerful instruments to win immediate gains, and the struggles of the workers in their unions will provide experience and schooling for the inevitable and ever-nearer fight to abolish capitalism and establish socialism. Capitalism must be defeated ideologically, politically and economically. Capitalism operates the only way it can operate, for the capitalists to run things for their own profit.

Capitalist politicians make pretty speeches about “war on poverty,” then spend more on more machines to take away more jobs. For the workers, new technology and automation mean insecurity. Traditional skilled and semi-skilled trades become useless in many cases. Workers are removed farther and farther from the commodities they produce; they have less and less reason to take pride in their work. In those factories made obsolete by new robots, employers intensify speed-up in an effort to compete. If they can, they cut wages and lengthen hours. Eventually, such factories modernise or have to be closed down. To-day's automated factory, operated by a small force of technical workers, is presented as a model of production. But such a factory brings in its huge profits only because somewhere else there are workers who are sweated and speeded and driven and have to be held down. Efforts to cope with new technology have benefited a few workers, but only a few, and have sometimes delayed mass firings for a time, but only for a time. Nothing can be accomplished by tricky deals with employers. The principal way to deal effectively and correctly with the problem is to fight to shorten working hours with no cut in daily or weekly pay. Unions have done it before and must do it again.  The necessity is a movement of millions of workers, in industrial action, uniting employed and unemployed, black and white, old and young, men and women, skilled and unskilled. Such a movement must seek the support of working people abroad, who need our help as we need theirs. We are fighting the same enemy; we must work together; we must help each other. It will not be easy. The capitalists and their governments will do everything they can do to preserve their profits and their privileges.

Labour-saving machines are not objectionable in themselves, for in the long run, they produce more goods for people to enjoy. What is objectionable is the way in which capitalism introduces new machines, their use to increase profits at the workers’ expense, to bring on unemployment and depression and hunger. In socialism, society will use new machines not to produce unemployment but to produce more goods in less working time. The labour power set free by mechanisation and automation will be used for more science, research, education, health measures and other social services, and to promote wider participation in cultural life and recreation. Thus, with socialism, the workers will get all the benefits of new technology. So our main job is to kick out the capitalists and establish socialism.

But that doesn’t mean we can just sit around and wait for socialism to arrive. We have to fight back now against what the capitalists try to do to us. A working class and a people that do not fight for its material needs, and for its dignity, will never achieve socialism and is in danger of being reduced to serfdom. We can fight back, successfully. We can’t make capitalism work like socialism, but we can limit some of the capitalist thievery. And in fighting back, we are organising for the most important fight of all: we are preparing to dump capitalism and establish socialism. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can be achieved in today’s world only by a socialist revolution. 

Fight for socialism! Fight to win!

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

The Finnish welfare and benefits agency that pioneered the use of baby boxes has challenged claims in Scotland that the temporary cribs can reduce infant mortality.

The agency, Kela, supported warnings by a leading expert on infant health, Dr. Peter Blair, that it was wrong to say that Finland’s scheme had been proven to prevent or reduce infant mortality. Blair said baby boxes should only be used for sleeping babies in an emergency or when no cot was available.

Sturgeon unveiled the baby box scheme two years ago saying they would cut infant mortality – a claim that has been repeated by other Scottish National party (SNP) leaders. The first minister, speaking at the height of the 2016 Scottish parliament elections, told her party’s conference in March that year: “This simple but powerful idea originated in Finland. It provides practical help for parents and has reduced infant mortality and improved child health.”  Charities and infant mortality experts had warned ministers those claims could not be substantiated, but ministers have continued to describe the boxes as a “safe sleeping space” for infants.

Kela told the Guardian it had never made that claim and there was no evidence to support it.

“We don’t want to promote the idea that there is evidence the baby box as such has decreased infant mortality in Finland or that Finland has made such claims. Rather, it has been the improving of our healthcare system of which the baby box is a part of, that our low infant mortality can be attributed to,” a Kela spokesperson said. “Empirical data on the effect of the maternity package on infant mortality does not exist.”

 The British Standards Institution disputing the Scottish government’s statements that its boxes met safety standards as cribs and cots. The BSI, the UK’s national product-safety standards body, said no such standards existed for cardboard baby boxes. The Scottish government responded by citing the safety certificates for the boxes. Those showed the cardboard used for the box was tested under toy safety legislation, and not under the safety standards for cribs and cots. Sturgeon said the boxes conformed to all the relevant safety standards, including for fire safety and mattress quality.

The UK arm of the UN children’s agency, Unicef, stated in November last year t said it had received a number of queries about whether baby boxes met the accreditation standards under its Baby Friendly initiative on infant healthcare. It cited the Scottish government scheme and said: “As yet, there is little evidence regarding the efficacy of such schemes and so it is not possible to state whether they offer benefits or harm to babies and their parents.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/03/finland-disputes-scotlands-baby-box-claims-after-expert-warning

What Poverty Means?

Parents can feel “like an outcast” if they are unable to provide their children with computers and tablets to help them do their homework, MSPs have been told by anti-poverty campaigner Brian Scott who spoke about the “underlying discrimination” which can leave parents feeling “a sense of failure” and “embarrassed”. He made the comments as a headteacher from one of Scotland’s most deprived primary schools told how learning could be impacted as poverty has limited the experiences of some youngsters.

 Nancy Clunie, head-teacher at Dalmarnock Primary School in Glasgow, recalled how she organised a school outing after a primary seven pupil told her he had never seen the sea. Ms Clunie, who has 40 years experience in classrooms, told MSPs on Holyrood’s Education Committee that strains on family finances meant children’s experiences were “much more limited”. She said: “My children are being faced with texts talking about farms or the seaside and many of them have never experienced it. One wee boy in primary seven said to me last year ‘Miss Clunie, what is the sea?’ “We went straight upstairs and we booked a bus, and we took the kids. It was to Lunderston Bay … that’s the river, but for that child it was the sea, and for that child it might be the only chance he’s got.”

https://www.scotsman.com/news/education/poverty-makes-scots-parents-feel-like-outcasts-1-4734013

Socialism – or perish! That's the choice

One of the plainest phenomena of recent years has been the sharp swing to the Right that has taken place everywhere in the world.  What is the reason for this occurrence?  Once again it is the war crisis that strips bare the pretenders and betrayers within the working class, that separate the opportunists, the social patriots, the sectarians, from the revolutionary socialists. We must judge any and every statement of the question of war in relation to its class validity. No evasions, no half-truths can be accepted. The only answer to war is the full answer, the only possible answer, the Marxist, the revolutionary answer. with no sugar-coating.

There are two ways open to the people today. We can continue under capitalism, or we can take the path to socialism. It is our aim in the Socialist Party to build a society in which all are able to live a full life, free of class distinctions and divisions which condition development along prescribed lines. But we do not believe that this can be done for the people. It can only be done by the people.  Socialism, once a distant dream, is now a reality for all to achieve where the principle is 'from each according to ability to each according to needs,' and where, in the words of the Communist Manifesto "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". Such is the policy and perspective of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We in the Socialist Party hate capitalism with our heads and with our hearts because we see in it an out-dated social system, an anomaly in our present world, holding back that wonderful development of technique and material resources that the present state of our knowledge could turn to the well-being of the people. We see in it a social system that carries within itself slumps and wars, poverty amidst plenty, oppression. We want to end it as soon as possible. We aim at replacing the present capitalist system by socialism, understood as a system where there will be common ownership of the means of production and distribution,  a society that will secure for the producers by hand or by brain, the full fruits of their industry. We envisage socialism as a society where material wealth will be in the hands of those who produce it, where the exploitation of man by man will be ended, where production will be used not for profit, where a new relationship of fraternity will develop between peoples based on equality, where individual men and women will find totally new possibilities to develop their capacities. Although we strive to replace capitalism by socialism, we all of us believe that it is both possible and essential to fight now, within capitalism to defend and improve an immediate lot of the working people. We understand therefore the great importance trade unions, community and environmental organisations, and support every way to strengthen them. But more importantly we also see the need to win the overwhelming majority of the population for the fight against capitalism and for socialism.

As Marxists and as the experiences of the international working class movement has shown that without the winning of political power, no successful advance to socialism is possible. This, after all, is the essence of the old conflict of revolution versus evolution, because revolution means, in essence, a change of political power. We Marxists do not believe that the state in Britain is in essence different from the state in any capitalist country. We do not believe that it is neutral or above classes, and we do believe that in order to advance to socialism in Britain it is necessary for the working class majority to take political power out of the hands of the capitalists and to so that it becomes an instrument of the will of the majority. The Socialist Party has never said that violence is an aim in itself. A revolution means a change in political power, a change in state power; it does not necessarily mean a violent bloody insurrection. Our aim in Britain is to win over legally, constitutionally and peacefully the majority of the British people, pledged to carry through a radical economic and political transformation with fellow-workers around the world. But even though we have always made it clear that an aim is not a guarantee and that the form of the transition to socialism does not depend on the working people alone. We do not stand for violence, but if violence should be used by the old ruling class against the people, then the people themselves will, with all legitimacy behind them, have to find appropriate methods to deal with it.  Whether other countries'  revolutions are necessarily violent and illegal (against existing law) depends on the balance of class forces in the world in the given country at any particular moment and depends too on the traditions, customs, institutions of that particular country.  The essential enemy is modern capitalism. British capitalism is the oldest, most cunning, most skilled, most experienced in the world. It is no mean enemy to overcome and we would do wrong in any way to underestimate it. To defeat capitalism we need all our resources, and the best is unity for the common struggle.

Congratulations to Celtic

Celtic will provide free sanitary products for women at its stadium which will be available at no cost in all female toilets.bCampaigners hoped to highlight period poverty and increase the visibility of women's issues in a football context.

Labour MSP Monica Lennon said: "This is a brilliant victory for the activists who have been campaigning to secure free access to sanitary products at Celtic Park. After discussions with fans, I'm delighted that Celtic have taken this progressive step to become the first football club in the UK to provide free sanitary products. Menstruation should never be a barrier for women participating in football or supporting their team. As part of my ongoing campaign to tackle period poverty, I'm meeting the Scottish Football Association next month regarding its policies on menstruation for all football clubs in Scotland. Congratulations to Celtic and the campaigners who have fought for this positive step. I look forward to other football clubs and businesses across Scotland following their lead."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43979497

THE WAY OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

In the race for profits, the capitalists continually expand their production in order to throw the greatest possible amount of goods onto the market. But their production and expansion are anarchistic, that is, it is not organised according to any rational social plan based on the real needs of the majority of the population. Working people have always had to work hard for a living – and still do. We live in a World where, despite the richness in natural resources and productive capacities, peoples’ standard of living is declining and the gap between the rich and poor is steadily widening not narrowing.

Many people will say that they have lived in the former Soviet Union or Eastern European Bloc and that they want no part of it. Let’s look at the Soviet Union – an example of what socialism is not. The Russian economy and state were ruled by a new exploiting class. The separate enterprises and the entire economy were dominated by the profit motive. Managers had the power to speed-up, lay off and fire workers. Managers’ salaries depended on the productivity of their particular enterprises. Unions negotiated with management for contracts much as we do. Black markets flourished. “Democracy” existed only for the new ruling class, not for the majority of the working people. The U.S.S.R. competes with the U.S.A. to divide the world’s people under their respective spheres of influence. Its forms of aid to countries and movements around the world deliberately build dependency on the Soviet Union, not self-reliance. When members of its “family” stepped out of line as Czechoslovakia did in 1968 or Hungary in 1956, the Soviet rulers used their full political, economic and military strength to repress them. None of the above are features of a socialist society. They describe a country ruled by a new privileged bureaucrat-capitalist class, where the working population is exploited and oppressed. Anyone who defends this kind of country as socialist only serves to confuse people as to what socialism is really all about, and what socialists actually stand for. It is very important for working people to discuss these questions seriously. They are directly connected with the problems we experience every day of our lives. The myriad of so-called socialist and communist groups who claim to be the vanguard does not represent the interests of the working class.  Nor will class-consciousness be built by any one of the hosts of left-wing sects presently vying for the workers’ favour. It is not through “revolutionary phrase-mongering”, or opportunist interventions in the class struggle, that workers will be won to accept socialist ideas and become genuinely “class-conscious”. If any such group begins luring people with the bait of reform promises from a desire to further their own interests as the self-proclaimed vanguard of the class struggle”, then it is not really acting in the interests of their fellow-workers. 

Socialism is the end of exploitation of one class by another has been eliminated. Production develops not for profit but according to the needs of the people. It is the community that controls what is produced and how it is distributed, not a tiny handful of capitalists. It is only through building a socialist society that we can solve the basic problems that we face. Socialism and only socialism will create a world without national barriers, without international rivalries, without master and slave nations and, hence, a world without war. World socialism will not be a government of a dominant economic class but will be an administration of all the peoples that inhabit the globe. Its primary duty will be to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of eliminating poverty, joblessness, hunger and general insecurity. Its sole criterion would be the needs of the people. Socialism will end the root evil of modern society, i.e., the private ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery, and land, which produce the necessities of life. Socialism will guarantee peace, security, and freedom and prevent the destruction of mankind. With socialism, these instruments of production will become the property of society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life and with it the factor of profit as the prime mover of production, the sharp divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation and collaboration between the peoples of the Earth. In abolishing classes in society, socialism will change the form and type of governments which exist today. Governments will become administrative bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the instruments of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main reason for existence is to guarantee the political as well as the economic rule of big business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of this class. The preoccupation of decision-making in socialism will be to assist and to improve continually the living standards of the people, to extend their leisure time and thus make it possible to heighten the cultural level of the whole world. The aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and intensification of labour, but the utilization of machinery, technology, science, and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to enjoy the benefits of social progress.

In abolishing classes, class government and war, socialism will at the same time destroy all forms of dictatorship, political as well as economic. The socialist world state will be the freest, most democratic society the world has ever known, with the world government truly representing the majority of the population and subject to its recall. A citizen of a socialist society will look back upon the capitalist era with its wars, destruction and bloody and cruel dictatorships as we now look back upon the Dark Ages. World socialism will assess the productive potential of the world, determine its resources, the needs of the people and plan production with the aim of increasing the standards of living of a free people, creating abundance, increasing leisure and opportunity for cultural enjoyment. Socialism will not concern itself with profits and war, but with providing a decent life for all the people. The modern world contains all the pre-conditions necessary for socialism. All about us, we observe gigantic industrial establishments containing machinery which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Mankind has developed a marvelous technology. The discovery and control of atomic energy have not only made it more possible for mankind to control the natural and social environment to create a fruitful life of abundance but has made it imperative. Socialism will place at the disposal of science and the scientists all the material means to help create an ever-improving social life for mankind. Only socialism can place science and technology where they properly belong: in the service of the people

Humanity is at a crossroads. We can travel the road of capitalism, the road of chaos, war, poverty, and barbarism, or we can take the socialist path toward true freedom, peace and security, towards a society of plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.

Auld Reekie's Needy

Hard-up families in Einburgh are relying on  foodbanks in record numbers, the Evening News revealed.

 Saughton-based charity Edinburgh Food Project handed out more than 9,500 emergency food supplies this year – up 18.5 per cent on last year and more than double the number five years ago. The shocking figures were labelled a “disgrace” while anti-poverty campaigners called for greater help and support for the poorest. 

“We don’t want to be here forever,” said Bethany Monaghan, foodbank manager of Edinburgh Food Project. “No one in Edinburgh should need a foodbank’s help and we want to see an end to local people needing emergency food at all. It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Ms Monaghan. “With a benefits system that catches people before they fall into crisis, and secure work that provides people with enough money to cover the cost of essentials, this is possible. “But until that time, we’ll continue to provide vital support when it matters most. “We’re dedicated to ensuring that people in our community with no money for food are able to access emergency support, and that has only been possible in the last year because of the incredible generosity shown by local people in donating food, time and funds. Thank you.”

The 9,536 three-day emergency food supplies were provided to crisis-hit families between April 2017 and March 2018 in North West, Central and East of Edinburgh. This compared to 7,767 the previous year and only 3,612 back in 2013/14. A third of the supplies this year – 3,162 – went to children. The 18.5 per cent rise in Edinburgh over the last year is above the UK average of 13 percent.

 A member of The Trussell Trust’s network of foodbanks, EFP attributes the rise in Edinburgh to people struggling with continued issues with benefit payments.

https://www.scotsman.com/regions/edinburgh-fife-lothians/foodbank-use-at-record-high-across-capital-1-4732253

Social Revolution Not Reforms !

Millions of people all around the world are seeking change and a different way of living, demanding justice, peace, and freedom. Our society is beset by a series of interconnected crises. What are the crises facing humanity: The environmental catastrophe and war, global poverty, inequality, terrorism, the displacement of people, and, festering beneath all of these, the socio-economic system under which we all live. Political leaders are incapable of responding to these demands. For lasting change to take place, social prosperity to blossom, we must break free from conditioning. The recognition that humanity is one is crucial in bringing about the much-needed transformation. Solidarity across racial and ethnic divides is growing. Solidarity across social issues scares capitalism. Workers must now regain the militancy and rebuild their popular movements. We have to show the potential of a unified peoples' power. The escalation of militancy should not demand the failed solutions of the past but demand the new economy of the future, socialism, building a cooperative commonwealth of democratised communities and ending economic inequality in our lives.

The Socialist Party does not oppose reforms, some of which, like the NHS, are of benefit to the working class. What we do not do is advocate them because we have something better to advocate.  As socialists, we advocate a world where the tools of production and the world’s wealth are held in common and where all humankind may take goods and services, as needed, for a full and happy life. What we do is point out the nature of the capitalist system and how their benefits are mostly temporary. Medicare is beneficial to the capitalist class also. In Britain, in 1939, when many thousands of young men were drafted for the war, it was found that an alarming percentage were not fit ‘to fight for king and country’ after a decade of depression era unemployment and poor nutrition. Hence the British Health Act of 1948. Many called it ‘The Back To Work Act’, implying, correctly, it was to repair an injured worker so he could return all the sooner to be exploited. As early as 1951, this great reform was in trouble with the addition of some prescription charges (initially free) being added. Now everyone agrees the system is in a mess with the government contracting out services and allowing a parallel private system. So much for the permanence of reforms.

To focus and to see the major problem as the growing gulf between the 1% and the 99% has led to solutions to reduce the gap when it really has to be eliminated altogether. It’s not good enough to simply expect to finish up with less poor and less rich and leave the system that demands that there be a gap in fact. All inequality - economic, political, racial, gender must end. Given that, it must be quite obvious that we haven’t had equality of access to necessary goods and services since the advent of private property. We have a system that is based on inequality - owners and non-owners, employers and employees, capitalists and workers. Inequality has been around a long time but that doesn’t mean it must or will last forever. It must be obvious if we think this through to its logical conclusion that we must simply get rid of private property, the private monopoly of creating and distributing wealth.

 The Socialist Party says a socialist revolution and its ideas would not be confined to one country or region but would spread like a virus throughout the world. National borders may be armed to the teeth and its walls and fences policed 24/7 to keep people in or out, but they cannot contain and stifle ideas, thanks again to modern technology.

There is only one answer, the democratic ownership, and management of the whole system of producing and distributing wealth. This would necessarily mean the abolition of money and the production of goods and services to meet the real needs of the whole community. In such a system, all will contribute according to their abilities and take from the common pool whatever they need. Common ownership of the world’s resources and their use for producing necessary goods and free access for all mankind to all these goods, as needed, will necessarily end inequality. There won’t be owners and classes any more - we will all be owners!That is socialism and it is ready to be implemented now.

Are you ready to work for it? 

Socialist Standard No. 1365 May 2018

• Editorial: Here We Go Again?
• Pathfinders: Killer Apps
• Ethnicity: Sticky Wicket or Slippery Slope?
• NEW PAMPHLET: The Road to Socialism
• Cooking the Books: Pleasing Business Leaders
• Shadow Boxing With the Ghost of Lenin
• Material World: Welcome if You're Rich
• The World Military Situation
• In Response to the Syrian Air Attacks
• Zambia: Corruption and the Origin of a Local Private Capitalist Class
• Dialectic of Power: Leaders and the Led
• Saving Capitalism
• Cooking the Books: Yes, Read Marx
• Proper Gander: A Tale Of Two Cities
• Book Review: 'My Life, Our Times'
• Book Review: 'The Experiment - Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921'
• Book Review: 'Hinterland - America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict'
• 50 Years Ago: Martin Luther King
• Obituary: Pat Kilgallon
• What is Freedom?
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

May Day - The Spirit of Revolution

Everywhere the working class is confronted by hostile attacks from the ruling class. But this is the day when workers all over the world celebrate. This is the day when we show our strength. This is the day when we demonstrate our global solidarity with fellow-workers. This is the day when workers line up in one body and challenge the ruling class.

 Workers of all countries have shed rivers of blood for a better life and real freedom.  Those who fight for the workers’ cause are subjected by the governments to untold persecution. But in spite of repression, the solidarity of the workers of the world is growing and gaining in strength.   Gone are the days when our fellow-workers slaved submissively, seeing no escape from the state of bondage, no glimmer of light. Socialism has shown the way out.  There is no force on earth that could break the strength of millions of workers united. When the workers' socialist organizations attract an ever greater part of the working class, it will become an even stronger force and will go from victory to victory, ever closer to the great goal — the emancipation of mankind from the present economic and political oppression. The Socialist Party celebrates May Day in the spirit of international fraternity and leaves reforms to the Tory and Labour Parties. We know that the more the workers are organised politically and industrially on a revolutionary basis, the faster and the thicker will reforms be piled up.

The bosses are united and the government stands with the bosses against the workers. Let them know that the workers are united; that the workers will stand by one another; that the workers’ solidarity is international solidarity and that the working class will fight for its emancipation!

We are confident of tomorrow because we trust that the workers throughout the world, will prove wholly capable of building a revolutionary movement. May Day is the symbol of a new era.