"Amazon's Chernobyl"

Indians from Ecuador are suing Chevron Canada in an Ontario court for causing, ''Amazons Chernobyl.'' 

At a press conference in Toronto on April 16, Hugo Camacho, a founder of the Amazon Defense Coalition, said, ''To live in our area is like living in hell. Many have died in our communities due to cancer and other diseases caused by contamination. We are still being poisoned by the oil and toxic pits that Chevron has left behind. It's in the water, the air, the ground and the animals.” 

What else?! Nothing changes folks and it won't as long as capitalism lasts.

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

Think About The Enormity Of This.

Just how can we keep the Toronto Star out of the news? That isn't the crummy pun it may seem to be, as its a mine of information on rotten aspects of capitalism. 

True to form its issue of April 14 contained photos which had been selected as the World Press Photo's of the Year. The ''best one is of a young guy on fire,'' amid violent clashes during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. The #2 was a car being driven into a crowd with people flying in the air at a racial demonstration in the southern U.S. 

Just think of the enormity of that and it will give some idea of what a despicable economic system we live under.

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

Forward to the Socialist Revolution

Why hasn’t there been a socialist revolution? The basic problem is the lack of class consciousness of the working class. The capitalist class has two very powerful sets of tools to oppose the spread of class consciousness and action based on it– fraud and force. Force is exercised by the capitalist state to suppress all working class action that goes too far for the capitalists. But their more powerful long term weapon against revolution is fraud–the whole collection of institutions and ideas to fill the minds of the working class with misconceptions of capitalist society, of the workers’ own interests, and of how to change society.

Socialism is a system of society in which the land, the means of production, and distribution are held in common. There is production is for use, as and when required, not for profit, exchange or sale. The organisation of production and distribution is by those who do the work. Each enterprise works for the general welfare and mutual harmony. Socialism is a class-free society in which all shall have leisure and culture, and all shall be secured from want. Socialism is the free use by all of the common products and possessions according to need and desire. In the event of any scarcity, equal rationing of what may be scarce, the common effort being directed to overcoming the scarcity so that rationing may cease.

THE ENEMY IS CAPITALISM; THE GOAL IS SOCIALISM

The Horrors Of The Indigenous Residential School System.

An all-party consensus is growing in Ottawa in support of an NDP motion to demand an apology from Pope Francis for the Catholic Church's role in the horrors of the indigenous residential school system. This is in response to a report by the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which detailed the role of the Catholic Church in the ''spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse of the First Nations, Inuit and Metis children who attended the schools between the late 19th century and when the last one closed in 1996.” So far there has been no reply from His Holiness. 

Apology or not, capitalism and its hoorah religions has its collateral damages.

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

Mood Enhancing Substances

As the Bill C-45 on Cannabis legislation is being debated in the Canadian senate, heated debate is continuing on accompanying legislation, Bill C-46 which will set out testing procedures and penalties for ''drunk-driving.'' John Conroy, prez. of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, known as NORML, said his critics don't understand how cannabis works. He said that many veteran dope smokers would be able to drive with regular driving skills because of their bodies' greater tolerance. However, he added that we would have to be concerned about novice users and intermittent users.

 Andrew Murie, the head of the Canadian branch of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said, ''He is full of crap! The main marijuana law will place the drug in the hands of untold more Canadians some of whom will doubtlessly smoke or bake it and get behind the wheel.'' 

That there will be problems cannot be doubted, and so can another thing, that it would be far better to live in a society where people won't feel a need for any artificial stimulation for mood-enhancing substances to feign we are not living in a crappy society constantly shaking us down for profits. 

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

Who are the Gypsies?

Although they have been living in our own continent for over eight centuries,  this is a question still widespread among European people, as an inexplicable enigma. In their travels - often running away from the hostility of who, not knowing them, fear them and does n’t want to be their neighbours - when Gypsies arrive in a city and decide to settle in a district, people immediately watch them with open hostility. In those eyes full of distrust and fear there is always the same question: who are you?

Over the centuries Roma people have been defined by many names. Their assumed Egyptian origin is the reason of the name “gypsies”. Historians and linguists now agree on the Indian origin of Roma people. The Romani (or Romanes)  language is a neo-Aryan language related to the ancient Sanskrit, and it is now spoken, in different dialects, in several Asiatic and European countries. It is undeniable that Roma has been subjected to prejudice and slander, sources of discriminatory attitudes and violent persecution. Since their arrival in Europe, they have been received with suspicion and irrational fear. Observing their nomad life, their ethnic traditions, and their religious costumes, they were assumed by people with no law and no moral code. They were supposed to worshiping Pagan Gods and devoting themselves to divination and witchcraft. It was said that, as the  Jews were responsible of Jesus’ death, the Gypsies, excellent smiths, forged the nails used to crucify him; for this reason, they were damned people, doomed to travel forever, without any homeland. Roma, as reported in the ancient chronicles, were greeted by European citizens with initial suspicion mixed with curiosity, but soon their appearance, their clothes, their mysterious language and their customs aroused irrational fears, followed by intolerance and rejection, as it still happens today.

In England, in 1530 the first laws  allowing the expulsion of Roma motivated only by their race were introduced. King Henry VIII was  not in a good mood that year, when the Pope forbade him to marry Anne Boleyn and demanded her  expulsion from the court. It was the straw that breaks the camel's back: Henry VIII declared himself  head of the Church of England and married Anna. It was one of those "epochal" changes, and it gave way to the Lutheran Reformation. However, this innovative spirit did not light the king when  he faced the issue of Gypsies. To correct what he considered an emergency, he forbade the  transportation of Roma to the UK, imposing a fine of 40 pounds for the master or the ship-owner  who would have disobeyed the decree. The penalty for Roma immigrants was the hanging. Some  years later, in 1547, Edward VI of England, after the death of his father Henry VIII, listened to his  advisers and changed the laws concerning Roma. The new rules, however, were equally ruthless, but the death penalty was cancelled: Gypsies had to be arrested and branded with a V on their  chest, and then enslaved for a period of two years. If they tried to escape and were caught, they were marked with an S and made slaves for life. On July 25th 1554, the day of  the marriage between Mary Tudor and Philip II of Spain, the terror of the Inquisition materialized  for the gypsies living in England and Ireland. Bloody Mary's commitment to restore Catholicism  also targeted Roma living in the territory of the kingdom. An act was issued which established the  capital punishment not only for Roma but also for anyone serving in their communities. Eight years  later, under the reign of Elizabeth I, a new law was enacted, under which the Gypsies born in  England and Wales had to leave the country, or waive their traditions and dissolve their  communities. All others Roma would have had suffer the confiscation of land and property and the  death sentence. In 1596, during the reign of Elizabeth I 106 travellers were sentenced to death in the city of York, with no indictment out of belonging to a race hated by the authorities and the public. Nine sentences were executed, while the  others managed to prove that they were born in England. Executions on the basis of race continued  until 1650, the year after the execution of Charles I, when the era of Oliver Cromwell began and the  English interregnum, first with the republic called the Commonwealth of England, then with the  Protectorate of England, Scotland and Ireland. Despite the atmosphere of political and social  change, that year a Roma was executed in Suffolk, while others were deported to America.

Scotland,  that in 1540 had allowed Roma to live within the country while maintaining their traditions, had a  sudden afterthought and the following year enacted laws against the Gypsies. In 1573, the Gypsies hiding in Scotland were ordered to get married and develop a  stable working activity, otherwise leave the country.

From nine to twelve million Roma are currently living in Europe. In Romania the estimated Roma population is between one million and a half to two and a half; in Bulgaria from 700,000 to  800,000; in Spain - where they are called Gypsies or Kale - around 600,000; in France half a  million. In 2006, about 160,000 Roma lived in Italy, then reduced to less than half due to the indiscriminate evictions and the institutional persecution, which forced them to seek refuge in other countries, causing in the meantime a high degree of mortality within the settlements. Roma from  Eastern Europe constitute about 85% of the total, Kale - or Gypsies - 10%, Sintis (in France called Manouche) 4% and Romanichal in UK 0.5 %. In Europe Roma are primarily sedentary, although the persecution often obliges them to a form of forced nomadism. The stereotypes on Roma community during a thousand years are always the same: they are children rapers, thieves, lawless and dirty people etc. Most European citizens are frightened by misinformation concerning Roma people, and the role the media play in this case, cannot be considered negligible. For centuries the marginalization and mistrust towards Roma people have not changed and Roma communities are quite always and everywhere discriminated, ghettoised and kept away from citizens, mass media and often from public administrations also. The decades spent in this situation of neglect have brought communities to a complete isolation causing distrust and rancor towards the host countries.

Glasgow Branch Meeting (16/5)

Wednesday, 16 May 
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Maryhill Community Central Halls,
304 Maryhill Road, 
Glasgow G20 7YE

 In keeping with the tenet that working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership , the Socialist Party of Great Britain is a leader-free political party where its executive committee is solely for housekeeping admin duties and cannot determine policy or even submit resolutions to conference (and btw all the EC minutes are available for public scrutiny with access on the web as proof of our commitment to openness and democracy ) . All conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership . The General Secretary has no position of power or authority over any other member being a dogsbody. Despite some very charismatic writers and speakers in the past , no personality has held undue influence over the Socialist Party. Although some left-wing wag can wise-crack that we are "museum marxists", the longevity of the SPGB as a political organisation based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles and which has produced without interruption a monthly magazine for over a hundred years through two world wars is an achievement that most anarchist organisations can only aspire towards.

There are common misrepresentations and parodies of the Socialist Party's positions. The sole purpose of the SPGB is to argue for socialism, and put up candidates to measure how many socialist voters there are. We await the necessary future mass socialist party as impatiently as others and do not claim for ourselves the mantle of being or becoming that organisation . The function of the SPGB is to make socialists, to propagate socialism, and to point out to the workers that they must achieve their own emancipation. It does not say: “Follow us! Trust us! We shall emancipate you.”  Socialism must be achieved by the workers acting for themselves. We are unique among political parties in calling on people NOT to vote for them unless they agree with what they stand for.  The SPGB does not insist that the workers be convinced one by one by members of the party

".... if we hoped to achieve Socialism ONLY by our propaganda, the outlook would indeed be bad. But it is capitalism itself, unable to solve crises, unemployment, and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars, which is digging its own grave. Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own. They are learning very slowly. Our job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process." Socialism or Chaos

This socialist majority will elect socialist delegates to whatever democratic institutions exist ( and these may be soviets or workers councils in some places), with the sole objective of legitimately abolishing capitalism. The SPGB are well aware that if such a majority existed it could do as it damn well pleased, but we consider that a democratic mandate would smooth the transition and we are also aware that the socialist majority might in certain circumstances have to use force to impose its will, but consider this an unlikely scenario.

The difference between the Socialist Party and anarchists is not over the aim of abolishing the State but over how to do this. Anarchists say that the first objective of the workers' revolution against capitalism should be to abolish the State. socialists say that to abolish the State, the socialist working class majority must first win control of it and, if necessary, retain it (in albeit a suitably very modified form) but for a very short while just in case any pro-capitalist recalcitrant minority should try to resist the establishment of socialism. Once socialism, as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the whole people, has been established (which the Socialist Party has always claimed can be done almost immediately,) the State is dismantled, dissolved completely We are not talking years or decades or generations but as a continuation of the immediate revolutionary phase of the overthrow of capitalism.

Class struggle without any clear understanding of where you are going is simply committing oneself to a never-ending treadmill. This is where the Leninists go wrong. They think mechanistically that a sense of revolutionary direction emerges spontaneously out of "the struggle" thus circumventing the realm of ideology - the need to educate. It does not. The workers can never win the class struggle while it is confined simply to the level of trade union militancy; it has to be transformed into a socialist consciousness. Conversely, socialist consciousness cannot simply rely for its own increase on ideological persuasion. It has to link up with the practical struggle. The success of the socialist revolution will depend on the growth of socialist consciousness on a mass scale and that these changed ideas can only develop through a practical movement.

Fight for the Future

It's become a cliché to point out that human civilisation is in the middle of an existential crisis. The issue is clear – change or face extinction.

The Socialist Party deals with facts, not abstractions. We see a system of society, in which a small minority, the capitalist class, own the means of producing wealth. We see that this class no longer takes an active part in the production of the wealth which they own, and of which they retain a large part after paying wages to the workers, the real producers. We see that the capitalist class have ceased to be socially useful and that the organisation of society which they built up, and which was in its time and place necessary and an advance on previous systems, has become a hindrance to further progress. We see that the capitalists maintain their position by their control of the machinery of Government, and we know they will not willingly abdicate their privileged position. We can recognise that poverty is the greatest cause of death and illness globally; it strangles the lives of billions of people, denying the expression of innate potential, condemning men, women, and children to live stunted uncreative lives of interminable suffering and drudgery. Obscene levels of wealth are concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller number of capitalists whilst the poor are forced to beg for the crumbs that fall from their lavish tables.

Because of this, we ask our fellow-workers to organise for the conquest of power so that they may wrest from the ruling class their hold on the means, of life, and may rebuild society on the basis of common ownership and democratic control. The Socialist Party seeks something definite and material. Socialism is born of the class struggle that goes on unceasingly owing to the private property basis of society. Socialism will arise out of the material conditions that exist in the capitalist organisation in which we live. We fight for the possession of the world’s wealth. Our aims are clear and we have no need to hide them under the figments of men’s minds, whether these be God’s or idealistic conceptions of justice and equity.  We want to abolish capitalism. We want common ownership. We stand for the destruction of wage slavery and the profit-making system. We propose to deprive the capitalists of their private ownership of the means of life. We stand for socialism, because in that alone lies the hope of the working class.  The key to creating a just society lies in the encouragement of sharing. In various areas of life, sharing is beginning to fashion the way things are done as we see on the internet. The worldwide web allows sharing on an unprecedented scale and has given billions of people access to information and ideas. Injustice must be eradicated from our world, and the principal means of doing this is through free access to goods an services, otherwise, social disharmony will persist and global peace will remain a fantasy.  To achieve social well-being a major transformation of our worldview, society and economy are needed.

Speaking of...

The Scotsman carries an article on the Gaelic language declaring that in the Gaelic language and culture, Scotland has a priceless asset. Remarkably, it still stands a chance as a living language for generations to come. 

Linguistically, the Picts who drove the Romans from Hadrian's wall seemingly spoke a distinct Pictish language, possibly distantly related to Welsh. The Scots who settled in the west, and eventually came to dominate the Picts, spoke a form of Gaelic. The Angles of the south-east spoke Northumbrian Old English which later became the Middle English known as Early Scots. The Britons of Strathclyde spoke Cumbric, also related to Welsh; while people in the Viking dominated areas spoke Norn or Old Norse.

Over the 500 years until 1500, the Norse influence was largely displaced by the Gaelic-speaking Scots. Meanwhile, The Early Scots language slowly expanded its influence to become the most common language spoken in the Borders, the Central Lowlands, the coastal fringe of Aberdeenshire, Caithness and the Northern Isles. Everywhere else, including a large part of Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire, spoke Scottish Gaelic. Over the 500 years since 1500, Scots has remained a commonly spoken language, but largely displaced by Scottish English, much more closely related to English, for the written word and by many in speech as well. One of them, "North East Scots" is sufficiently distinct for it to carry a separate name, "Doric".  Increasing use of Scottish English across Scotland forced Scots Gaelic to steadily retreat west.

In 2001 the figure for those who could speak Gaelic stood at 1.2% of the population, the lowest ever recorded.

No Need For Any Kind Of Charity

The magnificent response to the Humboldt bus crash underscores just how wonderful people can be when a disaster happens. Donations have come from 65 countries, ranging from $5 to $50,000. At the time of writing the total is $11 million with no end in sight, and behind them, all is the one common sentiment: ''Anything to help.'' 

As great as all this is we should not lose sight of the fact that we live under capitalism, which may well, at least partially screw things up. Some form of administration will need to process the distribution of the funds and administration costs. A perfect example being the Aberfan disaster of 1966, in which very little was received by the survivors and relatives. 

In a socialist society, there would be no need of any kind of charity, therefore no risk that the needy would be denied anything.

Serving capital, Ms Browne, not you . .
.

For socialism, 

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

Renovictions: Open Season On Tenants

There's a new term, Renovictions – it means landlords can push tenants out while it renovates their apartments, raise the rent, find folks prepared to pay it and not allow the previous tenants back. 

This is what happened at 795 College St. in Toronto when extensive renovations resulted in three bedroom apartments advertised for $4,000 a month. Though this is illegal that doesn't count for much when the interests of poor people are at stake. According to Aurora Browne, who lived there for ten years, ''I thought the whole point of the Landlord and Tenant Board was to protect people in these situations and I am aghast at how empty and flimsy that promise was. It seems as if the board has no spine and it’s open season on tenants.'' Ms Browne, let's make it open season on capitalism . . .

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

Unaffordable Rent

Private renting has become "completely unaffordable" in some areas of Scotland, according to a new report from the Scottish government. The report said that privately-rented housing had become "completely unaffordable in some areas" due to a freeze on local housing allowance. In Edinburgh, those getting help with housing costs for a one-bedroom flat would only be able to afford 5% of available properties, not the 30% envisaged by Westminster.

The introduction of Universal Credit has had a "substantial impact" on the number of people falling behind and the amount owed, it said. It added that soaring arrears affected landlords' ability to collect rents. The Scottish government report said that almost three quarters (72%) of social housing tenants in East Lothian claiming Universal Credit were behind on their rent, compared with 30% of all tenants in the region.

About one-fifth of Scotland's 2.4 million households get UK government assistance with housing costs.

Class-consciousness is required for self-liberation

Class consciousness is never more needed than now. To the socialist, class-consciousness is the breaking-down of all barriers to understanding. Without it, militancy means nothing. The class-conscious worker knows where s/he stands in society. Their interests are opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class. Their cause can only be the cause of revolution for the abolishing of classes. Without that understanding, militancy can mean little. Class-conscious people need no leaders. The single, simple fact which all working people have to learn is that capitalism causes capitalism's problems so that the remedy – the only remedy – is to abolish capitalism. In that knowledge they must take hold of the powers of government – for one purpose only: that the rule of class by class shall end. Socialism is not a benevolently-administered capitalism: it is a different social system. Reform is no answer, even though at times – rare times – it benefits working people. The reformer has agreed that capitalism shall continue and is merely trying to alleviate its worst effects. Has poverty been abolished by the reformers? Ask the old, ask the unemployed or the homeless, or the sick. Has life been made more satisfying by the Welfare State?

Working class action must be revolutionary. The workers of Britain have common cause with the workers of every other country. They are members of an international class, faced with the same problems, holding the same interests once they are conscious of them. As class consciousness grows amongst the workers in all lands, co-operative action will be planned. It will not stop at the organisation of marches and demonstrations. It will be co-operation to speed the abolition of capitalism. The Socialist Party does not minimise the necessity and importance of the worker keeping up the struggle to maintain the wage-scale, resisting cuts, etc. If we always laid down to the demands of our exploiters without resistance we would not be worth our salt as a person, or fit for waging the class struggle to put an end to exploitation. More and more of the workers are forced to realise that their interests are opposed to those of the owning and ruling class, in fact, that the continuation of this rule spells disaster to society generally. The class war is far from over. It can only end with the dispossession of the owning minority and the consequent disappearance of classes and class-divided society.

Class struggle without any clear understanding of where you are going is simply committing oneself to a never-ending treadmill. This is where the Leninist parties go wrong. They think mechanistically that a sense of revolutionary direction emerges spontaneously out of "the struggle" thus circumventing the realm of ideology - the need to educate. It doesn't. The workers can never win the class struggle while it is confined simply to the level of trade union militancy; it has to be transformed into a socialist consciousness. Conversely, socialist consciousness cannot simply rely for its own increase on ideological persuasion. It has to link up with the practical struggle. The success of the socialist revolution will depend on the growth of socialist consciousness on a mass scale and that these changed ideas can only develop through a practical movement.

Socialists believe as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, it would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves. The emergence of socialist understanding out of the experience of the workers could thus be said to be “spontaneous” in the sense that it would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it about (not that such people could not take part in this process, but their participation was not essential or crucial). Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary but would come to be carried out by workers themselves whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result would be an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism. As Marx and Engels put it in The Communist Manifesto:-
“the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”.

Our interest in the Socialist Party lies in pursuing the class struggle and forging our own class agenda - world socialism. The battle between capitalism and socialism is by no means off the agenda. The class war is not yet over. Only by recognising the struggle between capital and labour, and acting to bring about the victory of labour, of the working class, can classes once and for all be abolished, common ownership is established, and real human interests and relationships begin.

The Claymore Communist

John Maclean’s reputation is still well-known in Scotland. This week marks the centenary of the Scottish revolutionary socialist John Maclean’s historic speech from the dock of Edinburgh’s High Court, where he faced charges of sedition following his vocal public opposition to the First World War and attempt to organise a workers’ mutiny against it.

“I wish no harm to any human being,” said Maclean, “but I, as one man, am going to exercise my freedom of speech. No human being on the face of the earth, no government is going to take from me my right to speak, my right to protest against wrong, my right to do everything that is for the benefit of mankind. I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot.”

When a man fights for the workers as hard and as long as John Maclean has, he earns the right to have his mistakes charitably judged. Neither the integrity of John Maclean nor mere sympathy for his fighting spirit is proof against his political fallibility. The man who is honest and dependable will reap disappointment as did John Maclean, and the man who lacks some of his singleness of purpose will soon enough fall to the temptation of getting security by entering the service of the enemies of the workers as shown by many of his Red Clydesider contemporaries in the ILP.

Men and women who clearly recognised the cause of the workers' poverty in the private ownership of the means of production, and who realised that the spreading of socialist knowledge is the only permanent basis for working-class organisation would not have to go into battle as untrained troops, and their activists like Maclean would not risk finding themselves at the end of a life of ceaseless toil for their class, the disappointed leaders of a phantom army. 

 The chief weakness of Maclean's position was his insistence upon a Scottish workers' republic. This demand is both reactionary and utopian. The struggle of the workers of the United Kingdom must be a united one. The workers are under the domination of a class who rule by the use of a political machine which is the chief governing instrument for England, Scotland, Wales, To appeal to the workers of Scotland for a Scottish Workers' Republic is to arouse and foster the narrow spirit of nationalism, so well used by our masters. Economically the demand is utopian, as the development of capitalism has made countries more and more dependent on each other.

 If the worker is to be won for socialism, it is by getting him to understand the principles of socialism, and not by appealing to him to concentrate on Scottish affairs. Socialism is international. Despite his principled stand, MacLean's optimistic illusions about the development of the nationalist and Bolshevik movements show that he did not understand socialism and what was required to achieve it.

A Manifesto of Emancipation

We live in a world dominated by capitalism, which lives by feeding off the sweat and blood of millions and millions of ordinary men and women. Emancipation from the power of capitalism, wage-slavery, and the State, a world without private property or money, will be possible only by the actual alteration of people’s material being. Then and only then will there be ‘freely associated human beings’ and 'a union of free individuals.'

Many have learned by experience that the mainstream parties offer no hope of improving conditions for the workers, and so it is often concluded that the failure of these political parties is evidence of the uselessness of Parliament. This is a wrong conclusion. It is not Parliament as a piece of political machinery which has failed; it is the political parties which have failed. No single M.P. in this country has ever been elected to Parliament as a socialist, for the simple reason that there is no single constituency in which a majority of the workers want socialism. That is the harsh truth of the matter.

We say that when the workers are socialists and are organised in the Socialist Party, they will use their votes to obtain control of Parliament because this will give control of all the machinery of administration and control of the armed forces. While the capitalist class has control of the State their position is secure and we are helpless. Some question our view.

In the modern capitalist democracies, the State has come to control a vast, intricate and continually growing machinery of administration. Not only does it control legislation—the making of laws—but also their administration by hundreds of thousands of civil servants and local government officials, and their enforcement by the courts, the police and, in the last resort, by the armed forces. Every phase of modern life, the ownership and transfer of property, the production of wealth, transport, building, commercial and financial operations, education, hospitals, sanitation, public health, all these activities are carried on under regulations prescribed by the Government and, in the final analysis, under conditions which they determine. The life of modern capitalist society is organised around Parliament as it is the centre of power. Parliamentary control carries with it the power, more or less directly to promote or suspend activity in any and every branch of social life. By organisation and by use, the electorate look to Parliament as the depository of the organised power of society, and by law, by organisation and use, the employees, civil and military, of the central and local authorities derive their authority from the Government which, in turn, is dependent on a Parliamentary majority.

By its very nature, however, this elaborate machine falls if there is an obvious weakening at the centre of things. It is to obtain this enormous advantage given by possession of the central directing machinery, and the authority resulting from control of Parliament, that the Socialist Party seek to gain a Parliamentary majority.

Class distinctions and privileges will disappear together with the economic basis from which they originate and society will be transformed into an association of 'producers'. To live upon other people's labour will become a thing of the past. There will no longer exist a government nor a state distinct from society itself. The Socialist Party calls for the abolition of property, not a new redistribution of it, a free association of producers owning in common their means of production, collectively controlling it, not as any cooperative of small business-owners. Wages, profit, and rent, social relationships peculiar to capitalism are unthinkable in socialism. 

Marxist theory takes it for granted that the members of a socialist community will have to perform certain functions in many ways similar to those performed by their ancestors under capitalism or feudalism. In every social order, men have to produce in order to live. In every economic system, there must be some balance between production and consumption. Every society, if it is not to stagnate and decay, must produce a surplus of goods over and above the sum total of the goods necessary for the upkeep of the producers, the maintenance and replacement of productive equipment and so on. The surplus produce of a capitalist economy takes the form of rent, profit and interest; and this determines the entire mode of life of the capitalist world. In socialism, the surplus produce, belonging to society as a whole, would cease to be profit. The function of that surplus and its impact upon social life would be altogether different from what it was under the old economic system. Reformists and gradualists have taken these socialist visions of the future as either too unreal or too remote to be taken seriously. They have tried to find a compromise between capitalism and socialism and re-shape the capitalist system rather than abolish it. The state would not wither away but would be used by the working masses to protect their interests and those of society as a whole, to nationalize the commanding heights of industry and commerce — banks, railways, heavy industry and much else. Generally, mainstream political parties have stood for the constant extension of the public sector and the consequent increase in state and administrative intervention in all aspects of the community’s fife. They advocated meritocracy in the opening of careers to all talented individuals, an egalitarianism that would reject unearned inherited privilege and authority as sufficient to convert the State into genuine bodies of public servants and the State into what indeed finally became, in some countries, the welfare state.

All left political parties, revolutionary or reformist, applies this model of government as soon as it assumes office. The Left promotes the State and its officials as capable of serving, relatively selflessly, the public interest with or without the owners of private property being expropriated. The Socialist Party has no notion of any ‘workers’ state any political organ standing above society,  the ‘true community’ replacing the capitalist state,  the ‘illusory community.’ Marx would find any idea has been that ownership of the means of production by a bureaucratic state machine would constitute ‘socialism’ as repugnant. Marxism is based upon his conception of communist society as ‘an association of free human beings, working with communal means of production, and self-consciously expending their many individual labour powers as a single social labour power.’

The socialist association of producers and the common ownership are the conditions for universal liberation and emancipation from wage-slavery. 

Where Are We Going?

William Morris is very interesting. His politics were always evolving. We can bandy around various quotations from various time-lines. His critique of parliamentarianism is often over-simplified. One has to be reminded that he was in constant dispute with various anarchists within the Socialist League and then at other times in conflict with reformists of the Social Democratic Federation. It would be a bit inaccurate to describe him as a pure and simple “anti-Parliamentarist”, and he certainly was not an anarchist. Morris’ arguments against parliamentary action can be summed up as (1) that Parliament was a capitalist institution; (2) that reforms obtained through Parliament would strengthen capitalism and would only be passed with this end in view; and (3) that campaigning for reforms would corrupt a socialist party.

In The Policy of Abstention Morris declared:
“The Communists believe that it would be a waste of time for Socialists to expend their energy in furthering reforms which so far from bringing us nearer to Socialism would rather serve to bolster up the present state of things.”

However his arguments were against the policy of using Parliament to try to get reforms rather than against socialist parliamentary action as such and in fact, even during his “anti-parliamentary” period, Morris was not opposed to socialists entering Parliament in the course of the socialist revolution, on condition that they went there not to try to get reforms but ”as rebels”.

“I did not mean that at some time or other it might not be necessary for Socialists to go into Parliament in order to break it up; but again, that could only be when we are very much more advanced than we are now; in short, on the verge of a revolution; so that we might either capture the army, or shake their confidence in the legality of their position”

“I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so: in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels, and not as members of the governing body prepared by passing palliative measures to keep ‘Society’ alive. ”
“I admit, and always have admitted, that at some future period it may be necessary to use parliament mechanically: what I object to is depending on parliamentary agitation. There must be a great party, a great organisation outside parliament actively engaged in reconstructing society and learning administration whatever goes on in parliament itself. This is in direct opposition to the view of the regular parliamentary section as represented by Shaw, who look upon Parliament as the means…” (His emphases)

He recognised the necessity for socialists to gain control of political power before trying to establish socialism: “We must try. . . and get at the butt end of the machine gun and rifle, and then force is much less likely to be necessary and much more sure to be successful.” and that “it is necessary somehow to get hold of the machine which has at its back the executive power of the country”

In later life he reviews his early ideas – “We thought that every step towards Socialism would be resisted by the reactionaries who would use against it the legal executive force which was, and is, let me say, wholly in the power of the possessing classes, that the wider the movement grew the more rigorously the authorities would repress it. Almost everyone has ceased to believe in the change coming by catastrophe. To state the position shortly, as a means to the realization of the new society Socialists hope so far as to conquer public opinion, that at last a majority of the Parliament shall be sent to sit in the house as avowed Socialists and the delegates of Socialists, and on that should follow what legislation might be necessary; and moreover, though the time for this may be very far ahead, yet most people would now think that the hope of doing it is by no means unreasonable.”

He describes his vision of a socialist organisation “The organisation I am thinking of would have a serious point of difference from any that could be formed as a part of a parliamentary plan of action; its aim would be to act directly, whatever was done in it would be done by the people themselves: there would consequently be no possibility of compromise, of the association becoming anything else than it was intended to be; nothing could take its place: before all its members would be put one alternative to complete success, complete failure, namely. The workers can form an organisation which without heeding Parliament can force from the ruler what concessions may be necessary in the present and whose aim would be the total abolition of the monopolist classes and rule.”

Elsewhere he states “getting the workmen to organise genuine revolutionary labour bodies not looking to Parliament at all but to their own pressure (legal or illegal as the times may go) on their employers while the latter lasted”

An outline that obviously is not reflected by the run of the mill workers organisations of his time. Morris clearly understood that a change in society could only be brought about with a change in the consciousness of the majority of people. “Practical socialism”, as he called revolutionary socialism, was a question of “making socialists” and therefore it was necessary to “educate the people in the principles of socialism”. Which clearly separates him from the Leninist vanguard concept of The Party. leading the workers.

Nor was he proponent of state ownership – “No better solution would be that State Socialism, by whatever name it may be called”. 

Morris, although not opposed to using Parliament as such, believed that concentrating on these elections would have directed the League away from the essential task of “making socialists” and instead into advocating reforms. The differences led to the Parliamentarists breaking away, leaving Morris and his associates at the mercy of anarchists, who soon dominated the League. When this happened Morris and his socialist friends withdrew to form the Hammersmith Socialist Society.
Morris was quite clear: a socialist organisation should not campaign for reforms or “palliatives” but should concentrate exclusively on socialist propaganda and education. In the beginning, in 1885 and 1886, this was based on a belief that capitalism was soon going to collapse (“when the crisis comes”) and the consequent urgent need to have a strong body of socialists to ensure that socialism would be the outcome. But, after a while, Morris came to question whether his opposition to campaigning for reforms (and campaigning to get elected to Parliament and local bodies on a programme of reforms) was justified. By 1890 this had developed to a full and clear understanding that the establishment of socialism was impossible without there first being a mass of opinion in favour of it and he never wavered on this crucial point.

The problem which Morris had been grappling with was the problem of reform and revolution. In his Socialist League days, he had clearly seen the futility and danger of campaigning for reforms, but had linked this with a virtual rejection of parliamentary action. This was because in his mind parliamentary action and campaigning for reforms were inseparable. So, later, when he came to recognise the need to gain control of political power through the ballot box and Parliament before trying to establish socialism, this was coupled with an acceptance of the policy of campaigning for reforms.

Later proponents of the “Impossiblist” tradition such as the Socialist Party of Great Britain adopted a policy of trying to gain control of the machinery of government through the ballot box by campaigning on an exclusively socialist programme without seeking support on a policy of reforms; while supporting parliamentary action they refused to advocate reforms.

The views of William Morris is worth debating for its relevance for today.

I think we can all accept Morris’s caustic opinion of politicians when he said, “the business of a statesman is to balance the greed and fears of the proprietary classes against the necessities and demands of the working class. This is a sorry business, and leads to all kinds of trickery and evasion; so that it is more than doubtful whether a statesman can be a moderately honest man.”

The Gig Economy

The number of people working temporary jobs has shot up in Edinburgh in the last year, with one in 10 workers now on a non-permanent contract,  leaving people in the city without job security. 

It’s an increase compared to the 7 per cent of workers in this position the year before, and means Edinburgh has the highest proportion of  temporary workers in the country.

Steve Turner, assistant general secretary for Unite said: “Too many  people are eking out an existence in low paid, temporary, insecure work when all they want is a permanent job. Rather than putting workers on permanent contracts we have seen firms such as Sports Directbase their whole business model on exploitative zero-hours contracts and temporary agency contracts. Workers deserve the dignity of knowing from one week to the next whether they will be able to put food on the table and pay the bills. Ministers need to ban zero hours contracts and proactively tackle  bogus self-employment and the use of umbrella companies, which are fleecing workers out of their hard earned cash while bosses get away without paying their fair share of tax.”

UNISON assistant general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Zero hours contracts may be good for employers, but not for all workers. Many face sleepless nights worrying what their take-home wage will be at the end of every week. Insecure employment is a huge issue in the care sector, with staff  too scared to whistleblow for fear hours will be cut. Bosses should guarantee fixed hours to everyone who wants them - and this should be enforceable by law.”

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/edinburgh-tops-scotland-temporary-workers-12513806

Rallying for Socialism

Starvation, hunger, disease, the cries for “food!” – the depths of privation in the midst of an unprecedented abundance of wealth. The Socialist Party views capitalism as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few.

The Socialist Party advocates and works for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.  Votes obtained by a campaign conducted on the case for socialism mean that those who voted can be counted as sincere votes for socialism but votes obtained by offering all kinds of promises, can shift to some other party the next election with a better menu of reforms. The struggle between individual capitalists to realise profits sets employer against employer. The conflict between national groups of financiers sets nation against nation and produces war. But despite their individual and national conflicts, the whole capitalist class stands united in their common desire to exploit labour. Hence under capitalism, the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers and are but mere commodities.

Socialism aims at giving a meaning to people's life and work; at enabling then freedom, their creativity, and the most positive aspects of their personality to flourish. Socialist society implies people's self-organisation of every aspect of their social activities. Socialism can be established only by the autonomous action of the working class. The hallmark of socialism is for the first time in history, technology will be subordinated to human needs. We are socialists out of conviction–because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of our own and the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people, sets one group against another, and acts violently against people at home and around the world when they resist. We see in socialism the seeds and the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. As the socialist movement grows, we will be nearer to creating a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. People are the planet's most precious resource.

In opposition to all other parties—Conservative, Lib-Dem, Nationalist, and Labour—we affirm that so long as one section of the community own and control the means of production, and the rest of the community is compelled to work for that section in order to obtain the means of life, there can be no peace between them.

By your neglect you stand for misery, exploitation, greed and war. The eyes of the world are upon you. The choice is the sweeping away of ignorance.